Glanville, Maxwell, 1918-1992

Maxwell Glanville was an actor, writer, producer and director dating from the 1940s. He was associated with three theatre groups: the American Negro Theatre (ANT), Committee for the Negro in the Arts (CNA), and the American Community Theatre (ACT). Glanville began his career as an actor with the ANT, which provided professional training and development, and produced plays concerning aspects of black life that appealed primarily to the Harlem community under the stewardship of co-founders Abram Hill and Frederick O'Neal. While with ANT, Glanville appeared in "Home Is the Hunter," "Work Hard," "Anna Lucasta," "How Long Till Summer," and "Freight." The CNA was an interracial cultural group, active between 1947 and 1954 that produced a number of black-authored plays, among them "Florence," "Just A Little Simple," and "A Medal for Willie."

On his own, Glanville produced a number of plays, among them "Soul Gone Home" at Club Baron in 1951 followed by "Alice in Wonder," "The Other Foot," and "A World Full of Men." Seven years later he founded the American Community Theatre where he produced some of his own plays and became its artistic director. In 1970 Glanville wrote "Dance to the Nosepicker's Drum" with Rudy Gray, one of his students in American Community Theatre. Glanville also directed several plays, including "Light in the Cellar," "Tale of an Instant Junkie," "Anna Lucasta," "Branches from the Same Tree," "God's Trombone," and "Outside Daughters." In 1986, six years before his death, Glanville wrote "Twit" with Gertrude Greenidge.