Shauneille Perry

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Shauneille Perry
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJune 9, 2022(2022-06-09) (aged 92)
New Rochelle, New York, U.S.
EducationHoward University (BFA)
Art Institute of Chicago (MFA)
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Occupation(s)Theatre director, playwright, actor
Years active1950s–2022
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1957; died 2021)​

Shauneille Gantt Perry Ryder (July 26, 1929 – June 9, 2022) was an American stage director and playwright. She was one of the first African-American women to direct off-Broadway.

Biography

Shauneille Perry was born on July 26, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois, to a prominent African-American family. She is the only child of

Edith Sampson, one of the first black lady lawyers in Chicago."[2]

Perry was raised on the west side of Chicago, where she graduated from

HBCU's Summer Theatre Program.[3][2] In 1949, she was one of the twenty-one Howard Players and three faculty who toured Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany that fall with fifty-nine alternating performances of Mamba's Daughters, the stage adaptation by Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward of DuBose Heyward's book, and Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck. They were seen off on the SS Stavangerfjord (1918) by Howard University Trustee Eleanor Roosevelt.[9] The tour was a great success. On the opening night in Denmark of Mamba's Daughters, they received fifteen curtain calls: "Shauneille Perry especially was relieved because she had been shocked by being spit on as she was going onstage! Cookie [Anne Cooke] had failed to warn us that the Danes spit on the costumes of the actors for good luck."[10] She played Lisa, the granddaughter who returns from New York to Virginia all dressed up, and Dodson had failed to get her a costume dress for the tour. She eventually had to buy one herself in Oslo.[10]

Shauneille Perry in 1950.

In 1950, she received a BA in drama from Howard. She continued her studies at the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago (now at DePaul University) (1950-1952), where she received an MFA in directing in 1952 with a production and thesis of the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. In 1952-1953 she was an Instructor and Director in English and Theatre at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, N.C. "My first job was teaching at AT&T College in Greensboro, where I put on a play and was immediately told by the chaplain I couldn't do that because it had bad language, etc. So I spent a year at AT&T."[2] In 1953-1954 she was an Instructor and Department Chair of Theatre at Dillard University.

In 1954-1955 she was a

peau de soie and all of that. They wouldn't let me do hard news; chauvinism reared its ugly head and they said, "You can not go out there." But I said, "I'm going to do it." So I started writing feature stories on people and on theatre. Ethel L. Payne, whom I admired, was there, and she said, "Why don't you hand these things in?" So I did."[2]

In 1957, Perry married architect Donald Ryder in Chicago.[14] Ryder later partnered with J. Max Bond Jr. to form the architectural firm Bond Ryder & Associates.

Several months after her marriage, she received national exposure as the second-place winner in the 1958 Picturama Contest, an essay competition sponsored by

Ebony Magazine. She took advantage of the prize with her husband, which was a $4,000, three-week tour of Paris in 1959.[15] While she was in Paris, she met Richard Wright (author).[13] By the end of the decade, both of her parents had passed away. The couple relocated to New York City, where it did not take long for her to establish herself as an actress.[16]

Fieldston School.[3]

Despite her success as a performer, Perry became disenchanted with acting and turned her focus toward writing, directing, and raising a family. "Got tired of acting," she once said, "it was too slow; too much business."[3] "And so I began directing at the Negro Ensemble Company, and I directed at almost every black theatre company - Afro-American Total [Theatre], Roger Furman New Heritage Theatre Group, Billie Holiday [Theatre], all of them during that period."[2]

After

Off-Off-Broadway production of Mau Mau Room, written by J. E. Franklin, as part of the Negro Ensemble Company Workshop Festival,[21] at St. Mark's Playhouse in 1969.[11] According to Franklin, the cast included Richard Roundtree.[22] In 1971, Perry staged three different productions. Two of them were Rosalie Pritchett, by Barbara and Carlton Molette,[23][24] and The Sty of the Blind Pig, by Phillip Hayes Dean,[25] both by the Negro Ensemble Company Workshop at St. Mark's Playhouse. Her production of Rosalie Pritchett used "300 slides on four different rear-projection screens."[26]
She also directed the stage production by the
Theatre de Lys, where it played from June 16, 1971, to June 16, 1972.[29][1][30] This was the first major stage production of a play written by J. E. Franklin.[31] The play then toured Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Detroit. It was made into a film, Black Girl (1972 film), in 1972, directed by Ossie Davis
, with a screenplay by J. E. Franklin.

