Anita Bush

Anita Bush (September 1, 1883 – February 16, 1974) was an African American stage actress and playwright. She founded the Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company in 1915, a pioneering black repertory theatre company that helped gain her the moniker "The Little Mother of Colored Drama".

Biography Anita Bush was born to Chapman Bush and Annie Elizabeth Bush, née Brown, on September 1, 1883, in Washington, DC. When she was three years old, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where her father, a master tailor, became “a theatrical costumer whose clients included many New York actors and performers”.

While working with her father at the Bijou Theater, she saw the renowned vaudeville company of Bert Williams and George Walker (Williams and Walker Co.), performing In Dahomey. It was during this time that she asked her father for permission to audition for the group, in hopes to gain a career in acting. At the age of 17, she was cast with the company and it allowed her to tour the world and pave a way for her to form her own companies. With the Bijou Theater Company, she “traveled to England with the musical and later performed in the Chorus of four other Williams and Walker shows”.

After performing in her final play, Mr. Lode of Koal with the troop, she formed her own dance group, Anita Bush and her 8 Shimmy Babies. In March 1916, the Lafayette Theatre purchased the rights to her company and changed its name to The Lafayette Players. Bush then organized four additional companies of the Lafayette Players which toured throughout the United States.

At the Lafayette Theatre, Bush's company would mount a new play every week. Throughout the Lafayette Players lifetime with Bush, she reached a point where she could no longer afford the group and sold her right to her “co-manager”. when she left to pursue a career in film. Bush appeared in The Bull-Dogger (1921), starring renowned Black rodeo cowboy Bill Pickett and starred in The Crimson Skull (1922) with vaudeville performer Lawrence Chenault, also with Pickett.

Death Anita Bush died at the age of 90 in her Bronx, New York home on February 16, 1974.

Known works

Stage In Dahomey, 1903 Antony and Cleopatra, 1914 Across the Footlights, 1915 Within the Law, 1915-1916 The Octoroon or Life in Louisiana, 1916 Madame X, 1916-1917 Very Good Eddie, 1917-1918 Goethe’s Faust, 1917-1918

Film The Bull-Dogger, 1921 The Crimson Skull, 1922