Concord Theatricals Acquires Licensing Rights for Alice Childress' TROUBLE IN MIND

Concord Theatricals has announced that it has secured exclusive worldwide English language stage licensing rights to Alice Childress' Trouble in Mind for its Samuel French imprint. For more information about the four-time Tony Award-nominated play, visit concordsho.ws/PerformTroubleInMind

Following an experienced Black stage actress through rehearsals of a major Broadway production, Alice Childress' wry and moving look at racism, identity and ego in the world of New York theatre opened to acclaim off-Broadway in 1955. At the forefront of both the Civil Rights and feminist movements, the prescient Trouble in Mind was announced to move to Broadway in 1957...in a production that never came to be.

"We are honored to expand our relationship with Alice Childress' work by finally making this groundbreaking, landmark play widely available to theatres for licensing," said Amy Rose Marsh, Vice President of Acquisitions & Artistic Development at Concord Theatricals. "Childress is undoubtedly one of the most important dramatists of the 20th century and Concord is committed to championing Trouble in Mind as a seminal theatrical text."

Trouble in Mind finally made its Broadway debut on November 18, 2021, presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre. The production received four Tony Award nominations, including for Best Revival of a Play.

Concord Theatricals

Concord Theatricals is the world's most significant theatrical company, comprising the catalogs of R&H Theatricals, Samuel French, Tams-Witmark and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, plus dozens of new signings each year. Our unparalleled roster includes the work of Irving Berlin, Agatha Christie, George & Ira Gershwin, Marvin Hamlisch, Lorraine Hansberry, Kander & Ebb, Ken Ludwig, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dominique Morisseau, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Thornton Wilder and August Wilson. We are the only firm providing truly comprehensive services to the creators and producers of plays and musicals, including theatrical licensing, music publishing, script publishing, cast recording and first-class production. Follow us @concordshows.

Alice Childress

Alice Childress (Playwright). Born in 1916 and raised during the Harlem Renaissance under the watchful eye of her beloved maternal grandmother, Alice Childress grew up to become first an actress and then a playwright and novelist. A founding member of the American Negro Theatre, she wrote her first play, Florence, in 1949. The script was written in one night on a dare from close friend and actor Sidney Poitier, who had told Alice that he didn't think a great play could be written overnight. She proved him wrong, and the play was produced off-Broadway in 1950. Childress became in 1952 the first African American woman to see her play (Gold Through The Trees) professionally produced in New York. In 1955, Childress' play Trouble in Mind was a critical and popular success from the beginning of its run off-Broadway at the Greenwich Mews Theatre, and it immediately drew interest from producers for a Broadway transfer. In an ironic twist echoing the tribulations of the characters in the play itself, the producers wanted changes to the script to make it more palatable to a commercial audience. Childress refused to compromise her artistic vision, and the play never opened on Broadway, ending her chances of being the first African American woman playwright to have a work on Broadway. In 2021, she made her long-awaited Broadway debut when Roundabout Theatre Company produced Trouble in Mind at the American Airlines Theatre, receiving four Tony Award nominations. Childress is perhaps best known today for A Hero Ain't Nothin' But A Sandwich, her 1973 novel about a 13-year-old Black boy addicted to heroin, which was subsequently made into a movie in 1978. Other plays written by Childress include Just A Little Simple (1950), Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story In Black and White (1966) and Gullah (1984). Alice Childress died in New York in 1994. Throughout her career, she examined the true meaning of being Black, and especially of being Black and female. As Childress herself once said, "I concentrate on portraying have-nots in a have society."

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

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