Woodie King

Woodie King Jr., born July 27, 1937, in Bladon Springs, Alabama, was an American actor, producer, and director whose career spanned film, television, and theatre. After his parents separated, he relocated with his mother to Detroit, Michigan, where he completed high school in 1956 and subsequently took a position at the Ford Motor Company as an arc welder. Between 1958 and 1962, he attended The Will-O-Way School of Theatre in Detroit on a scholarship, and from 1959 to 1962 he contributed drama criticism to the Detroit Tribune. In 1960, King cofounded the Concept-East Theatre in Detroit alongside Ron Milner, serving as its manager and director through 1963.

Following his move to New York City in 1964, King received the John Hay Whitney Fellowship to study theatre direction and administration at The American Place Theatre. That same year he became Cultural Arts Director at Mobilization for Youth, a post he held for five years. His Broadway career included an appearance in The Great White Hope in 1968. That year he also received the Venice Festival Award and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen Award for The Game. In 1970, he earned the International Film Critics Award for Right On, and in 1971 the A. Philip Randolph Award at the New York Film Festival for Epitaph.

In 1970, King founded the New Federal Theatre on the Lower East Side of New York City, an institution dedicated to producing works by and about people of color and amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities. Among the artists who performed at the New Federal Theatre in the early stages of their careers were Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, Loretta Devine, Jackie Harry, Reginald Vel Johnson, and Al Freeman Jr. In 1974, King established The National Black Touring Circuit to support and present Black theatre productions to broader audiences across the United States. Over the course of his career he produced and directed more than 400 performances throughout the country.

King received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play in 1976 and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Unique Theatrical Experience in 1977. In 1988, he received the NAACP Image Award for his direction of Checkmates. He won AUDELCO Awards for Best Director and Best Play in 1993 for Robert Johnson: Trick The Devil. Subsequent honors included the Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1997, the Actors' Equity Association's Paul Robeson Award in 2003, and the Rosetta LeNoire Award from the same organization in 2005.

King pursued his formal education later in his career, earning a B.A. in Self-Determined Studies with a focus on Theatre and Black Studies from Lehman College in 1996, followed by an M.F.A. in Theater with a concentration in Directing from Brooklyn College in 1999. Lehman College awarded him an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters in 2008, and he also held honorary doctorates from Wayne State University, the College of Wooster, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2020 he received the Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre. King retired as producing director of the New Federal Theatre in 2021 but remained on its board. He died in New York City on January 29, 2026, from complications of heart surgery, at the age of 88.