Douglas Turner Ward is one of the major figures in the black theater. Well-known as a dramatist, he is also acclaimed as an actor, director, and producer. Ward has consistently worked toward his goal of a theater by, for, and about blacks. He put these ideas into practice with the Negro Ensemble Company, which he helped form and still directs.

Ward was one of the first writers to approach theater from a modern black perspective using humor. Comic, not militant or angry, his plays tend to be extended jokes, ironic situations that he develops into short dramatic pieces. Underneath the humor, however, is a biting satire that examines the relations and interdependence between blacks and whites.

The son of Roosevelt and Dorothy Short Ward, Douglas Turner Ward was born 5 May 1930 in Burnside, Louisiana, a rural town near New Orleans. He grew up on a plantation with his parents...