Women of Theatre, New York | Theater Documentary | Full Movie | Black Cinema

[Music] What does New York black theater mean to me? It is my survival of all that I am and all that I can be. A subway ride on any train from Broadway to an off Off-Broadway show. Oh, well, you're an actress, so you must have had a dysfunctional parent. It's freedom for me. I think there it it chooses you. I didn't want to act to be a lawyer because because the lawyers would do that summation and that was so dramatic. Did you or did you not? Acting is not life. You're going to portray life. Yes

. But acting is not life. There is something in the childhood traumatic or something that forces you or that you tend to go into your own world to to a degree. It's all that I am and it's all that I can be. And it's enticing, it's engaging. But that's, and you see it. For me as a critic, I'm inspired by actors. Above and below any of the five boroughs is watching my breath of artistry, trudging through snow to auditions. I was born in Oakland, California. I uh went to Los Angeles when I was abou

t nine, and then I grew up in Los Angeles after that and went to high school in Los Angeles. In junior high school, I was like in the Glee Club and the drama club. We probably did a compilation of some scenes of a play together and my mother had aspirations and so she would always take me to plays, to the opera, to the ballet. So, I would see Aida and Laboham and Swan Lake and all of the musicals. So, I remember that and it was magical and exciting, even though we were in the way in the Noseblee

d seats. So, I remember that and then in high school, I went to a boarding school, high school, Catholic, and I did some play and I was the only black and they gave me the lead in the play and it was a Victor Hugo play. I don't even remember the name of it. So yeah, I had a great love for art, all of the arts. And my dad, my biological dad, was a jazz musician and I found out my father's mother, Zilica Foster Williams, was in Shuffle Along. So even I didn't even know that and I have these old pi

ctures of her and she said, "Child, I was mess on a stick." [laughter] I I consider it my destiny to be in the arts. It's my destiny. I knew I was going to be some type of artist, I would write, I would kind of draw fiddle and drawing but the theater, the acting was always accessible. The other stuff was if I was in the mood to do it and so around high school, I knew I wanted to act. I was born in Detroit, Michigan. A trip to New York with my mentor, came to see Hair. Moved to Toledo, Ohio when

I was six, and went to grade school there. Went to high school there, um before high school I met a lady who moved into our neighborhood, she was a dance teacher and she needed a babysitter. She turned out to be my my total mentor. So, I ended up taking classes teaching for her. She did choreography for most of our high school and regional shows. And then she's the one that told me, well, I've taught you how to dance, now you need to go to New York and learn how to act and I did. Brooklyn, New Y

ork Elementary School, I was involved with a talent show that was PS93, just across the street from Restoration. And then after that, I was transferred to another school for a special program and that's what my theater experience began. And I did Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Never forgot it, okay. What a treasured experience and I would really say it starts even way further back than that with the little tea parties you know, with my cousin and I. I went on after with high school, not too mu

ch, even though I was involved with the Glee Club. And then with College Medgar Evers College, I was really involved with theater, but however, we didn't have a theater program because it was a new school. So as a result, after certain number of credits, I had to transfer out and go to Hunter for my theater program. So, they didn't have an accreditation in the theater, but that was a wonderful experience with Doctor Edna Adette and we did a piece, I think we did Finian's Rainbow for an adaptatio

n. If it was anything that I got for Christmas, it was a tea set and as a result of that, my cousin and I, my cousin Joyce and I, we would sit down and that's when you begin improvisation and you really get into your you're not knowing it, but you're really in the moment and sipping tea and talking about a number of things to include our parents and the fun on the block. So that's really where the improvisational experience began. Well, I remember more my sister who was five years older than me,

her class was doing a play and they needed some extras and my sister said, my sister, my little sister, you know, she can be in and she can be in and she loves to act. So, I remember that not that I had any lines or anything, but I was hanging out with the 5th graders. Wow. And I was I I was in a I was in kindergarten. And I had a dream of coming to New York City and going to New York University, that was my dream and I got rejected. I was 17, 18, and I went and became a stewardess because I al

so loved to travel. And one day I was based in New York and so I said I'm going to New York, I'm going to the school, I'm going to New York University. So, I went over to New York University and I said, I want to audition for this school. They said Lloyd Richards is upstairs, go upstairs and see if you can see Lloyd Richards. So, I went upstairs and I said I'd like to audition for this school. I always had a dream to go here. And they said, well, audition's over, it's full, but we'll put you on

a wait list. And lo and behold, I was called to audition and ultimately it didn't happen immediately, but it happened in its own time. I went to New York University and that was my dream. Well, I started with a lot of teachers, Lloyd, Peter Kass, Kristen Linklater, what Gil Moses came through. I think Lloyd just asking one question after another question after another question, just the distillation of it. So, it becomes so specific and what are you working on? Cut, did you achieve it? Then I ha

d another teacher, Earl Gister, excuse me, taught at Yale for many, many years. I was doing a scene from Uncle Vania before I even opened my mouth, I was just preparing to speak. He stopped me six times, he stopped me. I said what, what? Said did you know what you just did I go, no, no, start again six times and then he said you swallowed and I said, oh, I swallowed. So, the awareness that everything I do informs, and that was a a a major lesson. I was the only black at an all-white school and m

y mother said I want you to be exposed to the world. You will learn and you will know how to be black. So, when I came to NYU, I was Elizabeth Van Dyke. Who's that Van Dyke? That's a that's a white girl's name and I had to learn about my blackness, I had a boyfriend who came to my apartment, he says, "Oh, I can't tell a black person lives here." I was like, wow, really? That was for NYU college. That was a pretty wonderful college. First time I'd ever been away from home, first time I ever lived

by myself. They didn't give you a scholarship the first year, so we had to work. Lloyd Richards was the head of the acting department and head of the whole program. He had actually gone to school with my parents at Wayne State University. My mother showed me a picture of him on the on the college campus steps. I kind of was a joyful person, I liked anything that was going on, I tried to make anything work. I had to work full time and also go to school to pay for, you know, rent, which was unbel

ievably cheap at the time. It seemed obnoxiously expensive for me and it was a three-year program. I've I've met most of my dearest friends there that still to this day. So, it's a three-year program because it was a combined bachelor and uh master's program. I was also excited because there was a great dance department which I really wanted to kind of slide into but they wouldn't let me they wouldn't let me incorporate to. So, I used to just, you know, go to classes anyway. Yeah, we took a lot

of stuff, circus classes, vocal classes, but they didn't teach as much about the business and that's what I regret most about that program at the time, I'm sure it's different now. But you came out there and said, well, now what do we didn't talk about agents didn't talk about anything. We were just raw talent, ready to do something but if you were in school and you got cast in anything, Broadway, or anything professional you're asked to leave. I didn't understand that either. When I went to New

Lafayette Theater and when NEC did, NEC did River Niger, I know how it hit me or New Lafayette Theater. It was a fabulous Ms. Murray, okay and I said mmm so afterwards, you know, I was talking to Roscoe Orman who was in the piece, and uh I just knew, but I I underscored the but because when when we started studying back in the day, there was the artistic development piece and Joseph Walker, I was a demigod before I went to NEC. So, he had a company we would call the demigods, it was myself, Lil

lia his wife and others who have all gone on and we were in the company. Francis Foster was my teacher and I knew right away because of her excellence that I was in the right hands. I think it was part of a divine order. Okay, it wasn't something that I said, I have to do this, the love of life in theater when it all comes together, you know. At uh Megor Evers, I was on stage there. Prior to that, the youth program was on stage at the Billy Holiday Theater, which was more than just a theater pro

gram program. The Billy was formed to serve the community and music and all of the arts okay and then there would wraparound services that were there, that was there for the community. So, it in terms of audience development, there was always something there for people to have a reason to come and to learn about the Billy. Okay, but to get back to Megar Evers. So, my first production at the Billy was at Megar was through Megar Evers College. I've worked with Ed Bullens, my son comes home NEC and

like I said at the beginning, the demigods with Joseph Walker and Dorothy Denro Walker. So those were the the the roots of of my beginning. So, when I came to the Billy, I was in a number of productions, right? And then when I came to NEC, I was in a number of productions back-to-back. I think right out of NYU, I got the understudy of the national tour of River Niger right out of of NYU. So, I went on a national tour and understudy two roles in that play and went all over the country and then a

