Regina Taylor facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Regina Taylor
Taylor in 2010
Born	(1960-08-22) August 22, 1960 (age 64)
Education	Southern Methodist University (BFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1980–present

Regina Taylor (born August 22, 1960) is an American actress and writer. She has won many awards for her work in movies, TV shows, and plays. In 2017, she became a special professor at Fordham University in theater.

Early Life and School

Regina Taylor was born in Dallas, Texas. Her mother, Nell Taylor, was a social worker and a poet. When Regina was 12, her family moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma. Later, they moved back to Dallas. She finished high school at L. G. Pinkston High School in 1977.

Acting Career

Regina Taylor started acting professionally while she was still in college. Her first roles were in TV movies. One of these was Crisis at Central High (1981). In this movie, she played Minnijean Brown. Minnijean was one of the Little Rock Nine. This was a group of African-American students who helped integrate a high school in 1957. Critics praised Regina's acting in this role.

Famous TV Roles

Regina became very well known for her role as Lilly Harper. This was in the TV series I'll Fly Away in the early 1990s. For this role, she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a TV Drama. She also won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress. Later, in 2018, she played Dr. Hannah Moshay in the TV show The Blacklist. She was also a main cast member for four seasons of the CBS drama The Unit.

Film and Stage Work

Regina Taylor has acted in many films. Some of these include Clockers, Courage Under Fire, and The Negotiator. She also played Anita Hill in the TV movie Strange Justice.

She is also a talented stage actress. She made history by being the first black woman to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. She has also appeared in other famous plays like Macbeth and As You Like It on Broadway.

Playwriting Career

Besides acting, Regina Taylor is also a successful playwright. She writes her own plays. As of 2022, she is a writer-in-residence at the Signature Theatre. Her play stop. reset. was shown there in 2013. She also directed that play.

Award-Winning Plays

Regina has written several plays that have been performed in theaters. Her short plays Watermelon Rinds and Inside the Belly of the Beast were shown in Chicago. In 2000, she won an award for her play Oo-Bla-Dee. This play was about female jazz musicians in the 1940s.

She wrote and directed a popular play called Crowns. This play includes gospel music and is based on a book of photographs. Crowns has been performed in many places across the country. In 2006, it was the most performed musical in the United States. It also won several awards, including one for Regina's directing.

Regina also wrote and directed Drowning Crow. This play was her own version of a classic play called The Seagull. Another play she wrote and directed was The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove. This play told the story of Madam C.J. Walker, a successful African-American businesswoman.

Her play Magnolia is set in Atlanta in 1963. It shows what happened when schools began to allow students of all races. In 2011, her trilogy of plays called The Trinity River Plays premiered. In 2017, she wrote A Seat at the Table. This play tells the life story of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer.

Personal Life

Regina Taylor is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. DNA tests show that her family comes from the Mende people of Sierra Leone and the Kru people of Liberia. In 1982, she married artist Mario Emes.

Filmography