Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Founder Stanley E. Williams Dies 7/2

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre founding artistic director Stanley E. Williams has died, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  Williams, who was sixty, died of cancer in San Francisco on July 2. 

Kary Schulman, director of San Francisco's Grants for the Arts, told the Chronicle,"Stanley Williams was a big personality with a big heart. He devoted his life, both personal and professional, to the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, accomplishing things few thought possible when he and Quentin [Easter, Williams' partner and co-founder of the Hansberry Theatre] started the organization. For our community to lose Quentin and now Stanley in such a short time is a terrible blow."

Williams and Easter founded the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in 1981; it soon became one of California's leading African American theatre companies.  Williams, a strong advocate for African American theatre, also directed and co-produced many of the plays in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle.