Playwright and Actor Robbie McCauley Passes Away at 78

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that playwright and performance artist Robbie McCauley died last week in Silver Spring, Maryland, according to the New York Times. She was 78 years old.

McCauley was not only a playwright, but also an actor, writer, and director. Her involvement in theater began during the late 1960s, when she worked as an apprentice at the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City.

Since the 1970s she worked as a playwright, director, and actor in many New York-based projects, both on and off Broadway, in the US and abroad. Her first, and most successful work, Sally's Rape, won an OBIE Award in 1991 for best new American play and a Bessie Award in 1990. Her other major works include Sugar, Mississippi Freedom, Quabbin Dance, and Indian Blood. As an actress, she is known for her performance in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf on Broadway.

Outside of the theater, she has taught at City College of New York, Hunter College, Mount Holyoke College, University of Massachusetts and Emerson College. McCauley is also a guest instructor at HB Studio.