William Branch: (a conversation) reminiscence.

William Branch (actor, playwright, educator, screenwriter, and producer) earned the B.A. at Northwestern University (1949) and the M.F.A. at Columbia University (1958). As an actor, he was a cast member of the national company of Anna Lucasta, among other productions. He has been a professor at University of Maryland-Baltimore County and at Cornell University as well as guest lecturer and visiting scholar at many colleges and universities. Branch has also worked in radio, television, and film, serving in myriad capacities--from writer to producer. Among his many plays are A Medal for Willie (1951); In Splendid Error (1954); A Wreath for Udomo (1960), adapted from Peter Abraham's novel of the same name; and Baccalaureate (1975). In addition, Mr. Branch is the editor/contributor of Black Thunder: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Drama, which brought him an American Book Award in 1992, and Crosswinds: An Anthology of Black Dramatists in the Diaspora.

The initial session of this interview took place at Columbia University's Institute for Research in African-American Studies; the last session was completed there on August 12, 2002. Throughout the interviews, Branch was thoughtful, enthusiastic, and informative.

NN: Since we are at Columbia University, it is appropriate to begin this interview with a Columbia question. You received your M.F.A. in playwriting from Columbia University in 1958. What was that experience like for you as an African American?

WB: Well, I was at Columbia under that program for two years. I had recently gotten married. I had the G.I. Bill at the time--from the Korean conflict. I was commuting from my apartment on the Lower East Side. It was a very interesting experience. I do recall being in a theatre class taught by Maurice Valency that was very stimulating. Maurice Valency, in addition to being a professor, was an active Broadway playwright. He had adapted several European plays. He had an extraordinary breadth of knowledge in theatre. As for the playwriting classes themselves, I frankly felt they left something to be desired.

NN: Did you have any association or courses with Eric Bentley? (Bentley was the Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature at Columbia University from 1954-1969.)

WB: Oh, yes, I had a Shakespeare course with Eric Bentley, which I enjoyed a great deal. I might point out that I asked both Maurice Valency and Eric Bentley about being sponsors for my Guggenheim Fellowship application. I supplied them with copies of my play In Splendid Error and asked if they would consider recommending me for the fellowship. After reading my play, both of them agreed. They, along with Langston Hughes and Loften Mitchell, recommended me, and I'm happy to say that the application was successful.

NN: What was the process of interacting with other students like at that time?

WB: I'd come to the campus for classes and when the classes were over, I would leave. In effect, I did not have that many interactions with students. In the playwriting classes, I was the only African American. I did not really have a campus kind of experience when I was getting my Master's at Columbia as I did at Northwestern when I was an undergraduate.

NN: Now can we go back and talk about how and why you decided on Northwestern?

WB: I spent my first 13 years in the North, mainly in New York State. When I was 13, my father, who was an A.M.E. Zion minister, took a parish in the South, in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was the first time I had lived in the South. Segregation and discrimination became real to me. When I was in the eleventh grade, I started to write a play but abandoned the effort. I lived some distance from the school, and there were days when I didn't quite make the bell. The principal decided he was tired of students not making the bell. He decided that any student who came to school late from then on would be kicked out of school. Well, I was kicked out of school. Twice! The next year I moved to Washington, DC, where an aunt of mine lived, and attended the noted Dunbar High School in my senior year. Dunbar offered far more opportunity for the kind of things that interested me. The speech teacher at Dunbar, a woman named Maude Adams, and an English teacher named Lillian S. Brown, were very influential in terms of my activities in public speaking and drama. When I was about to graduate, Maude Adams guided me towards submitting an application to Northwestern University, which had a renowned reputation for speech and drama. Maude Adams had taken graduate work there.

NN: Now, I would like to jump to your playwriting. What was the impetus for you to become a playwright?

