Biography

Lonne Elder was a playwright, screenwriter, and actor. Born December 26, 1927 in Americus, Georgia to father Lonne Elder II and Quincy Elder. When Lonne was still an infant, his family moved to New Jersey. At the age of ten Elder’s parents died, he and his four siblings were sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Jersey City. In 1949 Elder enrolled at New Jersey’s Teachers College but dropped out in less than a year. Elder learned how to gamble by following his uncle who ran numbers, and at the age of 19 he moved to Harlem and became a professional gambler as well as a waiter and telephone clerk. In New York he enrolled in the New School for Social Research. In 1952, Elder was drafted into the US Army and was stationed near Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. This is where he met the poet and playwright Robert Hayden. Inspired to write by Hayden, Elder moved back to New York in 1953 (once he left the Army) and began to study acting.

In 1959 Elder made his first appearance on Broadway in the show A Raisin in the Sun. After acting in the show, Elder decided to write his own plays. He drew on his own experiences, including the life of his uncle the number runner, and wrote the play Ceremonies of Dark Old Men in 1965. In 1967, he became the head of the Negro Ensemble Company’s playwright unit. The first show they debuted was Elder’s Ceremonies of Dark Old Men in 1969. First showing in the St. Mark’s Playhouse, then moving onto Broadway. Elder left Broadway and started to write for Hollywood in 1971, when he wrote the film Melinda. The following year he wrote the film Sounder. He wrote other screenplays for Hollywood but was eventually ostracized by studio executives in the 1980s for his efforts to break from the norm on how blacks were depicted in film.

Lonne Elder died on June 1, 1996 in Los Angeles. He was 69. (Full Bio)

Plays

Ceremonies in Old Dark Men (1965)

The drama centers on the fractured Parker family, whose aging patriarch dreams of lost youth while his daughter toils at a dead-end office job, his two hustling sons sell bootleg liquor and engage in petty thievery, and a smooth-talking con artist runs numbers out of their decrepit barber shop. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 7 (2f, 5m)

Characters: Mr. Russell B. Parker, Mr. William Jenkins, Theopolis Parker, Bobby Parker, Adele Eloise Parker, Blue Haven, Young Girl

Publication: Ceremonies in Dark Old Men. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. (Link)

Charades on East Fourth Street (1967) 

Set in the basement of an old New York City movie theater, Charades on East Fourth Street expands on the tradition of revenge tragedies. His one-act play centers on a group of young black people who have kidnapped a police officer. While a community meeting on police corruption in the community is held above them, the young people interrogate and threaten the officer to admit to the assault of their friends. The officer appeals to them, stating that he has not committed the crimes and that they have the wrong officer. However, his pleas fall on deaf ears. In the span of a few pages, Elder dives into the intricacies of power, race, and violence that permeate the relationship between African Americans and U.S. law enforcement. (Source - Written by Classix team)

Cast Requirement: 7 (1f, 6m)

Characters: Richie, Jake, Adam, Cliff, Manuel, Anna, Police Officer

Publication: Black Drama Anthology. Edited by Woodie King Jr. and Ron Milner. Columbia University Press, 1972. (Link)