Woodie King Jr. (1937 – 2026)
Transitioned Thursday, January 29, 2026. He was 88.
Friday, most had awoken to the news that Woodie King Jr had transitioned on Thursday. A mighty tree had fallen, and collective pain was heard through NTC over this tremendous loss.
“They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be better.
For they existed.”
--Maya Angelou
“They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be better.
For they existed.”
--Maya Angelou
Woodie King Jr. joined the National Theatre Conference in 1975.
Tribute by National Theatre Conference Board Member Baron Kelly
Tribute by National Theatre Conference Board Member Baron Kelly
Mr. Woodie King’s long and illustrious career dates back to 1970 when he founded the New Federal Theatre and the National Black Touring Circuit in New York City. He remained a producing director throughout his career, producing shows both on and off Broadway, and directing performances across the country at venues such as the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Cleveland Playhouse, Center Stage in Baltimore, and the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. His work has earned him numerous nominations and awards over the years, including a 1988 NAACP Image Award for his direction of Checkmates and 1993 AUDELCO Awards for Best Director and Best Play for his production of Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil; he also received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement. Additionally, King was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Wayne State University and a Doctor of Fine Arts from the College of Wooster. In addition to his directing and producing in theater, King has written extensively about the theater industry; contributed to numerous magazines, including Black World, Variety, and The Tulane Drama Review; and authored several books. Mr. King was also honored with a Tony Award for Excellence in the Theatre and inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
King belonged to a generation of ambitious literary émigrés who made their way to the perimeters of the commercial theater from such exotic locales as Alabama (where King was born), Missouri, Texas, or the Bronx, New York. When King arrived in New York from Detroit in 1964, he was intent on making a name for himself as an actor. The wannabes were many; the pickings were meager. New York had a rich history of ambitious theater companies giving voice to outcasts, outliers, and others who didn't fit the standard bill. Most of them opened with fireworks, only to fizzle out when they couldn't compete with Broadway. Notably, the New Federal Theatre was preceded by Abram Hill and Frederick O'Neal's American Negro Theater (ANT), which included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Ossie Davis. The ANT shut down in 1949 after nearly a decade of producing works by authors ranging from Sean O'Casey to Phoebe and Henry Ephron. Their vision was quite uncomplicated: tell truthful stories—and don't leave anyone out.
After several years of working both off-Broadway and on, including his 1968 Broadway acting debut in the cast of Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope, King started his own company, which he named Woodie King's New Federal Theatre, to honor the corps of theater artists formed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration.
The mission of the New Federal Theatre:
To integrate artists of color and women into the mainstream of American theater by training artists for the profession, and by presenting plays by writers of color and women to integrated, multicultural audiences ¾ plays that evoke the truth through beautiful and artistic re-creations of ourselves.
Mr. King and others were coming of age, having studied the great writers of their time, like Tennessee Williams. The New Federal Theatre’s first production in 1970 was a multicultural cast of Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams. Mr. King was a visionary who joined the ranks of Joseph Papp, Wynn Handman, Ellen Stewart at La Mama, Joe Cino at Cafffe Cino, and Al Carmines at the Judson Poets’ Theatre.
Writers would get their sea legs at New Federal — at the time, it was located in the Henry Street Settlement on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and then, moved on to Papp's nonprofit Public Theater or the American Place, and even, on occasion, to Broadway itself.
The luminaries who have passed through the doors of the New Federal Theatre, whether onstage or in its training programs, amount to a compendium of bold-face names: Chadwick Boseman, Debbie Allen, Morgan Freeman, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Issa Rae, and Andre De Shields, a Tony winner for Hadestown. It was at the New Federal Theatre that Mr. King mounted the first version of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, by an unknown poet and dancer from New Jersey who had changed her name from Paulette Williams to Ntozake Shange.
On a personal note, I first met Woodie when I was a young actor in New York, cast in two plays at the New Federal Theatre: The Wilderness of Shur and The Hooch. When, many years later, I was invited to become a member of NTC, I was delighted to see Mr. King at our annual gatherings. Years had passed since my days on the NFT stages long ago, but he was always the same warm, caring presence. He wanted to know whether, with all of my accomplishments, I was helping young African American theatre students understand the shoulders they stand on. I assured him that I was. He looked in my eyes and knew I was for real. Mr. King was a monument. He did his work while he was here, and we are all better because of it.
Rest now, dear brother. We stand on your shoulders. You gave us your best. We will carry the torch you so lovingly passed on. Aṣẹ.
King belonged to a generation of ambitious literary émigrés who made their way to the perimeters of the commercial theater from such exotic locales as Alabama (where King was born), Missouri, Texas, or the Bronx, New York. When King arrived in New York from Detroit in 1964, he was intent on making a name for himself as an actor. The wannabes were many; the pickings were meager. New York had a rich history of ambitious theater companies giving voice to outcasts, outliers, and others who didn't fit the standard bill. Most of them opened with fireworks, only to fizzle out when they couldn't compete with Broadway. Notably, the New Federal Theatre was preceded by Abram Hill and Frederick O'Neal's American Negro Theater (ANT), which included Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Ossie Davis. The ANT shut down in 1949 after nearly a decade of producing works by authors ranging from Sean O'Casey to Phoebe and Henry Ephron. Their vision was quite uncomplicated: tell truthful stories—and don't leave anyone out.
After several years of working both off-Broadway and on, including his 1968 Broadway acting debut in the cast of Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope, King started his own company, which he named Woodie King's New Federal Theatre, to honor the corps of theater artists formed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration.
The mission of the New Federal Theatre:
To integrate artists of color and women into the mainstream of American theater by training artists for the profession, and by presenting plays by writers of color and women to integrated, multicultural audiences ¾ plays that evoke the truth through beautiful and artistic re-creations of ourselves.
Mr. King and others were coming of age, having studied the great writers of their time, like Tennessee Williams. The New Federal Theatre’s first production in 1970 was a multicultural cast of Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams. Mr. King was a visionary who joined the ranks of Joseph Papp, Wynn Handman, Ellen Stewart at La Mama, Joe Cino at Cafffe Cino, and Al Carmines at the Judson Poets’ Theatre.
Writers would get their sea legs at New Federal — at the time, it was located in the Henry Street Settlement on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and then, moved on to Papp's nonprofit Public Theater or the American Place, and even, on occasion, to Broadway itself.
The luminaries who have passed through the doors of the New Federal Theatre, whether onstage or in its training programs, amount to a compendium of bold-face names: Chadwick Boseman, Debbie Allen, Morgan Freeman, Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Issa Rae, and Andre De Shields, a Tony winner for Hadestown. It was at the New Federal Theatre that Mr. King mounted the first version of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, by an unknown poet and dancer from New Jersey who had changed her name from Paulette Williams to Ntozake Shange.
On a personal note, I first met Woodie when I was a young actor in New York, cast in two plays at the New Federal Theatre: The Wilderness of Shur and The Hooch. When, many years later, I was invited to become a member of NTC, I was delighted to see Mr. King at our annual gatherings. Years had passed since my days on the NFT stages long ago, but he was always the same warm, caring presence. He wanted to know whether, with all of my accomplishments, I was helping young African American theatre students understand the shoulders they stand on. I assured him that I was. He looked in my eyes and knew I was for real. Mr. King was a monument. He did his work while he was here, and we are all better because of it.
Rest now, dear brother. We stand on your shoulders. You gave us your best. We will carry the torch you so lovingly passed on. Aṣẹ.