WB: To answer that question I must go back even further. As I've said, my father was an A.M.E. Zion minister. When I was small, my brother and I would act out having been to church on Sunday and having heard my father preach. We would imitate what we had seen and heard in church. One of us would preach like my father, and the other would offer the necessary "amens" and "hallelujahs." We had a lot of fun imitating what had gone on in church. Years later when I had an opportunity to study drama formally, I realized that in my father's church were the basic elements of what was called drama. To this day, in my memory, my father remains the most awesome "stage" figure I have ever seen. He didn't call himself an actor, but let's face it: black preachers are very effective actors. The whole ambiance in the church had many basic elements of drama. This was imbued in me.

NN: So, you are suggesting that your earlier life had prepared you for a future in the theatre.

WB: Oh, yes, and as I progressed in school and became very interested in theatre, I also took part in oratorical contests. The oratorical contests had quite a dividend in that I won a scholarship from the Elks--this was in the Elks Oratorical Contest. Now, I'm not talking about the white Elks, I'm talking about the "colored" Elks. The white Elks were the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and they refused to allow African Americans to join in the earlier years. So, African Americans formed their own group called the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World. The white Elks eventually went to court to try to prevent the black Elks from using this name. It turned out that the blacks had patented or registered the use of their name, but the whites had not done so with theirs. So, the whites couldn't do anything about it. The black group graciously allowed the white group to continue to use its name. So, my last year in high school, I won this scholarship from the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, in addition to a full four-year scholarship in a nation-wide examination competition sponsored by the Pepsi-Cola Company. The Pepsi-Cola Scholarships later led to today's National Merit Awards.

NN: During one of our conversations, you mentioned that you really enjoyed teaching in spite of the fact that you deliberately stayed away from it and refused to teach for years. What got you into teaching, or what made you change your mind?

WB: Well, to steal a phrase, one day someone came along and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. This had to do with a position at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. They needed someone in the African American Studies Department to teach literature and drama. My good friend and former Dunbar schoolmate, the novelist Julian Mayfield, who was teaching at Howard at the time, heard about the job and called me. And knowing my reluctance to get involved with teaching, he said, "Now, look, Branch," we always addressed each other by our last names--that was a joking thing that was a holdover from our days at Dunbar High School, where the teachers called everybody by their last name. He, said, "Now look, Branch, I know you don't want to get into teaching, and I don't blame you. But these people need somebody like you. Before you say no, call them to hear what they have to say." As a favor to him, I called, and over a period of several conversations, the proposition grew to a very attractive offer. They, in effect, said that they would claim only three days a week of my time. I negotiated a salary--this was a good thing for me because most of my life I was not a salaried person. I was freelancing. And as a freelancer, there were a number of years when my income was well below the poverty level. Anyway, I agreed and went to the University of Maryland and taught there for three years.

NN: How did you get to Cornell University?

WB: While I was at the University of Maryland, Cornell was looking for someone. I talked with them, and they made an offer that was not to my liking. When I went to the University of Maryland, I went in at the full Professor level. The offer made to me at Cornell was not up to that, and I felt that I could not accept it under their conditions.

NN: You did ultimately end up at Cornell.

WB: Yes, a year or so after the original offer that I had declined, I got a call from Cornell, and they agreed to my conditions. So I went to Cornell and spent nine and a half years there.

NN: Your first play was produced in the early 1950s. In regards to black theatre, the 1950s differed from the 1960s. Was there something about that era that encouraged you to become a playwright?

WB: There were two things in the early '50s that had a big effect on me in terms of my interest in the theatre. I saw plays produced down in the Village by a production group that was interracial. There was this group called the Greenwich Mews Theater. The casting was without regards to race. There were characters within a family that were both black and white. One production by the group had the black actress Hilda Haynes playing a Jewish mother, who had a "black" son and a "white" son. Another production featured Lloyd Richards as a "white" college professor. These plays were written by white playwrights, with all white characters. I recall that some audience members would come to these productions and would be absolutely amazed and confused for the first five to 10 minutes, and then when they realized that this was a question of casting according to ability, completely aside from color or race, then they would sit back and enjoy the performance. What is now referred to as nontraditional casting--as if it was something invented yesterday--is ridiculous. This was going on in New York in the early 1950s, and I suspect that certainly was not the beginning of it either. This approach gave black actors the chance to perform as well as--and with--their white peers.

