SOURCE: "Alice Childress: A Pioneering Spirit," Sage, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring, 1987, pp. 66-8.

[In the following excerpt from an interview conducted May 1, 1987, Childress discusses her background and motivation as an author.]

Alice Childress, born in 1920 in Charleston, South Carolina, and reared in New York City, is an actress, playwright, novelist, editor, and lecturer. Childress is the only Black American woman whose plays were written and professionally produced over a period of four decades….

Though Childress admits that she is not a "public" person, she graciously talked to me about childhood memories, her writing process, her struggle to carve a place for herself on the American stage, and several high points of her life. The interview took place at the University of Massachusetts on May 1, 1987….

[Brown-Guillory:] Most artists can recall that "significant other" who served as a source of inspiration and who gently prodded them into telling truths about life. Is there someone who gave you a gentle push? Who influenced you to become a writer?

[Childress:] My grandmother, more than anyone else, inspired me to write. She wasn't just a typical grandmother. She was a well read person who made me interested in storytelling. She used to sit at the window and say, "There goes a man. What do you think he's thinking?" I'd say, "I don't know. He's going home to his family." She'd say, "Well, how many children does he have?" I'd say, "Three." My grandmother would ask, "Is his wife nice?" I'd say, "No, I don't like her." When we'd get to the end of our game, my grandmother would say to me, "Now, write that down. That sounds like something we should keep."

You speak with such reverence for your grandmother. Are there other memories of her that have sustained you?

She had seven children and was very poor. There wasn't any time to do anything, except try to keep the children in clothing and someway fed. Always running out of everything. When I came along, all of her children were grown. We were together all of the time. Her name was Eliza. She was named for Eliza who crossed the ice in Harriet Beecher Stowe's book, Uncle Tom's Cabin. My grandmother's maiden name was Campbell. Her mother was a slave who was freed very early … like at fourteen or fifteen. She was turned out in the middle of Charleston, South Carolina downtown. They drove off in a horse and buggy and left her standing there. A white woman named Mrs. Campbell stopped and asked her why was she crying. She said, "Folks just left me." Mrs. Campbell said, "Well, I don't have much but would you like to come live with me? I have a cottage with five rooms." My great-grandmother went. She didn't have anywhere else to go. And, Mrs. Campbell's son became my grandmother's father. Then he went off to sea and never came back. He was a merchant seaman. Mrs. Campbell's name was Ann or Anna and my great-grandmother's name was Annie. It was Mrs. Campbell who named her grandchild Eliza. I put so much emphasis on my grandmother, Eliza, because my father and mother were separated when I was very little. I vaguely remember him. My mother was always working and on the go. My grandmother was a very fortunate thing that happened to me.

Are there particular experiences that you and your grandmother shared that shaped your writing?

We used to walk up and down New York City, going to art galleries and private art showings. She used to say to the people in charge, "Now, this is my granddaughter and we don't have any money, but I want her to know about art. If you aren't too busy, could you show us around?" Then she'd quiz me when we'd get home. She'd take me to different neighborhoods to explore. I was storing up things to write about even then. She took me to an Italian neighborhood and said, "Now, what's that smell?" I remember the smell of escargot. My grandmother was a member of Salem Church in Harlem. We went to Wednesday night testimonials. Now that's where I learned to be a writer. I remember how people, mostly women, used to get up and tell their troubles to everybody. Just outright tell it! "My son's in jail," or "My daughter's sick," or "I don't have any money, and my rent is due." Everybody rallied around these people. I couldn't wait for person after person to tell her story. One woman told of a suicide in her family; he had jumped off the roof. Everybody went over to hug her and tell her it would be all right. It was kind of frightening. But, that's where I got my writing inspiration.

Were there others who inspired you?

I learned to read in Baltimore in a Jim Crow class. I had a teacher named Miss Thomas. Now, she was a source of inspiration. She said to us on the first day of class, "You're going to learn to read in my class or stay in here until you're twenty-one." I spent one year in Baltimore, but it was a very telling year. I was in the third grade and my teacher told us that everybody was going to go out reading and reading well. All we did all day was practice and did reading homework.

Although they deserve it, we usually don't credit our early teachers with playing significant roles in our lives. Miss Thomas gave you a special gift. She empowered you to read about many of the things in life that your grandmother wished for you to know.

A high point in my life was when I got my library card. I believe I was in the fifth grade in Harlem at the time. My teacher took us to the library and they explained to us that we could draw out two books a day … free! I went to the library everyday and took two books and read them at night. I read incessantly.

I'm sure you were a star pupil. You obviously had a solid foundation in the basics.

What changed everything in life for me was that I never finished high school. I had two years of high school. My grandmother died. My mother died. And I had to go to work. But I had that foundation with grandmother of studying.

You have a steady list of publications in several genres, including essays, novels, stage plays, teleplays. I've read and thoroughly enjoyed your novels, A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich, A Short Walk, Rainbow Jordan, as well as all of your plays. Which form is your favorite?

