Rose McClendon

Rose McClendon, A Builder Of The Black Stage

She was born on August 27, 1884 in Greenville, North Carolina, and named Rosalie Virginia Scott, the daughter of Sandy and Lena Jenkins-Scott. Around 1890, the family moved to New York City where young Rosalie attended public schools. She studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, made her stage debut in 1919, appeared in "Deep River" and "In Abraham's Bosom" (both 1926), in Langston Hughes' "Mulatto," and in the original production of "Porgy and Bess" (both 1935). That same year, McClendon was a co-founder of the Negro People's Theatre.

While watching McClendon descend the winding staircase in the opera "Deep River," the producer Arthur Hopkins whispered to Ethel Barrymore, “She can teach some of your most hoity-toity actresses distinction.” Barrymore later replied, “She can teach them all distinction.
In 1946, Carl Van Vechten established the Rose McClendon Memorial Collection at Howard University, a collection of 100 photographs of prominent African-American artists and writers.
a "native opera with jazz", in 1926. In addition to acting, she also directed several plays at the Harlem Experimental Theatre. She appeared in the 1927 Pulitzer Prize-winning play In Abraham's Bosom by Paul Green. In 1931, she was in another Paul Green play on Broadway, The House of Connelly, which was the first production by the Group Theatre, directed by Lee Strasberg.

McClendon was a contemporary of Paul Robeson, Ethel Barrymore, Lynn Fontanne and Langston Hughes, who created a character for her in his 1935 play, Mulatto.

As a showcase for McClendon, Countee Cullen adapted Euripides' tragedy Medea, working with producer John Houseman, composer Virgil Thomson and production designer Chick Austin.[2]:128–129 Although the sets and costumes had been ready for months, by the end of 1934 McClendon had fallen ill and the project was never realized.

Her talent extended to directing as well as acting. In 1935 she co-founded, with Dick Campbell, the Negro People's Theatre in Harlem. More than 4,000 people attended its first production, an adaptation of Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty, and the group was organized in permanent form in June.

The Negro People's Theatre directly inspired the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project, which was created in 1935 under McClendon's supervision.
Under her guidance units were created in Seattle, Hartford, Philadelphia, Newark, Los Angeles, Boston, Raleigh, Birmingham, San Francisco and Chicago as well as New York. She served as liaison to numerous organizations and individuals who became involved in the Federal Theatre Project, including Harry Edward, Carlton Moss and Edna Thomas. McClendon advised national director Hallie Flanagan that the project should begin under experienced direction and selected John Houseman to co-direct the unit.

In December 1935 McClendon was forced to leave the cast of Langston Hughes's Mulatto after she became critically ill with pleurisy. McClendon was to have portrayed Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles's Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth (1936), but due to her continuing illness Edna Thomas played the role.:102 Her condition later developed into pneumonia, and McClendon died at her home July 12, 1936

After McClendon's death in 1936, Dick Campbell, her Negro People's Theater co-founder, formed the Rose McClendon Players in her honor.

In 1946, Carl Van Vechten established the Rose McClendon Memorial Collection of Photographs of Celebrated Negroes at Howard University. The collection is held in the prints and photographs department of Moorland–Spingarn Research Center.

In 1950, the estate of McClendon's husband donated her scrapbooks to the New York Public Library. Two volumes dated 1916–34 include newspaper and magazine articles and reviews, programs, letters, telegrams and photographs.

Source:Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia
Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine
Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York
ISBN 0-926019-61-9

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_McClendon