Rosetta LeNoire Brown: Theater Activism in 1960s Harlem

An Aspiring Stage Performer

Rosetta LeNoire was born on August 8, 1911 in Harlem. Her love for performing was nurtured by her godfather Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who helped her overcome rickets as a young girl by teaching her to dance.1

By the 1930s, LeNoire was an aspiring young performer, and the country found itself in the midst of the grueling Great Depression. In New York City, the situation was dire. With a struggling economy, artists found themselves largely unemployed, especially among New York’s hard-hit Black communities. It was under these circumstances that the Lafayette Theatre staged Orson Welles’ production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in 1936. This was not a typical retelling of the classic Elizabethan play. It featured a 19th-century, voodoo-inspired setting in Haiti and was performed by an all-Black cast, including 25-year-old LeNoire, who played the part of a witch.2 The show was incredibly popular, and launched LeNoire’s career as she went on to act, sing, and dance in several more Broadway and off-Broadway theater productions.

Founding New, Radical Organizations for Change

In 1968, frustrated by stereotyped portrayals of Blackness on the New York stage and inspired by the Civil Rights Movement sweeping the nation, LeNoire used her own personal finances to found the AMAS Repertory Theatre Company. Located in East Harlem, LeNoire committed this local artistic community to interracial and color-blind casting, a concept that was revolutionary at the time. She described it as a nurturing space “dedicated to bringing people of all races, creeds, colors, religions and backgrounds together through the creative arts.”3 With AMAS, LeNoire became a successful and groundbreaking producer, working with the likes of Stephen Schwartz, Scott Joplin, Maya Angelou, and Eubie Blake. LeNoire’s own Bubbling Brown Sugar, the first revue to pay homage to the music of New York's Harlem Renaissance, received a Tony Award nomination in 1976 for Best Musical.4 The theater continues to thrive today in the West 42nd Street theater district.

Family Matters Challenges Black Stereotypes

Though LeNoire considered the New York stage to be her life’s work, she also went on to act on the small screen, starring in sitcoms Gimme a Break! and Amen. She is perhaps best known for the role of Estelle “Mother” Winslow on Family Matters. The show’s focus on the multigenerational Winslow family served as a counterpoint to the prevailing stereotype in 1990s America that Black youth were “lazy and irresponsible” and their parents “welfare dependent."5 A fixture of the Friday evening network lineup, Family Matters ran for nine seasons and was the second-longest running American sitcom with a predominantly Black cast.

LeNoire died on March 17, 2002 at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in New Jersey at the age of 90.

Citations and Further Readings

1 Linda Kerr Norflett, “Rosetta LeNoire: The Lady and her Theatre,” Black American Literature Forum, 17, no. 2, Black Theatre Issue (Summer, 1983), 69.

2 Norflett, “Rosetta LeNoire," 69.

3 Norflett, “Rosetta LeNoire," 70.

4 Samuel A. Hay, African American Theatre: an Historical and Critical Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 51.

5 Shiron V. Patterson, “Just Another Family Comedy,” in African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings, ed. David J. Leonard and Lisa A. Guerrero (Denver: Praeger, 2013), 162.