02/05/2010 5:30 pm
|
Charles H. Fuller, Jr. (born March 5, 1939) is an American playwright, best known for his play, A Soldier's Playfor which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Fuller vowed to become a writer after noticing that his high school's library had no books by African American authors. He achieved critical notice in 1969 withThe Village: A Party, a drama about racial tensions between a group of mixed-race couples. He later wrote plays for the Henry Street Settlement theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company in New York, who have performed several of his plays. He won an Obie Award for Zooman and the Sign in 1980, about a black Philadelphia teen who kills a young girl on her front porch, and whose neighbors eventually rise up against him after being goaded out of their apathy by the girl's father with a sign. Zooman presents himself as a helpless product of society, but his victim's father convinces their neighbors that they need to stand together to achieve justice.
His next work, A Soldier's Play, told the story of a racially charged search by a black captain for the murderer of a black sergeant on a Louisiana army base in 1944, as a means to discuss the position of blacks in white society. Although the play enjoyed a long run, Fuller has said it never played on Broadway because he refused to drop the last line, "You'll have to get used to black people being in charge." It nevertheless was a critical success, winning Fuller the Pulitzer Prize in 1982, and being produced as the 1984 film A Soldier's Story, for which Fuller himself wrote the screen adaptation. His screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award, and it won an Edgar Award. After this play, Fuller switched his focus to movies for several years, saying "I always wanted to reach the most people with my work. Not enough people go to the theater."
Teachers reception at 4:30pm, if you would like to RSVP, please email us at info@artsanctuary.org or call Art Sanctuary at 215.232.4485