Plays are my favorite form. But, theatre is the hardest business at which to make a living.

How did you become involved with the theatre?

I was in some plays in school. But later I joined the American Negro Theatre. I joined in 1941 and was there for eleven years. After about seven years, I was personnel director for a year while Fred O'Neal went abroad. I learned to direct plays at the American Negro Theatre, and I began writing. We needed things. We needed good writing. I was an actress in the American Negro Theatre. I was in a working situation. I was doing. It's like working in a factory that makes paint; it's different from reading about paint than mixing paint. You learn how to do it by doing it. As an actress, I was able to get on-the-job training. We also had to coach other actors who were coming in. We had to do some of everything in the theatre. The American Negro theatre is one of the best, if not the best. Newspaper accounts said that we studied like the martial arts schools. We had no money, but we worked hard. If you were late two or three times in a row, you were dropped. If you weren't in a production, you still had to be there four times a week to work on make-up, costumes, props, stage managing, sets, etc. I did everything there is to be done in the theatre.

The kinds of experiences that you talk about are so very crucial to anyone who aspires to be a playwright. Your comments have proven that a playwright needs to be attached to a theatre in order to develop craft. Your writing plays, then, was a natural outgrowth of working in the theatre and seeing a need for accurate images of Blacks. Your first play, Florence, treats the issue of stereotyping. I understand that you wrote Florence overnight.

Yes, I did. I had a talent for writing. Sidney Poitier was in the house when I began writing it that night.

How would you describe your writing process?

I learned by trial and error. As I wrote, I learned. I began to sense what didn't quite work. You learn to ask yourself all sorts of questions as you write, like "Why is it too slow or too long or boring?"

In the fall of 1986, my play Snapshots of Broken Dolls was produced at the Lincoln Center in New York City. During an interview with a journalist from the New York Amsterdam News, I credited you as one of my favorite writers. You are a master craftswoman. Did you read plays by other authors?

I felt inspired to write from reading. Anything that you read or anything that you talk to people about shapes your writing. But it wasn't like I picked out a playwright and read and started writing. I began reading other people's plays after I was writing. I became interested in craftsmanship. I found instinctively that I knew a lot about craft. I liked Shakespeare. I also belonged to a group in Harlem that was doing only Shakespeare.

Did you take any professional writing courses?

I never had a writing course. Ever. I probably would have enjoyed one very much. Today, too many writers don't respect craft. They write thirteen pages today and want to send it off to MGM tomorrow. They don't treat writing as an art. Just as music is an art, so is writing. A good musician has to practice a lot. My husband [Nathan Woodard] has a degree in music, and he teaches music. I see the patience he has with studying music. I think it's important for writers to keep developing craft, to keep studying and to keep writing.

You were able to develop your craft during a two-year tenure, between 1966 and 1968, at Radcliffe/Harvard.

The Radcliffe/Harvard appointment was a high point in my life. It was Tillie Olsen who recommended me for this appointment. Everybody who participates in this program has a doctorate. I was honored to be chosen, especially since I had not finished high school. I wrote Wedding Band and other pieces during my appointment. I was awarded a graduate medal from Radcliffe/Harvard for the writing I did. I'm not sure who judged my work, but Lillian Hellman was connected with the program at the time.

The Radcliffe/Harvard medal is symbolic of the possibilities if one works at fine-tuning her craft. Many can only dream of such an affirmation of one's skills in the theatre. Did you always dream about becoming a writer?

I didn't dream about anything. I didn't plan or plot, as people say, to be this, that, and the other. I was too busy happening all the time. I was in the middle of happening. The things that really make me want to write are those things that happen to me, not those things I read when I pick up a book. I might go to a ballet and feel inspired to write.

Record has it that your play, Trouble in Mind, was the first play by a Black woman to be professionally produced, meaning it was performed by equity actors.

Actually, the American Negro Theatre's production of Gold Through the Trees in 1952 in Harlem was done with paid actors before the media picked up on the off-Broadway professional production of Trouble in Mind in 1955.

How do you view the host of "firsts" that have been attached to your name?

I never was ever interested in being the first woman to do anything. I always felt that I should be the 50th or the 100th. Women were kept out of everything. It almost made it sound like other women were not quite right enough or accomplished enough, especially when I hear "the first Black woman." When people are shut out of something for so long, it seems ironic when there's so much going on about "the first."

Thanks to you, though, some doors have been opened for other women playwrights. It is up to critics and scholars to point out the many contributions you've made to American theatre.

The very first review I ever received was from Lorraine Hansberry. We both worked at Paul Robeson's newspaper, Freedom. She did reviews and covered Gold Through the Trees. I still have that review. She just signed it L.H.

What are you working on now?

I'm writing my autobiography. I'm also working on two novels. This past January, my play Moms, based on the life of Moms Mabley, was produced in New York City.