Diana Sands: Breaking Thru the Color Barrier on Broadway and Beyond

(This is the short lecture I gave this morning at the ACES event at Bennett College. Following my lecture, a group of faculty and students performed a scene from my play DIANA SANDS: A CERTAIN TOUGHNESS OF SPIRIT.)

My research on the life and career of Diana Sands began nearly a decade ago—during my first year teaching at Bennett. I received a grant that year to support a Service Learning project for the students enrolled in my Acting for Non-Majors class.  We called our project “Living ‘Herstory’ Monologues.” I challenged my students to select a famous woman of color from the past, research her life, learn about her achievements, and then write—and perform—a monologue, portraying the woman they had chosen. 

     I was surprised when one of my students, Anna Green, selected Diana Sands. I had seen Diana Sands in the film version of A Raisin in the Sun many times.  Her performance was mesmerizing, and clearly, an example of actress and character merging seamlessly into one being. And while I applauded Anna’s interest in Diana Sands, I was concerned that she might have difficulty with her research. However, when we began rehearsals, it became clear that Anna’s portrayal of Diana Sands was going to be very special. Although she was only able to find minimal information, Anna wove what she had found into a powerful tribute.

Anna’s project made me want to know more about Diana Sands.   What was she like? What other roles did she play? Did she command every character with the same concentration and commitment she displayed in A Raisin in the Sun? What kind of personal life did she have?

In 2006, I applied for, and received, a Scholar in Residence appointment at New York University, which gave me the opportunity to spend a month in New York City researching Diana Sands—and begin to work on a play about her.

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      The height of Sands’ acting career occurred during the Civil Rights Era—a time of enormous change for America. Sands’ achievements as an actress, during these turbulent times, helped pave the way for today’s actors of color to audition for, and perform, roles in professional theatre that a mere few decades ago might not have been available to them. 

       Aristotle once said: “If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.”  Documentation verifies that for nearly two centuries African American actors have appeared onstage in ”classical” roles. At the African Grove, a theatre founded and operated by African Americans in 1821 in New York City, two of the resident acting company’s most popular productions were Shakespeare’s Richard III and Othello. Additionally, a broad range of “classical” plays have been performed on the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities for many years.

Definitions of the term “classical” vary widely. For example, one regional company suggests the term applies to plays written at least a century ago. Another company takes a broader view, defining a “classic” as “a play… that exercises a broad scope of interest, a profound depth of understanding, and a long reach across time and geography.” 

Diana Sands trained at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. “Classical” roles came her way early in her career—well before A Raisin in the Sun. In the mid-1950s, she made her first professional appearance playing “Juliet” in a production titled An Evening with Will Shakespeare.

During a professional career that spanned less than two decades, Sands performed in numerous “classical” roles. She also appeared frequently on television as well as in several movies. Many of these performances can be seen easily on YouTube, or on DVD—and I hope many of you will take a moment to watch some of them. Arguably, though, it was onstage that Diana Sands did her finest work and found her most challenging roles.

In a tribute article published shortly after her death, Ebony cited 1967 as Diana Sands’ “busiest year.” In this twelve-month period, she played the lead in five difficult classical productions: “Lady Macbeth” in Macbeth at Spelman College; “Cleopatra” in both Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra at Theatre Atlanta Repertory Company and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at The Los Angeles Shakespeare-in-the-Park Festival; Phedre at Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia; and, finally, the title role in Shaw’s Saint Joan on Broadway.

In another 1967 article, published in The New York Times, legendary theatre critic Walter Kerr discussed what he referred to as Diana Sands’ “important inroads”—including her numerous “classical” roles. Although he acknowledged that Sands’ casting was “surely progress,” he went on to suggest that there was—and I quote—an “escape clause in each of these pieces of casting, with the possible exception of Lady Macbeth:”

 “Phaedra and Cleopatra are exotics, one a Cretan descendant of a sun god, the other queen of the Nile; on the most realistic of terms, their skins might have been any odd shade… Even Saint Joan might be said to belong to this group. Joan was of course French, and white. But, as Shaw wrote her, she was a loner, and other-worldly: in the play, she moves in her own orbit, isolated from those who use her, despise her, or fail to understand her. The nature of these roles constitutes a kind of waiver: white audiences can overlook the fact that the woman is colored because the woman clearly does not belong. Will the waiver apply when Miss Sands wishes to play Juliet?”

Clearly, Walter Kerr was not aware that Sands had already played “Juliet”—more than a decade before—in the mid-1950s.

         In the early 1970s, Diana Sands broke new ground on film by starring opposite white leading men in three movies: The Landlord, Georgia, Georgia, and Doctors' Wives. At the time of her death, she was signed to play "Claudine" in the film of the same name--a role for which Diahann Carroll would eventually receive an Oscar nomination.

       In conclusion, perhaps blogger and writer Stacia L. Brown sums it up best when she writes: “Today, when we see black actresses included in multicultural casts where their race doesn’t factor into the character’s ability, intellect, or sex appeal, we can consider each of those performances as an homage to Diana Sands, one of the first black women mainstream audiences”—and I would add to that theatre audiences as well—“embraced as an embodiment of grit, smarts, and sexiness without hypersexualization or stereotypes. To this day, cinema scholars wistfully speculate about what turns her career would’ve taken, if only she’d lived long enough to reach her full potential.”