t some point the actress I was understudying left and I got I took her role the role of Gail and played that. So, I think that was my first professional job and I think that was the first job where I got my equity card. Yeah, I guess I started making what they call rounds. I don't think I had a legit agent, I think I was freelancing. He made rounds in those days and that means you took your picture and resume and slid under the door, put it in the slot or did mailings. And I worked at getting co

mmercials so I just put spent a summer, I'm going to work at getting commercials from 8-9 in the morning. I meet a friend of mine, we have breakfast and we go make rounds and I started auditioning for commercials and before I knew it, I was doing national commercials. I was doing a national commercial. I was just turning them out and at that time I was also auditioning for regional theater. New Federal gave me the opportunity to be in the early plays. They did the fabulous Ms. Marie, that was an

early play that they were doing in Philadelphia. They did showdown time with Lynn Whitfield, Charlie Brown, Oh BA Babatunde Gloria Edwards, God rest her soul and we toured with that. Also, in white theater you have secondary roles, you have supporting roles or you have even though they say there are no small roles, you have a lady in waiting or that was my experience. Black theater embraced me and emboldened me with a legacy of my people, from Africa to this new world and the richness of our hi

story, the richness of our culture that has informed music, that is informed fashion style, that is informed the cuisine, that is informed spirit, religion or black and unknown bards. It is informed my aesthetic. It is allowed me to be to do you know Bernice in Piano Lesson, Sister Margaret in the Amen Corner. It's just a lifeline, it's my authentic voice, it is my aesthetic. Well, actually, I had my first real great experience, I thought I was off to the races. A friend of mine and an actor fri

end of mine, Basil Wallace, got me um either got me an audition or just got me a part in a La Mama production of Richard Wesley's Black Terror, which I wasn't in, but it was short bullets, was the one, the ones that I was in. And we went to Italy and we went on a we went on a tour of Italy and that was so exciting because it was very, you know, Black Terror is very political and watching from the wings, there is a scene in Black Terror where all these police are surrounding the the actors and th

ey used real cops and it kind of scared me. They had their firearms there and everything. So, you know, you think that stranger things can happen. But we used to have press conferences where it was very heated and people would talk about politics and stuff, and that was my first job. We were in Venice and Milan, but I got hooked up with Henry Street and I remember doing something about the ventures or the story of Phyllis Wheatley, couple of other things where I really learned a lot about the bl

ack experience, which I and history, which I never knew before. Ohio was pretty white bred for me. We had maybe three black kids in our high school of 600 or something and there was, you know, Scott high School was the place our Libby, Libby, Libby, is where most of the black kids went. And the playwrights, playwrights that we were dealing with had things to say and the importance of work that spoke to where we were going in terms of, well, where we were going as a people, you know, that was ver

y important and that really was very important, okay. So, it was theater for entertainment, but theater with purpose and then you will also involved with so many, you know, people who were administratively strong, the set designers, you know, costume designers and others that we've worked with, be it at the Billy or be it at NEC the best. And I knew that all of them back then could rival anything that was happening on Broadway. I did the we series okay, which was slavery to Reconstruction. I did

all of the pieces then we took it on the road. That was an incredible experience, incredible, you know, to go to live that and also knowing my family history and to really put that it just had meaning in a number of ways and also being under the guidance of of Doug, the Douglas Sternum Award, and others as directors. Incredible experience. State the facts, don't act, State the facts. State the facts because you want people to walk out of here knowing to be clear on what they saw. You know, Doug

had scripts everywhere, you know, and he would and and it wasn't clutter, it wasn't, it was writers. And he said, I will not throw these away, even though they were not produced. Because Woody King saw me in a room, talking about black, talking about theater apparently he saw me, he saw Latonya Richardson, Latonya Richardson, Jackson in a room and this is like in the 70s. Directing was not anywhere in my mind. And he saw it and he said the way that we exuded an enthusiasm and a love and an arti

culation of theater, he knew that we could direct, so he gave me an opportunity to direct in the 70s, in the early, early 70s. So, I directed The Mystery of Phyllis Wheatley and then he gave me another opportunity to to direct Games. And then another years later, then another opportunity to direct Sweet Mama String Bean, a musical about Ethel Waters, and so that, at a black institution, giving me opportunity that early in the 70s started my directorial career. The arm the the arm of my directori

al career and then another impact was Woody telling me at some point in the 80s an actor is for hire. An actor sits around waiting for others to hire them. If you want to have control over your life, over your artistic journey, activate work. That's what I created, Love to all Lorraine. A one person show about Lorraine Hansberry, which was what in the 80s where they were doing one solo plays. They're very prevalent today, but back in the 80s they were not. And that's when I started, oh, activati

ng work for myself. I think playing Zora was a gear shift in my career. Zora and Lorraine and maybe Sister Margaret were two plays, two or three plays where I became transcendent. People used to say to me, my friends and people who thought they knew better. Why won't I do white theatre? The more the question I said, well, what do you mean theater is theater. What's what's the difference? These people, Woody King gave me most of all my jobs in the first part of my years in in New York. And I was

probably naive in thinking that, but that was pretty much most of my thinking. I I know that it may be different now, but I I didn't think that the arts had a racial connotation to it. I thought you went, you got a part, whoever else was in it, you did your thing, and that made me happy. Well, in retrospect, it it, it equalizes the playing field. It brings humanity into the perspective because a person is a person, whatever their cover is, that's fine. But everybody has the same feelings, the sa

me problems. They can't find somebody to love, they want to kill somebody, they want to save somebody, they want to go on their own. It doesn't have any color. Not to me and I don't think to our world. So, I think it was very important. May have not known it at the time, but totally important, we're still fighting about it now. Well, you know the non-equalization of women in theater that bothers me especially in commercial theater the lack of real humanity and auditioning. And no matter what you

do or what you say, they probably know what they want before you get there. The fact that they had to have open calls for before I was Equity and it was just something that they had to do but they weren't necessarily going to hire somebody because they'd say, well, you can't do this because you don't, you're not Equity, but you can't do this until you do an Equity show to get your Equity card. So, I thought that was a a pet peeve. And of course, people telling you what to do, other actors, you

should do this, you should do that. I think I probably did it myself at some time and I I realized that was not a good idea. Keep your mouth shut, do your own work. On a personal note, being in the same episode in Empire as my daughter was, even though we never spoke. I played her mother, but we never spoke. We were in the same room but that was pretty special to me. The fact that you are focusing on black theater and to invite me and realize that my life was my life, and my choices were my choi

ces. And these lovely people who gave me work I never worked at NEC, Ducks Stuart didn't give me it a bat an eyelash. But I went to all their shows and I really, really supported it. Some people see they call the community theater, and as an actor, I don't say that. At the Billy or at any small, not small or theater, meaning when I say small, meaning not Broadway. Your audience, it's a whole nother thing, you know and there are things that happen that they know exactly what you're talking about.

Okay and there's a sharing that happens. There's even though that 4th wall is there, you know, there's something that happens. There's a rhythm that happens. Some people see those theaters as a steppingstone. I don't see it that way. I didn't see it as a steppingstone, I always thought the theater was a destination and as I said earlier, would rival anything that was out there, you know, because all of the people that work there have worked in, in theaters nationally and internationally. So, we