Later she recalled, "I remember Black Girl in the sixties, by J. E. Franklin. We did it in a gymnasium at night. ... And it was an extension of all of the other stuff that I'd done – Louise Stubbs, Arthur French, Minnie Gentry. ... Black Girl began that process of shows moving off Off-Broadway or to Off-Broadway.; that was kind of the beginning of things beginning in workshop."[2]

Perry was reunited with Franklin in 1974 when she directed the musical Prodigal Sister, with book by Franklin, music by Micki Grant, and lyrics by both Franklin and Grant, first at the New Federal Theatre's Henry Street Playhouse in July 1974,[32] and then at Theatre de Lys in November 1974, where it was warmly reviewed by Clive Barnes.[33]

In addition to directing, Perry has written several plays including the book of the children's musical Mio, which she staged as a workshop production at the New Federal Theatre in the fall of 1971.[12] It was later staged (with a different director) at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City in 1978.[34] Other plays she either wrote or co-wrote include Last Night, Night Before (1971), Daddy Goodness (1979), and Things of the Heart: Marian Anderson's Story (1981).[12]

Perry also wrote Sounds of the City, a 15-minute daily soap opera that aired on the Mutual Black Network in the mid-1970s.[12]

From 1968 to 1970, she was a lecturer in the SEEK program at

United Negro College Fund
.

In 1986, she was hired as Director of Theatre at Lehman College. She continued to teach as associate professor of theatre at Lehman until she retired in 2001.[1] A celebration of her life organized by her family and including family, friends, and former students was held in the Lovinger Theatre at Lehman College on August 21, 2022.[35]

Personal

Perry and her cousin Lorraine Hansberry were born less than a year apart and were very close. One summer when they were little girls, Lorraine's mother took them to Columbia, Tennessee where she and Perry's father had grown up. Along the way, her aunt pointed out the Kentucky hills where her father (Shauneille's and Lorraine's grandfather) George Perry had hidden after he escaped from slavery.[36]

Years later, Shauneille was there when Lorraine had cancer and supported her. Hansberry named her as substitute executor of her estate after her ex-husband, Robert Barron Nemiroff.[37]

Lenny Kravitz, son of Roxie Roker, considered Perry as an aunt, writing in his memoir that "there was the brilliant Aunt Shauneille. Shauneille Perry and Mom had attended Howard together ... Aunt Shauneille had a love and understanding of the arts that launched her to become one of the voices of her generation. She became a prominent director, writer, and actor, and her home at 444 Central Park West became a cultural mecca, the unofficial headquarters of the Black Arts Movement. On any given day, I'd be sitting in the corner of Aunt Shauneille's living room while Nikki Giovanni read her poetry aloud or ensembles rehearsed plays. ... Aunt Shauneille's enormous living room housed a tall avocado tree, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, paintings, and gorgeous African masks that mesmerized me. ... Writer Toni Morrison was another close friend. She had gone to college with Mom and Aunt Shauneille, where they were part of the theater group the Howard Players."[8]

She died on June 9, 2022, in New Rochelle, New York, at the age of 92.[1]

Selected credits

Theatre

Directing

Year Production Theatre(s) Notes
2006 The Taking of Miss Janie[38] Harry De Jur Playhouse / Abrons Arts Center
1995 The Tropical Breeze Hotel Ubu Repertory Theatre, New York City Written by Maryse Condé (Pension les Alizés (1988)); translation by Barbara Brewster Lewis and Catherine Temerson (1994)
1998 In Dahomey[39] New Federal Theatre Also writer
1993 In Bed with the Blues: The Adventure of Fishy Waters[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Guy Davis
Looking Back[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Micki Grant
1990 The Balm Yard[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Don Kinch
1986 Williams & Walker[39][40]
American Place Theatre
 Written by Vincent Smith
1981 Keyboard[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Matt Robinson
Love[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Carolyn Rodgers
Who Loves the Dancer[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Rob Penny
1979 Trouble in Mind[39][41] New Federal Theatre Written by Alice Childress. Part of A Black Retrospective with four other plays.
1978 African Interlude[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Martie Evans-Charles
1977 Relationships[42] E.S.T. Theater A program of two one-act plays by Philip Hayes Dean
1976 Showdown[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Don Evans
1974 The Prodigal Sister[39][43] Theatre de Lys Musical written by J. E. Franklin and Micki Grant, based on Franklin's play, Prodigal Daughter
1972 Jamimma[39] New Federal Theatre Written by Martie Evans-Charles
1971 The Sty of the Blind Pig[44][21] St. Mark's Playhouse/Negro Ensemble Company Written by Phillip Hayes Dean
Black Girl[29][39] Theatre de Lys/New Federal Theatre (after St. Augustine's Church) Written by J. E. Franklin
Rosalee Pritchett[23][45][21] St. Mark's Playhouse/Negro Ensemble Company Written by Barbara Molette and Carlton Molette
1969 Mau Mau Room[21][11] St. Mark's Playhouse/Negro Ensemble Company Written by J. E. Franklin

