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THE WORK
{The Art of it all.}
“Growing up, I directed shows with Coca-Cola bottles as characters in my plays and an eclectic mix of music in the background.”
“I have a cousin, an actress, who started calling me “Diva,”
She said that what I do is fierce and that I don’t go around trying to be fierce; I just am.”
“Deep-sea fishing was one of my passions.” – Oakland, Ca, 1972
“Talent hits the target no one else can hit; genius hits the target no one else can see.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
At Sundance with Leslie Lee’s THE RABBIT FOOT circa 1985. R.I.P. Willie Woods, Frances Foster, and Leslie Lee. — with Barbara Montgomery and Elain Graham.
The Proposition Theatre Company, Atlanta, GA circa 1978. My first theatre company. We were the resident theatre company at the Alliance Studio Theatre at the Memorial Arts Center. (Yes, I am 5th from the right, back row.) This was from my play ‘Olio!‘ with music by Scott Joplin and the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. — with Sandra Dunson franks, Cynthia Watts, Faye Adams-Taylor, Iris Little-Thomas, Andrea Whatley house, Rodney K. Adams, Akbar Imhotep, Wayner Crowder, Rebecca Dashiell-Mitchell, and Veda Kimber Jackson.
Jean Genet’s The Blacks. The cast included Al Garrison, Vic Love, Walter Dallas (director), and Lizann Mitchell, Proposition Theatre, Atlanta, GA, (1979)
With actors, Elain Graham, Tommy Redmon Hicks, and Iris Little-Thomas cast of Samm Art-Williams’ “Home,” which I directed for the Philadelphia Drama Guild, 1987. Photo courtesy of Barbara Silzle.
Walter Dallas has spent a lifetime connecting with people from the stage as a director, writer, and performer.
“The power of theatre, the power of the arts, is amazing … often you never know – how deeply it affects people,” he says.
Sty of the Blind Pig
Johnnie Hobbs, Jr., and Millicent Sparks in my 2000 production of “Sty of the Blind Pig,” Freedom Theatre, Philadelphia, PA.
Photo by Walter Dallas
Walter Dallas, “Divine Diva” from The Clarice on Vimeo.
The Actors Lounge interviews Walter Dallas
Stage director Walter Dallas talks to director Tony Lankford about The New Freedom Theater in Philadelphia. (2007)
“I can’t remember when I wasn’t directing! If you were to ask
a professional basketball player when he started playing, he would probably tell you the same thing. As far back as I can remember, growing up in Atlanta, I was always performing in plays in school, and putting on plays for neighborhood children.
I vividly recall a version of puppet shows with empty Coke bottles as actors; the scripts, voices, action, choreography, sound effects, stage combat, sets, costumes, etc all done by me. I was a big hit; even now some of those children-now-seniors remind me of those “good ole days,” and the anecdotes usually end with,
“…and you still doin’ it! Still puttin’ on them plays!”
“As I said before, I was always “into” theatre. In elementary as well as high school and college, I was very involved, primarily as an actor, in theatre. In 1968, as a senior at Morehouse College, I directed my first play in a course at Spelman College being taught by legendary director, Baldwin Burroughs. “Bee,” as he was affectionately called, was a Yale graduate and was being visited one very early Saturday morning by Constance Welch, Head of the Directing Program at The Yale School of Drama. To make a long story short, after she watched the performance of the one-act play I had directed, she offered me, on the spot, one of the six slots for the fall directing class at the Yale School of Drama. I was happy to cancel my acceptance of the full scholarship I had been offered to Harvard Divinity School!”
[ https://tdps.umd.edu/events/old-settler ]
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