Phylicia Rashad To Direct FENCES At The Mark Taper Forum

Phylicia Rashad will direct August Wilson's Fences, the Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary classic, May 26 to July 3, 2027 at the Mark Taper Forum.   

Phylicia Rashad, inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2016, is a Tony Award winner (Skeleton Crew and A Raisin in the Sun) who has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Center Theatre Group as both a director and actress. Rashad directed A Raisin in the Sun for The Ebony Repertory Theatre production at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2012 and continued her partnership with Center Theatre Group at the Mark Taper Forum, directing August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone (2013), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2016), Immediate Family (2015), and Blues for an Alabama Sky (2022). As a performer, she appeared on stage at the Taper in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes, directed by Tina Landau in 2017. 

August Wilson's Fences won the 1987 Pulitzer, Tony, and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play. Eight of the ten Century Cycle plays have won New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. With this production of Fences, CTG completes the Century Cycle, having previously staged the other nine plays of the cycle written by Wilson.  

Set in segregated Pittsburgh in the 1950s, Fences depicts the life of Troy Maxson, a former Negro League baseball star now scraping by as a sanitation worker. Excluded from the major leagues in his prime, Troy has grown increasingly bitter, and his anger and frustration take a toll on his wife Rose and his son Cory, who now wants his own chance to play ball professionally. But even as Troy takes responsibility for his family's safety and well-being, he betrays them each in ways that will forever alter their lives. Fences explores the walls we build around ourselves and our loved ones, while also illuminating one family's struggles in a racist society. 

The 2016 film was chosen as one of the year's ten best by the American Film Institute; won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress (Viola Davis) and three other Oscar nominations including Best Picture; and was the sixth most popular film of the year. 

Fences set a record for a nonmusical Broadway production when it grossed $11 million in a single year and ran for 525 performances. Together, in a little over 20 years, Mr. Wilson's plays performed nearly 1,800 performances on Broadway and, as of Wilson's death in 2005, they have been seen in more than 2,000 separate productions, amateur and professional. 

Phylicia Rashad  

An accomplished actor and stage director, Phylicia Rashad became a household name when she portrayed Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a character whose enduring appeal has earned her numerous honors and awards. She has appeared in The Gilded Age, The Chi, Diarra from Detroit, NBC's This Is Us (Emmy nominations), in the popular Fox TV series Empire, in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Peabody Award-winning series David Makes Man, on the OWN Network, The Good Fight, Little America, and The Crossover.  

While television was a catalyst in the rise of Ms. Rashad's career, she has also been a force on the stage, appearing both on and Off Broadway, often in projects that showcase her musical talent such as Jelly's Last Jam, Into the Woods, Dreamgirls and The Wiz.   

In 2016, Ms. Rashad was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and received the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes at The Public Theater. Ms. Rashad performed the role of the Duchess of Gloucester in Richard II, the 2020 Shakespeare on the Radio collaboration between The Public Theater and New York public radio station, WNYC.  

On Broadway, Ms. Rashad has performed in Dominique Morriseau's Skeleton Crew (Tony and DramaDesk Awards), August: Osage County, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a role that she reprised on the London stage), August Wilson's Gem of The Ocean (Tony Award nomination) and in Shakespeare's Cymbeline at Lincoln Center. Ms. Rashad received both the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her riveting performance as Lena Younger in the 2004 Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in The Sun.    

Among Ms. Rashad's film credits are The Beekeeper, Creed, Creed II, Creed III, Just Wright, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, A Fall From Grace, and Ruth and Boaz. Other recent film projects include Black Box, Soul, and the Netflix holiday musical, Jingle Jangle.   

Ms. Rashad made her critically acclaimed directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater with August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. In 2025 she directed Brandon-Jacobs-Jenkins' Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning Purpose on Broadway after a successful run at Steppenwolf. Rashad's directing credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis' Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, and Four Little Girls.  

Respected in the academic world, Ms. Rashad recently completed her tenure as Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. In February 2023, she was appointed Howard University's inaugural holder of the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities.  

Ms. Rashad has conducted Master Classes at many colleges, universities, and arts organizations including Howard University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon, The Black Arts Institute of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and the prestigious Ten Chimneys Foundation.  Ms. Rashad also holds the distinction of being the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.  

Rashad's commitment to excellence in the performing arts has been recognized by the numerous colleges and universities that have presented her with Honorary Doctorates: Barber Scotia College, Bennett College, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Clark Atlanta University, Fordham University, Howard University, Morris Brown College, Providence College, Spelman College, St. Augustine College, Tuskegee University. 

Ms. Rashad has also received countless esteemed awards including the International Black Theatre Festival Sidney Poitier Lifetime Achievement Award, BET Honors Theatrical Arts Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre's Spirit of Shakespeare Award, and the Inaugural Legacy Award of the Ruben Santiago Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center.  

She serves on several important boards including Brainerd Institute Heritage (which is steering the restoration of Kumler Hall at the historic site of Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina) and DADA, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.   

Ms. Rashad has been the Brand Ambassador of the National Trust for Historic Preservation African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund since its inception in 2017.   Phylicia Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and is the mother of two adult children.