LOS ANGELES (October 13, 2023) — The theater neighborhood is mourning the dying of celebrated director Shirley Jo Finney, who handed away on October 10, 2023 on the age of 74 following an eight-month battle with most cancers. The Fountain Theatre, the place Finney directed eight productions over the course of a decades-long creative relationship, will host a memorial service in celebration of Finney’s life and accomplishments at a future date to be introduced.
“It shatters my heart beyond expression to announce the passing of my artistic sister,” says Fountain Theatre creative director Stephen Sachs. “I am deeply, deeply devastated. She was my theatrical soulmate for 26 years.”
Born July 14, 1949 in Merced, CA, Shirley Jo Finney was a a number of award-winning director and actress. She wore her director’s hat in among the most revered regional theaters throughout the nation, together with the Fountain Theatre, LA Theater Works, Pasadena Playhouse and Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; the Goodman Theater in Chicago; Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; the McCarter Theater and Crossroads Theatre Company in New Jersey; the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Cleveland Playhouse; Humana Festival on the Actors Theater of Louisville; and the Sundance Theater Workshop in Park City, Utah.
Her affiliation with the Fountain started in 1997, together with her acclaimed manufacturing of Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s From the Mississippi Delta, for which the LA Times highlighted her ingenious staging. Under her route, the smash hit world premiere of Stephen Sachs’ spin on L.A’s jazz historical past, Central Avenue, ran for seven months in 2001. Her Los Angeles premiere of Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman gained the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for greatest manufacturing, and earned Finney the Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP Theatre Award for greatest director. Her route of the Fountain’s West Coast premiere of Ifa Bayeza’s daring, folks and gospel-infused The Ballad of Emmett Till in 2010 resulted in an awards sweep: Ovation, Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle, NAACP and Backstage Garland awards for manufacturing, route and ensemble. Other directing credit on the Fountain included world premieres of Citizen: An American Lyric by award-winning PENN poet Claudia Rankin and Fountain Theatre creative director Stephen Sachs; Heart Song, about three pals who uncover their inside ‘duende’ by a flamenco class for middle-aged ladies, additionally by Sachs; and Runaway Home, a poetic mother-daughter story set within the wake of Hurricane Katrina by Jeremy J. Kamps, for which Finney obtained an NAACP Theater Award nomination. She directed Los Angeles premieres of two performs by Tarell Alvin McCraney for the Fountain: In the Red and Brown Water, for which she obtained Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Ovation and NAACP awards, and The Brothers Size, for which she garnered a Stage Raw award nomination and a Stage Scene LA “Scenie” award.
She most just lately directed Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage on the Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX, the place she had beforehand directed The Green Book in 2020. Other latest directing credit embody the internationally acclaimed South African opera Winnie, primarily based on the lifetime of political icon Winnie Mandela, on the State Theater in Pretoria, South Africa; Facing Our Truth, The Trayvon Martin Project on the Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles; and the Lark Foundation’s rolling world premiere of The Road Weeps by Marcus Gardley on the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
Miss Finney was additionally a longtime tv and movie director. She directed a number of episodes of Moesha, and he or she garnered the International Black Filmmakers Award for her quick movie Remember Me.
She was honored with the UCLA Department of Theater Film and Television Distinguished Alumni Award, the Black Alumni Associations Dr. Beverly Robinson Award for Excellence within the Arts, and the African American Film Marketplace Award of Achievement for Outstanding Performance and Achievement and Leader in Entertainment.
An completed actress with many tv and movie credit, she was greatest recognized for her portrayal within the historic title function of Wilma Rudolph, the primary feminine three-time gold medalist within the made-for-TV bio image Wilma.
Miss Finney was an alumnus of the American Film Institute’s Director Workshop for Women and held an M.F.A. diploma from UCLA. She was a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Director’s Guild, and the Screen Actor’s Guild. She was an artist-in-residence at a number of faculties and universities, together with Columbia College in Chicago, UC Santa Barbara, USC and UCLA.