Theodore Ward

James Theodore Ward (September 15, 1902 – May 8, 1983) was a playwright and theatre teacher active in the early-to-mid 20th century, known for his leftist political views and as an early figure in the Black Chicago Renaissance. Called the "dean of black dramatists," he often took on difficult subjects concerning African-American city life during the Great Depression. His plays were praised for a fresh take on the black experience, moving away from the spirituals and lively dance numbers typical of "Negro theatricals" at the time, instead favoring a more subtle, naturalistic style in story and character. Ward was highly productive, writing over thirty plays, and helped start the Negro Playwrights Company alongside Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Richard Wright. His most famous works include the drama *Big White Fog* (1938), staged by the Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago, and the musical *Our Lan'* (1947), which debuted on Broadway at New York's Royale Theatre. **Life**

**Early life** Ward was born in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, as the sixth of eleven children to Everett Ward and Mary Louise (née Pierre). His father, born into slavery, became a schoolteacher and part-time salesman after gaining freedom. Because of this, Ward received a solid education as a child and developed an early passion for writing plays. His devout father strongly opposed these artistic interests, once burning one of Ward's early manuscripts and calling it "the work of the devil." When Ward was twelve, his mother died suddenly in childbirth. In the upheaval that followed, he left home and traveled across the United States by freight train. Heading north, he worked odd jobs as a boot-black, hotel bellboy, and barber-shop porter, but eventually landed in jail for bootlegging in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, he rekindled his love for writing, producing a large body of poetry, short stories, and essays. This work helped him gain admission to an extension program at the University of Utah in 1930. His professor, Louis Zucker, urged him to apply for the Zona Gale Fellowship in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin. Ward won the prize and moved to Madison for a one-year program, studying literature and drama while also working as a script writer and voice actor for WIBA-Radio Madison. Though Zona Gale personally extended his fellowship and arranged for him to stay and pursue a degree despite his lack of a high school diploma, Ward declined, citing the unbearable isolation of being a black man in an all-white school. **The Federal Theatre Project** After leaving the University of Wisconsin in 1933, Ward moved again, this time to Chicago's South Side. Using connections from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), he became the recreation director at the Abraham Lincoln Centre. His first job there involved teaching speech and dramatic writing to local youth, but he later joined the Negro Unit of Chicago's Federal Theatre Project (FTP). This New Deal program funded theatre and live performances during the Great Depression, aiming to create jobs for unemployed artists, writers, and directors, while also entertaining poor families and producing socially relevant art. Ward started as an actor with the FTP but soon worked on a short play he had begun in 1934 after hearing a lecture at the John Reed Club—a Marxist gathering for writers and intellectuals—about the suppression of African-American voting rights in the South. After major revisions, he entered his one-act play *Sick 'n Tiahd* (1937) in the Chicago Repertory Company's annual contest, where it won second prize, just behind Pulitzer winner Paul Green's *Hymn to the Rising Sun* (1936). The play impressed fellow writer and John Reed member Richard Wright, who encouraged Ward to keep writing for the stage and introduced him to the South Side Writers Club, a cooperative of aspiring black writers that included Wright, Arna Bontemps, Frank Marshall Davis, Owen Dodson, George Norford, and Margaret Walker. With their support, Ward completed his first full-length work, *Big White Fog*, which the Negro Unit of the FTP produced in 1938 to considerable local acclaim. **The Negro Playwrights Company** The success of *Big White Fog* in Chicago led Ward to seek broader theatrical opportunities in New York City. He traveled east as an actor in the chorus of the FTP's 1939 production *The Swing Mikado* and settled in Harlem with Wright, who was writing for the Communist newspaper the *Daily Worker*. However, Congress unexpectedly shut down the increasingly controversial productions of the Federal Theatre Project, leaving Ward jobless. Determined to continue his theatrical work and backed by Wright's socialist ideas, Ward sought private funding and a New York venue to revive *Big White Fog*. After a series of fundraisers and new partnerships with New York artists, the play reopened Off-Broadway in 1940 at Harlem's Lincoln Theatre.