SOURCE: “Alice Childress,” in The Playwright's Art: Conversations with Contemporary American Dramatists, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, Rutgers University Press, 1995, pp. 48-69.

In the following interview, which took place in 1993, Childress discusses her attraction to and experience in the theater, as well as the feminist and racial issues explored in her work.

[Maguire:] This afternoon in the workshop you gave you spoke a fair amount about what you've written and why you've written it, but what specifically attracted you to write for the theatre?

[Childress:] I guess I explained in the workshop that my grandmother worked seemingly, without realizing it, with the Montessori Method. We didn't have money—I think I touched on our not having money—and yet she found ways to live positively and to creatively experience life. She was very creative in thinking up things: finding swatches of sample materials, feeling tweed and satin and...