Woodie King Jr. and I had a special greeting for each other whenever we met. “Hey, MANY,” I would say, and he would respond, “And hey MANY” to me.
The word was an acronym signifying Michigan, Alabama, and New York. It was a trajectory we shared: places where we were born, raised, and, at last, ventured to the Big Apple.
News of his passing on Jan. 29 brought down the curtain on a remarkable career across several facets of the theater, and the flood of encomiums will provide only a glimpse of his contributions. He was 88 and reportedly died of complications from emergency heart surgery at the Weill Cornell Medical Center.
I thought of King recently, as I composed an obituary of David Rambeau, who, like King, was a stalwart in the theater in Detroit. And it was impossible not to mention King when Cliff Frazier joined the ancestors in 2022. They left the Motor City and arrived together in New York. Each found an unforgettable niche in their chosen endeavors.
Undoubtedly, one of the best biographies of his eventful life is at HistoryMakers, where he recounts his birth in Baldwin Springs, Alabama, in his own words — though that may have been misconstrued. (There were still other articles citing Mobile as his birthplace.) He was 10 when he moved to Detroit, and after some coming-of-age adventures among the city’s gangs, he attended the academic magnet high school Cass Tech, where his interest in performing blossomed to the point that he won a scholarship to Will-O-Way School of Theater in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
After graduating from Cass Tech, he recalled getting his first real job at the Ford Motor Company, which lasted only long enough for him to realize he needed to seek other employment. All the while, he became an avid film and theater goer, particularly influenced by Sidney Poitier’s success.
As a student at Wayne State University, he took classes and participated on stage and in other community activities. With the onset of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black liberation struggle, he joined several artistic activists in launching Detroit’s Concept East Theater. From 1960 to 1963, King was its theater director. A tour of Malcolm Boyd’s play “A Study in Color” under King’s direction, included a stop in New York City, and after the performances, he decided to stay.
Always energetic and curious, he juggled several writing, directing, and producing projects before combining all the pursuits in the creation of the New Federal Theater in 1970. And this has been the platform through which a plethora of phenomenal productions have made him an artiste extraordinaire, guiding notables such as Leslie Uggams, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and another former Detroiter, S. Epatha Merkerson, to say nothing of his relationships with Ed Bullins, Amiri Baraka, Charles Fuller, and Ron Milner.
A sizable compendium is necessary to capture the full range of the writers, actors, producers, and theater people he embraced, and who embraced him. I have a storehouse of memories with him, but none more informative than the moment in 2019 at City College when Glenn Hunter of the Harlem Gallery Archives asked me to return to the campus after my retirement there to moderate a panel that included Leonard Jeffries, James Small, and King. He beguiled the audience with his theater history, especially his five years as the cultural arts director at Mobilization for Youth.
During the panel, I asked him to elaborate on his experiences with Haki Madhubuti of Third World Press, who published his book “New Plays for the Black Theatre,” and he explained that Madhubuti wanted the book to also include the purposes and historical importance of Black theater in the overall struggle for self-determination, which he did most elegantly. The various obituaries and reflections on his time among us will, collectively, distill his significant legacy, which continues to grow without end, and easily extended by the wall full of awards and commendations.
King is survived by his loving wife, Elizabeth Van Dyke, a fine actress who often performed under his direction; his three children, Geoffrey, Michael, and Michelle King Huger, whom he shared with their mother, Willie Mae Washington; and several grandchildren.
We still await the funeral and memorial services for a doyen of Black Theater. Farewell, dear MANY, may you rest in peace and power, and know that we have one final part of our trip to complete together.