Glenda Dickerson

Glenda Dickerson (born 1945, Houston, TX) is a director, folklorist, adaptor, writer, choreographer, actor, black theatre organizer, and educator. ["Contemporary Black Playwrights and Their Plays" by Bernard L. Peterson, Jr, Greenwood Press, 1988, ISBN 0-313-25190-8, pg 144-146] She has worked in important venues, including the Biltmore Theatre ["American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, 2nd Ed." by Gerald Bordman, Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-507242-1, pg 702] (Broadway), Circle in the Square (New York City), Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (San Francisco), Ford's Theatre and the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.). In 1971, she received an Emmy nomination and in 1972 a Peabody Award.

She holds the distinction, along with Vinnette Carroll, of being one of the few African-American women to have directed on Broadway. Her work focuses on folklore, myths, black legends, and classical works reinterpreted.

References

Education:B.F.A., Howard Univ.M.A., Adelphi Univ.

Professor Dickerson is a director, writer, folklorist, educator, and actor in important venues, including the Biltmore Theatre (Broadway), Circle in the Square (New York City), Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (San Francisco), Ford's Theatre and the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.). In 1971, she received an Emmy nomination and in 1972 a Peabody Award.

She conceived and directed Eel Catching in Setauket: A Living Portrait of a Community, an oral history creative performance project that documents the lives of the African-American Christian Avenue community in Setauket, Long Island. In 1992, she was program director for a similar project titled Wellwater: Wishes & Words for Newark, New Jersey. Ms. Dickerson is co-author of Remembering Aunt Jemima: A Menstral Show, published in Colored Contraditions : An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Plays, and Festivities & Jubilations on the Graves of the Dead: Sanctifying Sullied Space, published in Performance & Cultural Politics. Her article Wearing Red: When a Rowdy Band of Charismatics Learned to Say No! appears in Upstaging Big Daddy.

Professor Dickerson has served as a consultant/evaluator at the Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles) and Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.). She has also been a panelist, presenter and keynote speaker at meetings of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She has received grants from the New Jersey Council for the Arts, the New York Council for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Before joining the U-M faculty, Ms. Dickerson taught at Spelman College and at the Rutgers University Campus at Newark. She currently serves as Director of Academic Programs for the Center for World Performance Studies and Head of the Black Theatre Minor.