Charles Randolph-Wright

Charles Randolph-Wright is an American director, playwright, screenwriter, and television producer who began his career as a performer, appearing on Broadway in 1981 as a member of the original cast of the musical Dreamgirls. A native of York, South Carolina, he graduated with honors from York High School before attending Duke University, where he received the A.B. Duke Scholarship and initially enrolled as a pre-med student. During his undergraduate years he studied acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and dance with the Alvin Ailey School in New York City. He ultimately changed his major and graduated with honors from Duke with a B.A. in theater and religion.

Following his Broadway debut, Randolph-Wright built an extensive career in theater as a director, writer, and producer. Among his most prominent directing credits is Motown: The Musical, which features a book by Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records, drawn from Gordy's 1994 autobiography To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown. The production opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 14, 2013, launched a national tour in Chicago in April 2014, opened at London's Shaftesbury Theatre on February 11, 2016, and began a UK and Ireland tour on October 11, 2018, at The Alexandra in Birmingham.

Randolph-Wright directed the Broadway premiere of Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind at Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre, which opened on November 18, 2021. The play had been a hit off-Broadway when it first appeared in 1955 but was cancelled before reaching Broadway after Childress refused to soften its anti-racist content. After Randolph-Wright spent years advocating for Roundabout to mount the production, it finally reached Broadway as Childress originally wrote it, earning four Tony Award nominations at the 75th Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play.

He directed the world premiere of American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words, a musical he co-wrote with Grammy winner Marcus Hummon that draws on the speeches and writings of Frederick Douglass. The production opened at Arena Stage on July 28, 2022, starring Cornelius Smith Jr., with opening night attendees including Kenneth B. Morris Jr., Douglass's great-great-great-grandson, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Randolph-Wright also co-wrote and directed Born For This: A New Musical with Grammy Award-winning gospel artist BeBe Winans and Lisa D'Amour. It premiered in 2016 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in a co-production with Arena Stage and subsequently played The Broad Stage in Santa Monica and ArtsEmerson in Boston. At the 28th NAACP Theatre Awards the musical received twelve nominations and won for Best Director of a Musical and Best Playwright.

His other theater credits include directing a revival of Sophisticated Ladies at Arena Stage starring Maurice Hines, which had a record-breaking run at the Lincoln Theatre in 2010, and a national tour of Porgy and Bess that launched in 2010 to mark the opera's 75th anniversary. He directed two Frank Loesser musicals for Arena Stage: a revival of Guys and Dolls, also starring Hines, which the Loesser estate selected to tour in 2001 in celebration of the musical's 50th anniversary, and Señor Discretion Himself, the last musical Loesser wrote before his death in 1969, which earned a 2005 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Regional Musical. Additional directing credits include Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined at Arena Stage, Brian Stokes Mitchell's solo show Love/Life at Lincoln Center Theater, Daniel Beaty's Through the Night off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre, Athol Fugard's Blood Knot featuring music by Tracy Chapman at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and the premiere of Cheryl L. West's stage adaptation of Akeelah and the Bee for the Children's Theatre Company and Arena Stage.

As a playwright, Randolph-Wright wrote Blue, which premiered at Arena Stage in April 2000 with music by Nona Hendryx, direction by Sheldon Epps, and a cast that included Phylicia Rashad, Hill Harper, and Michael McElroy. Roundabout Theatre Company produced the New York premiere in 2001, and a subsequent production at Pasadena Playhouse in September 2002 starred Rashad alongside Diahann Carroll and Clifton Davis. He wrote and directed Cuttin' Up, adapted from Craig Marberry's book Cuttin' Up: Wit and Wisdom from Black Barber Shops, which premiered at Arena Stage in 2005 and later played Pasadena Playhouse, Cleveland Play House, and the Alliance Theatre. His play The Night Is a Child premiered at Milwaukee Repertory Theater in March 2008 and received its West Coast premiere at Pasadena Playhouse in September 2009 starring JoBeth Williams. Love in Afghanistan premiered at Arena Stage in October 2013.

In television, Randolph-Wright directed and served as executive producer alongside Oprah Winfrey on the OWN series Delilah, created by Craig Wright and produced by Warner Bros. Television and Harpo Films, which aired in 2021. He also directed episodes of Greenleaf on OWN, including the penultimate episode of the series, and directed episodes of Will Trent on ABC, The Santa Clauses on Disney+, The Big Leap on Fox, Katy Keene on The CW, Step Up: High Water on YouTube Red, Lincoln Heights on ABC Family, and South of Nowhere on The N. He produced and wrote the Showtime series Linc's and served as a writer and consultant on the Fox series Lush Life. His directing work has also encompassed commercials, among them the European "Freestyle" campaign for Nike, which won several international commercial awards, as well as music videos and musical staging for programs including The Golden Girls. As an actor, he made guest appearances on Melrose Place, Falcon Crest, and Hill Street Blues.

In film, Randolph-Wright made his directorial debut with Preaching to the Choir, originally titled On the One, which won the Best Performance by an Actor award, the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, and the Grand Jury Prize for Best Picture at the 2005 American Black Film Festival. He also served as executive producer alongside Debbie Allen on the documentary Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back, which won the 2019 DOC NYC Grand Jury Prize and the 2020 Jury Award for Best Documentary at the American Black Film Festival.