Theodore Ward

THEODORE WARD
1902-1983

Born in Thibodaux Louisiana on September 15, 1902, James Theodore (Ted) Ward, was one of eleven children. His father, John Everett Ward, was born into slavery in 1859. The local Black schoolmaster and an early associate of Booker T. Washington, Ward's father sold patent medicines in and around Lafourche Parish to supplement his teaching income. Ward's mother, Louisa Pierre Ward, had seen her father murdered by the White Knights during the Thibodaux Massacre of 1886.

When Ward was a little boy, he wrote a play and showed it to his father, who proclaimed it a 'work of the Devil' and threw it on the fire. He would not write another play until 1936, when his one-act play, Sick 'n Tiahd, won second prize in a newspaper contest and led to his meeting the first-prize winner, Richard Wright.

Wright invited Ward to join the Negro Unit of Chicago's Federal Theatre Project (WPA) where he wrote his seminal work about the Depression: Big White Fog. When the Project ended in 1939, he brought the play to New York where, with Langston Hughes, Loften Mitchell, Paul Robeson and Owen Dodson, he founded and headed the Negro Playwrights Company, which produced the play for a second time starring Canada Lee.

In 1947, Our Lan, Ward's play about the Reconstruction South, was moved from a successful run at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse (later Woodie King's New Federal Theatre) to Broadway's Royale Theatre, where it was produced by the Theatre Guild. Directed by Eddie Dowling, it starred Muriel Smith and William Vesey, with Julie Hayden as the Northern Schoolmarm. The play ran on Broadway for 42 performances before it closed.

In 1949, Ward became the first Black dramatist to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, under which he wrote John Brown. Gene Frankel directed the play in New York at the Peoples Theater, where both Lee Marvin and Rod Steiger were cast as Brown's sons. The play was later produced in Chicago at the Skyloft Theatre in 1951.

During the mid-1960s, Ward returned to Chicago to head the Louis Theatre and School of Drama at the South Side Center for the Performing Arts, known as 'Ted Ward's Southside Center,' where he taught acting and playwriting and staged his Candle in the Wind (1966) and The Daubers (1953), his prescient anti-drug play.

During the 1970s, Ward spent a year as playwright in residence at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and another at the New Orleans Free Southern Theatre with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. In 1975, Ward received the second annual AUDELCO award for his work as an Outstanding Pioneer of Black Theatre.

Later, Chicago's mayor proclaimed April 23, 1977 Theodore Ward Day. Each year since Ward's death in 1983, Chicago's Goodman Theatre has awarded the Theodore Ward prize to a young playwright.

Information about Theodore Ward can be obtained by writing to Elise Virginia Ward, President, 9th Decade, Inc. at POB 566, New York, NY 10027-0566. Email to: eward9thdecade@juno.com.

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	Born in Thibodaux Louisiana on September 15, 1902, James Theodore (Ted) Ward, was one of eleven children. His father, John Everett Ward, was born into slavery in 1859. The local Black schoolmaster and an early associate of Booker T. Washington, Ward's father sold patent medicines in and around Lafourche Parish to supplement his teaching income. Ward's mother, Louisa Pierre Ward, had seen her father murdered by the White Knights during the Thibodaux Massacre of 1886.
	When Ward was a little boy, he wrote a play and showed it to his father, who proclaimed it a 'work of the Devil' and threw it on the fire. He would not write another play until 1936, when his one-act play, Sick 'n Tiahd, won second prize in a newspaper contest and led to his meeting the first-prize winner, Richard Wright.
	Wright invited Ward to join the Negro Unit of Chicago's Federal Theatre Project (WPA) where he wrote his seminal work about the Depression: Big White Fog. When the Project ended in 1939, he brought the play to New York where, with Langston Hughes, Loften Mitchell, Paul Robeson and Owen Dodson, he founded and headed the Negro Playwrights Company, which produced the play for a second time starring Canada Lee.
	In 1947, Our Lan, Ward's play about the Reconstruction South, was moved from a successful run at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse (later Woodie King's New Federal Theatre) to Broadway's Royale Theatre, where it was produced by the Theatre Guild. Directed by Eddie Dowling, it starred Muriel Smith and William Vesey, with Julie Hayden as the Northern Schoolmarm. The play ran on Broadway for 42 performances before it closed.
	In 1949, Ward became the first Black dramatist to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, under which he wrote John Brown. Gene Frankel directed the play in New York at the Peoples Theater, where both Lee Marvin and Rod Steiger were cast as Brown's sons. The play was later produced in Chicago at the Skyloft Theatre in 1951.
	During the mid-1960s, Ward returned to Chicago to head the Louis Theatre and School of Drama at the South Side Center for the Performing Arts, known as 'Ted Ward's Southside Center,' where he taught acting and playwriting and staged his Candle in the Wind (1966) and The Daubers (1953), his prescient anti-drug play.
	During the 1970s, Ward spent a year as playwright in residence at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and another at the New Orleans Free Southern Theatre with support from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. In 1975, Ward received the second annual AUDELCO award for his work as an Outstanding Pioneer of Black Theatre.
	Later, Chicago's mayor proclaimed April 23, 1977 Theodore Ward Day. Each year since Ward's death in 1983, Chicago's Goodman Theatre has awarded the Theodore Ward prize to a young playwright.