Sheldon Epps is a man of many titles, but his latest is an author.
The Broadway legend, who directed Tony Award-nominated productions ‘Play On!’ and ‘Blues in the Night’, recently went to the blank page to tell his personal story, “My Own Directions: A Black Man’s Journey in American Theater’, describing his experiences with diversity in the arts.
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“It really chronicles my career from the very, very early days, which means I was born in Los Angeles, California, went to Teaneck, New Jersey and discovered Broadway theater and got into drama clubs in junior high School and high school got me involved, which led me to study acting in college and then direct,” said Epps, who directed Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett and the cast of Friends, among countless others.
It’s a career of both triumph and tribulation that eventually takes him to the stages of Broadway and the Pasadena Playhouse, where he served as artistic director for two decades.
“Because of my experiences and knowing about other people’s experiences, it was just really, really important to me to focus on diversity — on and off stage — and to expand the scope of work for actors of color and expand the scope of audiences,” said Eps. “You know, in theaters where I’ve worked, I’ve often been the only black person in the audience. And I found that fundamentally wrong. Especially in communities like Pasadena and Los Angeles that are so diverse. It was important to me that the theater should reflect the community, and actually reflect what America is.”
Epps said when he started, he and other artists of his generation struggled to get work outside of what he calls the “black box,” a sort of typography and euphemism that limited the roles he was being considered for.
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He said it’s important to work outside of that in order to grow as an artist and Audience.
“Everyone wants to see stories related to their own lives. Whether you’re a woman, whether you’re a young person, whether you’re a person of color — people want to see plays about people who are like themselves,” Epps said. “Once they get excited about the idea of going to the theater, these kinds of plays, you realize every play is about the human race. Then you become more willing to see plays about other ethnicities that show different age groups.”
He permeates this philosophy in his more recent work as senior artistic director at historic Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC
He added that while he’s been privy to conversations about diversity in the arts for decades, the more recent discussions in the wake of the renaissance of the Black Lives Matter movement are louder than before.
“Sometimes people have said to me that there was a movement in theatre, in the entertainment industry starting in 2020, and I’m like, ‘I hope that’s true. I hope it’s a movement and not a moment. That it’s not a knee-jerk reaction to all these protests,'” Epps said. “(I hope) that the positive forward motion that we have seen will be a permanent forward motion.”
He said his book grew out of those thoughtful meditations on racism in theater and a need to tell other artists of color that they are not alone and that the challenges they face can be overcome.
It’s a message that local artists and organizations like Central Florida Entertainment Advocacy are also picking up on.
“We have to start somewhere and we need some kind of benchmark,” CFEA founder and CEO Meka King said in a previous interview with News 6. “What does equity look like? I think it looks like a good representation of what our community actually is.”
The Central Florida-based arts group is just one of many working to create a more equitable, equitable, diverse and inclusive arts and entertainment industry.
“There’s still a long way to go and we need more change and more people in positions of power, but we’ve certainly seen things develop in ways that are very, very helpful,” Epps said.
Epps is gearing up to perform Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical in Chicago in May. You can Follow him on Instagram to keep up to date with his latest projects.
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