're talking about the heavyweights that someone else may not recognize. One More Time was something that was an incredible experience. Yeah so I said that because I got a chance to act in the sing and to and to dance, you know, triple threat stuff, but more importantly, having come up on Aretha Franklin and others. So, when you get a chance to look back and you're going all the way back to Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, you know, Ethel Waters was my character, being on stage at at at the Village Gate

and all the history that was there and getting an opportunity to meet quite a few people, but more importantly, as an artist, I treasured that experience. Praying it transitions into a black revolutionary theatrical mission that blooms in spring. It's my sweat trickling from my brow to my cleavage on a hot, muggy summer day of good drama between a black protagonist and an antagonist of any kind, from creating conflicts of hate, indifference or sexy sounds on a bed of fallen leaves of greens, yel

lows and chocolate browns from young to old oak trees. That's what New York black theater means to me. We as human beings need to tell stories. It's like going to church and it's and that's speaking not only educational knowledge but your spirit. It makes people feel good. It makes people feel. What's the purpose of an artist to society? What is the purpose of art to society? Is it to illuminate, reflect, uplift, enlighten, inform? Right. Who we are. I always feel if an audience walks away and t

hey see somebody in there sees themselves. To make us a a a social commentary or a political, you know, commentary or racial commentary. And mirrors. You know, because so often you know you're sitting up there and as of where you're, you know, you're sitting up and then you're saying for that moment you see someone else. I think the purpose of being a theater critic is to recognize the beautiful work that's going on out there on the stage. It is an ambitious one-hour prep time before the stage m

anagers half hour call while hearing secrets from the ancestors Spirits, Ward, Bullens, Milner, McClintock, Tear, Sean Gay, Carter, Furman, Baraka, Angelou whispering through the walls. I was born in Albany, Georgia. I recently ran into a friend of mine from that time in Georgia and she said, you know, you used to always say you want to be an actor. I said I did. She said yeah, you did. And I went to high school in New York City and Poughkeepsie, NY Growing up in the South, there wasn't any thea

ter. There wasn't any theater at all but there was a television. We had a black and white television and I loved, absolutely loved watching television. So, I was very familiar, I mean, Broadway was something you would hear about on the Ed Sullivan Show. You know, they may have a performer from there, but I didn't know anything about Broadway or theater. I mean, of course I knew about it, but no television was. I was born in Cleveland Ohio, I was told I was an actress when I was about three years

old. I used to look at TV And I'd see kids on the TV and I wondered how they got there. And sometimes they do a scene and I was just absolutely mesmerized by it. But sometimes to me, they did it wrong and so I would get up and do what I thought they should have done after the scene was over with. And that's when grownups would see me and they'd say you're a little actress Brooklyn, New York. In the summers I was a Star Allen kid uh Star Allen had little school where the kids would come and you'

d sign up and you you'd pay a little bit at the end of the month or each month so that you could learn the rudimentary's of the theater, dancing, ballet and that and stuff and then you did plays. I did that for a bit, but as a child I was always reading. I always had my poetry books. I was an avid reader and I did have skits. I would do skits with my friends. You know, I had a little club and skits like that. I went to Howard University. Well, I thought I was going to be interested in psychology

but having always been interested in acting, I decided to take an acting course and it changed my life. I decided to take this acting course with Doctor Butcher, who was the head of the department of wonderful, wonderful man. I remember being invited to go to Lincoln Center when I first come to New York. Actually, one of my professor had invited me to come, we were quite close, not that kind of close, but you know we were remain friends after I left college and he invited me to go to Lincoln Ce

nter to see I think Garrett Morris was in the play and it it was just so magical. Well, by the time I graduated from from Howard, I knew I was going to come to New York to to be an actor. I mean, there was no doubt about that. When I first came to New York, I went to the Negro Ensemble Company, because that was the place you would go to study and to be a part of the scene. So, I went there, but I'd also gone up to New Lafayette. They had a theater company up there, so I went up there. But when I

came to New York, my first stop was to go to the Negro Ensemble Company, and I started with Hal De Witt and I was fortunate enough to get cast into play. And I also did some work at the Public Theater, so I came to New York. I knew I was going to be an actor. There was just no doubt about that. My entree into the Negro Ensemble Company and at some point I auditioned for a play, which was a play I think called Nobody, which was about Burt Williams and I played his wife. And what live theater did

to me in my mind, I said that's real acting, because in film and TV you mess up, they just take it again. But these people are alive, and if they mess up, they got to fix it right now, main character and not throw off the production. So, to me I was like, whoa, that's real acting. Well, since I was told I was an actress, I thought I was an actress and because I liked children on TV, I particularly like The Little Rascals, and the Little Rascals didn't just act, they also wrote and they did orig

inal plays, I guess for the neighborhood. And so that put it in my head to also write and the first time I had an assignment in school, I think I was in the 4th grade, the teacher gave us like maybe 20 different people. And she said you're going to write a paper on one of these people you pick and you have to read your paper to the class and it has to last at least five minutes. So, it wasn't going to be like a good paragraph. It had to be a paper. And so, it wasn't an exercise in writing but al

so in public speaking and so I wrote a play. I picked George Washington Carver and I went around the class and I said, you want to be in my play. You want to be in my play. Not everyone, but certain people. And the teacher said I'm not going to collect it until after you've read it and so many kids and she would have you do it in the morning and somebody else would do it in the afternoon. And she was doing it in alphabetical order. So, I knew I wasn't first. You know, some kids got up and they w

ere like shaking and maybe it would be a minute or two and she said, no, you have to write it again, that's not long enough, that's not a paper. And when I got up, when it was my turn, I said I didn't write a paper. I wrote a play and so she kind of looked and I said so and so's in it and so and so and so and so and the kids were looking like, and I said y'all better get up here. And so, they came up and we did the play and for the whole time she was like, and when it was over when she said that

was so different, that was so original, that was so unique, you didn't even ask me. And I'm thinking, ask you what? And so, because it was positively reinforced, that's what I always did. I always wrote plays, and sometimes I was in them, sometimes I wasn't. But at that time, I don't think I ever really knew that I was going to turn out to be an actor. I thought at in my earliest days that I wanted to be a teacher, which I did do. I got my my teaching license and at one point I thought I was go

ing to be a writer. That's still something I may do because I do write on the side for fun. The bug hit me okay, let me back up. It had to have been there, you know, because I was always singing around the house and and doing little things. But it didn't come to fruition until it was like 19, 1966, 67 and I had a part time job after school and I was following my older sister Betty and she knew that she wanted to do this. I I hadn't it wasn't in me. You know sometimes careers find you and so I'm

I'm we're working at Pratt Institute and the boss was a quasi-rider, he was you know a rider on the side and he was going to down to university of the streets like Avenue A, Avenue B, 1st Avenue, somewhere around there and he asked one day did we want to go. So, my sister and I said yeah we'll go and we went there and Arnold Johnson, that's the man who started me in theater. Arnold Johnson had this University of the streets and we watched all the improvs and it was fascinating, you know, to see

these guys and and girls get up there and they, he'd give them a direction and they'd make a play, you know, right there, the improv. And at the end of each of those sessions, he would call people from the audience to see if they wanted to, to participate. And so, my sister and I raised our hands and he brought us up and he gave us something to do and we dove right into it and he said, you guys got something. He said, "Have you ever thought, you know, about doing this?" And I said no, you know.

So, he said, I have a summer project that's going to be happening at NYU, would you like to be a part of it? So, I said, yeah, my sister said yeah. So that summer we went to NYU and at this summer program and at the end of it, Lloyd Richards was one of the directors and Gus Fleming and Bill Lee and Israel Higgs. And so, at the end of it they said you guys all have to do a scene from a black play. So, I had this mask, I was wearing a hat and it covered my face. And Adolf Caesar said to me, you do

not want to cover your face, so take off that veil and let us see your face and I, and that started my wonderful relationship with him. It was a dear, dear friend. I did um First Breeze of Summer with Francis Foster, Moses Gunn, Douglas Stern Ward, Charlie Brown, Ethel Isler. It was a star cast, it was such a thrill to be working with all these people who were legends in the theater that I admired so. So that was one of the productions I did there. I did Ed Bolin's The Corner and that was direc

ted by Sunny Jim. Oh God, he was such a great guy. Yeah, Sunny Jim and Ronnie Clampton was in that, in that in that cast, four plays that was a one act play. So, Arthur French was in one of the other plays that I remember, I think Morgan was in Morgan Freeman may have been in one of those places as well. I was very fortunate to get an agent early on, a woman called Diana Hunt, she had a lot of faith in me. I'm not quite sure why, but she did. She also handled Billy Dee Williams at the time or at

some point in his career but she just, she just loved me and I loved her. And anyway, she was the first person who got me into, I never did extra work. She always said do not do extra work, but she got me doing under-fives and so I did under-fives for a while. I don't remember, she was the one who actually got me at my first audition for a contractor part. But at some point that happened, that was the doctors and I got a year's contract and it was I got fired. I was absolutely terrible because

