Education
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Scott attended Jamaica College, where he became headboy.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Scott attended Jamaica College, where he became headboy.
Foreign other people of the same name, see Dennis Scott (disambiguation). His well known poem "Marrysong" is used in the IGCSE syllabus. He was also a theatre director and drama teacher.
He was further educated at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, and taught in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago (at Presentation College), and at Yale University in the United States.
While at UWI he was the assistant editor of Caribbean Quarterly. Thereafter, he went to Athens, Georgia, on a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship (1970-1971), and was later awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship to take an education diploma course in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
He returned to teach at Jamaica College, and then became director of the School of Drama at the Cultural Trining Centre in Kingston. Scott taught at the Yale School of Drama, and was head of the Directing program from 1986 until his death, which occurred in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 51.
He has been regarded as one of the main influences for modern Jamaican poetry.
His other poetry collections are Dreadwalk: Poems 1970-1978 (1982), Strategies (1989) and After-Image (2008). His plays include Terminus (1966), Dog, and An Echo in the Bone (1974). The latter was published, together with a play by Derek Walcott and one by Errol Hill, in Plays for Today (1985), edited by Hill.
Scott"s dramatic work is acknowledged as a major influence on the direction of Caribbean theatre.
Scott is also known for his role as Lester Tibedeaux in the Cosby Show.
Scott was an original member of the National Dance Theatre Company founded by Rex Nettleford in the 1960s.
