Lloyd Richards RIP + Carbonist School in ATL

Lloyd Richards Passes
Late tonight I learned that the first Black director on Broadway, and one of the towering figures in American dramaturgy over the last forty years, Lloyd Richards, passed away. He was 84. I always think of him in conjunction with the late August Wilson and those astonishing plays, like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone (my favorite Wilson play), and The Piano Lesson, they brought to audiences from the mid 1980s through the mid-1990s, but Richards was also the Dean of the Yale School of Drama, and artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theater and of the National Playwrights' Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. In the last capacity he nurtured several generations of a range of American playwrights whose works have since become canonical. If I'd had the opportunity to chat with him, I'd loved to have asked him about his early years in the theater in New York, especially during the late 1940s and 1950s, and about working with Lorraine Hansberry and the first cast of Raisin in the Sun.

An Academy of Achievement interview with Richards is available here (photo above at left, from the Academy of Achievement).
The New York Times obituary is here.
The Washington Post's obituary is here.

Thank you, Lloyd Richards, and rest in peace.

Carbonist School: Study Hall in ATL
Audiologo posted a week ago on the opening of "The Carbonist School: Study Hall" exhibit that opened at the Eyedrum/Art Music Gallery in Atlanta. She includes an excerpt from the Carbonist School manifesto and links to organizers Charles Huntley Nelson and Cinqué Hicks. The exhibit runs from June 24 through August 6, and there'll be an opening reception on July 15.

"The Carbonist School: Study Hall"
Eyedrum Art/Music
Suite 8, 290 MLK Jr. Drive SE
Atlanta, GA 30312, USA
404-522-0655

On SWEAT, Mendi O. lets us know that she and Keith are in the exhibit, and also posts on some other projects she's been involved in recently. I wish there were teleporters so that I wouldn't have to miss these events....