Celeste Bedford Walker
Celeste Bedford Walker | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Texas Southern University |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (2023) |
Celeste Bedford Walker is an American playwright. Born and raised in Houston, she has written several plays on African-American history, including Camp Logan, Distant Voices, and Greenwood: An American Dream Destroyed. She has won several accolades for her work, including a 2022 Texas Institute of Letters lifetime achievement award and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Biography
[edit]Early life and education
[edit]Celeste Bedford Walker was born in Houston.[1] Her parents were from Black rural communities; her father was from Hallettsville and her mother from Grapeland.[2]
Raised in the Third Ward,[2] she was inspired to go into writing after a librarian at her school introduced her to Langston Hughes after she asked her if black writers existed.[3] She attended Yates High School, before moving on to Texas Southern University to study English and journalism, as well as a brief career in data processing.[1]
Playwright career
[edit]Originally interested in writing novels after being inspired by Toni Morrison, she then decided to be a playwright when "she was more interested in dialogue".[1] After working as an actor at the Black Arts Center in the Fifth Ward,[2] she made her playwright debut with Sister, Sister in 1978;[1] it is about a couple who create a "love square" when they each become interested in polygamy.[2]
Walker, who briefly did research on the Houston riot of 1917 after learning about it from her relatives, wrote Camp Logan to raise awareness of the incident.[2][3] It premiered in 1987 at Kuumba House, before being performed at the The Ensemble Theatre and outside the state, including in California and New York state.[2] Curator Steve Davis called the play "a great example of how literature can serve as a way to recover banished history" and noted that it "had a role in sparking an awareness of what happened".[2]
Another work from Walker, Distant Voices (1997), is about Black figures arising from a local cemetery[a] in Texas.[2][4] In 2015, she wrote another play named Greenwood: An American Dream Destroyed, focused on the Tulsa race massacre.[2]
In the 1990s, she and actor Charles S. Dutton started a new production of Sister, Sister in Los Angeles, under the new name Once in a Wifetime.[2] Other works include musicals like Harlem after Hours, Over Forty, and Praise the Lord, and Raise the Roof!; a mystery play called Reunion in Bartersville; and a romantic comedy named Sassy Mamas, which has been widely performed and received several accolades since its 2007 premiere at the Billie Holiday Theatre.[1][2][5] She is founder of Mountaintop Productions, which became operational in 1990.[1]
In 2023, Texas A&M University Press published an anthology of Walker's plays called Sassy Mamas and Other Plays.[6]
Themes and accolades
[edit]Walker's theatrical work was inspired by the Black themes of Lorraine Hansberry and Neil Simon.[1] She once called both Camp Logan and Greenwood: An American Dream Destroyed "quintessential racial confrontation stories".[2] Andrew Dansby described her as "a provocative, entertaining and innovative presence in Houston’s theater scene for decades".[2] Sandra Mayo said that she "has enriched American theater and ennobled African-American theater", citing her research, subject matter, and writing.[2]
Walker was awarded a 2022 Texas Institute of Letters lifetime achievement award.[2] In 2023, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellow in Drama and Performance Art.[7] She has also won a NAACP Theatre Award, as well as awards from AUDELCO and the International Black Theatre Festival.[5]
Personal life
[edit]Walker has two children.[3]
Bibliography
[edit]- Sassy Mamas and Other Plays (2023)
Notes
[edit]- ^ Sources vary on the exact cemetery: although Mayo noted that this was College Memorial Park Cemetery,[1] Walker herself said in an interview that this was Freedman's Cemetery.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h Mayo, Sandra M. (2023). "Introduction". Sassy Mamas and Other Plays. Texas A&M University Press.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Dansby, Andrew (December 8, 2023). "How Houston playwright Celeste Bedford Walker uses the Bayou City as a stage for historical drama". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
- ^ a b c "'What Happens to a Dream Deferred?'". Newsday. February 1, 1991. p. 90.
- ^ a b "Lone Star Listens: Celeste Bedford Walker and a Lifetime of Achievement". Lone Star Literary Life. February 26, 2022. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
- ^ a b Gans, Andrew (June 6, 2024). "Lillias White, Charlotte d'Amboise, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, More Set for Reading of Reunion in Bartersville". Playbill. Retrieved February 24, 2025.
- ^ "Sassy Mamas and Other Plays". Texas A&M University Press. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
- ^ "Celeste Bedford Walker". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- Living people
- Writers from Houston
- Texas Southern University alumni
- African-American dramatists and playwrights
- American women dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century African-American writers
- 20th-century African-American women writers
- 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
- 21st-century African-American writers
- 21st-century African-American women writers