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Peggy Pettitt (born 1950), is an African-American actress, dancer, teacher, playwright and storyteller. She is a native of St. Louis, Missouri.
Pettitt's grandparents were a big, early influence, telling her memorable stories. As a child, Pettitt also observed various types of people who lived in her neighborhood. She valued greatly the sincere integrity of the working people who made up her community.
In 1969, she went to Antioch College, where she was exposed to the difficulties that sometimes surface between people of different races and social classes, and, at the same time, to the unity that can cross these boundaries.
In 1972, during the era of Blaxploitation movies, Pettitt went on to make her first feature film, Black Girl. In Black Girl, she played an orphan who was adopted by a woman; her adoptive uncle offered her a job as a bartender at a strip club he owned, but her character wanted to become a dancer. Pettitt was nominated for Best Actress by the NAACP for her role in Black Girl, written by J.E. Franklin and directed by Ossie Davis.
In 1974, she graduated from Antioch College. Soon after that, she moved to London on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, where, for the first time, she experienced working with diverse populations include working-class whites and blacks, the latter mostly young immigrants from the Caribbean.
Pettitt, however, faced many struggles, and returned to the United States, to New York City. She continues her theater career in writing and performing her own work which includes more than ten original plays, produced by such venues as Performance Space 122 in New York City. Pettitt created a unique style of solo performance with roots in African-American storytelling, in which she portrays a variety of characters who are related by blood and circumstance, using them to tell "stories addressing important issues of our time"[1]. New York Times critic D.J.R. Bruckner says, "Ms. Pettitt's judgments of her characters are clear-eyed and sharp, and so is her judgment of life. "[Caught] Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" is full of sadness and disappointment, but also of wisdom and wicked humor".[2] She also performed in Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes's historical comedy, "Mule Bone". She has received numerous grants and awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship.
She currently teaches Self-Scripting at New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing. She teaches at elementary schools, high schools and for Age Exchange of London.
Pettitt has been married for over twenty years to writer, director and painter Rémy Tissier.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Mark Russell, ed., Out of Character: Rants, Raves, and Monologues from Today's Top Performance Artists, New York: Bantam, 1997, p. 304.
- ^ Bruckner, D.J.R., "Caught Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," New York Times, Oct. 30, 1991.
