The Struggle Continues: Robbie McCauley

Robbie McCauley was a playwright, director, and performer who was an active presence in the American avant-garde theatre for several decades. One of the early cast members of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf on Broadway, McCauley went on to write and perform regularly in cities across the country and abroad. Her play Sally's Rape won the 1991 Obie Award for Best New American Play and a Bessie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance. Other notable works include Sugar, Indian Blood, Mississippi Freedom, Turf: A Conversational Concert in Black and White, The Other Weapon, and Quabbin Dance.

McCauley was a recipient of the IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Award for Solo Performance, and was selected as a 2012 United States Artists Ford Foundation Fellow. Her work has been widely anthologized, including the volumes Extreme Exposure, Moon Marked and Touched by Sun, and Performance and Cultural Politics.

Striving to facilitate dialogues on race between local white and Black people, she created the Primary Sources series in Mississippi, Boston, and Los Angeles, produced by The Arts Company. In 1998, her “Buffalo Project” was highlighted as one of “The 51 (or So) Greatest Avant-Garde Moments” by The Village Voice, a roster including work by artists such as Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, and John Cage.

Robbie McCauley taught at City College of New York, Hunter College, Mount Holyoke College, Boston College, Emerson College, and New York University Tisch School of the Arts.