Biography

A pioneer playwright, actor, author, and teacher, Theodore Browne was best known for his association with the Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre in Seattle, Washington in the 1930s. He was also an original member of the American Negro Theatre (ANT) and one of the founders of the Negro Playwrights Company, both in New York. Browne was born in Suffolk, Virginia, and educated in the public schools of New York City. He received advanced degrees at the City College of New York (1941) and at Northeastern University (1944) in Boston.

Theodore Browne gained theatrical experience with the Civic Repertory Theatre in Seattle during the early 1930s, a community group that later became the Seattle Negro Unit of the Works Progress Administration Federal Theatre in 1936. When the Federal Theatre began its operation in Seattle in 1936, Brown was named assistant director of the Negro Unit, where he also acted, directed, and was its resident playwright. Between 1936 and 1937, the unit produced four plays by Browne: an adaptation of Lysistrata, Natural Man, A Black Woman Called Moses, and Swing, Gates, Swing…

Browne, along with Langston Hughes and Theodore Ward, helped to found the Negro Playwrights company in New York City that produced Ward’s Big White Fog in 1940. After World War II, Browne lived in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he taught theater, lectured, and maintained ties with the New England Repertory Theatre. He received the Rockefeller/Dramatists Guild Fellowship in Playwriting, the first African American to be honored with this award. Theodore Browne died in Boston at age 68. (Full Bio)

Plays

Natural Man (1936)

Natural Man (originally titled This Ole Hammer) was an eight-episode folk drama with music loosely based on the legendary John Henry, who tests his prodigious physical skills against a steam engine. The play also made social commentary about racial injustice and oppression. John Henry epitomized the African American’s indomitable spirit and will to survive against almost impossible odds. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 23 (3f, 20m)

Characters: John Henry, Charlye, Big’n Me, Luther, Jim, Hard Tack, Britt, Polly Ann, Captain Tommy Walters, The Creeper, Salesman of Steam Drills, Spectators, Woman, Bartender, Sweetman, Buster, Jess, Pickpocket, White Policeman, White Jailbirds, Sheriff, Five Convicts, Boy, Guard, Congregation, Preacher, Old Woman, Four Hoboes

Publication: Natural Man. Alexander Street Press, 2003. (Link)

Go Down Moses (1938)

Go Down Moses is a dramatization of Harriet Tubman’s life that examines Black agency in ending slavery. Tracing the struggle of Tubman, and other former slaves who fought for the right to fight, Browne’s drama was part of a broader movement to create an Afrocentric, politically usable, record of how Black Americans had brought about revolutionary changes in the past. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 52 (10f, 42m)

Characters: Reba, Harriet, Jason, Overseer, 1st White Man, 2nd White Man, 3rd White Man, Sidney, Voice, Logan, Hannibal, Emerson, Hopper, Cumbo, Cephus, Martha, Silas, Trader, Client, Clarabelle, Auctioneer, A Bidder, Ephraim, Jake, Dossier, Clotilde, Old Woman, Old Man, Breeder, Mulatto, Fugitive, Owner, First Patrol, Agent, Granny, Lowry, Young Girl, Leathe, Jupiter, Teebelle, Seth, Zeb, Zellie, Quaker, Freedman, Slaves, 1st Slavecatcher, 2nd Slavecatcher, Garrett, Governor, Shaw, Jefferson, Hallowell, Aide, Flag Boy, 1st Soldier, 2nd Soldier, Messenger, Recruiting Officer, Guard, Big Simon, A Worshiper

Publication: Go Down Moses. Alexander Street Press, 2003. (Link)*