Lorraine Hansberry Theatre

Stanley E. Williams

Stanley E. Williams (Director) is the co-founder and artistic director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which is celebrating 27 years as a leading center of African American Theatre. He has conceived and staged LHT's signature holiday production of The Black Nativity. Williams's other directing credits include George C. Wolfe's The Colored Museum, Irene Fornes's Sarita, Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs, Ramona King's Steal Away, Vernel Bagneris's One Mo' Time, Samm-Art Williams's Home, the first fully staged version of Ntozake Shange's Boogie Woogie Landscapes, the 20th Anniversary production of her for colored girls…, and most recently from okra to greens…. Other directing credits include Amiri Baraka's Dutchman (co-produced with the American Conservatory Theatre), Everybody's Ruby by Thulani Davis and World Premieres of Robert Alexander's Erotic Justice and Jamal's LBJ (for which he received a Dramalogue Award for Outstanding Director), Eubie! The Music of Eubie Blake, Lynne Nottage's Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Stephen Jeffreys's I Just Stopped By to See The Man, and the world premiere of the Jared Choclatt's musical Hit It! Williams has directed, with Danny Duncan, the acclaimed production of Black & Blue: A New Musical Revue. Also he has adapted and directed the world premiere staging of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker's The Third Life of Grange Copeland, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Family Theatre production of Legends and Folktales of Brer Rabbit, and in 1988 received a special commission from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF-MOMA) to write and direct Sargent Johnson: The African American Spirit in California Modernist Art, which coincided with the exhibition of the artist's work at SF-MOMA.

Williams has directed August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences (at both Lorraine Hansberry Theatre and Sacramento Theatre Company) and The Piano Lesson; as well as Two Trains Running, Jitney, Seven Guitars, the Northern California premiere of King Hedley II and last season's Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

He is a recipient of KGO TV 7's "Profiles in Excellence Award," KQED's Local Heroes Award, and SF-NOIR's Kuumba Award for excellence in the arts.

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