#HerStoryTheatre
Rose McClendon was one of the most famous Black actresses on stage during the 1920s. Besides being an acclaimed actress, Rose also directed, and helped found an acting company called the Negro People’s Theatre. With her help, the NPT helped inspire the Negro Theatre Unit as part of the Federal Theatre Project which was included in FDR’S New Deal. Rose helped to ensure that the Unit spread across the United States to ensure that entertainers all over could receive financial support for their live performances.
Her acting career carried over into the 1930s and included being cast as Lady Macbeth in the 1936 adaptation of Macbeth directed by Orson Welles. However, illness required her to pull out before the play could premiere. It was just a short time later that Rose died from pneumonia at the age of 51. Rose’s memory lives on with all of her contributions to the theater community. It also lives on in the form of a statue. At the Frank Lloyd Wright designed home, Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, there is a beautiful stone statue of Rose McClendon created by Black sculptor, Richmond Barthe, gracing the garden.
“It’s my name in lights...Never before, except one time in Pittsburgh, has my name been placed on the electric sign. Whenever you cannot find me, just step out in front of the Hudson, and there I’ll be, gazing up at the marquee.” -- Rose McClendon (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 1932)
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