January 23, 2012 | Theatre,

An A to Z Primer on People You Need to Know in SUGAR

By Corrie Glanville

Robbie McCauley’s remarkable career spans four decades and throughout Sugar she recalls the actors, writers and directors who changed her life. Here is just a few names you should know:

Debbie Allen

Although many might know Debbie Allen from her role as dance teacher Lydia Grant in the film and television series, Fame, Allen  spent years on stage as an actress, singer and choreographer in such musicals as Raisin, Sweet Charity and scored a Tony nomination for her role as Anita in the 1980 revival of West Side Story.

Peter Bogdanovich

Considered part of the new wave of talented young directors in the 1970s that include Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, Peter Bogdanovich emerged as a major force in Hollywood at age 32 with his third film, The Last Picture Show. In addition to his illustrious directing career, Bogdanovich has also acted in a number of films, co-produced The Godfather I & II with Coppola and has written over a dozen books on American cinema.  

Laurie Carlos

For over 30 years, Laurie Carlos has been a prominent figure in the New York avant-garde performance scene; along with being an Obie and Bessie Award-winning actress and choreographer, her plays can be found in numerous dramatic anthologies. In addition to working with Robbie McCauley, Carlos has also helmed the productions of Suzan Lori-Parks, Sharon Bridgeforth and Daniel Alexander Jones. Currently, she is the co-artistic director of Movin’ Spirits Dance Theatre Company.

Joseph Chaikin

 In his 2003 obituary, the New York Times pronounced that for over four decades Joseph Chaikin “was as significant a figure as the American theater has yet produced.” Actor, director, writer and founder of Open Theatre, Chaikin won six Obie awards and inspired countless theatre artists here and abroad.

Bill Duke

Paving the way for African Americans in film beginning in the 1970s, Bill Duke recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America for his contributions to cinema. Along with his extensive directing career, Duke has also acted in such films as Carwash, Predator, Menace to Society II and X-Men 3 and was appointed to the National Endowment for the Arts by Bill Clinton.

Kristin Linklater

Currently the Head of the Acting program at Columbia University, Kristen Linklater was a founding member of Shakespeare & Company in the 1990s where she developed her own approach to vocal training for actors; her method of liberating the voice has had enormous influence on actors worldwide. She was a teacher and chair of the acting program at Emerson College from 1990-1996.

 Marshall Mason

Founder of the The Circle Repertory Theatre in New York, Marshall Mason made his off-Broadway directorial debut in 1964 with Ibsen’s Little Eyolf. The very next year he directed Lanford Wilson’s Balm in Gilead, which began a long collaboration with the playwright. Mason has directed over 60 productions of Wilson’s plays including Fifth of July, Talley’s Folly and Talley & Son.

Garrett Morris

 Born in New Orleans, Morris trained at the Julliard School of Music as a singer before discovering a talent for comedy. You might remember him as part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live along with John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd that changed late night television forever. 

Gilbert Moses

Co-founder of the Free Southern Theatre, a pioneering African American touring company, Gilbert Moses worked extensively as a director in stage, screen and television.  Moses received a Tony nomination for his Broadway debut, Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death in 1971 as well as Obie awards for his off-Broadway work. He also directed several episodes of the seminal mini-series Roots.

Denise Nicholas

Briefly married to Gilbert Moses, actress Denise Nicholas toured with the Free Southern Theatre in the 1960s before moving to New York to join the Negro Ensemble Company. Eventually she found her way into television and was a cast member of the long running shows Room 222 and In the Heat of the Night. After writing a few television episodes herself, Nicholas began to write and published her highly acclaimed debut novel Freshwater Road in 2006, which she adapted for the stage in 2008.

Lloyd Richards

Lloyd Richards ushered in a new era in American theatre as the director of the 1958 production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway. Richards was the head of New York University’s Actor training program before he moved on to become the Dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1979. Always searching for significant new playwrights, he directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 1984 by a then unknown August Wilson. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Richards continued to direct Wilson’s multi-part chronicles of African American life that included Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson and Two Trains Running.

Ntozake Shange

Born Paulette Williams, Ntozake Shange changed her name in 1971 to Ntozake, which means “she who has her own things” and Shange, meaning “she who walks with lions” in Zulu before writing her groundbreaking choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. This twenty-part play that chronicled the lives and loves of Black women went on to win Tony, Emmy and Grammy awards and secured Shange as an unforgettable voice in American theatre.

Anna Deavere Smith

Best known for her riveting one-woman shows where she plays an army of different roles, Anna Deavere Smith created a new kind of documentary theatre with her 1993 play Fires in the Mirror. Even more provocative was her next work, Twilight: Los Angeles that centered on the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and will be playing at Emerson Stage February 23-26.

Ellen Stewart & La Mama

Even though renowned director Ellen Stewart passed away last January, she left her indelible mark on American theatre; in 1961 she founded Café La Mama in a Lower East Side basement that gradually became one of the most influential alternative theatres in the world. Stewart sought to bring in underrepresented and underfunded artists who needed a space to be heard including Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson and Philip Glass.

Lanford Wilson

We also lost Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Lanford Wilson in 2011, one of the most important playwrights in 20^th century American theatre. His early work was first seen Off-Off Broadway at La Mama, gradually garnering attention from critics and audiences alike leading to a long running hit on Broadway with his hugely successful “Fifth of July.” Frank Rich called Wilson’s play, “a densely packed yet buoyant outpouring of empathy, poetry and humor, all shaped into a remarkable vision.”