Alice Childress

Born in 1916 and raised during the Harlem Renaissance under the watchful eye of her beloved maternal grandmother, Alice Childress grew up to become first an actress and then a playwright and novelist. A founding member of the American Negro Theatre, she wrote her first play, Florence, in 1949. The script was written in one night on a dare from close friend and actor Sidney Poitier, who had told Alice that he didn’t think a great play could be written overnight. She proved him wrong, and the play was produced Off-Broadway in 1950.

In 1952 Childress became the first African-American woman to see her play (Gold Through the Trees) professionally produced in New York. In 1955, Childress’ play Trouble in Mind was a critical and popular success from the beginning of its run Off-Broadway at the Greenwich Mews Theatre. The play immediately drew interest from producers for a Broadway transfer. In an ironic twist echoing the tribulations of the characters in the play itself, the producers wanted changes to the script to make it more palatable to a commercial audience. Childress refused to compromise her artistic vision, and the play didn’t open on Broadway. If it had, at that time Childress would have been the first African-American woman playwright to have a play on Broadway.

Trouble in Mind received a well-reviewed Off-Broadway revival in 1998 by the Negro Ensemble Company and has since been produced by Yale Repertory Theatre, Centerstage, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage. Trouble in Mind, directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, opened on Broadway in November 2021.

Childress is perhaps best known today for “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But A Sandwich,” her 1973 novel about a 13-year-old black boy addicted to heroin, which was subsequently made into a movie in 1978. Other plays written by Childress include Just A Little Simple (1950), Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White (1966) and Gullah (1984).

Alice Childress died in New York in 1994. Throughout her career, she examined the true meaning of being black, and especially of being black and female. As Childress herself once said, “I concentrate on portraying have-nots in a have society.