Gertrude Jeannette: Actor, Director, Playwright and Producer.
Ted Shine: Playwright, Editor, University Professor and Theatre Department Chair.
Reg E. Cathey, Award-winning Actor of Stage and Television.

In Memoriam: Gertrude Jeannette, Ted Shine, and Reg E. Cathey


Gertrude Jeannette

She suffered a speech impediment that caused her to stutter, which led her to take speech classes at the American Negro Theatre. After one year of classes, she was urged to audition for one of their pro-ductions. With that, she embarked upon her career as an actress, director and playwright. In 1949 she made her Broadway debut in Lost in the Stars, followed by appearances in many other Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, including the original production of Baldwin's Amen Corner and O'Neill's All God's Chillun ....(continued)

Ted Shine

As a playwright, he reportedly wrote over 100 plays, mostly one acts. Two plays, Contribution and Miss Weaver were produced by the Negro Ensemble Company. Many of the other plays have been produced at a variety of HBCU's including Howard, Hampton, and Lincoln universities and at the Harlem School of the Arts. Soul Rep Theatre Company in Dallas produced The Shine Plays in 2015. Three plays were published in a collection titled, Contributions: Three One-Act Plays in 1970 by Dramatists Play Service. He also wrote over 60 scripts for the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting's Our Street series from 1969 to 1973....(continued)

Reg. E. Cathey

While most widely known for his film and TV roles, such as Norman Wilson in The Wire, and his Emmy Award-winning role as Freddie Hayes in House of Cards, Reg E. Cathey also had an extensive resume as a stage actor. His stage credits include many roles in such Shakespearean plays as: Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale, Love's Labour Lost, and Timon of Athens; in European classics: The Miser by Moliere, The Three Sisters by Chekhov and End-game by Beckett; and in acclaimed contem-porary works: The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World by Suzan-Lori Parks....(continued)


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Spring Summer 2018

This article is featured in Vol. 24, No. 2

Also in this issue:

  • Kathy Perkins: Tale of Two Passions

  • August Wilson Society Collo-quium Scores Big in Pittsburgh

  • Editor's Notes: Seasonal Hopes

  • Arts Hotline

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