Charles Fuller Death: Charles Fuller, the celebrated playwright and Pulitzer winner “A Soldier’s Play,” has passed away. He was 83.
Fuller’s younger brother, David Fuller confirmed Fuller’s death to the Hollywood Reporter.
Fuller, a Philadelphia native and a veteran of the army, wrote plays that sought to depict Black Americans as complex, multidimensional characters, rather than limiting them to stereotyped roles or erasing them completely.
His works often exposed racist truths to Black audiences. Fuller won a Pulitzer Prize for drama and, almost 40 years later, a Tony Award for “A Soldier’s Play”, which highlights the tensions between Black soldiers on a segregated Army base.
He told American Theatre magazine that he believed people would continue to do “A Solider’s play” for the rest of their lives. “There are very few plays that feature Black men. And if there are, they are often in weak positions. That was something I didn’t want to do. I wanted to be with us as we are.” Follow Fox24x7.com to get daily updates.
He wrote plays specifically for Black audiences
Fuller raised in the James Weldon Johnson Homes in Philadelphia, where he was a child. This housing project was a major influence on many of his later works. He began reading books by Ralph Ellison and Larry Neal as a child, and he set his sights on becoming a writer.
Lynn Nottage, a Pulitzer-winning playwright, spoke with Fuller about his first steps towards playwriting. Fuller created skits for residents of low-income communities in which he was working as a housing inspector. Fuller told Nottage that he created sketches to remind people to lock their doors and to instruct them how to protect their trashcans.
A member of the audience at one these informational performances suggested that Fuller enter the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Within a week, Fuller had written his first play, “The Perfect Party,” which was the winner of the contest. The theater produced it. This play, which is about interracial couples who were involved in civil rights movements, was transferred to Off-Broadway in 1969.
Fuller joked with Nottage about its “terrible reactions” during their conversation. However, the production was what “springboarded him” to greater recognition in New York theater circles.
The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) produced his 1974 play, “The Deepest Part of Sleep,” which is about an incestuous family. The 1967-founded New York theatre company produces works for Black audiences. Fuller would continue to work for the company for many years.
He said that his NEC colleagues thought they were creating history. “Frankly, that’s what we were.”
“A Soldier’s Play” wins the Pulitzer
“The Brownsville Raid” 1976 and “Zooman and the Sign 1980” won Obies. Both of these plays had American history and race as a strong theme. The NEC’s “most successful production” was not produced until 1981. This play, which Fuller received a Pulitzer Prize for the following year, is “A Soldier’s Play.”
Fuller’s military experience, which he had from 1959 to 1962 in the US Army, inspired him to create a drama about Black military personnel. “A Soldier’s Play” is set on a segregated Army base during the 1940s. It tells the story of a Black sergeant who is killed. The subject matter of the play is controversial and thorny. For one, Black characters are often at odds and internalized racism is one its key themes. Its initial run praised and criticized.
Frank Rich, a former New York Times theater critic wrote that Fuller’s book was a “continuous investigation into the complex and sometimes cryptic pathologyof hate.” in his 1981 review.
Douglas Turner Ward, his long-term creative partner, and co-founder, of the NEC, directed it’s first off-Broadway production. It featured Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington in supporting roles. (A 2006 revival on Off-Broadway featured Taye Diggs and Anthony Mackie.
Fuller won $1,000 for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play in 1982.. According to the New York Times, he was the second Black playwright ever to win the drama prize.
He dedicated his win to his NEC colleagues at the time.
He told the Times that a play is nothing on a page. “A play is nothing unless people perform it. Douglas Turner Ward, the director of the Negro Ensemble Company, and the performers did the work. They made the play enjoyable for everyone.
“A Soldier’s Play” was adapt for screen in 1984. “A Soldier’s Story” retitled and nominated for three Oscars: best picture, best adapted screenplay, and best supporting actor for NEC collaborator Adolph Caesar.
Broadway gets Fuller’s opus: Charles Fuller Death
From its off-Broadway debut, “A Soldier’s Story” would take almost 40 years to make it to Broadway. It was embraced by critics and audiences alike. “A Soldier’s Play” nominated for best original play revival. Also nominated were Blair Underwood, David Alan Grier, and David Aldrich. David Alan Grier received the award for the best supporting actor for his role in the 1984 film.
Covid-19 cut the Broadway run of the play. It had opened in January 2020 and closed in March after pandemic chaos shut down theaters for more than a year. Fuller said that he didn’t think it would make it to Broadway.
American Theatre told him that Broadway does not drive him. “Is it real?” is what drives me every day. Are our people going to value it? If it is, then I’m successful. If it’s not, then I was a waste of everyone’s time at the theater.
Fuller continued to write short stories, screenplays, and other works. His latest play, “One Night”. 2013, and dealt with sexual assault in the US military.
“A Soldier’s Play” will be remembered, but he won’t focus on it in 2020.
Fuller replied, “That’s as clear as you can make it” when asked about the famous line “You’ll need to get used to Black people being in control.”
Charles Fuller Death
Charles Fuller Death: Fuller was an actor whose plays explored racism and the Black experience. Fuller died Monday at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, according to his son David.
“A Soldier’s Play” tells of a Black captain’s racially charged investigation into the murder of a Black sergeant at a segregated U.S. Army Base in Jim Crow Louisiana in 1944.
Negro Ensemble Company produced the courtroom drama/murder mystery. It opened off-Broadway in November 1981. Until January 1963, it had 600 performances. Richard Davenport played Sgt. Vernon C. Waters. Private Samuel L. Jackson.
A Soldier’s Story was adapted from Fuller’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
Jewson directed. Caesar, Howard E. Rollins Jr., and Davenport returned as Waters. Robert Townsend, Denzel Washington, and David Alan Grier portrayed soldiers.
Fuller was nominated for the Oscar for best adapted screenplay and another nomination for best picture. Amadeus won both the Oscar and Best Picture Oscars.
Fuller’s original work won’t hit Broadway until 2020. Best revival and best featured actor Tonys. Blair Underwood plays Davenport, and Fuller plays Waters. Pandemic cancelled Fuller’s play in March 2020.
Grier tweeted Monday “Reading his words on stage and screen was a privilege. He was brilliant.”
A Soldier’s Story took 40 years to reach Broadway, according to Fuller. “You’ll have to get used to Blacks being in charge,” he insisted.
Fuller was born in Philadelphia to a printer father and a mother.
After Villanova, he served in Japan and South Korea for three years.
Five years later, he got his PhD from La Salle. The Perfect Party (about interracial marriage), The Deepest Part of Sleep, and The Brownsville Raid were hits. The last was about a Black U.S. Army regiment being discharged for inciting a riot in 1906.
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