The only things lacking at that particular point were plays that spoke to the African American experience. Now, I knew there were black playwrights, but I didn't know very much about them. The first play I can recall seeing by a black playwright was Alice Childress's Florence. It was produced on a double bill by the Committee for the Negro in the Arts, along with an adaptation, again by Childress, of material by Langston Hughes; it was a musical. He wrote his own musical on the same material years later, which he called Simply Heavenly, but Childress's adaptation was called Just a Little Simple. That double bill of Just a Little Simple and Florence was material that mined the rich trove of the African American experience, written by an African American playwright and performed by African American actors. This very much spoke to what I was interested in doing.

NN: I take it that this was a very exciting time for you, and all of this encouraged you to do what was important to you at the time--playwriting.

WB: I had recently arrived in New York, a year or two out of college, and was interested in pursuing what professional opportunity there might be in the theatre. I had been a professional actor while I was still in college. I was inspired and interested therefore in the content of plays, and who was writing them and what perspective was involved. In that regard, one day, I saw a little article in the newspaper that told of a three-star general from Washington being dispatched to a small town in the segregated South to present to the mother of an African American soldier who had been killed in war, his posthumous award for his bravery. Well, for some reason, I clipped that article and carried it around in my wallet. One day I sat down in my closet-like garret at the Harlem YMCA annex on 135th street, and with just a pencil and paper--I didn't own a typewriter--began to write a play. Over time, I turned out a piece that I called A Medal for Willie, which spoke to the ironies of that situation. And to my gratification, there were people who said it should be produced, and eventually it was produced by the Committee for the Negro in the Arts. That was in 1951.

NN: You stated that you were a professional actor while in college. Would you expand upon that?

WB: During my freshman year at Northwestern, I was fortunate enough to become a member of the national cast of the hit Broadway play Anna Lucusta. Anna Lucusta--by white playwright Philip Yordan--was about a Polish American prostitute and had been rewritten in an African American milieu by a black playwright named Abram Hill and produced by the American Negro Theatre. Broadway had gone uptown to see it, and an English producer named John Wildberg bought it and brought it to Broadway, where it became a hit. Now, there were no actors' names on the poster, above the title or below it. It was just Anna Lucasta with no names featured. Hilda Simms, as Anna, was the central figure. You had Frederick O'Neal, Earle Hyman, Rosetta LeNoire, Alice Childress, and a number of other people who were outstanding in that production--none of their names were on the poster.

After it was a hit, Wildberg, who was a savvy producer, mounted a second company; this second company was headed by a virtually unknown actress named Ruby Dee. Wildberg put this second company in New York, and took the New York cast and moved it to Chicago, where the play again became a big hit. People who went to see Anna Lucasta in New York didn't even know the original cast was no longer there. When they arrived in Chicago, I had recently arrived at Northwestern as a freshman. A second production arrived in Chicago that was from New York. This was Shakespeare's The Tempest, starring Vera Zorina, Arnold Moss, and Canada Lee. Canada was playing the role of Caliban. They had received good reviews in New York. I was of course very anxious to see this famous man I had heard so much about. I had never seen him before, so I went to see the production. Afterward I wanted very much to meet him. But who was I? I was just a freshman at Northwestern. I wanted to go back stage to meet him but decided to return home and left the theatre.

As I was about to put the fare into the slot, I finally decided to go back and see if I could meet Canada Lee. I went to the stage door and asked for Mr. Canada Lee. The backstage doorman told me that Canada Lee was in his dressing room. He said if I stood over in the corner, he would point me out to Canada Lee when he came down. I waited and Canada came down. The doorman pointed toward me. Canada Lee came over. I stammered and finally said how much I liked the production and so forth. I told him how overwhelmed I was with his performance and just wanted to shake his hand. He shook my hand and unlike many celebrities, who quickly shake your hand and then go about their business, he began to ask me questions. [I told him] that I was a student in theatre at Northwestern. We talked on and he finally said something that changed my life: "Would you be interested in a job in the theatre?" Well, you know theatre majors will kill to hear something like this. He then proceeded to tell me that Anna Lucasta, which had recently opened at the Civic Theatre in Chicago, was looking locally for understudies. He told me to go to the Civic Theatre on Wednesday afternoon after the matinee and ask for a man named Harry Wagstaff Gribble, who was the director of the show. He said to be sure to tell him that Canada Lee sent me. Subsequently, I learned that Canada Lee had opened in Anna Lucasta in New York to help with the reviews. He was already in rehearsal for The Tempest; therefore, he was only in Anna Lucasta for a few weeks.

