Trouble in Mind

Based upon the personal experience of playwright Alice Childress, this play tells the story of an African American actress who struggles to maintain her dignity as an artist while rehearsing a new, Broadway-bound play. Trouble in Mind was a smash hit Off-Broadway in 1955. Producers optioned the play for Broadway, but playwright Alice Childress refused to brighten the ending for a commercial audience, so the move was canceled. Today Childress is best known for the 1973 novel A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich, which she adapted for a 1978 film that starred Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield.