1920-1994
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Alice Childress was born October 12, 1920 in Charleston, SC, but
moved to and attended public school in Harlem. In 1940 she joined the
American Negro Theatre in Harlem; she acted and was part of the
technical staff. A year later she became the director of the ANT, a
position she held until 1952, during which time she acted in a number
of productions. To earn money during these years she worked as an
apprentice machinest, governess, saleslady, and insurance agent.
The American Negro Theatre presented her first play
Florence in 1949, followed a year later by Just a Little
Simple. Her first play produced outside of Harlem, Trouble
in Mind won the 1956 Obie award for best original Off-Broadway
play.
As well
as leading a fufilling life as a playwright, novelist, actress, and
director, Childress lectured at Fisk University and
Radcliffe. She was also an award-winning children and young adult
book
author. Of note are her novels, A Hero Ain't Nothing but a
Sandwich and Rainbow Jordan (1982). The first woman to
win an OBIE Award and the first black woman to have a play produced
professionally on Broadway, Childress died on August 14, 1994 of
cancer. She was 77 and lived in Manhattan.
PLAYS
- Florence-1949
- First produced in NYC at The American Negro Theatre; directed by
and starring Childress.
- Just a Little Simple-1950
- Based on Langston Hughes' short story collection Simple Speaks
His Mind; first produced in NYC at The Club Baron Theatre.
- Gold Through the Trees-1952
- First produced at The Club Baron Theatre, NYC.
- Trouble in Mind-1955
- First produced off-Broadway at Greenwich Mews Theatre; directed by
Childress.
- Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black
and
White-1966
- First produced at the University of Michigan; off-Broadway
premiere at The New York Shakespeare Festival Theatre in a production
directed by Childress and Joseph Papp, September 26, 1972.
- String-1969
- Based on Guy De Maupassant's "A Piece of String"; first produced
off-Broadway at St. Mark's Playhouse.
- Mojo-1970
- Produced in NYC at New Heritage Theatre.
- Sea Island Song-1977
- First produced in Charleston, SC; produced under the title
"Gullah" at the University of Massechusettes, Amherst in 1984.
- "Moms: A Praise Play for a Black Comedienne" 1986
- Based on the life of Jackie "Moms" Mabley; first produced by Green
Plays at Art Awareness; produced off-Broadway at Hudson Guild Theatre,
February 4, 1987.
AWARDS
- Trouble in Mind
- Obie Award, 1956
- A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich
- an ALA Best Young Adult Book of 1975; Lewis Carroll Shelf Award,
1975
- Jane Addams Award for a young adult novel, 1974
- Rainbow Jordan
- Honorable Mention, Coretta Scott King Award, 1982
CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES
For full citations of the books listed, follow the links to Critical Resources Page
Books marked with book covers or a  are linked to an
Amazon.com record.
African American Women Playwrights: A Research Guide
Afro-American Writers after 1955
Black American Writers
Black
Writers
Black
Theatre,
U.S.A.
Black Women Writers (1950-1980)
The
Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights
Children's Novels and the
Movies
Children's
Literature Review v.14
Contemporary African American Female Playwrights
Contemporary Black American
Playwrights and Their Plays
Contemporary Literary
Criticism v.12 and v.86
Contemporary
Women Dramatists
Conversations
with Toni Morrison
Dictionary
of the Black Theatre
Dictionary of Literary Biography v.7
Drama
Criticism v.4
The
Female Dramatist
Interviews with
Contemporary Women Playwrights
Literature for Today's Young Adults
Masterpieces
of African-American Literature
Masterplots II
Negro Playwrights in the American Theatre:
1925-195
Nine
Plays by
Black Women
Oxford Companion to African American
Literature
The
Playwright's Art: Conversations with Contemporary American
Dramatists
Staging
Difference: Cultural Pluralism in American Theatre and Drama
Twentieth-Century American
Dramatists
Voices of the Black
Theatre
SELECTED ARTICLES ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Achilles, Jochen. "Allegory and Iconography in African
American Drama of the Sixties: Imamu Amiri Baraka's Dutchman and Alice
Childress's Wine in the Wilderness." American Studies.
45(2):219-38. 2000.
Holloway, Clayton G. "The Alembic of Genius: An Interview with
Alice Childress." Xavier Review. 17(1):5-22. 1997.
Shinn, Thelma J. "Living the Answer: The Emergence of AFrican
American Feminist Drama." Studies in the Humanities.
17(2):149-59, December 1990.
Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. "Black Women Playwights:
Exorcising Myths." Phylon. 48(3):229-239. 1987.
Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. "Alice Childress: A Pioneering
Spirit." Sage: a Scholarly Journal on Black
Women. 4(1):66-68. 1987
Spring.
Anderson, Mary Louise. "Black Matriarchy: Portrayal of Women in
Three Plays." Nalf. 10:93-95. 1976.
Turner, Beth. "Simplifyin': Langston Hughes and Alice
Childress Re/member Jesse B. Semple." The Langston Hughes
Review. 15(1):37-48. 1997 Spring.
Holliday, Polly. "I Remember Alice Childress." The
Southern
Quarterly. 25(3):63-65. 1987 Spring.
Austin, Gayle. "Alice Childress: Black Woman Playwright as
Feminist Critic." The Southern
Quarterly. 25(3):53-62. 1987
Spring.
RESEARCH CENTERS
The Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture
The Hatch-Billops Collection
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Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and
White