Well, I went to the theatre and asked to see Harry Wagstaff Gribble, and this big, gruff Englishman came out. I told him Canada Lee sent me. He got a script and told me to read the part of Rudolph, which I did. He scowled at me, then told me to take the script home and come back next week at the same time. I took the script home, read it, and went back the next week. Again, he told me to turn to a page and read Rudolph. I did. He scowled again, then told me to take the script home and study a certain scene. I did. I went back the next week at the appointed time. This third week, he had me read with an actress in the company. Apparently, I was inspired reading with this attractive young lady! When we finished, Gribble said, "That's it, sign him up." I became a member of the cast. I continued to be a student at Northwestern, but I was down at the theatre every evening, and for the matinees and the rehearsals.

NN: I can imagine what a learning experience that was for you.

WB: Yes, it was a great experience. I was an understudy. My backstage roommate was an actor with a minor role, Lester, a sailor. His name at the time was George Fisher. You will probably recognize him now as Brock Peters. Earle Hyman was playing opposite Hilda Simms. I was understudying the role Hyman was playing, and George Fisher was also understudying the same role. Fisher had been with the cast for some time when I joined them. Earle Hyman was a sturdy individual. In the harsh Chicago weather, everyone was getting sick, but not Earle Hyman. He was not going to miss a performance. But somewhere along the line a germ got to him, too. He had to be replaced. George Fisher moved up to Earle Hyman's role, and I was assigned to do George Fisher's small role, Lester the sailor. So, there I was, after only a month or two, on stage in a hit show! The first night I went on and did my lines, everyone congratulated me, and I was elated. Well, the second night the same. On the third night, I decided to do something a little different, to add to the performance. I was going to bring something new to the show. At one point the older sailor would turn to the young sailor Lester and make some sarcastic comment about him and then finally tell the young sailor to smile. Well, the younger sailor didn't really enjoy what was said about him, but he would give a weak smile and there would be mild laughter from the audience. On this particular night when I was told to smile, I gave a big smile and then I deliberately turned it off, and looked at the older sailor and mouthed the words "son-of-a-bitch." The house came down! It was a great big laugh rather than a minor laugh. Hilda Simms was sitting there on the set at the bar; she turned her back and you could see her shaking--she was laughing so hard. The actor playing the older sailor was looking at me and trying his best to keep from laughing. When the scene was over, Hilda came off the set and rolled on the floor with laughter! I thought I had done well. The director Harry Wagstaff Gribble was in the house that night. He was not backstage, but when he heard the big laugh, he hastened backstage to see what had happened. When he was told what happened, he came over to me. I expected him to congratulate me. He looked at me and said, "I heard you did so and so." Then he scowled at me, and shouted, "Don't do it again!" I was taken aback. I thought I had made a good contribution and then this. Fortunately, Frederick O'Neal took me aside and explained that in the theatre you don't do anything of that sort without getting the approval of the director. Well, I didn't know that. I was a neophyte.

NN: Let's go back to your first production, A Medal for Willie. Nowadays writers have to have that next play ready, particularly after the first production. You had your first production. What did you follow it up with?

