Broadway: the home of bright lights, high notes and emotions. Since 1750, the mecca of arts and performance has attracted billions of play enthusiasts to pack the theaters over the past centuries. Until more recently, people of color may have felt far removed from the hubbub surrounding the play industry. Indeed, acclaimed hits such as The Lion King, Memphis and more recently, the Mountaintop have attracted a stronger African American presence on Broadway.
However, all of our current Broadway successes pay homage to a man who was able to shatter barriers that date as far as November 26, 1970. It’s been over four decades since American playwright and activist Charles Gordone not only became the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize for his 1969 classic No place to be Somebody, but he was also the first playwright to win an award for an Off-Broadway play.
Gordone was born October 12, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in a predominately white neighborhood in Elkhart, Indiana. As a part French, Native American and African American teen, Gordon faced many inner-struggles when he tried to fit in with his a generally unwelcoming white locale and a skeptical black community that questioned his allegiance. Despite his social dilemmas, he was able to excel in the classroom. From receiving a degree in drama from California State University, studying at NYU and Columbia, and eventually serving for the U.S. Air Force, by 1952, he was ready to start his acting career.
But Gordone would go on to face a major hurdle that reminded him of his racial background — there were limited roles for African American actors in the mainstream. Hence, he built up his repertoire by performing in all black pieces such as an Off-Broadway African-American rendition of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Jean Genet’s the Blacks, which included James Earl Jones and Maya Angelou in the all black casts.
Amidst his acting career, Gordone also served as a waiter at a Greenwich Village bar. His cash strapped struggle and big Broadway dreams would eventually lay the seeds for his big breakthrough, No Place to be Somebody. While serving at the bar, he decided to venture into playwriting, especially since acting roles came scarce for blacks. The first play he wrote was about a black southerner who moved up north in search of success, were he was only met by corruption and cut throat business from hardnosed white loan sharks and pimps who tried to milk entrepreneurs and run every business out of town. As Gordone described it in his last public appearance at the Museum of the American West in June 1995, it’s "about country folk who had migrated to the big city, seeking the urban myth of success, only to find disappointment, despair, and death."
The play was performed at Joe Papp's Public Theatre in South Manhattan on May 4, 1969, and was granted a 248-performance run at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theater. Gordone’s unique perspective on the black experience in a predominately white economic culture drew rave reviews from people of all walks of life — it was a true breakthrough for racial discourse on Broadway like no other. There were no qualms or surprises when Gordone finally received the recognition he deserved on November 26, 1970, as the first black Pulitzer Prize winner.
Following the success and ongoing national tour of his acclaimed play, he continued to be politically active as the chairman of the Committee for the Employment of Negro Performers, an instructor for the Cell Block Theater Program (an innovative initiative that sought to rehabilitate inmates through theater), Director in residence of American Stage (1982–1985) in Berkeley, California and finally as a tenured drama professor at Texas A&M. He died on November 16, 1995 from liver cancer. Unfortunately, he was never able to finish his mid-works of “Roan Brown and Cherry”” and “Ghost Riders.”
Gordone’s life and success opened the flood gates of opportunities for African American’s in Broadway. In spite of years of adversity and professional rejections, he was determined to make a statement, even towards the middle of his career when he wrote No Place to be Somebody. For some, success may come a little later; when it does, everyone will be there to applaud as you take your final bow and the curtains close.
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Innovators and Pioneers: Inventions from Black innovators / Nov. 15 – Dec. 15
November 15, 188? – Lydia O. Newman patents the hair brush
November 20, 1923 – Garrett Morgan patents the traffic light
November 23, 1897 – J.L. Love patents the pencil sharpener
November 30, 1875 - A.P. Ashbourne patents the biscuit cutter
December 10, 1878 – O. Dorsey patents the door knob and door stop
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