Charles Fuller
| Charles Fuller | |
|---|---|
| Born | Charles H. Fuller, Jr. March 5, 1939 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | La Salle University |
| Spouse | Miriam A. Nesbitt (1962–2006); Claire Prieto (2008–) |
| Information | |
| Magnum opus | A Soldier's Play |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1982) |
Charles H. Fuller, Jr. (born March 5, 1939) is an African American playwright, best known for his play, A Soldier's Play, for which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Fuller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1939, the son of Charles H. Fuller, Sr. and Lillian Anderson. He attended Roman Catholic High School and then Villanova University (1956–1958), then joined the U.S. Army in 1959, serving in Japan and South Korea. He left the military in 1962, and later studied at La Salle University (1965–1967), earning a DFA. He co-founded the Afro-American Arts Theatre Philadelphia
Fuller vowed to become a writer after noticing that his high school's library had no books by African American authors. He achieved critical notice in 1969 with The Village: A Party, a drama about racial tensions between a group of mixed-race couples. He later wrote plays for the Henry Street Settlement theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company in New York, who have performed several of his plays. His 1975 play The Brownsville Raid is based on the Brownsville Affair, an altercation between black soldiers and white civilians in Brownsville, Texas, in 1906, which led to an entire black regiment being dishonorably discharged though later pardoned in 1976.
He won an Obie Award for Zooman and The Sign in 1980, about a black Philadelphia teen who kills a young girl on her own front porch, and whose neighbors eventually rise up against him after being goaded out of their apathy by the girl's father with a sign. Zooman presents himself as a helpless product of his society, but his victim's father convinces their neighbors that they need to stand together and achieve justice.
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