Edna Thomas

Edna Lewis Thomas (November 1, 1885 – July 22, 1974) was an American stage actress born in Lawrenceville, Virginia, who became a significant figure in Black theater during the Harlem Renaissance. Raised in Boston, where she attended public schools, Thomas married talent manager Lloyd Carter Thomas around 1914 and relocated to New York City, possibly in 1916. There she found work as a social secretary for Black beauty entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker, whose wide social network introduced Thomas to influential circles in Harlem and Greenwich Village. Lloyd Thomas later managed Walker's Harlem salon and co-owned Club Ebony, and the couple attended gatherings at the Dark Tower, a cultural salon hosted by A'Lelia Walker.

Thomas built her early stage career through all-Black vaudeville productions and Harlem theater companies. She made her stage debut with the Lafayette Players in the 1920 play Turn to the Right, and went on to appear in Confidence and The Heartbreaker in 1920 and 1921 respectively, followed by Comedy of Errors in 1923. Her Broadway debut came in 1925, and she appeared in the 1927 play Porgy. Thomas joined the Alhambra Players in 1928, performing at the Harlem Alhambra, and was part of a 1929 revival of Porgy at the Martin Beck Theater. In 1930 she became a member of the Harlem Experimental Theatre, participating in its first public performance at the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library. Her stage work during the 1930s included roles in the musical Lulu Belle at the Belasco Theater, the musical Shuffle Along, the 1933 folk opera Run, Little Chillun at the Lyric Theatre, and Paul Peters' 1934 production Stevedore.

The defining role of Thomas's career came in 1936, when she was cast as Lady Macbeth in an all-Black production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theater. Directed by Orson Welles and produced under the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration, the production became widely known as the "Voodoo" Macbeth. Thomas assumed the role after Rose McClendon, who had originally been cast, became critically ill. Her performance drew strong critical praise, with one reviewer describing it as "sensitive and magnificent," and the Harlem press designated her the "First Lady of Negro Theatre." Two years later, also under the Federal Theater Project, she appeared alongside Dooley Wilson in a 1938 production of Androcles and the Lion, playing the role of Lavinia.

Thomas continued accumulating Broadway credits through the 1940s and into the 1950s. She played Sukey in Harriet, Elia Kazan's 1943 Broadway play about Harriet Beecher Stowe, and in 1944 was cast in José Ferrer's production of Strange Fruit, adapted from Lillian Smith's novel of the same name. Thomas portrayed a Mexican woman in the 1946 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, reprised the role on stage in 1950, and appeared in the 1951 film adaptation — her only screen credit. A further stage reprisal of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1956 marked her final theatrical appearance, after which she retired from acting.

Thomas's personal life included a long domestic arrangement that brought together her husband and her romantic partner. Around 1930 she began a relationship with British photographer and socialite Olivia Wyndham, and the three lived together at a large Harlem co-op until at least 1942. In 1937, Thomas and Wyndham participated pseudonymously in a Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic study of individuals whose preferred sexual orientation was homosexual. Thomas also maintained a sustained friendship with Harlem Renaissance photographer and patron Carl Van Vechten, with whom she corresponded regularly. The New York Public Library holds photographs of Thomas in its Edna Thomas Collection. She died of heart disease on July 22, 1974, at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City at the age of 88.