Alice Childress's Trouble in Mind in the Archives
Photograph by Milton Meltzer depicting Hilda Haynes as Millie, James McMahon as Al Manners, Stephanie Elliot as Judith Sears, and Charles Bettis as John Neville. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 58155605
This month, Alice Childress’s play Trouble in Mind has its long-delayed Broadway premiere at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre. The play originally opened in 1955 off-Broadway at the Greenwich Mews Theatre (a company based in an old Presbyterian church on West 13th Street). The reviews were positive, and, in 1957, producers David Kanter, Charles Pratt Jr., and Edward Eliscu proposed to move the show to Broadway. However, they reportedly asked Childress to change the ending, in which the protagonist, Wiletta Mayer, delivers a cutting monologue about the treatment of Black actors on Broadway. Childress ultimately refused, and the production never moved forward.
Over the past half-century The New York Public Library has preserved the history of the production, and we are thrilled it is at last on a Broadway stage. The Schomburg Center for Black History and Culture preserves the Alice Childress papers along with the records of many associated with the original production (e.g. Stella Holt and Ernestine McClendon).
A folder from the Alice Childress Papers at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
We also preserve programs, photographs, and other documents related to the show and its creators in the Theatre Division at the Library for the Performing Arts. Here is a sample of what can be accessed in our reading rooms:
Original program for the Off-Broadway Production
Original program for the Off-Broadway Production
The original off-Broadway program for Trouble In Mind was a single sheet of paper printed on both sides. Interestingly, the cast list does not include the character of Bill O’Wray, the neurotic white actor who appears in the second act of later productions (including the Roundabout’s Broadway premiere). The character of the doorman, later named "Henry," is listed as "Pop" here.
Evidence from Childress’s papers suggests that Bill O’Wray was introduced, and the name of "Pop" changed, between 1964 and 1968. Although the scripts in Childress’s papers at the Schomburg Center are undated, many have the address of Childress’s agent, Flora Roberts, on the front page. Roberts moved offices several times in the 1960s, and so it is possible to get a general sense of the date of a script based on which address is listed. Scripts with the old cast list only appear in copies with the address Roberts occupied up until 1960. All copies with later addresses use the new names, including copies with an address Roberts left in 1968. A production for BBC Radio in 1964 retained the original cast list, so "Pop" was likely renamed and Bill O’Wray introduced between 1964 and 1968.
Script from the Alice Childress Papers at the Schomburg Center showing a change to Flora Robert’s address (this script contains the changes to the characters seen in the current Broadway production).
Original press release
This is the original press release for the production at the Greenwich Mews Theatre. The release pays special attention to the appearance of Hilda Haynes, who plays the supporting character Millie, and who already had two Broadway credits to her name by November 1955. Two cast members, Ernestine McClendon (who would have played the lead, Wiletta) and Albert Ottenheimer (who was to play the doorman), were replaced by the time the show opened. It’s unclear why these changes were made, but Ottenheimer had previously been blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee, and Variety reprinted his name as a "balking witness" in August of 1955 (just months before the show opened). Ernestine McClendon was replaced by the show’s director, Clarice Taylor (who would later appear as Addaperle in The Wiz and as Clair Huxtable’s mother on The Cosby Show). McClendon later went on to found McClendon Enterprises, America’s first Black-led talent agency, in the 1960s. Playwright Alice Childress stepped in to co-direct the piece once Taylor stepped into McClendon’s former role.
Photographs of the original production
Photograph by Julius Lazarus depicting Hal England as Eddie Fenton, James McMahon as Al Manners, Liam Lenihan as “Pop” (also called Henry) and Hilda Haynes and Millie.
The Billy Rose Theatre Division holds two photographs of the original production. This one, and the one at the top of this blog post, taken by two different photographers, depict the entirety of the white cast and two of the Black actors. The lead, Wiletta (played by Clarice Taylor) is notably absent from both photographs, possibly because she hadn’t yet assumed the role at the time of the photo shoot.
Tribute to Producer Stella Holt by Playwright William B. Branch
The Greenwich Mews Theatre’s administrative coordinator, Stella Holt, became known for her promotion of work by Black writers and works that featured integrated casts. She brought Langston Hughes’s musical Simply Heavenly to Broadway in 1957 and promoted other Black writers, including William B. Branch. When Holt died in 1967, her widow, Frances Drucker, established the Stella Holt Playwriting Award. Lonne Elder III was the inaugural honoree. This is part of the program for that ceremony.
Material from other productions
Photograph by Bert Andrews of the New Federal Theatre Project’s 1979 production (featuring John Lemley, Carl Crudup, Terria Joseph, Theresa Merritt, and Hy Mencher)
1987 production at the William Sloane House YMCA (New York)
1992 British Premiere Production at the Tricycle Theatre in London
1992 production at Wayne State University
2007 production by Yale Rep
2017 Production at the Theatre Royal – Bath (UK)
Over the past 66 years, several theatres have produced Trouble in Mind, both in the US and in the UK. The Theatre Division preserves programs for many of these productions, and we are pleased to add, at long last, the Broadway Playbill to our collection.