Theatre & dance / Film & TV
Woodie King Jr.
1937–2026 · theatre producer, director, filmmaker
Detroit-raised founder of Concept East Theatre and New York's New Federal Theatre, a Ford welder turned producer who championed generations of Black playwrights.
- Born
Bladon Springs, Alabama- Died
New York City, New York
aged 88- Detroit years
- 1940s–1964
- Field
- Theatre & dance, Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Woodie King Jr. was born in Bladon Springs, Alabama, on July 27, 1937. After his parents separated, he and his mother moved to Detroit, where he grew up and graduated from high school in 1956. He went to work as an arc welder at Ford Motor Company, and from 1958 to 1962 he studied on scholarship at the Will-O-Way School of Theatre. In 1960 he and playwright Ron Milner founded Concept East Theatre in Detroit, and King served as its manager and director until 1963, giving Black actors and writers a stage of their own at the dawn of the Black Arts Movement. A John Hay Whitney Fellowship took him to New York in 1964, and in 1970 he founded the New Federal Theatre on the Lower East Side, which introduced or nurtured writers such as Ntozake Shange. He later directed his old partner Milner's Checkmates on Broadway. He died in New York in January 2026.
Highlights
- Co-founded Concept East Theatre in Detroit with Ron Milner (1960)
- Founded the New Federal Theatre in New York (1970)
- Produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide... (1976)
- Directed Ron Milner's Checkmates on Broadway (1988)
- Obie for Sustained Achievement (1997); Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre (2020)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Founded · 1960–1963
Concept East Theatre
Closed
The Black theater company King co-founded with Ron Milner and ran as manager and director until 1963.
Studied here · 1958–1962
Will-O-Way School of Theatre
Closed
King studied acting here on a scholarship while working at Ford.