I was so in that experience and in that environment, I was the only black person there, and that was quite different. And there weren't any black technicians. So that was very frightening and scary, you know, all that cameras and equipment and you just felt so isolated but the people were very nice. I can't say I blame them. They were nice, but I didn't feel the support being there. And so, they were a lot, they were - I was very nervous all the time Before I came to New York when I was in high

school because I never talked about what I wanted to be when I grew up because people told me I was an actor so and my mother and father, they said so do you have any plans or getting ready to graduate in June? And I said I'm moving to New York and I had never said that to anyone, but I was always going to move to New York because on TV, especially back then, all the things may have been shot in Hollywood, but they were set in New York. So, New York was the place to be. I said that and I didn't

know my father had an aversion to New York. And they said, New York, what are you going to do there? I said, I'm going to act. And I was never in a class play ever. I used to write plays and people were my plays, but and so they were just looking like that was so weird. And my mother said, well, I wanted all of you to go to college and get a degree. I had two sisters who were already in college. They were at Kent State and I said, I'm not going to college, I'm going to New York and she said, wel

l, you can still study acting, and I said I would never study acting. And she said, why not? I said because to make it in this business and I was 17 and I had never done it, I said to make it in this business more than talent, more than a great look, more than a great agent, more than great, great, great, great luck. What you need is the ability to take massive amounts of rejection. And I don't know if I have that and I will not go to college and get a degree in something that I'm too thin skinn

ed to pursue. And she looked at me like, oh, that was good and I hadn't thought about it, but that's what I said. And then my father said, "We're not sending you to college, you need to get a job." That's all I thought, oh, he thinks I'm limited. And I said a job doing what? He said something you can do. So, oh, he really thinks something, I said like what? He said you could be a checkout girl in a grocery store. You could be a teller in a bank. So, I looked at my mother, I said I'll go to colle

ge. I was just going so my father wouldn't have to worry about me. But I had no intentions of finishing, I didn't do any thought about where to go because I wasn't thinking about going. So, I went to Kent because that's where my sisters were. I never ever declared a major until I was a junior. The play I picked was in White America Daisy Bays, because I had seen the amazing Gloria Foster do that role and I was just stunned how she could be this grown woman and play this 12-year-old. I did that p

iece and we had to do it for the heads of these acting schools. So, there was Lord Richards from NYU, there was the head of Carnegie Mellon and I think there was another one that I can't remember. My sister got accepted into Carnegie Mellon and I got accepted into NYU School of the Arts. Four-year Martin Luther King scholarship mind blown. Mine completely blown because it doesn't happen now. It's it's really hard to get a, you know a full year a full four-year scholarship. So, I got that went to

school that that September from from going to University of the Streets in March of that year that following September I was in college and it had to have been when I started in college because. You know, coming up in Brooklyn, there weren't a lot of plays. It just wasn't, you know, the plays were in New York. And at that time, you know, you're in the borough of Brooklyn, NY, is somewhere far, you know, and you just didn't, you just didn't venture out that far. But once I started college, I wen

t to the Public Theater and saw Richard Wesley's Black Terror, yeah. This is something that I want to do. And once I got into the school, that was it. The life enfolded itself and I embraced it wholeheartedly. You know, daytime was very big in New York. It was actually a very good thing because it forced me to know that I had to learn to to work under pressure. I had to learn a way to relax. So, it actually was a very, very good thing because I just knew I had to do something different from from

what I was doing because that that didn't work. I knew I would get another one I had, I was very, very optimistic about everything in life at that point. You know, as I said, it served as a guide, it helped me to go to another place in myself, to deepen where I needed to go, so I I didn't worry about it. I think that must have been another world. But I was on One Life to Live for a while with Al Freeman, it was really wonderful working with him and Ellen Holly, I got to know her quite well. Tha

t was very, very special. That was just a recurring and that went on for months. And then at some point I was asked to audition for Another World. Actually, I auditioned for Another World, and they didn't cast me in that part. It was, it was kind of a they were looking at black and white people, which was kind of unusual, I thought at the time. But anyway, they didn't hire me, they went with a white woman. But when the role that I eventually got came up, the producer just called me and offered i

t to me, and that role just went into. I was there maybe five or six years, so and I didn't even have to audition for it, but I had already auditioned. So, he knew and he too was very instrumental in helping me throughout my Paul Rausch was the producer and he just had faith in me. And he also, in addition to bringing me on, he liked, he liked having black people on the show, so he brought on a whole cast of other black people, Bob Christian, Al Freeman, Michelle Shea. A whole list of people was

just extraordinary what he did based on coming from that one character opened a lot of doors for a lot of different black actors at that time. And even then I wasn't thinking about acting, I was just, I just, I had never taken a because they wrote me, the university wrote me, they said you've been here, this is your beginning of your third year, and you have never declared a major. And when you matriculate here, you have to declare a major by your third year. So, you have to come in at the end

of this week and if you don't, you have to go, even though you're passing everything, we don't know what you're working toward. And so, I hadn't had a class in the business building, it was the newest building on campus, it was most attractive and I decided okay, I'll be a business major. And so, I went over there and that's what I got a degree in and I was a senior, second quarter before I graduated and the girl next to me, because I was a counselor also, she said, you always saying you going t

o New York and you going to act and you ain't never been to nothing, you need to come to this audition I'm going to. So, I thought, oh, it didn't even occur to me I could have taken electives, I could have taken acting, dance, singing, what a waste but it didn't occur to me. And I said, sure I'll go because I also knew she was afraid, she was afraid to go on an audition. She reminded me of the kids that when we were in the 4th grade that were afraid to read the paper. So anyway, I went in and I

said, who's the lead? And they said sister Laura Wright read. I said okay, so that's me, who are you here for? And they say, sister, I said no, no, no, that's me. Pick somebody else. Who are you here for? And so, this man, I was really obnoxious and this man said, who are you? I said, I'm sister Laura Wright read. He said, "What's your name?" And I said Perry Gaffney. He says sign in, look at the sides and wait your turn. I was thinking my, so anyway I'm looking and it was one of those open audi

tions where you see everybody auditioning and some people I said wow that was really good and some people was in no whatever. And so now it's my turn and I got up and this man really really hated me and when I was through I could see all over his face he hated that he loved me. He loved me. He said, okay, we'll go over there and sing. I said sing, I'm not singing, he said this is a musical. You can't be the lead in a musical and not sing. I said I am your lead and I'm not going to sing, he said

get over there. So anyway, I know it's so obnoxious. I really was and I didn't understand but he offered me the role and it and I said you cut all those pesky songs, didn't you? He said just come to rehearsal. And so, I came to the rehearsal and we were going through it and I met the people and I was wondering why did he hire me? But it was Sister Laura Wright Reed from Tambourines to Glory and she was a bitch. So, I said, oh, that's why it hired me because I was a bitch and he thought I was a n

atural. So anyway, that was my first show. It was in school, but after we did it was such a hit, they asked could we do a tour of the colleges and certain cities and PBS in Cleveland wanted to shoot it for a special. And and this is where training really would have helped because we had these cameras here, three of them. We're in a smallish space and we're talking and the camera comes in and I found myself, it was horrible. I was horrible. And had I had some training, I would have known don't do

that and I knew not to do that anyway, even though I kept doing it. Peter Cass was my teacher. He taught us with a glass of Scotch. And he talked through the class and one would think that you weren't learning anything because he just talked about things that happened day-to-day, things that happened in your life, how you experience them, what it meant to you. And and while as a as a young girl listening to him, I'm saying to myself what you know he's not. It's not structured like, you know, yo

u think some of the classes would be, but that wasn't his thing. His thing was to open you up to the world as it was, that when you walk into a situation, there's not going to always be somebody saying this is how it goes, find your way in, fit in, get it right. After I graduated from school, that's when everything that he taught me fell into place because he was so unorthodox, so unorthodox, but a very good teacher, nonetheless. At NYU, I had great, great, great teachers. Lloyd Richards for act

ing, third year acting. Olympia Dukakis for first and second year acting, the amazing Kristen Linklater voice. I came out of college and Joe Papp came to see our senior production at NYU. It was Derek Walcott's Tijon and his brothers and he took our senior project. So, I went from, I had a pretty story, you know life coming into theater as the way I got into NYU and then my senior project gets picked up to go to the Delacorte after I graduated in June and I was in rehearsals in July of that year

