Lloyd Richards, theater director and educator who mentored the career of August Wilson and directed the legendary Broadway production of "A Raisin in the Sun," has died of heart failure.
Richards died Thursday at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, Victoria Nolan, deputy director of the Yale School of Drama, said Friday. Always circumspect about his age, he was believed to be in his mid-80s.
Besides Wilson, Richards helped shape the career of many playwrights, working with writers primarily at three major theatrical institutions the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center in Waterford, Conn., as dean of the Yale School of Drama and artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre.
But it was with Wilson, who died last October, that Richards forged his most prominent partnership. He directed six of Wilson's plays on Broadway, starting with "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" in 1984, and their relationship continued through "Fences" (1987), "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (1988), "The Piano Lesson" (1990), "Two Trains Running" (1992) and "Seven Guitars" (1996). Richards won a Tony Award for his direction of "Fences."
At the Playwrights Conference, where new works receive staged readings, Richards worked not only with Wilson but with such authors as Wendy Wasserstein, David Henry Hwang and Christopher Durang. At Yale Rep, he also championed the work of Athol Fugard and directed several of the South African playwright's dramas on Broadway including "A Lesson From Aloes" (1980), "Master Harold ... and the boys" (1982) and "Blood Knot" (1985).