WB: I followed it with being inducted into the army! I was draft age at the time. The Korean War was on. It just so happened that the play was scheduled to open on Oct. 15, 1951. In came my draft notice to report for induction into the army on October 16, 1951. Therefore, I had to report for induction into the army the morning after A Medal for Willie opened. I spent two years in the army and was fortunate enough not to be sent to Korea. I was assigned to a special outfit in Germany. The Army was in the process of integrating at that time, but this particular outfit was still all black. It was an elite outfit, the 7744 Educational Training Unit based in Mannheim, which sent its personnel all over the European sector to teach on U. S. Army posts. And we taught both white and black soldiers. Any African American who had finished college or who had at least two years of college was automatically referred to this unit. I was fortunate enough to receive an assignment in this unit, which gave me a good deal of leisure time. I had a typewriter in my room. During this time, I turned out the first draft of a play about Frederick Douglass and John Brown. At first it was titled Frederick Douglass. When I came back to the U.S., I passed it around and got reactions. I did some rewrites and eventually changed the title to In Splendid Error, which grew out of a line in the script. Again, I was fortunate enough to have that done by the interracial Greenwich Mews Theater, which scored an off-Broadway hit with Shakespearean actor William Marshall as Frederick Douglass. There was even talk for a while of moving it to Broadway, but that never happened.

NN: The '60s were a volatile period for African Americans in the theatre. I would like for you to offer your views concerning the '60s. But before we get there, we must talk about the McCarthy era and its impact on black theatre artists. Would you share your insights on the McCarthy era and its impact on the African American theatre artists of the '50s?

WB: The McCarthy period had a definite impact on African Americans--also in terms of me, personally. I mentioned a few moments ago that I was drafted into the army the day after A Medal for Willie opened. When I came back from the army, I was still an actor and a fledgling writer looking for work. I went to see an agent. She reached up on her shell pulled down a loose-leaf notebook, thumbed through it and said, "William Branch, William Branch." She finally said, "You're off the blacklist now. Maybe I can get you some work." I asked her, "What blacklist?" Then she asked me if I didn't know I was on the CBS blacklist for the past two years. I told her I was in the army for the last two years serving my country. She said she didn't know about that but that I had been on the CBS blacklist the whole time. I can only speculate that it had to do with A Medal for Willie.

NN: Clearly there were other African Americans on the list who didn't know it.

WB: That's very possible. There were also others who knew they were on the list. Consequently, they suffered terribly because of it, Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, Canada Lee, and many others. I vividly remember during this period that, for a time, Sidney Poitier couldn't get work because he was blacklisted. The thing that apparently got him off the blacklist was a TV production called A Man is Ten Feet Tall. This was by a writer/producer named Robert Alan Aurthur. When I was at Yale on a Yale American Broadcasting Company Fellowship in 1965-66, Robert Alan Aurthur came up to address the Fellows and told us about A Man is Ten Feel Tall. He had been a writer/producer of the Philco Playhouse. Aurthur had been impressed with Sidney Poitier and had written a piece about a black dockworker specifically for Sidney. Now, he was a part of the Philco Playhouse team, and all he had to do was walk in and explain that he had written this piece for Sidney and wanted Sidney in it. He did that. They said no. They told him Sidney was on the blacklist. He told them how talented Sidney was and put up his argument for Sidney. They said no again. He continued to push the project. Eventually, they said they were going off the air anyway and that they would do the show. Robert Alan Aurthur told us all of this when he visited us at Yale. He said he reported this to Sidney Poitier when they were riding in a taxi. Sidney is on one side and Sidney's wife is on the other, Aurthur is in the center. He explained to Sidney that they agreed to allow Sidney to do it but that they would not pay him his usual fee. He told us that Sidney was eager and anxious to do it. However, Sidney's wife, his first wife Juanita, was against Sidney doing it for a lower fee. She said that if he couldn't get his full fee, he wouldn't do the show. Aurthur told us that he was stunned. He explained that he had gone out of his way to get this deal done, but Juanita still said no. So, he went back to the people at the Philco Playhouse and pleaded with them again. They finally decided to give in. They paid him the full fee, and he did the show. This was the show that got Sidney back in business.