. So that was my first professional foray into and becoming a member of Equity all out of college. The first black theater that I worked at was wow going back, I had to be a New Federal Theater. Shawn Neil Perry directed it, and it was me and Michelle Shea and Ferguson and Lou Dobbs. I went to Richard Allen Cultural Center with Hazel Bryant. Hazel was marvelous, she really was, she, you know, being a sister in this business and having your own theater and wheeling and dealing as she did, you kno

w, people, some people came away thinking that she was hard and whatever, but she wasn't. She just knew what she wanted and she knew a certain way that she wanted it done and she did that. But she always did wonderful plays. And from there I went to the Billy to do Inacent Black and Five brothers. Weep not for me, that's what I mean, yeah. That was, but that was my first play at NEC. I met James James Baldwin there, they came to see the show. She was wonderful because her hands was in so many di

fferent areas and she knew a lot of the the literati. My career is very strange. I I did that at the television and I was doing commercials but very little theater and then when that kind of Peter down then the theater thing picked up. It's been kind of interesting. The first play I did there was a play called I was by PJ Gibson. Long Time Since Yesterday and that was a wonderful experience. Loretta Divine was in that, Starletta de Poi was in that. My dear, dear friend, we we're still very good

friends, Emily Yancey. I met her there and after that I did another play called The Trial of One Shortsighted Black Woman versus Mammy Louise and Sofrita May. That was an extraordinary production, it was just beautiful and it was directed by Paul Carter Harrison, who had been one of my professors at Howard University. It also went on to win, it was my first Audelco Award. We got ensemble acting, so that was definitely a high point working there. And it began my wonderful relationship with Mr. Wo

ody King Junior I got one for um for a solo show, I did that, I wrote on the way to Timbuktu, and then I think I won for one for Elektra, which was done at Classical Theater Harlem, actually, I knew it at Howard that I wanted to go into television. That was really clear to me. So, any acting I may have classes that I took my they were geared around that. The first directing thing really started with he would ask me to direct readings. And at some point, he asked me to direct a play called Colone

l of Sanity by Kermit Frazier. And that was my first, I guess, Mainstage production at New Federal Theater. And then he asked me to direct Looking for Leroy, which was a wonderful success for us. We won a lot of that was another Audelco I won, but that was as a director, we won a lot of awards for that. And the teaching actually started in another place. Fred Hudson had a theater company, had a theater school up in on 96th Street. I started teaching there. He had seen me directing something. He

was a lovely man, Fred Hudson. And he just came up to me and he said, would you like to direct an acting class? And I said, yeah, I've never been one to say no when given an opportunity. So, I said okay. So that opened a door, a wonderful door, teaching and working with young people and just people who want to want to act. If we don't tell our story, who is going to tell it? But I love to work with the black theater and work with people that are up and coming, the the writers, things like the bl

ack theater festival down in Winston Salem when you meet so many from all over the country, really all over the world, because they come from South Africa and Brazil or wherever, it's just it's a privilege and a pleasure. I really like being the demon mammy in Calvin Wilkes's incubus. But my uncle was Joe Seneca, who was a brilliant and venerated performer, and when I first moved to New York he was on Broadway with Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes and he had a small role in it. But what he d

id, he used to give me scripts that he was being asked to consider and he'd say, am I going to do this? And I read the script and in the beginning I say, yeah. He said, why? I said, well, it's a nice sized role and its film, TV, whatever it was, and you're going to get a lot of exposure and it'll lead to the next thing. He said, I would never do that. I said why not? And he say he would never like have a role where he would kill a black person. Even if the black person was bad, he would not do t

hat. He would not have a role where he was being abusive to a woman or things like that. So, he taught me how to look for little negative things and after a while he'd say, am I going to do this? And I'd say no. He said why not? And I said because of this, because of that. And he said right. And then after a while he said, am I going to do this? And I said no. And he said why not? And I said because of this and because of that. And he said oh. I can look at this again. I was thinking about doing

it. So, he really taught me how to dissect a script and look at it and I really, really, really am so appreciative of that forever and ever. On its face, acting is acting, no matter the color of the persons doing it. But because we are such a culturally entrenched society, being a black actor and working in a black theater. Then you're sometimes your your movement is easier. Your Thruway is easier because the people, we all speak the same language. You know, most people don't don't think we do.

But there's such a big distinct rhythm into us as a people. When you're in a black theater, you're home. We had so much at one time and it was it was the way to go to be affiliated. You know, and if you affiliate with a good black theater, hey, you know, icing on the cake. The tour of home with me, Sam Jackson and Essie Payth and Murchison, we took the last State Department tour and doing a State Department tour, everything is done for you. You do nothing but get to whatever country you're goin

g to because we went out of the country. Whatever country you're going to, you're met with a liaison from the United States to make sure that everything is fine, that nobody hurts you. They met us in the Philippines in an armored car because there was some fighting and stuff going on. That was one of them that was exciting doing home in Cebu, Philippines in the round with people bringing in goats and donkeys and they lost our costumes. So, Patty Mae had on a you know off the shoulder dress and s

tuff like that. But the that was one of the biggest one for me was and it's a faux pot that happened at the Gate Theater in Ireland opening night. We're doing home and my lines are sitting and rocking and swatting flies and I open my mouth because this play is going like we are on it. And I say sitting and fricking and frocking. I stop and I say sitting, frocking and fricking. I take another breath and I say sitting and rocking and sweating flies while the whole world cries cause there's a war g

oing on. And the audience [clapping hands] because I got it right. Maybe doing Innocent Black at the Billie Holiday Theater to 8, you know, standing room. We were the the first play to stay in running for nine months. That's a long time. You know, that's that's all most most theaters don't get a play that could run for nine months. We were the first one and get picked up to go to Broadway As I stretch and breathe to be or not to be, which is never the question, because they taught us every show

must go on and on and on, even when it closes and changes my trajectory. That's what New York black theater means to me. It is my training, my technique, my picture, my resume, my bio, my monologue, my dialogue from reading to performing. The black classics like A Day of Absence, What the Wine Cellar Buys, The Dutchman, The Fabulous Miss Marie, The River Nige of our colored girls who have considered suicide even when the Rainbow is enough. The many plays written about political, social, racial a

nd gender divides that live in humanity and gave me permission to write my own plays and poems. The thing about training is that it gives you tools. Acting is a craft, and like any craft, if you have training I think it just expedites your excellence. It takes a lifetime. It takes forever to master a craft. Training helps you to experience. Maybe not exactly the same, but you can come to the same points that that the playwright in the director want you to get to. Just being totally aware of my b

ody, doing the breath, doing the stretching, doing the exercises, doing the voice, addiction. Education, you know, your training in the arts is extremely important. Just for technique. I didn't actually go to a class to become a theater critic, it doesn't work like that. I just, I, you know, I had my journalism background. I had my writing background and I just love theater. Born from theaters like New Heritage, Negro Ensemble Company, New Federal Theater, National Black Theater, The Hadley Play

ers, and Billie Holiday Theater. I was born in Brooklyn, New York. My dad took us to, I think it's. Shakespeare on the Hudson or something like that, like in Connecticut. And I saw Lou Gossett in a production of Waiting for Godot. And although I was young, like 9, 10 years old, and I didn't exactly understand everything, it just blew me away. I I loved it when I was about 13 or 14 and I decided I wanted to go to performing arts high school, there was a program at Brooklyn College by Maurice Maur

ice Watson was doing on black theater. So, my mother was able to get myself and my girlfriend in there and we weren't really taking classes per se, but we were allowed to sit in and they did a lot of Ritual type theater. So, we were able to be part of the Ritual Theater and then he helped me, he auditioned me for performing Arts high school and I did a white piece. I think it was our town or something like that and I got in. I don't know if I could say that I did really learn a lot there. I know

