Douglas Turner Ward, the director, actor and playwright who co-founded the landmark, influential Off Broadway Black theater group the Negro Ensemble Company, died Saturday, Feb. 20, at his home in New York City. He was 90.
His death was announced by his wife Diana Ward.
Ward had already begun a solid New York stage acting career in the 1950s and ’60s – including Off Broadway roles in The Iceman Cometh and on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun – when, according to The New York Times, he wrote a 1966 editorial for that newspaper headlined “American Theater: For Whites Only?” The article called for the establishment of a Black repertory theater company. Turner wrote, “Not in the future…but now!”
A year later the Ford Foundation awarded a $434,000 grant to create the Negro Ensemble Company with Ward as artistic director, along with Robert Hooks and Gerald S. Krone in other leadership roles.
The Company...
His death was announced by his wife Diana Ward.
Ward had already begun a solid New York stage acting career in the 1950s and ’60s – including Off Broadway roles in The Iceman Cometh and on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun – when, according to The New York Times, he wrote a 1966 editorial for that newspaper headlined “American Theater: For Whites Only?” The article called for the establishment of a Black repertory theater company. Turner wrote, “Not in the future…but now!”
A year later the Ford Foundation awarded a $434,000 grant to create the Negro Ensemble Company with Ward as artistic director, along with Robert Hooks and Gerald S. Krone in other leadership roles.
The Company...
- 2/23/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Douglas Turner Ward, a Tony-winning playwright, director and actor who co-founded New York’s trailblazing Negro Ensemble Company, has died. He was 90.
Ward, inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan, his wife, Diana Ward, told The New York Times.
Energized by the success of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and with help from a Ford Foundation grant, Ward, actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald Krone officially launched the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967 as a home for Black playwrights, actors and crewmembers.
The theater group’s The River ...
Ward, inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan, his wife, Diana Ward, told The New York Times.
Energized by the success of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and with help from a Ford Foundation grant, Ward, actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald Krone officially launched the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967 as a home for Black playwrights, actors and crewmembers.
The theater group’s The River ...
- 2/23/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Douglas Turner Ward, a Tony-winning playwright, director and actor who co-founded New York’s trailblazing Negro Ensemble Company, has died. He was 90.
Ward, inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan, his wife, Diana Ward, told The New York Times.
Energized by the success of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and with help from a Ford Foundation grant, Ward, actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald Krone officially launched the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967 as a home for Black playwrights, actors and crewmembers.
The theater group’s The River ...
Ward, inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan, his wife, Diana Ward, told The New York Times.
Energized by the success of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and with help from a Ford Foundation grant, Ward, actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald Krone officially launched the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967 as a home for Black playwrights, actors and crewmembers.
The theater group’s The River ...
- 2/23/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
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