Lamar Alford

Wilkie Lamar Alford was born on October 11, 1944, in Troy, Alabama, the youngest of five children in a family headed by a Baptist minister. He died on March 29, 1991, at Crawford Long Hospital at the age of 46. An actor, singer, composer, and playwright, Alford built a career centered on experimental theatre in New York City while also making his mark on Broadway.

Alford arrived in New York City and began taking voice lessons at age 19, eventually developing his tenor voice to the point of singing with the New York City Opera. His theatrical home became La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village of Manhattan, where he first appeared in a production in 1969 and continued working throughout the following decade. He held membership in two resident companies associated with La MaMa: the Great Jones Repertory Company and Tom Eyen's Theatre of the Eye Repertory Company.

His work at La MaMa in 1969 was extensive. That year he appeared in Eyen's Four No Plays by Tom Eyen with the Theatre of the Eye Repertory Company, as well as excerpts from that work presented alongside material from Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down and Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie, both written and directed by Eyen. Eyen dedicated that production to the West Village raid of June 26, 1969, the event later known as the Stonewall riots. Also in 1969, Alford appeared in Eyen's Caution: A Love Story and Hurricane of the Eye, in Edward de Grazia's The Americans directed by Martin Brenzell, in Donald Julian's In Praise of Folly directed by Marshall W. Mason, and in Ching Yeh's Wanton Soup. That same year he composed the music for Adrienne Kennedy's A Rat's Mass and appeared in the production, returning to it again in 1971.

Alford also served as musical director for several La MaMa productions in 1969, including Wilhelm Pevny's Sprint Orgasmics, adapted by Gitta Honneger and directed by Gotz Fritsch, and Andy Robinson's Spring-Voices, directed by Joel Zwick. In 1970, he both appeared in and composed the music for a production of Arden of Faversham and Alfred Jarry's Ubu, directed by Andrei Serban, and for Paul Foster's adaptation of Heimskringla, directed by Ching Yeh. He also composed the music for Antoine Bourseiller's production of Joachim Neugroschel's Baudelaire! that year. In April 1970, Alford directed a benefit performance titled Bang Too at La MaMa, which featured performances by John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous, Sam Shepard, and O-Lan Johnson, among others.

Alford made his Broadway debut in 1971 in the musical Godspell, playing a character named Lamar. He recorded a solo on the song All Good Gifts for the original cast recording of the production. The database record for his Broadway career lists his 1976 appearance in Godspell among his verified credits.

As a playwright, Alford wrote Thoughts, which was produced at La MaMa in 1972, 1973, and 1974. The 1972 production featured Mary Alice and Jeffrey Mylett, among others, and a similar cast appeared in 1973. The 1974 production replaced those performers with Andre de Shields, among others, and the Jarboro Company subsequently took the play on tour to Venezuela that same year.

Alford continued performing with the Great Jones Repertory Company in collaborations between director Andrei Serban and composer Elizabeth Swados. He appeared in Serban and Swados' production of Bertolt Brecht's Good Woman of Setzuan, adapted by Eric Bentley, in 1975, and again at La MaMa in 1978. That same year he also appeared in their Fragments of a Trilogy: The Trojan Women and Electra at La MaMa.

In 1982, Alford became dramatist-in-residence at Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta, Georgia. During his time there he founded the Kings Players, a theatre group at the institution.