NN: The politics of the '50s was different from the politics of the '60s. Whereas in the '50s you had the factor of fear, and in the '60s, you had the factor of rage. In the '50s, people wanted to hide and in the '60s, people wanted to come out--they wanted to be seen. In the '50s no one wanted to be labeled a radical--the '60s it was just the opposite. Certainly, Blacks involved in the theatre were being extremely radical.

WB: Well, I would have to differ with you there. After all, in the '50s you had your Paul Robesons, Canada Lees, and others who refused to kowtow to the McCarthyites. In the '60s, it was a lot easier to be "radical." Looking back, I think some of the so-called radical playwrights of the time were merely so unorthodox that they called attention to themselves. This period later became known as the Black Arts Movement. Nobody announced, "Now we are having a Black Arts Movement." The name was given later by academics. There was an upsurge of attitude. Some of it had been there before but had been submerged. If I may be allowed, one exception--as several critics have pointed out--is A Medal for Willie, which pre-dated the Black Arts Movement by over a decade. The line: "Willie should a had that machine gun over here!" was so "radical" the reviewer for the N. Y. Amsterdam News, a black newspaper, said it was "too strong" and suggested it be taken out of the play. It wasn't. By the '60s, however, the theatre had become a viable forum in which to say these things, which it had not been 10 or 15 years before. You also had a number of people who--while wanting to say things--had not been fortunate enough to have training in that regard. So, many plays that came out during the Black Arts Movement were poorly written and not very viable as theatre pieces. But the rage and anger that came out of this period were certainly legitimate. This rage and anger were finding a way to be expressed.

NN: You mentioned the Black Arts period. How do you contextualize its historical significance?

WB: As with any other period, the '60s didn't stand alone. The '60s stood on the shoulders of the '50s, which stood on the shoulders of the '40s, which stood on the shoulders of the '30s, and so on. To understand what happened in the '60s, you must go back and study how things developed that led to the '60s. It is particularly important, from my perspective, that World War II to some extent proved a very strong molding force on the '60s, in terms of African American rights in general and certainly in terms of African American theatre. After World War II, the feeling among African Americans was that we had fought in two world wars and that there was no question about us proving our abilities or loyalty; the feeling was that it was time for us to be granted full-scale civil rights and economic opportunities that we had not had in the past. There were a number of breakthroughs. For example, Jackie Robinson's breaking through as brilliantly as he did in baseball was a great inspiration to African Americans. That was an indication that talent and ability should certainly be pressed forward. Now, it seems to me that that had an effect on black theatre as well. Some people began to take theatre seriously as a field of opportunity, and African Americans began writing for the theatre who had not previously considered theatre a career option or even an avocation. It became a question of: If that's something you've an interest in, then pursue it. Up to that time, the path of success for aspiring African Americans was the old tried and true: you go to school and get a degree and you teach, or you preach. If you were fortunate, you got a scholarship and got into medical school. There were other areas that seemed ridiculous for African Americans to consider, and the theatre was one of them. But after World War II you had the American Negro Theatre and certainly some of the people who came out of the ANC are legendary: Hilda Simms, Frederick O'Neal, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Alice Childress, Rudy Dee, and many others. They all pursued careers in the theatre, and they were serious about it. You had playwrights as well as the actors, Abram Hill, who was also co-founder of the ANC, who actually rewrote Anna Lucusta and turned it into a Broadway hit. These people were serious, and they felt this was an area where important statements could be made. You have to consider this period when considering the theatre of the '60s.

NN: In your career in the theatre, obviously you have seen the theatre become more inclusive. How do you think this inclusiveness has enriched theatre and society?

WB: I think American society has progressed in terms of opening up more than it had in the past, not that there still isn't a long way to go, but certainly, theatre has benefited. In some instances, perhaps it has been in the forefront, particularly in terms of gays. Gays, as you know, are highly represented in theatrical activities. In terms of race, however, there has been a mixed bag in that there is this reputation that theatre has been open and all-inclusive, whereas, racism, which is endemic to the whole of American society, certainly was not absent from theatre anymore than from any other institution in American life. And that goes for today as well as in the past. Even though things are somewhat better than the past, racism is not dead--certainly not dead in the theatre either. There is a long, long way to go before there is anything like equality of opportunity in the theatre.

