Walter Dallas

Walter Dallas assumed the artistic leadership of Philadelphia's Freedom Theatre in 1992. He has won recognition and several awards for his work on and Off-Broadway and regionally at such theaters as the Negro Ensemble Company, American Place, Yale Rep, Crossroads, Alliance and Baltimore's Center Stage where he was a Director Fellow for the National Endowment for the Arts. At Chicago's Goodman Theatre he directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of August Wilson's Seven Guitars, named one of the Top Ten Best Theatre Events of 1995 by Time Magazine and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Awards include an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts (May, 2002), a local Emmy Award (San Francisco), New York's prestigious AUDELCO National Achievement Award for Excellence in Black Theatre, and several Bronze Jubilee Awards for Outstanding Direction. He received a Proclamation, "Walter Dallas Day" from Atlanta's Mayor Maynard Jackson, and two Creative Genius Awards from the Atlanta Circle of Drama Critics. For his production of Having Our Say at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum he received a 1997 NAACP Theatre Award nomination for Best Director. His off-Broadway production of Moms garnered an Obie Award for its star, Clarice Taylor, and resulted in two successful national tours. His production of Desire Under the Elms at Chicago's Court Theatre received two 2000 Black Theatre Alliance Award nominations. World premieres include works by James Baldwin, Leslie Lee, Sam Kelley, Kia Corthron, Ntozake Shange, Samm-Art Williams, Clarice Taylor, Thulani Davis and others. His own adaptations of the films Cooley High and Sparkle premiered at Freedom. He also premiered John Henry Redwood's The Old Settler at the McCarter Theatre. His world-premiere production of Charles Smith's Pudd'nhead Wilson, produced by New York's Acting Company, enjoyed a national tour, a critically acclaimed Off Broadway run and earned him a 2002 AUDELCO nomination for Best Director. Also an award-winning playwright, his latest play, Lazarus, Unstoned, had its world premiere, to popular and critical acclaim, at Freedom Theatre in April, 2002. Of his Lazarus, Unstoned, the Philadelphia Weekly theatre critic wrote: "It's often said that the role of the director coincided with the birth of vernacular religious drama, and in Philadelphia nobody is more adept at this style of theatre than Walter Dallas." Additional work with new play development has included experiences at Sundance, the O'Neill, the Public Theatre, New Dramatists, and in Africa, England, France, and Russia. A graduate of Morehouse College and the Yale School of Drama, he also studied music and theology at Harvard University, and dance and theater in traditional African societies at the University of Ghana at Legon. He taught theatre at Antioch College and the University of California, Berkeley. He created the School of Theatre for Philadelphia's University of the Arts in 1983. In 1992 he left to become artistic director at Freedom Theatre.