Writing

Year Production Theatre(s) Notes
1981 Things of the Heart: Marian Anderson's Story[12][39] New Federal Theatre Directed by Denise Hamilton. Part of the Ethnic Heritage Series.
1979 Aunt Willie Pays a Call[46] Henry Street Settlement
1978 Mio[34] Henry Street Settlement Book of musical.
1976 Clinton: An Urban Fairytale[12] New Heritage Repertory Theatre
1971 Mio[12] New Federal Theatre Also directed.

Acting

Year Production Role Theatre(s) Notes
1961 Octoroon Grace Phoenix Theatre
Clandestine on the Morning Line[18][19][20] Lilly Ruth Actors Playhouse
Ondine Lenox Hill Playhouse
1960 Talent '60
Dark of the Moon Lenox Hill Playhouse
1959 The Goose Sullivan Street Playhouse

Television

Writing

Year Production Network Notes
2001 The Old Settler PBS Adaptation of the play by John Henry Redwood. Part of the series PBS Hollywood Presents
1978 Watch Your Mouth![47] PBS One episode

Motion Pictures

Acting

Year Title Role Distributor Notes
1981 Death of a Prophet
1978 Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement Herself California Newsreel Documentary
1976 The Long Night Howard Mahler Films
1971 Desperate Characters Woman Doctor ITC Films Credited as Shauneille Ryder

Awards and recognition

  • 1974: AUDELCO Award, Best Director[12]
  • 1985: AUDELCO Award, Best Director[12]
  • 2019: Lloyd Richards Director's Award, National Black Theater Festival[48]

Perry is also the recipient of a Broadcast Media Award, a Fulbright scholarship, a New York State Council of the Arts Young Audiences Play Commission and a Black Rose of Excellence from Encore Magazine.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Sandomir, Richard (June 15, 2022). "Shauneille Perry Ryder, Pioneering Theater Director, Dies at 92". New York Times. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Turner, Beth (1990). "Interview of Beth Turner, Glenda Dickerson, and Shauneille Perry". Artist and Influence. 9: 146–161. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  3. ^
    ISBN 1-55783-579-9
    .
  4. ^ "Fifteenth Census of the United States (1930) [database on-line], Chicago (28th Ward), Cook County, Illinois, Enumeration District: 16-1085, Page: 6A, Lines: 16-19, household of Golden H. Drain". United States: The Generations Network. 1930-04-04. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  5. ^ "Cook County, Illinois Birth Index, 1916-1935 [database on-line]". Chicago, Illinois: The Generations Network. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  6. ^ "7 west district high schools to give diplomas". Chicago Tribune. 27 January 1946. p. 148.
  7. ^ "Howard University Department of Theatre Arts". Fine Arts Walk of Fame. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-0751582123
    . Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  9. ^ Ruble, Blair (July 16, 2020). "1949: Howard University players' first in the nation Scandinavian tour earned standing ovations". DC Metro Theater Scene. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  10. ^
    ISBN 9780252019777
    . Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  11. ^
    ISBN 978-0810136939
    . Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  12. ^
    ISBN 0-313-25190-8
    .
  13. ^ a b Hunter, Charlayne (July 13, 1971). "2 Black Women Combine Lives and Talent in Play". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  14. ^ "Cook County, Illinois Marriage Index, 1930-1960 [database on-line]". Chicago, Illinois: The Generations Network. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  15. ^ ""Picturama Winner Returns: Arriving in Chicago by TWA jet after $4,000, three-week tour of Paris"". Vol. 16, no. 10. Johnson Publishing Company. Jet. July 2, 1959. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  16. ^ Johnson, John H., ed. (November 26, 1959). "New York beat". Jet. Vol. 17, no. 5. Chicago, Illinois. p. 62.
  17. ISBN 131747578X
    . Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  18. ^ a b Oliver, Edith (1961). "Clandestine on the Morning Line". The New Yorker. Vol. 37. New York City: F-R Pub. Corp. pp. 120–121.
  19. ^ a b Fuller, Hoyt W.; Doris E. Saunders (March 1962). "Perspectives". Negro Digest. 11 (5). Chicago, Illinois: 50.
  20. ^ a b Gelb, Arthur (31 October 1961). "Clandestine on the morning line opens". New York Times. New York, New York. p. 28. Retrieved 13 September 2021. Shauneille Perry is subdued and pretty as the girl and Ed Cambridge plays the middle-aged brother with modesty and restraint.
  21. ^ a b c d "Negro Ensemble Company Records" (PDF). New York Public Library / Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  22. S2CID 162396774
    . Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  23. ^ a b "Rosalee Pritchett". doollee.com The Playwrights Database. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  24. ^ Leiter, Samuel (27 November 2020). ""Perry's Mission" and "Rosalie Pritchett"". Theatre's Leiter Side. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  25. ^ Barnes, Clive (Nov 24, 1971). "Theater: 'The Sty of the Blind Pig'". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  26. ISBN 9781786948205
    . Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  27. ^ "J E Franklin". doollee.com The Playwrights Database. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  28. ^ Lester, Elenore (July 11, 1971). "Growing Up Black and Female". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  29. ^ a b "Black Girl". New York City: Lortel Archives:Internet off-Broadway Database. Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  30. ^ "Shauneille Perry". New Federal Theatre. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  31. ^ Johnson, John H., ed. (April 1973). "Black women 'star' behind scenes in New York drama". Ebony. Vol. 28, no. 6. Chicago, Illinois. p. 111.
  32. ^ Gusset, Mel (July 16, 1974). "Stage: 'Prodigal Sister'". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  33. ^ Barnes, Clive (Nov 26, 1974). "Stage: An Engaging 'Prodigal Sister'". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  34. ^
    ISBN 0-396-07723-4
    .
  35. ^ CUNY-Lehman College. "Celebrate the Life". Lehman College Events Calendar. CUNY-Lehman College. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
  36. ISBN 9780894909450
    .
  37. ^ Johnson, John H., ed. (February 18, 1965). "Divorced white husband gets most of Hansberry's rich estate". Jet. Vol. 27, no. 19. Chicago, Illinois. pp. 27–29.
  38. ^ "The Taking of Miss Janie". New York City: Lortel Archives:Internet off-Broadway Database. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  39. ^
    ISBN 1-55783-579-9
    .
  40. ^ "Williams & Walker". New York City: Lortel Archives:Internet off-Broadway Database. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  41. ISBN 0-396-07723-4
    .
  42. ^ Gilbert, Ruth, ed. (May 2, 1977). "In and around town". New York Magazine. Vol. 10, no. 18. p. 21.
  43. ^ "The Prodigal Sister". New York City: Lortel Archives:Internet off-Broadway Database. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  44. ^ "The Sty of the Blind Pig". New York City: Lortel Archives:Internet off-Broadway Database. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  45. ^ "Rosalee Pritchett". New York City: Lortel Archives:Internet off-Broadway Database. Archived from the original on 2012-09-05. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
  46. ^ Gilbert, Ruth, ed. (December 10, 1979). "In and around town". New York Magazine. Vol. 12, no. 48. p. 23.
  47. ^ Fraser, C. Gerald (25 March 1978). "Watch Your Mouth! on WNET explains English to teen-agers" (PDF). New York Times. p. 29. Retrieved 13 September 2021. Norma Darden, Michael Griffin, Shauneille Perry and Chiz Schultz -- the only white writer in the group -- each wrote one episode.
  48. ^ Toomer, Jeanette. "Family Celebrated At Fifth National Black Theatre Fest". Backstage. Retrieved 10 July 2022.

External links

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