Sign in to your TheaterMania account

Claude Purdy, a co-founder of St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre, died Monday near Washington, D.C, according to a report in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He was 69.

A Louisiana native, Purdy directed in Europe and Africa, before settling in Pittsburgh in the 1960s. It was there that he met August Wilson. Purdy moved to the Twin Cities in 1975 to direct The Great White Hope, and stayed.

Purdy, who urged Wilson to turn his poems about black heroes of the Old West into a play, ultimately gave the writer his first professional production: Black Bart and the Sacred Hills, which Purdy staged at Penumbra in 1981. As Wilson's reputation as a playwright soared, Purdy became a chief interpreter of his dramas, directing them in Houston, San Francisco, and London.

Purdy's influence extends to other artists as well. The first production he directed at Penumbra, Steve Carter's Eden, featured Penumbra artistic director Lou Bellamy, noted director Marion McClinton, and Faye Price, now co-artistic producing director at Pillsbury House Theatre.