Theatre & dance
Lloyd Richards
1919–2006 · theatre director, actor, educator
Detroit-raised director of A Raisin in the Sun, the first Black director of a Broadway play, later dean of the Yale School of Drama and August Wilson's longtime collaborator.
- Born
Toronto, Ontario, Canada- Died
New York City, New York
aged 87- Detroit years
- 1923–1940s
- Field
- Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Lloyd Richards was born in Toronto on June 29, 1919, and came to Detroit at four, in 1923, after his parents answered an employment advertisement for Ford Motor Company. He grew up in the city, attending McMichael Middle School and Northwestern High School, and enrolled at Wayne University, today Wayne State, as a pre-law student before switching to acting and radio production. He paid his way as a janitor and elevator operator, graduated in 1944, worked at a local radio station and acted with the Actors Company, a community troupe of Wayne alumni, and the Paul Robeson Art Guild. During World War II he volunteered for the Army Air Corps and trained with the Tuskegee Airmen. In 1959 he directed Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the first Broadway show directed by a Black director and written by a Black woman. He later led the Yale School of Drama and brought August Wilson's plays to Broadway.
Highlights
- Directed the original A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway (1959)
- Dean of the Yale School of Drama and head of Yale Repertory Theatre (1979–1991)
- Artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference
- Tony Award for directing August Wilson's Fences (1987)
- National Medal of Arts (1993); Wayne University graduate (1944)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1930s
Northwestern High School
Status being checked
Richards attended this west-side Detroit high school after McMichael Middle School.
Studied here · late 1930s–1944
Wayne State University
He switched from pre-law to acting and radio here, working as a janitor and elevator operator, and graduated in 1944.