Raymond O'Neil

Who is Raymond O'Neil?

Raymond O'Neil was a European trained American theater director. After studying, "in Europe's Art theatres [and] serving as the art director at the Cleavland Playhouse, O'Neil resigned [in order] to form a company of professional black actors in Chicago. He was inspired from seeing, "African American nightclub performers in Chicago." O'Neil persuaded several of the Lafayette Players [another little-theatre group out of New York originally called the Anita Bush Stock Company formed by Anita Bush ] to join him by promising them roles that were not previously available. Under O'Neil's direction the performers received, over a twelve-month period, extensive artistic training much like many European theatrical groups at the time. Raymond O'Neil was, " interest[ed] in the work of [Edward] Gordon Craig and other modernists and in the experimental techniques and motives of the Moscow Art Theatre." "He sought, not to train [the actors] in imitation of the more inhibited white actors, but to develop their particular racial characteristics-freshness and vigor of their emotional responses, their spontaneity and intense mood, their freedom from intellectual and artistic obsessions." He was interested in "experimenting with the Negro art form in the commercial theatre", and "establishing a national black theatre company.