Gus Edwards is an Afro-Caribbean writer and dramatist. His plays and writings have been showcased by the very prominent Negro Ensemble Company of New York and by other companies throughout the United States. An intense author who explores unconventional topics in his plays, he has been a central figure in the African American theatrical world and has received praise and acclaim from critics and audiences alike.
Background
Edwards was bom in Antigua on March 8,1939, to Charles and Muriel Edwards. He was raised on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. His early days in acting go back to his work in repertory theater in St. Thomas and the Caribbean. While he was acting there, he had the chance to meet actor Sidney Poitier, who suggested that he move to the United States to expand his theatrical opportunities.
Education
Edwards moved to New York in 1959, where he received dramatic training in theater from Stella Adler and William Hickey at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York. He eventually became one of Adler's protégés. He also studied film at the New York Institute of Photography. However, as a dramatic writer, Edwards is mostly self-taught. He has acknowledged that he rejected formal academic education in the field of theater for fear of having his creativity restricted by theatrical writing rules and the dominant canon taught at schools.
Career
Edwards arrived in the United States at a time when dramatic opportunities for black actors were limited. For most of his early career in the United States he worked as a bartender, store manager, and waiter in order to make ends meet. Despite the fact that Edwards appeared in two minor film roles during the 1960s (The Pazvnbroker, 1965 and Stiletto, 1969) and worked as an actor in many plays, he found that his West Indian accent narrowed his opportunities to play more mainstream and readily available roles. The lack of access to acting roles was in part what motivated Edwards to start writing plays.
It was while working as a waiter that he met a minister who volunteered to read his plays. Impressed by Edwards' writings, the minister put him in contact with Douglas Turner Ward at the Negro Ensemble Company. Ward read a manuscript for Edwards' play The Offering and committed to producing it. Yet even though his work was accepted for production, he had to wait five years until the play was staged. When the play finally opened in 1977, it received excellent reviews.
Edwards has written more than 12 plays, most of which have been initially produced by the Negro Ensemble Company. Among his most important works are: The Offering (1977), Black Body Blues (1978), Old Phantoms (1979), These Fallen Angels (1980), Weep Not for Me (1981), Tenement (1983), Manhattan Made Me (1983), Ramona (1986), and Louie and Ophelia (1986). He has also written several works for television including Aftermath (1979) and the TV adaptation for James Baldwin novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1985). Considered one of the foremost historians of the Negro Ensemble Company, he wrote the narration for a documentary on its history for PBS.
In addition to his substantive work as a playwright, Edwards has built a respectable career as a drama scholar. He has taught theatrical writing at Lehman College of the City University of New York, Iona College, Bloomfield College and the North Carolina School of the Arts. He is currently an associate professor of theater at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he directs the very successful Multi-Ethnic Theatre and teaches in the film studies program. In 2000, he was appointed as the artistic director to the Scottsdale's Ensemble Theatre in Scottsdale, Arizona, an appointment he said marks the "third act of my life (Lawson "Troupe's Director" 2000, El).
He has published Classic Plays of the Negro Ensemble Company (1995), Monologues on Black Life (1997), and More Monologues on Black Life (2000). Several of his plays have also been published. Edwards is very active in many theatrical organizations, literary boards and committees such as The New Dramatists, New York State Council of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. He has received grants and awards from many of these organizations as well as from the Rockefeller Foundation. Gus Edwards is one of the first Caribbean writers to contribute to American theater.
Personality
His dramatic productions are daring, as he has pushed non-traditional issues such as violence, promiscuity, racial tensions, drug addiction, complex romantic relationships, and adultery. He does not hesitate to venture into controversial areas, as his characters often exist outside of the boundaries of what is thought to be appropriate behavior in society. Nevertheless, he highlights the virtues of all kinds of people regardless of their background. As a playwright, he has a literary technique that uses description rather than judgment. His characters struggle to survive in a non-perfect society.
He has vehemently criticized traditional depictions of blacks in traditional American theater and television and has made a commitment to challenge them:
"Historically, in film and on stage, African Americans have been virtually invisible. Even the big roles African American actors obtained were so stereotypical that we didn't recognize ourselves, and, subsequently, became ashamed of ourselves. The force that impelled not just myself but many African Americans to stick it out was a determination to change those stereotypes, to give ourselves dimension by writing worthwhile roles that portrayed African Americans honestly".
Quotes from others about the person
Edith Oliver, drama critic for the New Yorker, has consistently praised Edwards' work for its good humor, well-developed characters, and refined literary style.
Edwards still identifies heavily with his West Indian roots. Theater critic Kyle Lawson recently said after interviewing him: "Riding the interview train with Gus Edwards, every stop is the West Indies, the Virgin Islands to be specific, St. Thomas to be exact".