Trouble in Mind

Trouble in Mind makes its Broadway debut after more than 60 years after it was first set to debut on Broadway back in August 1957. The play is the brainchild of Alice Childress who was known in the industry as "the only African-American woman to have written, produced, and published plays for four decades." Childress was a novelist, actress and playwright from 1940’s all the way through to the 1980's.

Originally Planned as an Off-Broadway Transfer in 1955

Trouble in Mind was originally produced as an Off-Broadway production in 1955, where it had a successful run for two years. It was then announced that the show would be transferred to a Broadway theatre in 1957, but the plans began to falter when the financial backers realized the show's message was very much anti Broadway establishment and the show would incur the wrath of The Shubert Organization. When the backers realized that the playwright was also black, they pulled out completely.

Real Life Art Imitates Art

The fact that the show could not make it to Broadway back then, is somewhat ironic, as the show itself tells the story of a struggling actress who finds great difficulty when trying to appear on Broadway. Just a few years before this show premiered, Childress had become the first African-American woman to professionally produce in New York theatre with her play Gold Through The Trees in 1952.

Childress Passes Away Before Seeing Her Shows on Broadway

Childress tragically died of a heart attack in 1994 at the age of 77 and unfortunately was never able to get to see one of her plays make it onto the Great White Way. Charles Randolph-Wright, who is an award winning Broadway actor and member of the Board of Directors at the Roundabout Theatre Company, directs the show and helps bring it back to life for a modern take on the subject matter. Randolph-Wright has expressed some empathy for Childress, as he too took the slow road on Broadway through racism and inequality.