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 In 1966, Douglas Turner Ward, Robert Hooks, and Gerald Krone sat down in a Greenwich Village restaurant to try and bring a dream to life: a permanent home in which black theatre artists could oversee, control and promote their own artistic destinies. The success of their Off Broadway productions of Douglas Turner Ward's plays Day of Absence and Happy Ending attracted the attention of the Ford Foundation, who gave the company a $1 million grant to start it off on its journey through history.
A Soldier's Play complements of the Negro Ensemble Company
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The NEC's record of success is amply documented with a Pulitzer Prize, Tony Awards, Drama Desk Awards, more than a dozen Obie Awards, and critical recognition world wide. Over the years the company has produced more than two hundred new plays, working with writers such as Stephen Carter, Lonne Elder, Charles Fuller, Leslie Lee, Joseph Walker and Samm-Art Williams. They have established an extensive theatre training program, and provided a home for many artists, including Angela Bassett, Roscoe Lee Brown, Adolph Caesar, Antonio Fargas, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Esther Rolle, and Denzel Washington.
Today the NEC continues to achieve its mission by presenting theater by and about black people to a culturally diverse, but under served audience and offer a unique place for black voices to sing in both harmony and discord and to conflict and debate. The NEC's repertoire includes new plays by black writers, original musicals, revivals of NEC classics, and New York premieres.
LESLIE LEE (Playwright, The First Breeze of Summer). Mr. Lee's plays include The War Party, Colored People's Time, Blues in a Broken Tongue, The Rabbit's Foot, Black Eagles, Elegy to a Down Queen, Cops and Robbers, The First Breeze of Summer, Hannah Davis, and the musicals Golden Boy, with Charles Strouse and Lee Adams; Martin, with Charles Strouse; and Phillis with Micki Grant. A new play, The Book of Lambert, will open at La MaMa ETC in February, 2009. Mr. Lee's extensive television and film work includes The Vernon Johns Story, with James Earl Jones and Mary Alice; Two Mothers, Two Sons; The Killing Floor, with Alfre Woodard and Moses Gunn; and adaptations of Richard Wright's short story, Almos' A Man, with LeVar Burton, and his own award-winning play, The First Breeze of Summer. His documentary work includes Langston Hughes, the Dreamkeeper;
The Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment; Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey; and Culture Shock: Huckleberry Finn. Mr. Lee's many awards include an Obie, the Outer Circle Critics Award, the Arthur Miller Playwriting Award, the Audelco Best Play Award, the Isabelle Strickland Award for Excellence in the Field of the Arts, the Joe A Callahan Award, and a Tony Nomination. He currently teaches playwriting and screenwriting in the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing Program, Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
SAMM-ART WILLIAMS (Playwright, Home). As a member of the Negro Ensemble Company's Acting Repertory, Mr. Williams performed in The First Breeze of Summer (Broadway), Eden, Nevis Mountain Dew, No-Where to Run . . . No-Where to Hide, Old Phantoms, and The Brownsville Raid. His NEC-produced plays are Home (Tony nomination, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Nomination, NAACP Image Award, and the North Carolina Governor's Award) O, A Love Play, Welcome to Black River, and Eyes of the American. Mr. Williams' other plays include Woman from the Town, Cork, Brass Birds Don't Sing, Friends, In My Father's House, Welcome to Black River, Home the Musical, Conversations on a Dirt Road, The Dance on Widows' Row, The Waiting Room, and Revival. Mr. Williams' film acting credits include Blood Simple, Huckleberry Finn, The Wanderers, A Rage in Harlem, Dressed to Kill,
and Denmark Vesey's Rebellion. Television writing credits include Solomon Northup's "Odyssey", “Port Royal Experiment” (PBS), “With Ruby and Ossie” (PBS), “Badges” (CBS), “The New Mike Hammer” (CBS), “Cagney and Lacey” (CBS), “John Henry” (Showtime/Shelley Duval), “John Punch” (American Playhouse/PBS), “Motown Returns to the Apollo” (NBC), and “Frank's Place” (CBS, Humanitas Award). Mr. Williams was Co-Executive Producer of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (NBC) and “Hangin' with Mr. Cooper” (ABC); Executive Producer of “Martin” (Fox) and “Good News” (UPN); and Consulting Producer of the Columbia Tri-Star talk show “Vibe”, with host Sinbad. He has received the Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Playwrighting, and the Roanoke Island Historical Association's Morrison Award.
CHARLES FULLER (Playwright, Zooman and the Sign) was born in Philadelphia. He achieved critical notice in 1969 with The Village: A Party. He later wrote plays for the Henry Street Settlement theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. He won an Obie Award for Zooman and the Sign in 1980. His next work, A Soldier's Play, was a critical success, winning the 1982 Pulitzer Prize. He later adapted the script into the 1984 film A Soldier's Story. His screenplay was nominated in 1985 for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award. It won an Edgar Award. Fuller has received grants from The State of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He has also written short fiction, screenplays, and worked as a movie producer. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, East.
For more information about the Negro Ensemble Company please visit www.necinc.org.
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