WikiDwarfBOT: robot: add new article

2023-07-22T08:46:26Z

robot: add new article

New page

{{Short description|African American stage director and academic (1907–1997)}}
{{Use American English|date=April 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Anne Cooke Reid
| image =
| caption =
| birthname = Anna Margaret Cooke
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1907|10|06}}
| birth_place = Washington, D.C., U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1997|||1907|10|06}}
| death_place = U.S.
| alma_mater = {{ubl|[[Oberlin College]]<br/>[[Yale School of Drama]]}}
| occupation = {{cslist|Stage director|academic}}
| known_for = Founded the first Black summer theater in the U.S.
| years_active = 1920s–1980s
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Ira De Augustine Reid]]|1958|1968|end=d}}
| father = [[William Wilson Cooke]]
| relatives = [[Thomas Ezekiel Miller]] (maternal grandfather)<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bainbridge |first=Judith T. |date=April 15, 2016 |title=Cook, William Wilson |url=https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/cook-william-wilson/ |access-date=February 26, 2023 |website=[[South Carolina Encyclopedia]] |language=en-US}}</ref>
}}
'''Anne Cooke Reid''' ({{née|'''Anna Margaret Cooke'''}};<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last= |url= http://archive.org/details/africanamericanl00gate |title=African American Lives |date=2003 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-19-516024-6 |editor-last=Gates |editor-first=Henry Louis |pages=705–707}}</ref> October 6, 1907 – 1997) was an American stage director and academic. She founded and led theater departments at [[Historically black colleges and universities|historically Black universities]] including [[Howard University]], where she was the first chairwoman, and [[Spelman College]], where she founded the first Black summer theater in the United States.<ref name="sewardtally">{{cite book |editor1-last=Seward |editor1-first=Adrienne Lanier |editor2-last=Tally |editor2-first=Justine |title=Toni Morrison: Memory and Meaning |date=August 12, 2014 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |isbn=9781626742048 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7v4aBwAAQBAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref><ref name="hatchhamalian">{{cite book |editor1-last=Hatch |editor1-first=James V. |editor2-last=Hamalian |editor2-first=Leo |title=The Roots of African American Drama: An Anthology of Early Plays, 1858-1938 |date=April 1992 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=9780814338476 |page=289 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LaiY-dHVtHEC |access-date=April 11, 2023}}</ref> A prominent figure in theater education, Cooke Reid was known to her students as "Queen Anne";<ref name="peterson" /> historian [[Darlene Clark Hine]] called her "a major figure responsible for providing high-quality training" during the mid-1900s.<ref name="hine">{{cite book |last1=Hine |first1=Darlene Clark |title=Black Women in America: Volume 3 |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=240 |isbn=978-0-19-515677-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-sZaAAAAYAAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Anna "Anne" Margaret Cooke was born on October 6, 1907, in [[Washington, DC]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name="peterson">{{cite book |last1=Peterson |first1=Bernard L. |title=Profiles of African American stage performers and theatre people, 1816–1960 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=9780313295348 |pages=62–63 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=94Vkm-y_3CEC |date=2001|access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Smith">{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Jessie Carney |url=http://archive.org/details/notableblackamer00jess |title=Notable Black American Women |date=1996 |publisher=New York: Gale Research |isbn=978-0-8103-9177-2 |pages=143–146 |quote=born on October 6, 1907 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Her father was architect [[William Wilson Cooke]].<ref name="arch">{{cite book |editor1-last=Wilson |editor1-first=Dreck Spurlock |title=African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945 |date=March 2004 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781135956295 |page=151 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0OaSAgAAQBAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref> She graduated from high school in [[Gary, Indiana]],<ref name="peterson" /> and at the age of 16 attended [[Oberlin College]],<ref name="hatch" /> where she received a bachelor of arts degree in 1928.<ref name="peterson" /> In 1944,<ref name="phddate">{{cite web |title=Yale School of Drama Alumni Magazine 2011 |url=https://issuu.com/yalerep/docs/alumni-mag-26jul2021 |website=David Geffen School of Drama at Yale |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref> she received her Ph.D. in theater from the [[Yale University]] School of Drama.<ref name="peterson" />

== Career ==
Cooke taught at [[North Carolina A&T State University]], then took a post in 1927 at [[Spelman College]] in [[Atlanta, Georgia]], where she was the first director of record to lead the Spelman Players troupe. Among her productions was a pageant about Spelman's history told with music, dance, and dialogue, with a cast of female Spelman students as well as male students from sister school [[Morehouse College]], and later Atlanta University.<ref name="hill">{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Anthony D. |title=Historical Dictionary of African American Theater |date=November 9, 2018 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |isbn=9781538117293 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PTptDwAAQBAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref>
In 1934, Cooke and these institutions organized the Atlanta University Summer Theater, the oldest continually operating [[summer theater]]<ref name="peterson" /> and the first Black summer theater in the United States.<ref name="sewardtally" /> The troupe, which produced five plays in six weeks, developed a repertoire including celebrated plays like [[Thornton Wilder]]'s ''[[Our Town]]''; although fewer works by Black playwrights were well known at the time, the troupe produced at least one.<ref name="hill" /> The theater ran for 44 seasons, ending in 1977.<ref name="peterson" />

