J. Augustus Smith

J. Augustus Smith, also known as Gus Smith (born January 14, 1891; died December 1964), was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. In 1936 he was one of three theatre artists who succeeded John Houseman in leading the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project in New York City.

Biography

Smith was born in Gainesville, Florida, in 1891. The film was based on his play Louisiana, which premiered in 1933 on Broadway, starring Smith. The stage production featured an all-Black cast, members of the New Negro Repertory Theater Group, founded by Smith. The cast members reprised their roles for the film.

Smith co-wrote, co-directed, and co-starred in Turpentine, a play about conditions in turpentine camps in the American South, for the Federal Theatre Project. In 1936 he was one of a triumvirate of African-American theatre artists who succeeded John Houseman in leading the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project.

Smith also wrote Just Ten Days, a folk-comedy that played at parks in the Bronx.

Smith and Oliver Foster had the lead roles in the theatrical production Walk Together Chillun.

Theatre Louisiana (1933) Turpentine (1936) Walk Together Chillun (1936) Just Ten Days (1937) The Case of Philip Lawrence (1937), director On Whitman Avenue (1946)

Filmography Actor Chloe Love Is Calling You (1934) Drums O' Voodoo (1934) Murder on Lenox Avenue (1941) as Pa Wilkins Stolen Paradise (1941) Sunday Sinners (1941) Hi-De-Ho (1947 film) as Preacher Junction 88 as Chinka Lin Boarding House Blues (1948) as Norman Norman Killer Diller as Stage Hand

Writer Drums O' Voodoo (1934)