Vinnette Carroll

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Vinnette Carroll (March 11, 1922 - November 5, 2002) was an American actress and theatre director.

Born Vinnette Justine Carroll in New York City to Edgar Edgerton and Florence (Morris) Carroll. She and her family moved to Jamaica when she was three and she spent much of her childhood there. Later she returned to New York and received her MA from New York University in 1946. She did her doctoral work in psychology at Columbia University and for a time worked as a clinical psychologist.^[1]

She went into acting soon after that and made her Broadway debut in 1957. In 1964 she won an Emmy Award for Beyond The Blues, which dramatized the works of Black poets. In 1972 she became the first African American woman to direct on Broadway with her staging of Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope. Her success was repeated in 1976, collaborating with Micki Grant and Alex Bradford, with "Your Arms Too Short To Box With God", which garnered three Tony nominations. Ms. Carroll remains the only African-American woman to receive a Tony nomination for Direction. In 1967, she also founded the Urban Arts Corps, which trained minority performers in all theatrical disciplines and specialized in works by African-American writers and composers. ^[2]

She died of heart disease and diabetes in Lauderhill, Florida at age 80.