Роза МакКлендон: Американская актриса и театральный деятель.

American actress (1884–1936)

Rose McClendon (August 27, 1884 – July 12, 1936) was a leading African American Broadway actress of the 1920s. A founder of the Negro People's Theatre, she guided the creation of the Federal Theatre Project's African American theatre units nationwide and briefly co directed the New York Negro Theater Unit.

Rose McClendon was born as Rosalie Virginia Scott in Greenville, South Carolina, and as a child relocated to New York City. She started acting in church plays in her youth. She became a professional actress in her thirties, after winning a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Art. At age 20 she was married to Dr. Henry Pruden McClendon, a chiropractor. McClendon was a contemporary of Paul Robeson, Ethel Barrymore, Lynn Fontanne and Langston Hughes, who created a character for her in his 1935 play, Mulatto. As a showcase for McClendon, Countee Cullen adapted Euripides' tragedy Medea, working with producer John Houseman, composer Virgil Thomson and production designer Chick Austin. More than 4,000 people attended its first production, an adaptation of Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty, and the group was organized in permanent form in June. The Negro People's Theatre directly inspired the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project, Under her guidance units were created in Seattle, Hartford, Philadelphia, Newark, Los Angeles, Boston, Raleigh, Birmingham, San Francisco and Chicago as well as New York. She served as liaison to numerous organizations and individuals who became involved in the Federal Theatre Project, including Harry Edward, Carlton Moss and Edna Thomas. McClendon advised national director Hallie Flanagan that the project should begin under experienced direction and selected John Houseman to co direct the unit. In December 1935, McClendon was forced to leave the cast of Langston Hughes's Mulatto after she became critically ill with pleurisy. McClendon was to have portrayed Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles's Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth (1936), but due to her continuing illness Edna Thomas played the role. Her condition later developed into pneumonia, and McClendon died at her home on July 12, 1936.