Lloyd George Richards (June 29, 1919 – June 29, 2006) was a Canadian-American theatre director, actor, and dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, and Yale University professor emeritus.
Richards was born in Toronto, Ontario, but was raised in Detroit Michigan. His father, a Jamaican carpenter turned auto-industry worker, died when Richards was nine years old. Soon after, his mother lost her eyesight him and his brother Allan to keep the family together. He later went on to study law at Wayne University where instead he found his way in theatrical arts after a brief break during World War II while giving service in the U.S. Army Air Force.
Among Richards' accomplishments, include his staging the original production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, debuting on Broadway to standing ovations on March 11, 1959, and in 1984 he introduced August Wilson to Broadway in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and in .
As head of the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, he helped develop the careers of Wendy Wasserstein, Christopher Durang, Lee Blessing and David Henry Hwang.
Richards died of heart failure on his eighty-seventh birthday in New York City.
Awards
Nominations
