Alice Childress

Alice Childress was a playwright, actress, and novelist. As a writer, Childress frequently focused on portraying the racial inequalities and social injustices experienced by Black Americans. She was the first Black woman to have a play professionally produced in New York City and the first woman to win an Obie Award for Best Play. Childress wrote more than a dozen plays, including her best-known works Trouble in Mind, Wedding Band , and Wine in the Wilderness . Childress also wrote adult and...See more

Alice Childress was a playwright, actress, and novelist. As a writer, Childress frequently focused on portraying the racial inequalities and social injustices experienced by Black Americans. She was the first Black woman to have a play professionally produced in New York City and the first woman to win an Obie Award for Best Play. Childress wrote more than a dozen plays, including her best-known works Trouble in Mind, Wedding Band , and Wine in the Wilderness . Childress also wrote adult and children's novels. Her young-adult novel A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich became a bestseller and was adapted into a movie in 1977. Her 1979 novel A Short Walk was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Childress also collaborated with her husband, composer Nathan Woodard, on musicals. She died in 1994 at age 77. See less