Charles Weldon obit

Charles Weldon, Artistic Director of Negro Ensemble Company, Dies at 78

Charles Weldon, Artistic Director of the Negro Ensemble Company, has died. He was 78.

 

 He was not on the list.

Charles Weldon, the artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company, has died. He was 78.

During his career, he directed numerous company productions, including Colored People Time, Savanna Black and Blue, The Waiting Room and NEC’s 50th-anniversary revival of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier’s Play.

Weldon acted in many more, among them The Great McDaddy and The Brownsville Raid. His film acting credits include Serpico, Stir Crazy and Malcolm X. Weldon made his Broadway debut in 1969 in Buck White, which featured Muhammad Ali in the title role; and returned in NEC’s production of The River Niger in 1973. He also appeared in the original San Francisco production of Hair.

Weldon’s final stage appearance was as the central character of the Mayor in a 2016 revival of NEC co-founder Douglas Turner Ward’s Day of Absence.

NEC has been a touchstone for African-American theater artists since 1965. Prominent actors who have come through the New York-based company’s ranks include Phylicia Rashad, S. Epatha Merkerson, Laurence Fishburne, Louis Gossett Jr., Adolph Caesar, Esther Rolle and Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

Born in Wetumka, Oklahoma, in 1940, Weldon worked in cotton fields as a teenager and achieved early success as a member of a doo-wop group called The Pardons, and, subsequently, a soul group. He then entered the theater world and began auditioning for regional productions.

Weldon had three children with his first wife Barbara Sotello, got remarried to second wife Debbi Morgan, and was single at the time of his death.

A celebration of Weldon’s life will take place in January.

Onscreen

    Stir Crazy

    Serpico

    Malcolm X

    The Wishing Tree

 

Negro Ensemble Company Productions

    In 2016 - A Day of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward[8]

    In 1982 - The Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize winner play A Soldier's Play.

    In 1975 - The Brownsville Raid

    In 1973 - The Great Mac Daddy by Paul Carter Harrison

    In 1973 - The River Niger the Tony-winning Broadway production by Joseph A. Walker.

    In 1970 - Ododo by Joseph Walker [8]

 

Negro Ensemble Company as Director

 

    Colored People Time, by Leslie Lee

    The Waiting Room by Samm-Art Williams

    Savanna Black and Blue by Raymond Jones

    Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonnie Elder III

    Hercules Didn't Wade in the Water by Michael A. Jones

    Negro Ensemble Theater Companies 50th Anniversary revival of A Soldier's Play by Charles Fuller

    The Mire and With Aaron's Arms Around Me, by Sophia Romma https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Sophia-Romma/at the Cherry Lane Theatre (2010)

    Cabaret Emigre, by Sophia Romma at the Lion Theatre (Theatre Row, 2012)

 

The Negro Ensemble Company Awards

 

    1982 -a Pulitzer Prize for A Soldier's Play

    Two Tony Awards

    Eleven Obies

 

Castillo Theater

 

    2011: Directed The Picture Box[9]

    2013: Directed Stealing Home about Jackie Robinson

 

As an Actor

 

Filmography

 

    1967: Who's Minding the Mint? - Guide (uncredited)

    1972: Trick Baby - Tough

    1975: Police Story (TV Series) - Stack / Harry Evans / James Reed

    1975: Rooster Cogburn - Bailiff (uncredited)

    1975: The Streets of San Francisco (TV Series) - J.W. Flowers

    1976: Kojak (TV Series) - 'Shotgun Willie' Baine

    1976: Dynasty (TV Movie) - Sam Adams

    1976: The River Niger - Skeeter

    1976: Kiss Me, Kill Me (TV Movie) - Leonard Hicks

    1976: Sanford and Son (TV Series) - Miss Wallace / Alex Hacker

    1978: A Woman Called Moses (TV Series) - Shadrack Davis

    1979: The Rockford Files (TV Series) - Watkins

    1979: Roots: The Next Generations (TV Mini-Series) - Doxey Walker

    1980: Stir Crazy

    1981-1982: Hill Street Blues (TV Series) - Connelly / Lt. Clayton Shaw

    1982: American Playhouse (TV Series) - Beau Willie

    1982: Fast-Walking - Officer Jackson

    1983: Another Woman's Child (TV Movie) - Roland

    1984: Gimme a Break! (TV Series) - Good Ol' Charlie Johnson

    1985: The Atlanta Child Murders (TV Mini-Series) - John Bell

    1985: St. Elsewhere (TV Series) - Andrew Turner

    1986: L.A. Law (TV Series) - Cop #1

    1987: Simon & Simon (TV Series) - Doug Belton

    1988: Case Closed (TV Movie)

    1989: The Women of Brewster Place (TV Series) - Tenant #5

    1990-1999: Law & Order (TV Series)

    1992: Malcolm X - Follower at Temple #7

    1994: Drop Squad - Uncle Omar

    1994: New York Undercover (TV Series) - James Hampton / Croupier

    1999: The Wishing Tree - Al 'Alfred' Brooks

    2000: Clockin' Green (Video) - Al 'Alfred' Brooks

    2001: Hoop Soldiers (Video)

    2005: Law & Order: Trial by Jury (TV Series) - Juror #2

    2018: Diane - Tom

    2018: Paris Blues in Harlem (Short) - Pop Pop (final film role)