Shauneille Perry


Shauneille Perry is an American stage director and playwright. She was one of the first African-American women to direct off-Broadway.

Biography

Shauneille Perry was born on July 26, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois to a prominent African-American family. She is the daughter of Graham T. Perry, one of the first African-American assistant attorneys-general for the State of Illinois and his wife, the former Pearl Gant, one of the first African-American court reporters in Chicago. She is the niece by marriage of real-estate broker and political activist Carl Augustus Hansberry and his brother, Africanist scholar William Leo Hansberry. She is also the first cousin of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, Carl Hansberry's daughter.
Perry was raised on the west side of Chicago, where she graduated from Marshall High School. Her education continued at Howard University, where she was a member of the Howard Players under the direction of Owen Dodson. In 1950, she received a BA in drama from Howard. Her studies followed at the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received an MFA in directing. She also grraduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1955.
In 1957, Perry married architect Donald Ryder in Chicago. Ryder later partnered with Max Bond Jr. to form the architectural firm Bond Ryder & Associates.
Several months after her marriage, she received national exposure as the second-place winner in the 1958 Picturama Contest, an essay competition sponsored by Ebony Magazine. She took advantage of the prize with her husband, which was a $4,000, three-week tour of Paris. By the end of the decade, the couple relocated to New York City, where it did not take long for her to establish herself as an actress.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she acted in various productions on the New York City stage including The Goose, Dark of the Moon, Talent '60, Ondine, Clandestine on the Morning Line and The Octoroon. Her work as Lilly Ruth, a pregnant girl in the short-lived off-Broadway production of Clandestine on the Morning Line received particular notice.
Despite her success as a performer, Perry became disenchanted with acting and turned her focus toward writing, directing, and raising a family. "Got tired of acting," she once said, "it was too slow; too much business."
After Vinnette Carroll, Perry became one of the first African-American women to direct on the New York stage. One of her early efforts was Mau Mau Room, at the Negro Ensemble Company. It was the first major stage production of a play written by J. E. Franklin. In 1971, she staged three different productions: Rosalie Pritchett, Sty of the Blind Pig and the original off-Broadway production of J. E. Franklin's play Black Girl. The latter was made into a film, directed by Ossie Davis.
In addition to directing, Perry has written several plays including the book of the children's musical Mio, which she staged as a workshop production at the New Federal Theatre in the fall of 1971. It was later staged at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City in 1978. Other plays she either wrote or co-wrote include Last Night, Night Before, Daddy Goodness, and Things of the Heart: Marian Anderson's Story.
Perry has also written "Sounds of the City," a 15-minute daily soap opera that aired on the Mutual Black Network in the mid-1970s.

Personal

Perry and her cousin Lorraine Hansberry were born less than a year apart and were very close. One summer when they were little girls, Lorraine's mother took them to Columbia, Tennessee where she and Perry's father had grown up. Along the way, her aunt pointed out the Kentucky hills where her father George Perry had hidden after he escaped from slavery.
Years later, Shauneille was there when Lorraine had cancer and supported her. Hansberry named her as substitute executor of her estate after her ex-husband, Robert Barron Nemiroff.

Selected credits

Theatre

Directing

Writing

Acting

YearProductionRoleTheatreNotes
1961OctoroonGracePhoenix Theatre
1961Clandestine on the Morning LineLilly RuthActors Playhouse
1961OndineLenox Hill Playhouse
1960Talent '60
1960Dark of the MoonLenox Hill Playhouse
1959The GooseSullivan Street Playhouse

Television

Writing

Motion Pictures

Acting

Awards and recognition

Perry is also the recipient of a Broadcast Media Award, a Fulbright scholarship, a New York State Council of the Arts Young Audiences Play Commission and a Black Rose of Excellence from Encore Magazine.