[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16843]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 IN CELEBRATION OF THE LIFE AND THEATRICAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF SHAUNEILLE 
                                 PERRY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, November 7, 2011

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, today I rise with great cultural pride to 
join Byron Lewis, CEO of Uniworld Group, Woodie King, Jr., Founder and 
Executive Artistic Director of New Federal Theatre and Voza Rivers, Co-
Founder and Executive Producer of New Heritage Theatre to celebrate the 
life and theatrical achievements of renowned actor, author, director 
and educator, Shauneille Perry.
  On November 13, 2011, at Harlem's landmarked Riverside Church, the 
Uniworld Group, New Federal Theatre and New Heritage Theatre will join 
hundreds of actors, playwrights, designers, technicians, and students 
in the field of Black Theater to say thank you to Shauneille Perry for 
her historic accomplishments and contributions to American Theater.
  Shauneille Perry was born on July 26, 1929, in Chicago to a very 
prominent African American family. Her father, Graham T. Perry, was one 
of the first African American Assistant Attorney Generals for the State 
of Illinois. Her mother, the former Laura Pearl Gant, was one of the 
first African American court reporters for the City of Chicago. Ms. 
Perry is also the niece of real estate broker and political activist 
Carl Augustus Hansberry and Africanist scholar William Leo Hansberry. 
She is also the first cousin of Carl Hansberry's daughter, Lorraine 
Hansberry, famous playwright and author of the 1973 Tony Award Best 
Musical, A Raisin in the Sun.
  Shauneille attended Howard University, where she was a member of the 
Howard Players under the direction of Owen Dodson. In 1950, she 
received a B.A. in drama from Howard. Her studies followed at the 
Goodman Theatre Art Institute in Chicago, where she received her M.A. 
in directing. She is also a Fulbright Scholar at the Royal Academy of 
Dramatic Art in London.
  In Chicago of 1957, Perry married Architect Donald Ryder. Several 
months later, she received national exposure as the second place winner 
in the 1958 Picturama Contest, an essay competition sponsored by Ebony 
Magazine. She took advantage of the prize with her husband, which was a 
$4,000, three-week tour of Paris. By the end of the decade, the couple 
relocated to New York City, where it did not take long for her to 
establish herself as an actor.
  In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she acted in various productions 
on the New York stage including The Goose, Dark of the Moon, Talent 
'60, Ondine, Clandestine on the Morning Line and The Octoroon. Her work 
as Lilly Ruth, a pregnant girl in the short-lived off-Broadway 
production of Clandestine on the Morning Line received particular 
notice. After her many successes as a performing actor, Shauneille 
switched her career toward writing, directing, and raising a family.
  Following in the footsteps of Vinnette Carroll, the first great 
African American playwright, stage director, and actor to direct on 
Broadway with the hit gospel revue, Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope, 
Shauneille became one of the first African American women to direct on 
the New York stage. Her notable works on the Broadway and on the 
national and international tour stage include one of her early efforts, 
the Mau Mau Room, at the Negro Ensemble Company. It was the first major 
stage production of a play written by J.E. Franklin.
  Shauneille Perry staged the productions of Strivers Row, Looking 
Back, the music of Micki Grant by Rosalie Pritchett, Sty of the Blind 
Pig by Phillip Hayes Dean for the Negro Ensemble Company, Moon on a 
Rainbow Shawl produced by Voza Rivers at Harlem's Roger Furman's New 
Heritage Theatre, the award-winning production of Paul Robeson, and the 
original off-Broadway production of J.E. Franklin's play, Black Girl 
for Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre, which became a film 
directed by another award winning actor and civil rights activist Ossie 
Davis.
  A gifted writer of several plays including Pearl, a short story 
collection and children's musical Mio, which she staged as a workshop 
production at the New Federal Theatre in the fall of 1971. Shauneille's 
work includes Sass and Class, In Dahomey, Music Magic, Daddy Goodness 
with Clifton Davis; Last Night, Night Before, Things of the Heart, 
Marian Anderson's Story, and Sounds of the City, a 15 minute daily soap 
opera that aired on the Mutual Black Network in the mid-1970s for Byron 
Lewis' Uniworld Group, Inc. Shauneille Perry's other gifted works 
include the KCET teleplay of John Henry Redwood's Old Settler starring 
Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen, Black Beauties for Equity Fights Aids 
and the narrative for the 2005 Harlem Exhibition at the Museum of the 
City of New York.
  An innovator and contributor of the Black Arts Movement, Shauneille 
Perry has been honored with four AUDELCO Awards, two CEBAS, the Lloyd 
Richards Award of Directing (National Black Theatre Festival), the 
Black Rose of Achievement (Encore Magazine), the distinguished Howard 
Player and Alumni Awards, and the Scholar Achievement Award from Lehman 
College of the City University of New York, where she was a professor 
of Theatre and Black Studies.
  Mr. Speaker, please join me and a grateful nation in celebrating the 
life and theatrical achievements of Shauneille Perry as a living legend 
of the American and Black Theater. Her talented works and legacy will 
forever remain in our ever-changing world. With her accomplishments and 
contributions, the Black Theatre community has had the opportunity to 
help advance the quality and heritage of the American Theatre.

                          ____________________