Regina Taylor is an American theatre treasure. She is an award-winning actor with multiple NAACP Image Awards and a Golden Globe winner for “Best Actor in a Drama” for her work on the groundbreaking television series “I'll Fly Away.” She is thought to be the first Black actor to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. What many don’t know is that she is also an award-winning playwright whose latest work will be featured at the 15th Annual Atlanta Black Theatre Festival taking place September 3rd - 5th at the LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Samuel L. Jackson Performing Arts Center at Spelman College.
Before speaking about her new work, can we talk a little bit about your varied career and how you succeeded in a field where many have challenges? I asked Taylor, “Did you choose acting, or did acting choose you?”
She spoke about being a writer and the books she wrote with her mother Nell Taylor as a child. She explained that this is where she was able to create her own worlds and characters to tell stories. In this safe space, she was able to create multiple versions of herself. In her mind, she has always been a writer and pursued a degree in Journalism in college. A counselor suggested she take an acting class as an extracurricular class and an easy A. Her counselor said: “You can pretend to be a tree.”
While embracing the acting class, she met Henry Fonda, and his agent invited her to audition for a part in an upcoming movie; with a chaperone, she auditioned at a Motel Six and got the part in the film “Crisis At Central High” starring Joanne Woodward. Taylor changed her major, and as they say, the rest is history. I asked Taylor about her ability to have success on television, film, and Broadway. She speaks to this being deliberate on her part; she set out to learn new forms and began writing again to find her voice.
We speak about her first play produced in Louisville, KY, entitled Watermelon Rind. Her latest play, The Exhibit, will be on the main stage at the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival on September 5th at 7PM. We speak about how the work mirrors today’s society. The erasure of history and the loss of hard-won rights continue to crumble as democracy is literally eroded as we watch. The Exhibit brings the story to stage as an artist finds her work being banned.
For more information and tickets, visit Atlanta Black Theatre Festival.