Fern Gillespie
As Producing Artistic Director of New Federal Theatre, renowned theatre actress and director Elizabeth Van Dyke and the theatre are entering a new era. It’s the loss of Woodie King, the iconic founder of New Federal Theatre, who died in January.
“I was married to Woodie for nearly 30 years. We were together a long time. For me, he was a major mentor and comrade,” Van Dyke, who was named Producing Artistic Director in 2020, told Our Time Press. “Woodie could see potential in people that they couldn’t even see in themselves. And nurture it. So, he gave me and several other people like LaTanya Richardson opportunities to direct plays when we didn’t even have it in our bucket list.”
In 1981, she received a major directing credit as part of a theatrical historic event. Woodie King’s New Federal Theatre produced two biographical plays by Laurence Holder. The famous double bill was When the Chickens Came Home to Roost, starring Denzel Washington as Malcolm X and Zora, starring Phylicia Rashad as Zora Neale Hurston.
“Those were milestone productions. They were lines down the block. To this very day, people are still talking about that show. Both of those shows were so luminous,” she said. “I directed Phylicia Rashad in the one woman show Zora. It was so impactful that that is still resounds to this day.
It was then that Zora and I began our relationship. Years before that, Lynn Whitfield had given me one of Zora’s novels Jonah’s Gourd Vine. It started my love affair with Zora.”
Van Dyke’s name became attached to Zora. In 1990, Holder wrote a play for Van Dyke, Zora’s Neale Hurston: A Theatrical Biography, about the men in Zora’s life. It was co-produced by American Place Theatre and Woodie King’s National Black Touring Circuit. The tour went throughout the US and Africa.
“I think an historical character chooses their vessel. They might choose many people to portray them. But I believe the spirit is choosing who will portray them,” she said. “I am one of Zora’s vessels.”
At the Zora Neale Hurston Festival for the Arts and Humanities, she became the nonofficial artistic director. She’s been involved for over 20 years advising the festival. In 2023, Van Dyke portrayed Zora in the Wesley Brown drama Telling Tales Out of School, about several women from the Harlem Renaissance meeting in 1954. Woodie King directed it. “It was Zora in another time in her life and another writer envisioning her,” she said. “But it was still Zora from another perspective.”
Van Dyke won acclaim bringing the Lorraine Hansberry to the stage. She wrote and starred in the one person play on legendary Raisin in the Sun playwright Lorraine Hansberry in Love to all Lorraine. “I was fascinated by Lorraine Hansberry. I became known for playing both Zora Neale Hurston and Lorraine Hansberry.”
In 1999, she co-founded Going to the River, to mentor Black women playwrights.
“I wanted to tell the stories. I wanted to find the stories and nurture the stories by Black women for Black audiences,” she said. After 50 years, she revived the drama The Wedding Band by legendary Black playwright Alice Childress. Van Dyke portrayed Fanny at the Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. Her performance received raves.
As an only child growing up in Oakland, California, Van Dyke’s parents exposed her to the arts. “From my earliest childhood, I was taken to the ballet, opera, and the theater. It was magical. In school, I would be in the drama club and glee club. I believe I always had an artist spirit,” she said. “It seemed like theatre acting was my initial entrée. I loved acting. When I began to study, I loved the craft of acting. I believe it’s a calling.” She moved to New York and earned BFA and MFA degrees from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Her work as an actress and director spans theatre and television.
As an actress, Van Dyke appeared in Woodie King’s Broadway production of Checkmates starring Denzel Washington. Her television acting credits include Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU and The Cosby Show. Some of her director theatre credits are Sophisticated Ladies; Great Men of Gospel: SPIRIT INTO SOUND (2004); Sweet Mama Stringbean (2008); Gee’s Bend (2011); The Ballad of Emmet Till (2011); and August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (2014).
She’s earned honors that include the President’s Award from the Black Theatre Network; an ONYX Award for Best Director for Sophisticated Ladies; Audelco nominations for Best Director for Great Men of Gospel: SPIRIT INTO SOUND (2004) and Sweet Mama Stringbean (2008). For her impact on Black theatre, Van Dyke received the 2022 Audelco Lifetime Achievement Award.
Under Van Dyke’s administration, New Federal Theatre’s plays are performed Off Broadway at the Woman’s Project Theatre. However, New Federal Theatre will move its office organization base to a 6700 square foot location on Christopher Street. “It will be our offices, our workshops, and rehearsal for readings, salons, poetry, conversational round tables and small event presentations, we are quite excited about that,” said Van Dyke.
“We are Black theater. I think many of our heroes, and sheroes are forgotten.
In this climate, they are trying to be erased. So it’s important to remember who came before. Whose shoulders we stand upon,” she said. “Slavery displaced families, but we find pieces of ourselves on that stage, the commonalities on that stage, dignity on that stage, healing, upliftment, entertainment, information and the beauty of ourselves on that stage. Our stories told by our point of view.”
New Federal Theatre, founded by Woodie King, launched the careers of legends—from Issa Rae and Chadwick Boseman to Denzel Washington and Ntozake Shange. Elizabeth Van Dyke is an important part of that theatre heritage from being an actress and director to being a board member. “With Woodie and the board passing the baton,” she said. “They were saying you are the next Producing Director of New Federal Theater. You must build on this legacy.”