NN: But there are considerable changes. You have O'Neill, Miller, Williams, and Albee, and now you have Wilson. August Wilson is considered to be among the major U.S. playwrights. And he has made major contributions to dramatic literature, not just African American dramatic literature.

WB: I am delighted with August Wilson's contributions and his success. I'm aware of the fact that in life people can do things at a particular time that they could not do before. So, August Wilson's achievement during the period in which he has been functioning, I'm delighted with and certainly approve of, but this does not mean that there were not people just as capable as August Wilson long before August Wilson came along. The opportunities were just not there for some of these other people in the past.

NN: Who are some of these other people?

WB: For example, Alice Childress. Owen Dodson. Theodore Ward.

NN: What about Loften Mitchell?

WB: Yes, Loften, too--but Loften had a breakthrough with Bubbling Brown Sugar. Without that, Loften would be in the same category. Again, he would fit into that category of someone who was prepared, talented, who made contributions, but the endemic racism in society had not been overcome enough for these individuals to shine in the way they should have shone, as August Wilson is shining today. Certainly 20 or 30 years earlier, the plays by August Wilson which are celebrated today would not even have been considered for production by major theatrical enterprises in America. August Wilson, to his great credit, concentrates on the lower socioeconomic strata in African American society. This would have been anathema in professional theatre circles, and I'm sorry to say in terms of some African American theatre circles, also. This lower socioeconomic level was an area that, for the most part, people didn't want to get into. I recall an uncle of mine who went to see a play that dealt with the same strata that Wilson deals with, and he said, "It's stuff you're not too proud of--but it's funny." That put the material in the same category as the Amos-n-Andy school. Nevertheless, I'm delighted with August Wilson's success and that he has stuck with his efforts and refused to change course. Fortunately, with a growing acceptance and a change of climate, he was able not only to break through but also to rise to the top.

NN: I am probably misrepresenting this, but I read somewhere that you lost interest in the theatre because you felt that blacks were not supporting theatre. Do you still feel that there is not enough support on behalf of blacks?

WB: Well, that is an oversimplification. I have pointed out that blacks cannot be expected to support theatre, particularly commercial theatre, when commercial theatre does not include or address them, which is one of the reasons I was gratified by August Wilson's Fences, which at the time was the most commercially successful play in the history of Broadway. And it did so with a largely African American audience. Now, there were other factors brought into play. First, there was James Earl Jones, who was a star, and then they brought in film star Billy Dee Williams. Black women in particular turned out in force. I was gratified to see that type of support for a commercial theatrical venture. It addressed them and their lives, and they happily supported it.

There has been in the past some reluctance on the part of some sectors of the African American community, particularly the educational sector, to support the efforts of black playwrights and productions of black plays. And by that I mean this, very often at black colleges and high schools when they did have programs in drama, and many did not, they chose white plays that they had heard of and had the students perform those rather than seek out plays that had to do with African American life. Again, it has to be understood on both sides--some-times the middle class teachers were not too happy with some of those dramas by black playwrights, particular when we got into the Black Arts period: "Get Whitey," "Black Power." Plays with obscene street language. Some teachers didn't want to hear that. Also, it was the question of teachers not knowing those black playwrights and black plays were out there. And if they had heard of them, they still might look down their noses at them in favor of established white playwrights, whose Broadway productions they knew. Even earlier, before my time, many plays by black playwrights fit into the folk category and, of course, people in black educational circles wanted to get away from the black folk thing, so they went down the drain. But it would be an oversimplification, it seems to me, to castigate blacks for not supporting theatre. In some cases they did, and in other cases they did not.

NN: You speak of Wilson's breakthrough and the fact that he writes a specific type of play, or focuses on a specific segment of the African American community. What is the significance of this, or how do you contextualize that focus when considering African American playwrights prior to Wilson?