I did a whole lot of revolutionary stuff. And you know, the kids got killed at Jackson State. I was out there well before the kids got killed at Jackson State, the kids were at the got killed at Kent State and I was out there with all the little white kids and the hippies and all of that. And then when the black kids got killed at Jackson State, nobody did anything. So, me and my girlfriends, we got together and we called the sit in. But I had a lot of conflict there because one thing Maurice W

atson taught us, he said even if you get on stage nude, you can make them forget that you're naked if what you're doing isn't, you know, throwing enough. And I had a teacher miss Provet or Provat ever name was and she was from that old Hollywood glam type thing. So, she wanted you to look a little a certain way, dress a certain way. And I remember there was a white girl, I forget what she was. But anyway, she was a kind of fat, not the most beautiful girl, you know, but she could act her butt of

f and we were close. And I remember the teacher used to embarrass her all the time and tell her she couldn't get on working class until she lost weight. So that was the beginning of me standing up. I mean, not the beginning, but one of the things that I did. I was born in Harlem, USA. Nobody ever talked about theater in my home, but I had a very dramatic family in that my mother's from Puerto Rico and my father's from Guyana. So, I call myself a guy, a guy, a Rican from Hall, What The Wine Cella

rs buys or The River Niger. And I was taken by my school to see the plays. The one thing that stands out, I was in the third grade, that which made me eight years old. We were doing a play and I remember I had to wash a white blouse by hand and I had a little blue skirt and my mother looked everywhere for a red bow and we went everywhere to try to find this bow the last minute, because I told my mom, we have to wear, I have to wear a red bow. And we went everywhere to find this red bow and I wor

e it. I'm sorry and my mother who's now gone, she was in the wings when the play happened and I was in the center with these little, a little instrument, something in my hand and we were singing in old Bahia town, everywhere, Vatapa is a centerpiece in old Bahia town and I was in the center. I just happened to be in the center with all these other little children and when I got off stage my mother said, you were the best one, and I think that's the first recollection of theater for me. Brooklyn,

New York, I went to Hunter College. When I was in Hunter, I was in English major, psychology minor. One year I took a communications class, which was reported 101, my professor said to everybody go and you know, find something to write a story about and give me both sides of the story. So, I went to Central Park and I interviewed the handsome cab drivers and I said, you know, how is it, you know, being a handsome cab driver, how would how do the animals like it? Everything. So, one of the drive

rs said, oh, these horses think they died and went to horse heaven. We treat them so well. I went across the street to the five-star hotel and restaurant. And I asked the way it is there and I said, wow, what is it like? Is it great to be across the street from the the handsome cab drivers? And the guy was like, oh, no, it stinks, they beat the horses, they're so cruel I, you know, I can't believe it, the way that they treat these animals. So, I wrote my paper and my professor said to me, Linda,

they think they died and went to horse heaven, he really said that. I said, yeah, he was like, Linda, I really like this piece. I like how you shield both sides. So, I said, well, you know, professor, I really, I loved what I was doing when I was out there reporting the energy that I felt. I want to continue to feel that. What do I have to do? And he said, so major and journalism, you know, communications and I said, I'm already an English major. He said, well, do a double major, you know, so I

said, all right. So, I went to do that and when I became a journalism major or communications major, they explained to me that I needed to get clips. So, I had to find somewhere that I could write, to start to get clips, to be able to get jobs in the business. And then the same teachers to tell me will you remind me of Raquel Welch and you should dress and do all of that. And that wasn't me. I remember I wore cool lots and a pair of clogs to do a performance of play for class and she got really

pissed at me. So, I you know, so I can't say that I had the greatest time as far as learning. But as far as the experience, I had a great time. That was my trajectory through life that I was, I was an actress, always presenting the Pettiforts at Henry Street Settlement and it was Chanel Perry, Anna Marie Hosp played my mother and we were a circus family. And I remember that I had to wear balloons and I had, I did cartwheels. That was my first real, real professional where I got paid and actuall

y. And then the next thing that I remember working with Miss Jeanette and Roger Furman and I got a chance to really stretch when I work with them, you know, in the in the 70s, late 70s. I went to the Aaron Davis Center for the Performing Arts at City College and I had really great teachers like Francis Foster, Israel Hicks. I there's some other teachers that I had studied with Thelma Hill, Dance, Voice Indiction, and I studied Shakespeare and Greek theater. I loved the Greek theater probably the

most. I love the women, the roles that the women had. And then doing little plays after that in school and loving it, but not ever thinking that I could become an actress. Just doing it because it was what the teachers told us to do. I remember playing a guy, I can't even remember what his name is, had boots on. I was trying to look like a dude, you know, because they were not enough guys, I guess, in the class to play these roles. But you know, it was like one thing after another in singing gr

oups. I started out really performing, not only in the schools but outside of the schools as a dancer with I studied with Joan Millen Dance company and and we performed at Club Ruby and Queens and you know and different just schools and nursing homes, churches. That's what we did and I remember just loving it and feeling natural at it. The very first play I had done I left my high school without my parents knowing and and I wanted to graduate on time. We were out protesting at that time, you kno

w, so when you're out there protesting and carrying on, you're not going to school. So, what happened was I was falling behind. I went to the school called the Street Academy in Brooklyn, and I was living in Queens at the time. So, I went to the Street Academy without my parents knowing and that school used drama to motivate children, to motivate students and I through that program, which I graduated from eventually. From when I was younger, my mom, you know, used to take me to dance theater of

Harlem. I remember as a kid going with my family to see Mornings at 7 on Broadway and things like that. So, theater was something that I was always interested in. And I went to Amsterdam News and at the time you could literally just walk into the paper. I asked to speak to Mr. Tatum and I went to his office on the 2nd floor and I said yes, my name is Linda at the time, my maiden name Linda Fuller. And I am a student at Hunter College and I'm a double major and I understand that I need clips in o

rder to get a job in the business. And I'm wondering, would you allow me to write for Amsterdam News? So, he looked at me and he said, okay Linda, so what are you interested in? I said theater. He said okay. He said to go upstairs to the 4th floor to Mel Tapley, the A&E editor, and tell him, I said put you to work. I said, oh okay, great, thank you. I went up to Mr. Tapley, you know, he started sending me out to church basement plays, you know, which again, like I said, are literally in church b

asements. But that was that was cool, that was cool, I I was having a good time. I started going to Off Broadway things. Black theater, of course, covered all the black theater, National Black theater, Billie Holiday Theater, absolutely loved it. New Federal Theater, Hadley players. I mean, I was just going all over the place covering theater. And I went to Mr. Tapley and I said, Mr. Tapley, let me ask you a question, why don't we cover Broadway? And he said, Linda, ain't no black people going t

o Broadway. I said, well, maybe if they knew what was there, maybe they would go. And he said give it a shot. I know a lot of things that I've seen over the years, you know, like I saw Denzel and Fences and... Well, I like to say that Woody King Junior was very supportive of me, especially in my early years, the 80s, the 90s. He gave me quite a few great roles to do. I will always be grateful he believed in me as an actress, that's for sure. As I said at one point, it it became a point where I w

asn't having as much fun and I also had things that I wanted to see in theater and creativity in me that I wanted to try, which is directing dramatur, dramaturgy. And I love writers, so I wanted to also support writers. You know, and I, I thought through my Potpourri World Women Work series that I could give writers a a a peek or opportunity to feel what it feels like in a professional environment. So, my concept for potpourri was that I would hook them up with a director and a drama turd, and t

hen they do a one, they do first reading, and then they'd work on it after their feedback from the audience and come back in two weeks. And do the reading again. And if we really liked it and thought it had grown, then I would try to do a back as audition, like in the next three or four months of it. And basically, I just, I loved it. I loved all sides. Acting, the directing, the producing, the presenting. I felt like I was doing something. I felt like I was on a mission, I was contributing. PJ

