Woodie King, Jr., has been called the renaissance man of black theater. An essayist and shortstory writer, he has also acted in, directed, produced, and written plays for the stage and screen. As a producer, he has presented the work of many important black playwrights and has been instrumental in making black theater available to black audiences.

In King's essays and articles on black theater, perhaps his most important writings, he speaks of a black theater that addresses and embraces its community and ignores the European and American traditions of the white commercial stage. He has written about black plays and authors, training for black actors, producing for the black theater, and the state of the black theater movement in general. In 1981 most of these pieces, which originally appeared in magazines and journals, were published in his book Black Theatre Present Condition.

He has also written several short...