Biography

Born November 7, 1929, as Horace E. Carter Jr., Carter was surrounded by theater from an early age while growing up in Manhattan, though he did not pursue it as a professional until later. He saw his first Broadway show, Amphityron 38, at the age of eight, and went on to study at the High School of Music and Art (prior to its being renamed LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts). Shortly after, he served in the military. Upon returning to the states, Carter worked as an orderly at New York Hospital for over 10 years, and his experiences with hospice care and the difficult decisions it demands served as the inspiration for many of his works.

His first play, Terraced Apartment, premiered in 1965. Two years after this, the Negro Ensemble Company was founded, and Carter joined the collective early, spearheading its literary department and playwriting workshop. In 1974, the company presented Terraces, which included a reworked version of Terraced Apartment and additional sketches. They’d go on to produce a handful of his other works, including the first two installments of his trilogy about New York-based Caribbean families: Eden and Nevis Mountain Dew (which earned him a Drama Desk nomination). When the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of Leslie Lee’s The First Breeze of Summer transferred to Broadway, he served as a production coordinator.

The third play of the series, Dame Lorraine, premiered at Victory Gardens Theater in 1981, around which time Carter left Negro Ensemble Company. The Chicago company would go on to present several more works by the playwright through 1990, including the vaudeville-inspired Shoot Me While I’m Happy and his Caribbean-set Medea adaptation, Pecong. (Full Bio)

Plays

ONE LAST LOOK (1967) 

One Last Look tells the story of a philanderer on his deathbed and the people who loved him. Set in a Harlem funeral home, his family and ex-lovers gather to get closure. The play begins with tension between the deceased’s (Eustace) mistress and wife. The service begins and  each loved one has a moment frozen in time where Eustace comes for one last conversation. Their love is mixed with pain and anger as they rehash the impact Eustace’s infidelity has made on their lives.

Cast Requirement: 12 (8f, 4m)

Characters: The Attendant, Eustace Baylor, The Soprano, Cora Lee Simmons, Adelaide, Funeral Director, Reva Butler, Donna Butler, Charlie Butler, Annette Baylor, April Baylor, Stace Baylor

Publication: Plays By Steve Carter. Broadway Play, 1986. (Link)

TERRACES (1974)

Four short plays that each take place in a ritzy terrace apartment in Harlem. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 13 (6f, 7m)

Characters: Manager, Wife-to-Be, Husband-to-Be, Wife, Husband, Old Wife, Old Husband, Fleur, Zan, Octavia, Marigold, Nick, Wino

Publication: Terraces. Alexander Street Press, 2003. (Link)*

EDEN (1976)

Set in 1927 in New York City, EDEN revolves around Eustace, a happy-go-lucky African American man, who makes the mistake of falling in love with the girl next door, Annetta, daughter of an autocratic West Indian, Joseph Barton, who rules his household with an iron fist: he literally whips his belief in racial purity into his children with a cat-o’-nine-tails. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 8 (4f, 4m)

Characters: Joseph Barton, Anetta Barton, Eustace Baylor, Solomon Barton, Nimrod Barton, Lizzie Harris, Agnes Barton, Florie Barton

Publication: Eden. Alexander Street Press, 2003. (Link)*

NEVIS MOUNTAIN DEW (1978)

The place is a home in Queens (NY), where the family of Jared Philibert, who has long been confined in an iron lung, gathers to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Present are his wife; his two sisters, who also live in the house and care for him; the younger sister’s boyfriend (who has brought along a case of West Indian rum called “Nevis Mountain Dew"); and a strapping young co-worker of his wife’s. As the rum flows so does the truth: the bitterness of the sisters, who have sacrificed so much to look after their brother; the still young and passionate wife, whose husband has so long been a helpless invalid; and the young co-worker, whose attraction to the wife is no longer a secret. In the end Jared, aware that he is not the only one imprisoned by his condition, resolves to set both himself and the others free, by pleading with them to unplug the respirator, the “metal overcoat” in which he has spent so many years. His plea is answered, but the result is not the loss but rather the affirmation of life—which, in Jared’s view, must be experienced fully and joyfully or not at all. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 7 (3f, 4m)

Characters: Zepora Philibert, Lud Gaithers, Jared Philibert, Everalda Griffin, Ayton Morris, Billie Philibert, Boise McCanles

Publication: Nevis Mountain Dew. Dramatists Play Service, 1979. (Link)

DAME LORRAINE (1981)

Picton and Dorcas, ancient now, came to this country with an internal, eternal love that made them blind to the fact that the darker aspects of the elusive Dame Lorraine found homes in the hearts of their eight sons. Their first-born and only surviving male child comes home today after twenty-seven years in prison. Picton and Dorcas await him, thinking perhaps they should never have come here. Perhaps they never should have fallen in love. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 5 (3f, 2m)

Characters: Rene Moulineaux, Angela Moulineaux, Salvatore Buongusto, Dorcas Moulineaux, Picton Moulineaux

Publication: Plays By Steve Carter. Broadway Play, 1986. (Link)

HOUSE OF SHADOWS (1984) 

In House of Shadows, two baby-faced would-be criminals decide to rob the home of two women of advanced age who live in contention with their past, their present, their future, and each other. The brats get more than they’ve bargained for, including possible great futures behind bars in Joliet. (Source)*

Cast Requirement: 6 (2f, 4m)

Characters: Cassie, Mary Majeski, Eric, Hector, Wladek Majeski, Aaron Shaw

Publication: Plays By Steve Carter. Broadway Play, 1986. (Link)

MIRAGE (1984)

Carter’s Mirage opens with a burglar rummaging through a home until the noise awakens the homeowner. Upon seeing the state of his apartment, he calls the police only to discover that the burglar is still there and also a woman. Through the course of this brief one-act, the female burglar berates and threatens the man, reversing the conventions of the powerful and the powerless. She forces him to strip down and they proceed to have sex. The characters then reveal they are husband and wife acting out an evening of role-playing.

Cast Requirement: 2 (1f, 1m)

Characters: Man, Woman

Publication: Plays By Steve Carter. Broadway Play, 1986. (Link)

PECONG (1990) 

Set “well in the past” on a fictional Caribbean island, the play tells the story of a sorceress who falls madly in love with a shallow womanizer. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 8 (5f, 3m)

Characters: Mediyah, Granny Root, Cedric, Persis, Faustina, Creon Pandit, Sweet Bella, Jason Allcock, Damballah

Publication: Pecong. Broadway Play Publishing, 1993. (Link)

Resources