Gibson's, that was one of the pieces that put me on the Mac map. We did it through the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center, Fred Hudson, and the Black Theater Alliance on 42nd Street and it's terrible, Miss Ann, Don't Cry No More. That was the name of it, and that was great. I worked with Bill Cobbs, I worked with Brenda Denmark, and I had the chance to work with Bette Howard, who I happen to think is a brilliant director, and Bette really, I must say that Bette kind of put it, brought it al

l forward for me because of the way she directed it helped me direct and also teach acting just by the time that I spent with her. I love the way that she took it scene by scene and then we'd go back at the end of the day and do all everything we did up to that point. But and and I love that she let me go, she just let me create and then she say, well, that doesn't work or that works or whatever. So, I love that. That was a great, great for me. I did my first play at the Storefront Museum, which

is now called Black Spectrum, and that was a play called Earth Has No Sorrow and I played the lead. And I remember without any really, you know, good proper training, I got some training, some discipline, but not, you know, the best training that I could possibly get. And so, when the director said, when I asked the director, I said, well, when do I, when, when do I go on? He said when you walk from this point, which was at the back of the theater, they didn't even have wings at the store, for

museum at that time. From there and just walk on and start delivering your lines. And I loved every moment of it. I loved it. Then I started working with children from what I had learned in the street theater, street theater, we were doing plays in the street, you know, that's what that's how many of us started, got out, start doing street theater. And you know, the the community would come and watch us doing revolutionary plays, you know, and singing revolutionary songs and doing dances. I lear

ned ballet, African, modern jazz. So, I was able to dance, do a little singing and acting all at once in street theater and then from there I did my first professional play because through the Street Academy I met Steve Carter, who is a wonderful playwright and also one of my mentors. That got me to the Negro Ensemble Company to answer the phone. And so, I was there answering the phone and that's where I saw theater backstage, and that's where the ensemble begins. Backstage on to the stage. Ther

e is no ensemble on stage if there's no ensemble off stage. So, it was the the writer, the the, the, the, the lighting, the the, the set designer, all of these, you know, wonderful things to the wonderful actors on stage. And that's what I learned about an ensemble and about excellence, excellence. I've seen a lot of incredible shows. You know, James Earl Jones and Driving Miss Daisy and and Cicely Tyson and Trip to Bountiful and and just Keith David and Seven Guitars. When I went to the first B

roadway show, I remember I was at the reception after the show and a gentleman came up to me and like I said, now I'm I'm, you know, a journalist, freelancer for Amsterdam News as a theater critic. Gentlemen came up to me and his name was Peter Felicia. And he was then the president of Drama Desk and he came over to me and he said, hey, how are you? I said, good, how are you? He said, what's your name? I said Linda, Linda Fuller. He said, "So, Linda, would you like to become a member of Drama De

sk?" I said Drama Desk, what's that? He said, well, we do the theater awards, you know, Broadway and off Broadway. I said, yeah, sure, why sure great, I'll do it. So, I put in the application, you know, and I got accepted, paid my dues. And I was with, once I was with Drama Desk, then I got put on press list, and I mean big press list. So now everybody's inviting me to all the different shows, Broadway or Broadway, everything. That was great because now I could cover every show that there was. S

omeone asked me one time, did I ever have a problem getting invited to shows? And the fact of the matter is, I never did. The press agents have always been good to me, they've always reached out to me. They've always given me opportunities to see whatever was going on out there. It was just a question of me finding the time to see things. I am also with Audeleco, which does the black theater awards. And bless her heart, she was like a mom to me. Ms. Grace Jones. I was talking to Ms. Grace in 201

5 and I said, you know, Ms. Grace, I'm kind of down. She was like, Linda, why? I said, Miss Grace, I've been a theater critic for 30 years and no one has ever acknowledged me in any way, shape or form. And she said, she said, Linda, we're going to honor you. I said really. She was like, yes, Linda, we're going to honor you. So, after a little while, I didn't hear anything. I just, you know, I just let it go. And then she called me and she said, Linda, did you put together your, your bio? I said

for what, Ms. Grace? She said, Linda, didn't I tell you we're going to honor you? I said really. She was like, yes, Linda. So, I put together my bio. I had written a speech and everything because being acknowledged by the Audeleco's meant being acknowledged by my black theater family, who I cared and loved so much. When I went up there for the award, I literally cried throughout my entire speech. And my oldest daughter was in the audience and when I got back to my seat, she said I I looked at he

r and I said I'm so sorry. And she said, Mommy, it's okay. It's just who you are, it's okay. When everything was over with. I did Rashomon with Roger Furman, and I loved Roger. I just didn't know how he did it, but I loved him. We'd be on the stage rehearsing and Roger B, the licking envelopes or sweeping the stage and he would hear something he'd say, I don't believe that that's not honest, that that that that's not real. I loved working with him. He also let me, I always say that Roger Furman

taught me how to make an entrance. And Ms. Gertrude Jeanette taught me how to walk a stage and I love Ms. Jeanette. I called her the general, but she was another one that just let me create. And she'd tell me what worked or what didn't work, but she would just let me, just bring it. One of the biggest thing I find in theater that bothers me is half hour is sacred. When this half hour shut up, go somewhere, prepare and I've been so many times backstage where they just talking about what they did

that day or what they and it just. And so, I'd either, if they wouldn't going to be quiet, I would just go out of the dressing room and find a corner even when there was no heat in the theater, and find a corner so that I could be by myself and prepare. And when you're actually in rehearsal, my training is you make choices, you know? So, you go home and you make choices. You do the homework on the character and you make a choice and you bring it in. And I find a lot of people don't. They're wait

ing. A lot of times they're waiting for you to break everything down for them or tell them where to move or how to move. Or one time I work with this professional actress and she's going to tell me, oh, the way he wrote it, you supposed to move here or say this here? And I said no, darling, I'm going to move and say what my instinct tells me. I'm not going to copy another actress's instinct, you know, and they're going to. They made it this way. You know, it took everything for me to say, would

you please, you know, shut up, just shut up. But those are my pet peeves, people who don't go home and work on the character. And when you're ever hurt because you can't really have fun, you can't really develop. You can't really if you don't start working off with their choices and they work off your choices and you know, and the director's orchestrating it, that was difficult. But my main thing I think is that half hour I've been in situations where I swear to God, I literally almost threw a w

oman out the window. She was so arrogant with it and she was a newbie but somebody had told her she was good and she had her friend from college, 10 years, was seeing her in the half hour. And I said could you just tell her, could she see you after she told her to come on up? It was awful, it was just. That's just me, that's a real pet peeve I have. That's what Douglas Turner Ward demanded excellence in theater. And from there I just moved on to writing. Oh, the first professional play I did the

re was Living Fat, written by Judy Ann Mason. Starring Francis Foster, whom I had my admired in the River Niger. Dean Irby, whom I had admired in The River Niger, Charlie Brown, Charles Brown, Minnie Gentry, Melvin Van Peebles, Melvin Van Peebles, another person that I admired so much because when I saw that movie, Sweet Sweet Back, he direct, he wrote it, he directed it, he acted in it. Douglas Turner Ward writes directs acts, he's an administrator or producer. All these people made their path

happen. I admired that. So consequently, what did I do? I started writing. Not only acting but writing and directing. You know, I, you know, I wasn't going to wait for the telephone to ring. I was going to make something happen for myself. Six plays later you know, I've written so many different plays that they've, my plays have been shown at the Billy Holiday Theater, NEC, in Tennessee, you know, just in of North Carolina at the National Black Theater Festival. And and not only that, it is an o

pportunity to hire, hire so many people, not just actors, but your director, your your your usher, you know, the producer that you know everybody from one play, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. So that one play in the beginning, in the Bible says in the beginning was the word and the word was God. Okay and so that plays, I mean we create work, you know, for people. God bless the playwrights. I was going to the back of the theater because, you know, we were doing pictures and thing

s like that. People just started coming over to me and they were like, oh, Linda, well overdue. Oh, you know, you've done so much for all of us. People started saying, oh, I was in this play and this year and you gave me this review and I'm still using that review to get gigs and oh, you're so important. And you do so much, what you do is so important. And I'm just literally like in tears, like really? Oh, my God, thank you. Thank you. I mean, because the thing about being a theater critic is I

never know what my work means to people. I never know unless I get somebody like a Woody King with New Federal that will call me and say, Linda, when your review came out, the phone wouldn't stop ringing. Woody would say to me, Linda, I need you to come to review my stuff because you get it the way you write it, people understand it, and they call being honored by Audelco, it meant the world to me. And then I was talking to this gentleman who is the curator for Lincoln Center Performing Arts Lib

rary. And, you know, talking to him about different things, about my work being there, because he has the entire portfolio of everything I've ever written, from when I was Linda Fuller to now at Lincoln Center. They because they keep a they chronicle all the arts and entertainment and theater stuff that Amsterdam News puts out. So, they have 36 years of my work there. When I go to theaters, I don't really want to be seen, you know, because when people see me, they get nervous. So, I try to sit s