WB: Wilson has concentrated his writing for the theatre on a certain sector of the African American community. Very often a specific city, Pittsburgh, and as I said, a lower socioeconomic setting. Now there have been some people who have said that Wilson is writing the same thing over and over. They have asked why doesn't he move on to other areas. But this is the area that he knows. It seems to me that he has been extremely successful with this area. I can also understand the others, those who say the larger society, meaning American whites, tend to leap at stereotypes, and therefore, the success that Wilson has had in terms of depicting this sector of society on stage has been perhaps not advantageous to the wider interest of African Americans. I would argue against that position, but it is a point of view that I think ought to be recognized. It seems to me that the important and larger point here is while we applaud and rejoice in August Wilson's success, we should also realize that there is, or should be, room for African American playwrights who write about other aspects of the African American experience as well. That sometimes these experiences are not welcomed by those who have decided that this is the area that is successful and if we are going to do plays about African Americans at all, we are going to do plays about people in this area.

In terms of personal experience, my play Baccalaureate, a play that speaks to the more middle class aspect of African American life--when that play was offered for production in the middle '70s, a number of prominent theatre houses turned it down. Now they never told me why they turned it down. However, I have more than an inkling as to why they did. This play did not fit into their concept of what African-American playwrights should be writing at that time. I mean both white and black producing groups. The attitude of black groups was that it was "bourgie" stuff. That it was not authentically black. They felt that they wanted to stay in an authentically black area, which means lower socioeconomic: the "blacker than thou" school. On the other hand, the white groups were largely unconvinced that there was such a thing as a black middle class. They thought that if you were writing about middle class blacks, you were in effect writing about whites in blackface. This was something that they just didn't understand. I could not get a prominent production of Baccalaureate from black or white producers in the '70s. There have been other plays that dealt with the black middle class that have had difficulties as well. Even back in the '50s--Louis Peterson's "Take A Giant Step" is a good example. Although it was done on Broadway, both whites and blacks stayed away in droves. What I am interested in is the wide diversity, along with the many basic commonalities, of the black experience in America.

NN: Of course, you were among the leading African American playwrights of the '50s. I can't let you leave without getting your comments on Langston Hughes. I know he was a friend of yours. How did you meet him?

WB: I had an uncle who, as a librarian, worked at the 136th Street library and also worked with the Schomburg Collection. Langston Hughes was in and out of there all the time. When A Medal for Willie was done, the McCarthy climate was at its height. It considered the Committee for Negro in the Arts a left wing group. Well, they did the play, and my uncle, being a city employee, was apparently afraid to come to the opening because of that. The next time Langston Hughes came into the library, my uncle asked if he had heard about A Medal for Willie. Langston told him he saw it and enjoyed it. Then my uncle told him that his nephew wrote it. Langston said his nephew was very talented. After that, my uncle decided to come and see it. I later met Langston through my uncle and subsequently established a friendship with him. Langston was very generous. There were times when he would be asked about doing some writing assignment that he didn't feel he was right for or didn't want to take on because of other commitments. Langston would then call Loften or Alice or me and ask if we wanted to do the project. And if so, he would then call the person back and say, "I can't do it but I have somebody for you." A couple of times that resulted in assignments for me. Shortly before he died, he called. I had no idea that he was ill. We talked. It seemed as if he were just passing the time of day. No specific request or anything, it was not a business call. He finally told me to take care and I said okay. That was the end of it. And I thought to myself, what was that all about? Langston just doesn't call anybody to chitchat. He was a busy man. Shortly thereafter I heard he was in the hospital, then I heard he had died. I wrote a poem in his memory called "No Blues For Langston Hughes," which I read at a public memorial service for him. It was published in the Fall [1993] edition of The Langston Hughes Review.

NN: You have made major contributions in the theatre. What do you consider your most significant contribution?

WB: I hesitate to use the term most or even significant; it seems to me that is for others to judge. I would hope that some of the plays I've written have been meaningful and will continue to have meaning in the future.

N. Graham Nesmith, a Kluge Mentor and a doctoral candidate in Theatre at Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has published articles on theatre in American Theatre, The Dramatist, The Drama Review, The New York Times, The Yale Review, and other publications.