Douglas Turner Ward, a Tony-winning playwright, director and actor who co-founded New York's trailblazing Negro Ensemble Company, has died.
He was 90. Ward, inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan, his wife, Diana Ward, told The New York Times.
Energized by the success of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and with help from a Ford Foundation grant, Ward, actor Robert Hooks and theater manager Gerald Krone officially launched the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967 as a home for Black playwrights, actors and crewmembers.
The theater group's The River Niger, written by Joseph A. Walker, won the Tony Award for best play in 1974, with Ward producing, directing and starring in a Tony-nominated.
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