Robbie McCauley is an American playwright, director, and performer. She is best known for her plays Sugar and Sally's Rape.
Personal life
Robbie McCauley was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1942. She spent most of her younger years splitting time between Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Georgia. She earned her B.A. from Howard University and her M.A. from New York University. It was in New York where she became interested in both experimental and African-American theatre. In 1979 she was introduced to Ed Montgomery, a musician. Together, they formed a group called Sedition Ensemble, a group focusing on political jazz works which married melody with improvised words. The duo were briefly married but split. They still maintain a professional relationship in which Montgomery occasionally writes music for McCauley's plays. She continues to work, perform, and teach.
Career
McCauley is not only a playwright, but also an actor, writer, and director. Her involvement in theater began during the late 1960s, when she worked as an apprentice at the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City. Since the 1970s she has been a working playwright, director, and actor in many New York-based projects, both on and off Broadway, in the US and abroad. Her first, and most successful work, Sally's Rape, won an OBIE Award in 1991 for best new American play and a Bessie Award in 1990. Her other major works include Sugar, Mississippi Freedom, Quabbin Dance, and Indian Blood. As an actress, she is known for her performance in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicidewhen the rainbow is enuf on Broadway. McCauley's work deals with themes of race and racism in the USA. She is eager to confront the hard issues of racism, and her work often facilitates dialogues on race between races in the community. Outside of the theater, she has taught at City College of New York, Hunter College, Mount Holyoke College, University of Massachusetts and Emerson College. McCauley is also a guest instructor at HB Studio.
Awards
Robbie McCauley was awarded the IRNE Award for Solo Performance.
She was selected as a 2012 Fellow.
She received an OBIE Award and a Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance for her play Sally's Rape.
In 2012 she received a $50,000 USA Ford Fellow for Theater Arts award.
Notable works
''Sugar''
Sugar is an auto-biographical piece about McCauley's life as a diabetic. The story is heartfelt, personal and vivid in detail as McCauley tells and shows the audience some of the difficulties and complexities of living with diabetes as a black woman working in the theater and elsewhere. She makes a powerful parallel between sugar and slavery: both have chained her. The premiere performance of the piece was put on by ArtsEmerson, an organization at Emerson College, directed by Maureen Shea.
''Sally's Rape''
Sally's Rape is a performance art piece in which McCauley stands on a bench. A white woman enters and tells the audience that the bench is an auction box. The white woman encourages the audience to bid on McCauley's body. The piece deals with Afro-American women who were object of white abuse, as well as with neo-colonialism and commodity fetishism, as it demonstrate an audience who participates by its complicity in the event. She created this with the idea of opening a dialogue of how slavery stereotypes have affected Afro-American women in society.
''Indian Blood''
Indian Blood, like Sally's Rape, weaves McCauley's family history into the piece. The first performance was in 1987. The play is inspired by McCauley's grandfather. He was a part of the 10th Cavalry Regiment in the Spanish–American War. They were known as the buffalo soldiers, as they also fought Native Americans.
''Mississippi Freedom''
Mississippi Freedom is the first in a trilogy of theater works that McCauley created in the 1990s that highlight race relations in the US during the '60s and '70s. In collaboration with as well as local artists, the pieces are mixed media, incorporating elements of music, audience participation, and more. Mississippi Freedom is centered on the fight for the right to vote. It toured around the state of Mississippi in 1992, and was presented in New York in 1993, and Texas in 1996.
''Turf: A Conversational Concert in Black and White''
Mississippi Freedom is followed by Turf: A Conversational Concert in Black and White, which is centered around the Boston school busing controversy. It was performed in four different neighborhood locations around Boston in 1993.
''The Other Weapon''
The last piece in the trilogy is titled The Other Weapon, and tells the stories of the Black Panther Party, community empowerment, and law enforcement in Los Angeles. It was shown at four locations in LA in 1994.
''Quabbin Dance''
Quabbin Dance is based upon actual events that took place in Western Massachusetts in the late 1930s when four towns were flooded in order to provide a reservoir, the Quabbin, to provide Boston's water supply. It was performed at Mount Holyoke College.
Critical reception
Robbie McCauley's work has been well received by most critics. Sally's Rape and Sugar especially have receive high reviews from the African American Review, The Boston Globe, and Bomb. Don Aucoin of the Stage Review describes McCauley as "a skilled performer and raconteur who knows the subtle difference between speaking with—rather than to or at—her audience."
