Woodie King, Jr.

Woodie King Jr. (born 27 July 1937) is an American director and producer of stage and screen, as well as the founding director of the New Federal Theatre in New York City.

King was born in Baldwin Springs, Alabama. He graduated high school in 1956 in Detroit, Michigan, United States, and worked at the Ford Motor Company there for three years. He then worked for the City of Detroit as a draftsman. He founded the New Federal Theatre in 1970. He earned an M.F.A. at Brooklyn College in 1999.

King has a long list of credits in film and stage direction and production, including the following:

• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• What the Wine Sellers Buy
• Reggae
• The Taking of Miss Janie, which earned the Drama Critic Circle Award

• 1985 Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Appear and Show Cause
• 1988 NAACP Image Award for directing Checkmates at the Inner City Cultural Center
• 1993 AUDELCO awards for Best Director and Best Play for Robert Johnson: Trick The Devil
• 1997 Obie Award for Sustained Achievement
• 2003 Paul Robeson Award
• 2005 Rosetta LeNoire Award
• 2011 Induction into American Theater Hall of Fame
• 2014 Theatre Legend Award, Atlanta Black Theatre Festival

• Woodie King; Earl Anthony (1972). Black Poets and Prophets: The Theory, Practice, and Esthetics of the Pan-Africanist Revolution. New York: New American Library.
• Woodie King (1981). The Forerunners: Black Poets in America. Washington, D.C: Howard University Press. ISBN 0-88258-093-0.
• Woodie King (1981). Black Theatre: Present Condition. New York: National Black Theatre Touring Circuit. ISBN 0-89062-133-0.
• Ron Milner; Woodie King (1986). Black Drama Anthology. New York: New American Library. ISBN 0-452-00902-2.
• Woodie King (1989). New Plays for the Black Theatre. Chicago: Third World Press. ISBN 0-88378-124-7.
• Woodie King (1996). The National Black Drama Anthology: Eleven Plays from America's Leading African-American Theaters. Applause Theatre & Cinema Book Publishers. ISBN 1-55783-219-6.
• Woodie King Jr (2000). Voices of Color: 50 Scenes and Monologues by African American Playwrights (Applause Acting Series). New York: Applause Books. ISBN 1-55783-174-2.
• Woodie King Jr (2004). The Impact of Race. New York: Applause Books. ISBN 1-55783-579-9.
• Chuck Smith; Woodie King; Leslie Lee; Mark Clayton Southers; Kim Euell; Lisa Ebright (2007). Best Black Plays: the Theodore Ward Prize for African American Playwriting. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-2390-8.