An American stage director, playwright and educator. She began her professional career in the 1950s as an actress. Despite appearing in a series of Off-Broadway productions in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she became dissatisfied with the limited range of roles available to her and shifted her focus toward directing. In 1969, she staged J. E. Franklin's play, "The Mau Mau Room" with the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City as one of her earliest professional directing assignments. She also ...