Laurie Dorothea Carlos (née Smith; January 25, 1949 – December 29, 2016) was an American actress and
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
performance artist, playwright and theater director. She was also known for her work mentoring emerging artists in the theater.
Early life
Born on
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
's
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets.
Traditionally an im ...
, Carlos' father, Walter Smith, was a drummer for blues and R&B acts including
B.B. King
Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shi ...
,
Bo Diddley
Ellas McDaniel (born Ellas Otha Bates; December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, incl ...
and
Jackie Wilson
Jack Leroy Wilson Jr. (June 9, 1934 – January 21, 1984) was an American singer and performer of the 1950s and 60s. He was a prominent figure in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. Nicknamed "Mr. Excitement", he was considered a mas ...
.
Her mother was an exotic dancer.
[On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century](_blank)
by C. Carr, Wesleyan University Press, 2012, page 164. At the age of 14 Carlos saw
Gloria Foster
Gloria Foster (November 15, 1933 – September 29, 2001) was an American actress. She had acclaimed roles in plays ''In White America'' and '' Having Our Say,'' winning three Obie Awards during her career. Foster played the Oracle in ''The Matrix ...
perform in the documentary play ''In White America'' by
Martin Duberman
Martin Bauml Duberman (born August 6, 1930) is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College, Herbert Lehman College in the Bronx, New York City.
Early life
Du ...
. As a result, Carlos said "for the very first time I realized how much power the stage had politically, and I wanted that."
Carlos graduated from the
High School of Performing Arts
The High School of Performing Arts (informally known as "PA") was a public alternative high school established in 1947 and located at 120 West 46th Street in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, from 1948 to 1984.
In 1961, the school was m ...
and, at the age of 19, worked as a casting director for
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
and others.
Career
Carlos initially performed and worked in New York City, and joined the cast of
Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange ( ;
FilmReference.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018. October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) ...
's "
" during its conceptual period in 1975 as the work performed at bars on the Lower East Side. She followed it on its journey from the New Federal Theater to the Public Theater to the Booth Theater on Broadway, and onward to a television adaptation seen on the PBS series "American Playhouse" in 1982, originating the role of ''Lady in Blue'' and appeared in the televised version of the play on PBS. She also appeared in the original company of
Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange ( ;
FilmReference.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018. October 18, 1948 – October 27, 2018) ...
's play ''
Spell No. 7'' and Edgar White's ''Les Femme Noir'' (also at the Joseph Papp Public Theater).
Ms. Carlos also frequently collaborated with dance companies, including the Urban Bush Women, and with them performed and co-created the works "Heat" and " Praise House" both on stage and on the televised version directed by
Julie Dash
Julie Ethel Dash (born October 22, 1952) is an American film director, writer and producer. Dash received her MFA in 1985 at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion. The L.A. Rebellion refers ...
. Carlos was also a theater director and playwright whose plays include ''White Chocolate (for My Father)'', ''The Cooking Show'', ''Organdy Falsetto'', ''Vanquished by Voodoo'' and ''Nonsectarian Conversations With the Dead''. Her plays and performance pieces have been called "poetic, abstract, associative"; a "blending of history, poetry, mysticism and personal testimony" of "impressionistic language" and "haunting ancestral voices that balance images of brutality and agonizing struggle with those of endurance and continuity." She was a co-artistic director, with Marlies Yearby, of Movin' Spirits Dance Theater Company.
Mid-career, Carlos relocated to the Twin Cities of
Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Cities ...
during the 1990s, performing at the
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...
and the Guthrie Theater. In 1998 she took a curatorial producing position at Penumbra Theatre Company.
As part of her role, Carlos helped select scripts for the company to produce; one of her goals was to "bring more feminine voices into the theater."
In addition, Carlos assisted emerging artists through Naked Stages, a fellowship for new talent. based at Pillsbury House Theatre.
Carlos also curated Pillsbury House's Late Nite Series, which showcased new works by artists from both New York and Minnesota. Some of the people she worked with moved on to particular success, such as
Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks (born May 10, 1963) is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her 2001 play ''Topdog/Underdog'' won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for d ...
. Her film and television credits include ''
The Landlord
''The Landlord'' is a 1970 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby, adapted by Bill Gunn from the 1966 novel by Kristin Hunter. The film stars Beau Bridges in the lead role of a privileged and ignorant white man who selfishly becomes ...
'' directed by
Hal Ashby
William Hal Ashby (September 2, 1929 – December 27, 1988) was an American film director and editor associated with the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking.
Before his career as a director Ashby edited films for Norman Jewison, notably ''The Russ ...
, ''
Fresh Kill
''Fresh Kill'' is a 1994 British-American experimental film directed by Shu Lea Cheang and written by Jessica Hagedorn. It stars Sarita Choudhury and Erin McMurtry as Shareen Lightfoot and Claire Mayakovsky, two lesbian parents who are drawn int ...
'', ''
American Playhouse
''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Overview
It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever an ...
'' (TV Series: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf ), and ''Praise House'' directed by
Julie Dash
Julie Ethel Dash (born October 22, 1952) is an American film director, writer and producer. Dash received her MFA in 1985 at the UCLA Film School and is one of the graduates and filmmakers known as the L.A. Rebellion. The L.A. Rebellion refers ...
. Carlos collaborated with artists
Women Playwrights of Diversity: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook
by Jane T. Peterson and Suzanne Bennett, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997, page 154. including contemporary dance company Urban Bush Women
Urban Bush Women (UBW), founded in 1984 by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, is a Brooklyn, New York-based non-profit dance company and the only professional African-American women's dance company. The ensemble performs choreography by Zollar and a number o ...
, Robbie McCauley, Don Meissner (composer) Jessica Hagedorn
Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn (born 1949) is an American playwright, writer, poet, and multimedia performance artist.
Biography
Hagedorn is an American of mixed descent. She was born in Manila to a Scots-Irish-French-Filipino mother and a Spanish Fi ...
, David Murray (saxophonist)
David Keith Murray (born February 19, 1955) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who performs mostly on tenor and bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s. He lives in New York City.
Biogr ...
, Sharon Bridgforth, Deborah Artman, Daniel Alexander Jones
Daniel Alexander Jones (born 1970) is an American performance artist, playwright, director, essayist and educator.
Birth
Jones was born on February 9, 1970, to Georgina Leslie Jones and Arthur Leroy Jones at Wesson Women's Hospital in Springfiel ...
, Carl Hancock Rux
Carl Hancock Rux () is an American poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, recording artist, journalist, curator and conceptual installation artist working in text, dance, ritualized performance, audio, video, and photography. Described in the NY T ...
, Erik Ehn, and Butch Morris. Carlos also served on the board of the Jerome Foundation
James Jerome Hill II (March 2, 1905 – November 21, 1972) was an American filmmaker and artist known for his award-winning documentary and experimental films.
Career
Hill was the child of railroad executive Louis W. Hill.
He was educated at Y ...
.
Carlos' final performances was as the narrator in QUEEN (written by Erik Ehn and Junauda Petrus
Junauda Juanita Petrus-Nasah is an American author, filmmaker, performance artist, and "pleasure activist". Her debut novel, '' The Stars and the Blackness Between Them'', was a winner of a Coretta Scott King Honor Award.
Early life
Petrus w ...
and directed by Alison Heimstead) at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (also known as Heart of the Beast or HOBT) is a puppet company and nonprofit organization from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company has written and performed scores of full-length puppet plays, per ...
in Minneapolis, September 2016. St.Paul.
Awards
In addition to an Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
for her role in Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, and a Bessie Award
The New York Dance and Performance Awards, also known as the Bessie Awards, are awarded annually for exceptional achievement by independent dance artists presenting their work in New York City. The broad categories of the awards are: choreography, ...
for her work in ''Heat,'' Carlos received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, Theatre Communications Group, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.[Laurie Carlos by Nicky Paraiso](_blank)
Bomb Magazine, accessed December 21, 2015.[Biography for Laurie Carlos](_blank)
Playscripts, accessed Dec. 21, 2015. She was also awarded a Bush Fellowship.
Personal life and death
Carlos was the mother of Alternative Soul/R&B singer Ambersunshower
Ambersunshower (born Ambersunshower Nadine Miligros Villenuevo Smith)) is an American R&B singer and former member of the hip hop duo, Groove Garden.
Career
Ambersunshower has been writing poetry since the age of ten. She was one half of h ...
(born Ambersunshower Nadine Milagros Villenueva Smith). Carlos was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in September 2016 and died in the Sholom Home East Hospice in St. Paul, Minnesota on December 29, 2016.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carlos, Laurie
1949 births
2016 deaths
People from the Lower East Side
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
African-American women writers
African-American dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American women writers
Deaths from cancer in Minnesota
20th-century African-American women
20th-century African-American writers
21st-century African-American people
21st-century African-American women