In 1942, Cooke led the Hampton Institute (present-day [[Hampton University]])'s Hampton Communications Theater. Later that decade, she was hired by Howard University to establish the college's theater department along with [[Owen Dodson]] and James W. Butcher,<ref name="peterson" /> and became the chairwoman. Cooke would remain head of the department until 1957.<ref name="howard">{{cite web |title=Anne Cooke Collection of Theater Materials |url=https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=finaid_manu |website=Digital Howard @ Howard University |access-date=April 7, 2023}}</ref> One of her notable students was the novelist [[Toni Morrison]] who entered the drama program at Howard two years after it was established in 1949.<ref>{{cite book|title=Toni Morrison: Memory and Meaning|editor-first=Adrienne |editor-last=Lanier Seward|editor2= Justine Tally|publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]]|isbn=9781626742048|first=Dana A. |last=Williams|chapter=To Make A Humanist Black: Toni Wofford's Howard Years|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7v4aBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Anne+Cooke%22+studied+drama&pg=PT43|date=2014}}</ref> Some of her other pupils at Howard included actresses [[Roxie Roker]] and Zaida Coles, stage director and playwright [[Shauneille Perry]], and actor [[Graham Brown (actor)|Graham Brown]].<ref name="Smith"/>

At Howard, Cooke Reid aspired to create a drama program that would train students to become professional actors—a field that, in the 1940s, many Black students and faculty thought to be near-impenetrable.<ref name="hatch" /> Her tenure began a revival for theater at the university. The Howard University Players, who were active during the 1920s, toured Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany in 1949 as ambassadors of goodwill for the [[United States Department of State]]—the first college theater group to do so.<ref name="peterson" /> The Howard Players produced [[Henrik Ibsen]]'s ''[[The Wild Duck]]'' with an almost entirely Black cast, as well as [[Dorothy Heyward|Dorothy]] and [[DuBose Heyward]]'s ''Mamba's Daughters''. Her productions were praised by critics abroad, and upon returning to the United States, a ''[[The Washington Post|Washington Post]]'' editorial praised the endeavor itself: "They appeared not as representatives of their race but as representatives of theater art. They served their country well."<ref name="hatch">{{cite book |last1=Hatch |first1=James V. |title=Sorrow Is the Only Faithful One: The Life of Owen Dodson |date=1995 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=9780252064777 |pages=151–163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J8pmzeUZ5ZcC |access-date=April 7, 2023}}</ref>

In May 1969, Cooke Reid coordinated a meeting at [[Haverford College]] along with psychologist [[Kenneth and Mamie Clark|Kenneth Clark]] of fourteen prominent African American intellectuals to advocate for racial integration.<ref name="bradley">{{cite book |last1=Bradley |first1=Stefan M. |title=Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League |date=January 19, 2021 |isbn=9781479806027 |publisher=NYU Press |page=14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=idbaDwAAQBAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref> These participants, including author [[Ralph Ellison]], United States circuit judge [[William H. Hastie]], economist [[Phyllis Ann Wallace]], and US secretary of housing and urban development [[Robert C. Weaver]], were known as the Haverford Group.<ref name="lackey">{{cite book |editor1-last=Lackey |editor1-first=Michael |title=The Haverford Discussions: A Black Integrationist Manifesto for Racial Justice |date=November 6, 2013 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=9780813934877 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nehrAAAAQBAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref>

Cooke Reid was a contributing author to the second volume of ''Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary'' (1971, [[Harvard University Press]]).<ref>{{cite book|title= Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rVLOhGt1BX0C|editor1=Edward T. James |editor2=Janet Wilson James |editor3=Paul S. Boyer|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=1971|page=546| isbn=9780674627345 }}</ref> When she retired from Howard, she was hired as senior preceptor for student affairs by [[University of California, Santa Cruz]], and then as senior professor of theater at [[University of Maryland, Baltimore County]]. She received the Mister Brown Award for her contributions to the theater arts from the National Conference on African American Theater in 1987.<ref name="peterson" />

==Personal life==
On August 12, 1958, Anne Cooke married sociologist [[Ira De Augustine Reid]], who at the time was a [[widow]]er with a teenage daughter.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="ebony">{{cite news |title=Ebony – Volume 32 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ITpXAAAAYAAJ |access-date=April 6, 2023 |publisher=Ebony Magazine |date=November 1976}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0LcDAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22Anne+Cooke%22+studied+drama&pg=PA23|journal=[[Jet (magazine)|Jet]]|date=August 28, 1958|page=23|title=Dr. Ira Reid Weds D.C. Drama Prof, Anne Cooke}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Anne Cooke}}
[[Category:1907 births]]
[[Category:1997 deaths]]
[[Category:African-American actresses]]
[[Category:African-American theater directors]]
[[Category:Hampton University faculty]]
[[Category:Howard University faculty]]
[[Category:North Carolina A&T State University faculty]]
[[Category:Oberlin College alumni]]
[[Category:People from Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:Spelman College faculty]]
[[Category:University of California, Santa Cruz staff]]
[[Category:University of Maryland, Baltimore County faculty]]
[[Category:David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni]]

Anne Cooke Reid - Revision history

WikiDwarfBOT: robot: add new article