WBAI-FM Upcoming Program
Cat Radio Cafe

Tue, Feb 17, 2026 9:00 PM

A TRIBUTE TO WOODIE KING JR.

AND THE LEGACY OF HIS NEW FEDERAL THEATER

On tonight’s show, we’ll celebrate the long great life and work of Black theater movement pioneer, Woodie King, Jr. who created and sustained the New Federal Theater for fifty-six years before his death at 88 in January of this year, 2026.  We’ll be joined by theater artists Clinton Turner Davis, Ajene (Uh Jay Nee) D. Washington, Petronia Paley and set designer Chris Cumberbatch, all beneficiaries of Woodie King Jr.’s theatrical genius.

In 1970, in the throes of the Black Arts Movement, Woodie King Jr. founded the New Federal Theater to give people of color and women -- and particularly African-American --playwrights, actors, directors, and designers a home in the New York theater and to integrate them into the mainstream of American culture, offering both training and the experience of presenting both new and historical plays to a multicultural audience. Following the example of the original Roosevelt-era Federal Theater Project and its leaders, Hallie Flanagna, Orson Welles and John Housman, King’s productions focused on “issues of the now.” He presented over 450 plays, many of which transferred to Broadway, launching numerous playwrights and actors into prominence. That list is much longer than playwrights Ed Bullins, Amiri Baraka, Ntzake Shange, Lawrence Holder, David Henry Huang, and actors Lawrence Fishburne, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Debbie Allen, Felicia Rashaad, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and our guests: Clinton Turner Davis, Ajane (Uh-Jay-Nee) D. Washington, Petronia Paley and Christopher Cumberbach, all of whom excel in multiple facets of theater, as is the case with so many disciples of Woodie King Jr.

Janet Coleman and David Dozer

 

 


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