LEST WE FORGET ROSETTA LE NOIRE
(August 8, 1911 - March 17, 2002)

Her passionate commitment to a theatre that is color-blind earned her
New York Mayor Edward Koch's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture.

I knew Ms. Le Noire in the 1980s when I would see her at Actors' Fund meetings, social occasions, or at her beloved theatre AMAS Repertory Company and what I remember vividly is her electricity, magnetism, passion, dedication, and smile.  She was rarely without a smile on her face. She loved life, she loved the theatre and the arts, she loved young people who aspired to careers on stage.  And the words she would always say when she held your hand were God is Love.  AMAS means You love.  She believed in the healing power of touching others. Whether spiritually or just merely physically holding a hand and using a gentle massaging motion to ease the stress of the day.  Her mother had taught her that.  We cannot forget this great lady who united rather than divided people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Born in New York City, her father served as a Republican leader in New York's 21st Assembly District for more than 50 years.  She told a Sunday News reporter in 1976: "We lived on Strivers Row, those blocks in the 130's between Lenox and Seventh Avenue. If you had a government post, or were a doctor or a lawyer, you bought a tree-shaded brownstone, the symbol of success. No mistress of such a house went to get so much as a box of salt without wearing gloves and a hat. I do miss the niceties."

Her parents wanted her to be a nurse, but her godfather, dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, encouraged her to pursue a career in the theatre. At fifteen she became a chorus girl performing with her godfather. She wanted to perform African songs and dances and she appeared with the WPA's Federal Theatre Project as the First Witch in Macbeth (1936) and later in Bassa Moona. Her Broadway debut was as Peep Bo in Mike Todd's production of The Hot Mikado at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1939. Her Broadway credits included:  Anna Lucasta (1944), Mister Johnson (1956), Tambourines to Glory (1963), I Had A Ball (1964), A Streetcar Named Desire (1973),
The Sunshine Boys (1974), and The Royal Family (1976).  Off Broadway audiences saw her in
Take A Giant Step (1956), A Cry of Players (1968), and Lady Day (1972).

In 1968 an event occurred that had a profound effect on her. She wrote about it. "I was standing in a hallway near a classroom in a Harlem church. There was a shout. Who do we love? We love Black. Who do we hate? We hate Whitey." (NY Amsterdam News, 1972).  She was prompted to establish a theatrical company that would focus on uniting rather than dividing people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.  She founded AMAS Repertory Company in 1969.  The company has focused on musical theatre including Bubbling Brown Sugar (1975), Bojangles (1976) and Blackberries (1985)

She championed the cause of racial equity for more than 70 years. Her efforts profoundly influenced the New York theater community. She created an artistic community where members' individual skills were recognized without regard to race, creed, color, religion, or national origin.  The Actors Equity Association awarded her the first Rosetta Le Noire Award for helping contribute to the diversification of theatre casting in 1988.
       
The Rosie Award "is given to individuals who demonstrate extraordinary accomplishment and dedication in the theatrical arts and to corporations that work to promote opportunity and diversity."
Past honorees have included Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Geoffrey Holder, Carmen de Lavallade, Maurice Hines, Phylicia Rashad, Woodie King, Jr., and George C. Wolfe.

Awards she received include the Audelco Award for superior and sustained contribution to the performing arts in 1977 and again in 1982 as an outstanding pioneer.   In 1999 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Posthumously she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by
the League of Professional Theatre Women.
Despite her many theatrical achievements, the personal price she paid to pursue her craft was often great.  "I remember touring and the nights I sat alone in a hotel, or looking up a preacher to see if he knew a colored family who'd take me in. And stars like Dorothy McGuire and Eileen Heckart walking streets to find a restaurant where we could eat together."

She wrote several critically acclaimed plays: Come Laugh and Cry with Langston Hughes, Reminiscing with Sissle & Blake, House Party, and Soul: Yesterday and Today. She received the Frank Silvera Writer's Award for Playwriting.

Resource: Notable Women in American Theatre.  Maria Rodriguez
Wikipedia