Steve Willis of Bennett College was scholar-in-residence at New York University in 2006 researching Sands. Since then he’s written a play about her which has been performed at a number of venues around the U.S.
Her tragically curtailed but brilliantly accomplished life and acting career was a matter of breaking down one barrier after another. We all know I’m dubious about saying someone was the “first,” but Sands played Shaw, Shakespeare–virtually unheard of for an African-American woman up to that point. She was a Broadway star, and starred in movies, and in regional theater, and on TV in I Spy, Julia, Medical Center, The Fugitive, et. al.
I said to Steve, why don’t you write a biography, and he said why don’t we collaborate and I said Sure. So we’re going to.
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