| By Elizabeth McMillan
Writer, producer and director, Woodie King, Jr. remains unrivaled in terms of the number of projects he has shepherded to both Broadway and Off-Broadway stages including the critically-acclaimed For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf. As founder and executive director of the New Federal Theater (NFT) at the Henry Street Settlement in New York, King has brought minority playwrights, actors and directors to national attention with hordes of awards to prove it. Twenty-nine years of such accomplishments has made him the mentor to an entire generation of African-American theater professionals. Because of his passion and dedication, King has carved an indelible mark as one of the most significant figures in the history of Black Theater. MOSAEC talked with King about his passion and dedication to his art.
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How did you become interested in the theater?
In the mid-50s, Sidney Poitier was nominated for an Academy Award for a film called The Defiant Ones. I loved the movie. I saw it two or three times. So I read his background then began going around to small theaters in Detroit looking to study and for work. After graduating drama school, I eventually got work as an actor then went on to start a theater company called Concept East in Detroit.
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| Was this the time when Black Theater was starting to flourish?
Not in 1956 or 57 there was no Black Theater. If you were in a play, you were in a white play. Or it was a Black cast doing a white play in the local communities. But there were very few plays written by Blacks for Blacks especially in Detroit. It didn’t start to flourish until the early to mid-60s. Compare the influence of Black Theater in the 1960s and now. Theater in the mid-60s came at the ascendancy of the Civil Rights Movement. So many artists took on the plight of Black people because of that. There was nothing else to do but to be a part of it or not at all. Black consciousness was at its height for the first time in the country and Black Theater was a part of that. Today, Black Theater is based on individual artists that break through the system like August Wilson, George C. Wolfe, Amira Baraka, or Ron Milsner. These are writers whose work relates to Whites as well as to anyone who is interested in good theater. So what motivated you to start the New Federal Theater? We wanted to create a theater for people who had not had a voice. My original theater company had a hit play in Detroit that toured. When it ended up in New York, I had the opportunity to present it at the St. Marks Church in the Bowery. After encouragement from Bertham Peck [Henry Street Settlement’s executive director], I started the New Federal Theater in 1970 nine or ten years after I moved to New York. How essential has community outreach been to New Federal Theater? It has to be a part of what we’re about. Every summer we do a seven or eight weeks program with young people placing them in professional theaters as interns. This way they can become familiarized with the happenings in theater around the New York. Even if they do not study theater in college, we hope they will support theater and their ethnic heritage. How does it feel to be one of the few Black Theaters to have survived since the Black Theater Movement? Being a part of it I know I’m not the only one. I don’t feel like a survivor. I feel the weight of the struggle. Since we’re all going through the same struggle and need, we communicate and share ideas. It’s about loving Black people and wanting to recreate positive images on the stage. What is the future of Black Theater? Black Theater will always exist whether there’s no funding at all. It’ll exist in churches, community centers, and Black universities. As long as there’s Black people there will be Black Theater. M August 1999 |
