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Dr. Shirley Basfield Dunlap

A virtual reflection and celebration of our dear LLC Alum

We write to share the sorrowful news that we have lost one of our own LLC alums, Dr. Shirley Basfield Dunlap. Dr. Basfield Dunlap, a member of LLC cohort 16, graduated in Spring 2018, with her dissertation, “The Oral History Project of African American Stage Directors in American Theatre.” Drs. Beverly Bickel and Michelle Scott co-chaired her ground-breaking dissertation and her committee includedDrs. Kimberly Moffitt, Robert Morrow (Morgan State University) and Ayanna Thompson (Arizona State University).

Dr. Basfield's dissertation presents an oral history of four African American stage directors of American mainstream theatre who are among many who have been undocumented in the annals of American history. Her work highlights how the director's staging of theatrical artwork is a commentary on the experience, ideologies, interpretations and representations of the world of the play. Each
director brings cultural heritage to life through performative art, and contributes another dimension to historicizing moments that have not had adequate attention in U.S. theatre history. Marjorie Moon of The Billie Holiday Theatre; Clinton Turner Davis of the Negro Ensemble Company and co-founder of The Non-Traditional Casting Project; Mabel Robinson of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company; and Woodie King, Jr. of the New Federal Theatre all represent the intersectionality of the lived history of African Americans in theatre as early as the 1960s National Black Arts/Theatre Movement. The work is a challenge to the discrimination that ensues due to the lack of documentation of African Americans’ experiences in American theatre history.

Since last summer, Dr. Basfield Dunlap had been conducting additional interviews of African American directors in Chicago, Indiana, Texas, New York and Washington, D.C. which she planned to include in a book and eventual documentary about the significant contributions of African American directors to American theatre. In a late April 2020 email exchange, she wrote about how the pandemic’s insistence that she stay home and slow down had offered her inspiration, hope and time to be able to work on the book.

While completing the final writing of her dissertation, she directed Red Velvet, Lolita Chakrabarti's play about Ira Aldridge, the 19th century Black Shakespearean actor, for the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. Describing her work directing Red Velvet, Dr. Basfield Dunlap wrote, "Theatre educates, empowers, and inspires in ways unlike any entertainment field in the world. Telling Aldridge's story is timely and necessary, as we experience concerns in today's entertainment industry all too similar to those he encountered during the 1800s." 


Dr. Basfield Dunlap expressed her fierce commitment to inclusion through this and many other productions. As a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and an unwavering advocate for the powerful contributions of African American directors to American theatre, Dr. Basfield Dunlap's directing credits are too numerous to list. A sample includes multidisciplinary productions developed and staged in collaboration with Morgan's Theatre, Visual Arts and Music departments and many community members such as Raisin, the Musical; Ragtime, the Musical; Sarafina!; Crowns; The Color Purple; and, The Wiz. A widely respected director in the Baltimore area and well beyond, Dr. Basfield Dunlap was honored with a nomination from Woodie King and Ian Gallanar and offered membership in the prestigious American Theatre Conference in summer 2018.


When UMBC hosted the national Imagining America conference in collaboration with Morgan State University, Towson University, Maryland Institute of Art and over 50 community organizations, Dr. Basfield Dunlap coordinated three sessions for the conference including a powerful opening session with Morgan students and another keynote session for which she directed a dramatic reading of Langston Hughes' "Let America be America Again." Orgaizers and participants of subsequent Imaging America conferences are still talking about the powerful and beautiful sessions she created and led in 2015.


Dr. Basfield Dunlap brought diligence, commitment, and generosity to the LLC community where she was beloved for her humor, critical questions, spirituality and creative thought and action. She told us, "Jump...the net will come!" And so, we jumped, knowing that we would learn, laugh and be inspired when Shirley was in the room. She did not need the doctoral degree to pursue African American theater directing and scholarship as she was already the expert when she stepped into the classroom. Yet, she was intent on becoming "Dr." Basfield Dunlap and so she did in record time, mentoring her LLC mentors along the way.


To see her working as a director, attend the magnificent plays she directed, and to know her as a friend and colleague has been a treasured gift. Just as she ended all her emails and encounters, we wish her the "peace and blessings" she so generously shared with everyone she encountered on her journey. Our deepest sympathies and love are with her family and closest friends as we learn to live in a diminished world without Shirley's light.


The LLC Community will come together on Friday, June 19th from 3-4 p.m. in a virtual moment of reflection, celebration, and laughter about our dear alum. Personal stories and reflections welcomed. Please feel free to join us:


https://zoom.us/j/97530977929
Meeting ID: 975 3097 7929
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+13017158592,,97530977929# US (Germantown)
+19292056099,,97530977929# US (New York)





Posted: June 19, 2020, 2:11 PM

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