Alice childress lyrics
- •
Alice Childress
American novelist, playwright, and actress (1916–1994)
For the Ben Folds Five song, see Alice Childress (song).
Alice Childress (October 12, 1916[1] – August 14, 1994) was an American novelist, playwright, and actress, acknowledged as "the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades."[2] Childress described her work as trying to portray the have-nots in a have society,[3] saying: "My writing attempts to interpret the 'ordinary' because they are not ordinary. Each human is uniquely different. Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvellously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne."[4] Childress became involved in social causes, and formed an off-Broadway union for actors.[5]
Alice Childress's paper archive is held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York.[6]
Early years
Childress (née Herndon) was born in Charleston
- •
Playwright and Activist
Kathy A. Perkins, a scholar and also the lighting designer for Roundabout's production of Trouble in Mind, observes:
[Childress] called herself a ‘liberation writer’ and created strong, compassionate, often militant female characters who resisted socioeconomic conditions. Women such as Wiletta in Trouble in Mind…were rare in the African American drama of the civil rights era since they were among the few black characters to confront white antagonists onstage. Wanting to stage the racial conflict she saw happening around her, Childress was then one of the few African American playwrights to write for interracial casts.
While writing plays, Childress also engaged in real-world political activism. She worked with the Committee for the Negro in the Arts (CNA), a Harlem-based cultural support organization, which co-sponsored some of her early productions. Childress fought for theatre artists’ rights to receive advances and guaranteed pay for union actors in Off-Broadway productions. For Freedom, a progressive Black newspaper founded by actor-acti
- •
Alice Childress
Biography
Alice Childress (1912-1994) was an actress, novelist, and playwright. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, she moved to Harlem at age five, where she was raised by her grandmother. Alice’s grandmother encouraged her love of writing, and Alice found inspiration in her family’s stories as well as the lives of the people around her. In particular, the stories she heard at weekly church events inspired her to focus on the lives of urban African-Americans.
Alice developed a passion for theatre and attended the American Negro School of Drama and Stagecraft. In 1944, she made her Broadway acting debut in Anna Lucasta—but she constantly battled racism in casting, being denied leading roles because she black while also being told she was “too light” for traditional “black” roles. Frustrated and disgusted, Alice began writing plays. She was particularly interested in creating central roles for African-American women, observing that “the Negro woman has almost been omitted as important subject matter in the general popular American drama, television, motion pictur
Copyright ©oilpike.pages.dev 2025