Producer and director Woody King, Jr., 88, died on Jan. 29. Known as “the Renaissance Man of Black Theater,” King was the founding director of the New Federal Theater in New York, which (since 1970), showcased black playwrights and performers. King wrote theater criticism and opened the Concept-East Theater in Detroit, moving to New York in the 1960s. In addition to the New Federal Theater, he also founded the The National Black Touring Circuit. Last year, King to interviewer Marshall Jones, III, “I was in the library every day reading Shaw, Ibsen, short stories. A librarian told me about there was E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African-Americans in the Performing Arts next door, a wonderful collection of resources about black theater artists. That’s how I learned about the Federal Theater Project during the New Deal under FDR. So one year, the Hackley Collection invited Langston Hughes to speak. That’s how I met him. And Langston Hughes published one of my short stories. That gave me so much confidence. Then I came to New York and I adapted one of his plays.”