o they don't really see me from the stage. And then when the show is over, I basically get up and leave because if I stand around, then people want to come to me and say, oh, what'd you think? And as I've told people, I don't answer that question. So, and before I have to, you know, be rude or whatever, I'll just get up and walk out even if I like a show. What I do with black theater and and covering it comes from my heart. When you go into a show, go into a show with an open mind don't have any

prejudice against the show, don't read any reviews of the show before you go into it. You should go in as an open vessel and just take in whatever the show gives you. And when you write something, write it in a way that people can understand what you're trying to say. You don't have to tell them the whole storyline. You can just give them the information that you think is going to convince them to make the choice of going out and buying that ticket and going to that show. I think that theater,

especially black theater, is important in making sure that our stories are always told and that a record of our existence is there. And if people take the time to write it, to to perform it, to produce it, we as theater critics have to go there and make that record. To say this happened, this was amazing, and we have to encourage people to come out and support it so that we make sure that black actors, playwrights, everybody involved with the productions, keeps their livelihood going. Because wh

at they do is they enrich our lives. If we don't support it, that enrichment is gone. I did go to California and I know that Hollywood thing is really you have to really be cool and quiet. I'm not sure if I really regret or miss out on being a star because like I said this, is a lot they want from you that I'm not sure I'm the person that's willing to give it. Well, I met several agents but I hadn't met an agent out there and on Hollywood Boulevard, somebody hooked me up. And I always want my ha

ir pretty much natural either if it even when it was down and I never walked around in high heels and tight skirts that was never me. But she's tell, that was the thing that bothered me. She was saying look, she says you have to dress like this and you have to do this and I told her I said no, I said I told look on Hollywood Boulevard, I said that look is a dime a dozen, it doesn't, that's not me. I'm not walking around any of that stuff. I said, but if the role requires it, I will do it. So, it

was kind of difficult for me in California, although I had some pretty good auditions. I've I've made some mistakes in my one of my earlier auditions. Kevin Hooks had invited me to an audition for something, and it was for a gang leader and I came in looking like the gangs I know from Brooklyn, Harlem, whatever. And everybody in there, all the other women had long flowing, hand long dresses. And I'm like, well, what kind of gang leader is this? So anyway, I did something that you never do. I do

n't know how come I did this. It was like I was sabotaging myself. I had a purple towel and I had a hatchet in the towel and I go to audition and she's digging it and everything and all of a sudden I pull that damn hatchet out, that woman almost jumped out the window. Of course, they threw me out of the studio. That was a really bad, I don't know why nobody, I don't remember people telling me about not bringing props. But anyway, so that was part of that was a big lesson for me. I I can't really

say that I would say that I would be happy in the Hollywood lifestyle. It's just I don't see a lot of use for all that. It's just too much. And that's just the way I was raised. Daring producers Douglas Turner Ward, Robert Hooks, Woody King Junior, Gerald Crone, Marjorie Moon, Gertu, Jenay Bosa Rivers. Visionaries that created a plethora of adopted families. That's what New York black theater means to me. But you really have to go and have someone teach you how to vocalize, how to walk. Like yo

u said, all the basics. And then you could actually get into interpretation. It's equally reaching deep inside an arsenal of African American rhythms and imaginations, the music, and the dance. It's finding my mark, hearing places, places from the top to move an audience of diverse faces, expecting us, me, us, to pour out my our gut soul into new and untold comedies, traumas, tragedies, revival, soliloquies, poems, and twisted plots from an open curtain to a humble battle. I worked with James Ea

rl Jones very early in my career. In fact, he was one of the people I work with at the Public Theater with an outstanding cast. I really admired his ability to be so consistent in his work and so present and so alive in the work. I mean, I just had to have a great deal of respect for him. Like I said, I came as a dancer. And I was cast in this play down at Henry Street called Mondongol. I think it was Ray Ramirez. I saw it. And Dean Irby directed it. But Debbie Allen did the choreography and I a

lways admired her from a dancer's point of view before I came to New York. I used to follow everything that Barbara Montgomery, Francis Foster, I mean, I, you know, then and having the beautiful chance to work with both those two Queens. But Barbara, Barbara was phenomenal. Not, you know, I mean, yeah, she she was statues. She was gorgeous and she could wail. I have always, oh man, I think Denzel, Felicia, Petronia, SC, Paytha, Latonya, Ruben. I would go and see their work, Marie Foster, I'd be

awestruck. I couldn't see it enough. What the Wine Sellers Buy, written by Ron Milner, you know, or if it was the Riven Niger written by Joseph A Walker. I don't recall which one I saw first, but I know that I just loved you know Retta Green who was in the What the Wine Cellars Buy. Marilyn Coleman who was in What the Wine Cellars Buys. Dick Anthony Williams I'm sorry I got to name these people you know and or the river Niger Francis Foster, Graham Brown Douglas Turner Ward. In the early days wh

en I was coming up one of my. Favorite actresses in the world was Brenda Denmark. And I was just staring at Glen Charles Weldon, who later on took over the Negro Ensemble Company. In Cleveland, Ron O'Neill is from Cleveland. Yes. And he did plays at the Caramel. Yes. Yes. And then he became Superfly. Yes. And Anthony Chisholm. Yes. He did plays at the [indistinct] and Ruby Dee and Ossie, you know, royalty. And she was born in the hospital I was born in. I used to be the receptionist at NEC when

I first got. I figured that was going to be my way in, you know and Robert Hooks was the only person that I really recognized. He is a person that is not only one of the fat, the founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company, he is an actor, stage, television and what's the other film? Film. But Broadway too is acting, singing, dancing. I mean, he has done it all. Somebody that I really admire. I would have to say one, Keith David [speaking simultaneously] Cicely Tyson and I loved when I saw her

in the trip to bountiful Dianne Carroll, Ben Vereen. All to your principles, stand tall. I think men get more roles because they're allowed longer longevity. These young people are sitting in seats that others have not had the opportunity, you know, be, you know, writing plays, you know, producing. I would like them to have the respect they deserve, not based on their age or their dress size, but on their talent. And I would like them to be able to be in the arena for any kind of job possible d

irector, producer, set, designer, everything, everything, everything. Because you get to a certain age and become invisible in in the world and in the theater. And I'm sick of it. Leave your ego at the door. If we would leave our ego at the door and just do the work. Even for older women, people think that when people get to be a certain age, they don't love, they don't have any sex on kids, they don't have sex, nothing, you know? And I would like, I would love to see more roles where you know,

just women of all ages just show all different facets, you know? And that's why I became a writer. I don't think I've experienced so much as an actress, but I have experienced it in terms of directing and maybe in terms of producing. And that is being in situations where you're the only black, you're a black woman, and your whole team of designers are white designers or white technicians. And they tend not to hear you, not to feel you know what you're doing, and to speak over you, even though yo

u're directing the project. So, you have to come out a certain way to stop that. And then earlier in my directorial journey, there would be where a black man in a cast would not accept the dynamic of a woman telling them what to do. Great Britain gets it right. They get it right, baby, because they write for their women. I'm not saying they write for the black characters, but I'm talking about if you're going to look at the template of a white actor in Britain, they run the gamut of their life.

There is no big section where, you know, women in their 50s, 60s and 70s and 80s are gone and younger women are playing them. That doesn't happen in the UK. That doesn't happen. Otherwise, you would never have the Maggie's and the Judy Dench's and all of them. That's what we don't do here. When I think of people that are producers, I think of Aaliyah Jones Harvey, who produces with Steven Bird that their lead, that black lead Broadway produces. But I don't think there are a lot of black women th

at are doing the lead Broadway producing stuff and I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do that. Because black theaters have to fight harder, longer, faster, deeper to get just a bit, you know, Woody talked about how the disparity in monies between Pat, you know, public theater and and him, you know, where it was 1,000,000 for the public and 50,000 for for Woody. You can't run a theater on 50,000. So, Utopia for me is just like anything with us in this world. Let us live as you live. Whi

te theater and black theater, Latino theater, Asian theater, Native American theater should all be able to do this without dying. The rest of us have to die. What I would say is black love yourself. Your blackness is not the problem, it's that somebody may hate you because you're black. Love yourself and know your history if you know your history and your, the richness of your culture that may result in self-love. And that's what New York black theater means to me. [Music]