Alice Childress facts for kids

Alice Childress (born October 12, 1916 – died August 14, 1994) was an amazing American writer and actress. She wrote plays, novels, and even acted on stage. People remember her as the only African-American woman who wrote, produced, and published plays for forty years.

Alice Childress wanted to show the lives of "ordinary" people in her work. She believed everyone is special and unique, like snowflakes. She said that people's thoughts and actions are very complex. She felt their problems were often carried silently. Alice also cared a lot about social issues. She even helped create a union for actors who performed in smaller, "off-Broadway" theaters.

You can find many of Alice Childress's writings and papers. They are kept at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. This center is located in Harlem, New York.

Growing Up: Alice Childress's Early Life

Alice Childress was born in Charleston, South Carolina. When she was nine, her parents separated. She then moved to Harlem, New York City. There, she lived with her grandmother, Eliza Campbell White. Her grandmother had not gone to school. But she strongly encouraged Alice to read and write.

Alice went to public school in New York. She also attended Wadleigh High School for Girls. However, she had to leave school after her grandmother passed away. Right after high school, she started working in theater. She did not go to college.

Alice Childress's Career Journey

Acting on Stage

Alice Childress took many different jobs to support herself. She worked as a domestic helper and a photo retoucher. She was also an assistant machinist, a saleslady, and an insurance agent. In 1939, she began studying drama. She joined the American Negro Theatre (ANT). She performed with this group for 11 years.

She acted in several plays, including On Strivers Row (1940) and Natural Man (1941). She also starred in Anna Lucasta (1944). Her acting in Anna Lucasta was very popular. The play then moved to Broadway, which is the highest level of theater. Anna Lucasta became the longest-running play with an all-black cast in Broadway history. Other famous actors in the play included Hilda Simms and Canada Lee.

Writing Plays

In 1949, Alice Childress started writing plays. Her first play was a short one called Florence. She directed it and also acted in it. This play showed many ideas she would explore later. These ideas included strong black women, relationships between different races, and the lives of working-class people.

In Florence, a black working-class mother travels to New York. She wants to bring her struggling actress daughter, Florence, home. A white woman offers to help Florence get a job as a maid. The mother then decides to send money instead. Childress wrote Florence to prove a point. Some actors thought plays about black and white people needed a big, dramatic event. Childress showed that everyday struggles could also be interesting on stage.

Her play Just a Little Simple (1950) was based on a novel by Langston Hughes. It was performed in Harlem. Her next play, Gold Through the Trees (1952), was also successful. These plays made her one of the first African-American women to have her work professionally produced in New York. Because of her success, she helped bring the first union contracts for actors to off-Broadway theaters in Harlem.

Her first full-length play was Trouble in Mind. It opened in 1955 and ran for 91 shows. This play was about racism in the theater world. It showed the difficulties black actors faced in mainstream white theater. The play was very popular. There were plans to move it to Broadway. However, Childress refused to change the ending of the play. So, it never opened on Broadway at that time. If it had, it would have been the first play by an African American woman on Broadway. That honor later went to A Raisin in the Sun four years later.

Trouble in Mind was brought back to Broadway recently. It played from October 2021 to January 2022. This new production was nominated for four Tony Awards. These included Best Revival of a Play and Best Actress in a Play for LaChanze.

In 1962, she finished her play Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White. This play was set in South Carolina during World War I. It explored a forbidden love story between people of different races. Because the topic was so bold, it was hard to get the play staged in New York. It first opened in 1966 at the University of Michigan. It finally played in New York in 1972. The famous actress Ruby Dee starred in it. Later, it was made into a TV film, but many stations would not show it.

Alice Childress also wrote musical plays with her husband, Nathan Woodard. These included Young Martin Luther King (1968) and Sea Island Song (1977).

Writing for Newspapers

Alice Childress wrote over thirty columns for a newspaper called Freedom. This newspaper was connected to the famous singer and activist Paul Robeson. In 1956, she collected some of these columns in her novel Like One of the Family.

Her columns often talked about everyday situations. For example, in one story, a black domestic worker named Mildred is asked for a health card by her employer. Mildred cleverly pretends to be happy. She says she was wondering how to ask for the employer's health cards too. This makes the employer feel embarrassed and back off.

In 1952, Childress worked with Lorraine Hansberry on a project for Freedom's Negro History Festival. Hansberry later wrote the famous play A Raisin in the Sun. Childress, who was older, helped introduce Hansberry to the black theater community in New York.

Books for Young Adults

Alice Childress also wrote popular books for young adults. Some of her well-known titles are Those Other People (1989) and A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (1973). She even wrote the movie script for A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich in 1977. The film starred Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield.

Alice Childress's Family Life

Before she married, Alice Childress used the names Louise Henderson and Alice Herndon. In 1934, she married actor Alvin Childress. They had a daughter named Jean R. Childress. They divorced in 1957. Later, she married musician Nathan Woodard.

Alice Childress passed away from cancer at age 77. She was in Queens, New York. At the time, she was working on a story about her great-grandmother. Her great-grandmother, Ani-Campbell, had been a slave. She was also writing about her Scots-Irish great-grandmother.

Awards and Honors

Alice Childress received many awards for her work:

• Off-Broadway Magazine Award for Trouble in Mind, 1956
• ALA Best Young Adult Book of 1975 for A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich
• Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich
• Jane Addams Children's Book Honor for A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich
• Paul Robeson Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Performing Arts, 1980
• Honorable Mention, Coretta Scott King Award, 1982
• What a Girl, 1985
• Drama Desk Award – Harold S. Prince Lifetime Achievement Award, 2022 (given after her death)

Main Works by Alice Childress

Plays

• Florence (1949)
• Just a Little Simple (1950)
• Gold Through the Trees (1952)
• Trouble in Mind (1955)
• Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White (1966)
• The Freedom Dream, later called Young Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)
• String (1969)
• Wine in the Wilderness (1969)
• Mojo: A Black Love Story (1970)
• When the Rattlesnake Sounds (1975)
• Let's Hear It for the Queen (1976)
• Sea Island Song, later called Gullah (1977)
• Moms: A Praise Play for a Black Comedienne (1987)

Novels

• Like One of the Family (1956)
• A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (1973), which became a movie of the same name in 1977.
• A Short Walk (1979)
• Rainbow Jordan (1981)
• Those Other People (1989)

Fun Facts

The song "Alice Childress" by the band Ben Folds Five is not about this Alice Childress. It's a funny coincidence! The song is actually about a different woman with the same name. That woman once poured water on the singer Ben Folds' wife.

Alice Childress was also a member of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority.