Description

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Cofounder and artistic director of the famed Negro Ensemble Company, Douglas Turner Ward is also the country's foremost authority on African Americans in theatre. Playwright and educator Gus Edwards talked with Ward about the opportunities for African American actors. The result is the first book to address the creative and professional challenges of acting from a specifically African American perspective.

For the actor of color, these conversations reveal much about important topics, including:

• ethnic specificity
• colorblind casting
• cultural honesty of roles.

The talks also provide immediately usable personal advice on establishing and maintaining a professional career on stage, TV, and film, and covering everything from auditions and acting workshops to dealing with and learning fromaudiences and sustaining long runs.

Advice to a Young Black Actor is an indispensable book pioneering effort that is long overdue.

About the Author

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One of America's leading playwrights, Gus Edwards is also a director and educator. He has written several books addressing the concerns of African American theatre and is a tenured faculty member of Arizona State University's theatre department, where he teaches film and theatre studies. His first collection, Monologues on Black Life (1997), was also published by Heinemann.