Harold Scott (director)

Harold Russell Scott, Jr. (6 September 1935 – 16 July 2006) was an American stage director, actor and pedagogue, who broke racial barriers in American theatre.cite news | author=Campbell Robertson | title=Harold Scott, 70, Director Who Broke Racial Barriers, Dies | url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E2DD103FF931A3575BC0A9609C8B63&scp=1 | work=The New York Times | date=2 August 2006| accessdate=2008-06-02] Scott first became known for his work as an electrifying stage actor with a piercing voice, and later as an innovative director of numerous productions throughout the country, from Broadway to the Tony Award-winning regional theatre, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where he was the first African-American artistic director in the history of American regional theatre. [cite web | author= | title=A Brief History of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park | url=http://www.cincyplay.com/learn/history.php | publisher=Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park | date=2008 | accessdate=2008-06-02]

Biography

Born in Morristown, New Jersey, Scott was educated at Philips Exeter Academy and Harvard. He had a career as a stage director on Broadway and Off Broadway, but began as an actor of note, performing in Jean Genet's "The Blacks" and an acclaimed production of the premiere of "The Death of Bessie Smith" by Edward Albee. Winner of the Obie Award for acting in Jean Genet's "Deathwatch" in 1959, Scott also played on Broadway in "The Cool Wind."

Scott was chosen by Elia Kazan to be an original member of the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, where he performed in Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" and "Incident at Vichy," and was cast by José Quintero in Thomas Middleton's "Changeling" and in Eugene O'Neill's "Marco Millions." In 1984, Scott returned to Off Broadway to play Brutus in a modern dress production of Shakespeare's "Caesar" with the Riverside Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Center under the direction of W. Stuart McDowell. [cite news | author=Herbert Mitgang | title=Stage: Modern Caesar | url= | work=The New York Times | date=14 March 1984| accessdate=]

Scott staged numerous innovative productions in New York and at regional theatres, including Morgan Freeman in "The Mighty Gents" on Broadway in 1978, and Avery Brooks in "Paul Robeson" on Broadway twice: in 1988 and again in 1995. Scott also directed the twenty-fifth anniversary production of "A Raisin in the Sun", with Esther Rolle. This production opened at the Roundabout Theatre in New York; it then broke box-office records at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Scott's production received nine National Theater Awards from the NAACP, including best director, and was filmed for public television's Great Performances. [cite news | author= | title=Theater Arts Faculty Directory | url=http://mgsa.rutgers.edu/theater/theater_f_dept_emeritus.php | publisher=Mason Gross School of the Arts | date= | accessdate=2008-06-02]

Scott was head of the directing program the Mason Gross School of the Arts, at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

In February of 2006, Scott directed his final play, "Yellowman", an examination of black-on-black prejudice, at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park where, in 1973 he began a two-year appointment as artistic director. He was the first African-American to have earned such in a major regional theatre.

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