J. E. Franklin

J. E. Franklin (born August 10, 1937), who publishes under the name J. e. Franklin, is an American playwright, best known for her play Black Girl, which was broadcast on public television in 1969, staged Off-Broadway in 1971, and made into a 1972 feature film of the same name . She has written and adapted plays for television, theater, and film. She was the eleventh of thirteen children. Her father was a cook who operated the family's store and her mother worked as a maid in the homes of wealthy white families. Due to the alternating work and sleep schedules of her parents, there were strict rules about not making noise at home. She adapted a signal system of her mother's ("used whenever a stranger was around and she did not want to admonish us publicly") Once, on a bus, she and her brother were thought to be deaf-mutes. She was also an excellent mimic of sounds. "When she visited her grandparents [her maternal grandfather had remarried], who lived in the country [she called it "Grandpa's Country"], she could mimic the clucking of their chickens so accurately that her grandparents thought that the birds themselves were present." While doing domestic work she witnessed disrespectful words hurled at white women from their own family members. It was the first time Franklin had seen Black actors live on a professional stage.

Freedom School Franklin felt that her "roots were dying" and decided to return to the South. She was asked by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to work with Fannie Lou Hamer to help the voter registration drive as part of Freedom Summer. She taught the children of share-croppers at one of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's Freedom Schools in Harmony, Mississippi. She taught the children under the trees, since they were driven out of every building they tried to use. She taught the children how to read by getting them to speak and write down their words and matching the words to what they said. She helped to create the Sharon Waite Community Center in Harmony, which was the project of Winson Hudson. This community center functioned as a haven for poor Black residents to gather and discuss their concerns and celebrate the spirit of their community. While in there, Franklin was moved to write her first play with the help of her young students, A First Step to Freedom (1964). She had been sent an old typewriter and a mimeograph machine. She printed out copies of the play, which the students held in their hands and used as their reading material (it included lines they had contributed). It was performed by the children at the community center. For many in the audience, it was the first play they had seen. As she has said: "I... had taken a number of courses in college about how to write a short story. It is for this reason, I believe, that I can only write one with much sweat and strain. I took no such course in playwriting, and so I have been on my own to move with freedom and facility as the properties of the stage allow." She joined so that she could "learn how to talk like a writer [and] get help [with her] work." It was directed by Shauneille Perry, who later (at Franklin's request) directed her plays Black Girl and Prodigal Sister. According to Franklin, the cast of Mau May Room included Richard Roundtree as "Jimmy" in the play. Franklin started writing the full play in 1968: "I wrote through Christmastime and New Year's and never even went outside until a full draft was completed." The play received standing ovations and played to full houses, and the critics gave it rave reviews. The production was then moved to the Off-Broadway Theatre de Lys, on the west of Greenwich Village, where, starting on June 16, 1971, it played for a record six-month run of 247 performances. The play was reviewed favorably in the New York Times and both Franklin and Perry were profiled in the Times two days later, with photographs taken by Bert Andrews (photographer). A few months after the play opened Off-Broadway, another producer offered a road contract to tour four major cities: Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Detroit. A new, second cast had to be hired, which led to Franklin casting Bill Cobbs and discovering the actress Peggy Pettitt, who played Billie Jean in the touring play and later in the film adaptation. Franklin received a Drama Desk Award for most promising playwright for the play, as well a Media Woman Award. Dramatist Play Services published the full-length play Black Girl: A play in Two Acts in 1971. Franklin was invited to speak at public events, including Barbara Ann Teer's Sunday Symposium Series at the National Black Theatre.

In 1986, The McGinn-Cazale Second Stage Theater in New York City had a revival of Black Girl as part of its series on American Classics, directed by Glenda Dickerson and starring a young Angela Bassett as Billie Jean, as well as Ernestine Jackson as Mama Rosie. The New Federal Theatre produced a revival of the play during its 1995–96 season. This production was staged by Anderson Johnson. On Thursday, May 21, 2009, Black Girl was presented by Legros Cultural Arts in New York City.

Black Girl (The Film) Black Girl was optioned to Hollywood for a film. In 1971, Franklin worked on a feature-film adaptation of the play that was also titled Black Girl, for a very small advance. It was directed by Ossie Davis, and produced by Lee Savin (his first film). It was shot on location in Venice, Los Angeles. It starred Peggy Pettitt (from the touring stage production) as Billie Jean; Leslie Uggams as Netta, who wants Billie Jean to finish school and go to college to study dance; Ruby Dee (wife of Davis) as Netta's mother; Claudia McNeil as Mu'Dear, Billie Jean's grandmother; and Brock Peters as Earl, Mama Rosie's ex-husband. (Other members of the cast included Louise Stubbs Gloria Edwards, and Loretta Greene, who reprised their roles from the play). Songs in the film included Black Girl by Betty Everett and Sisters by Walter Hawkins.

The experience of making and marketing the film was an unhappy one for Franklin. Although the producer, Savin, promised that Woodie King Jr. would be involved in the project, King was dropped. She urged Davis to hire Shauneille Perry as an assistant, but he did not. While she managed to get them to hire Peggy Pettitt, rather than "a light-bright-damned-near-white actress", on 9 November 1972, to benefit sickle cell anemia, Franklin claimed to not be affected by the movie's release: "When the movie came out, I was a full-time lecturer at Lehman College. I was involved with my student needs." A newly restored print of the film, made by UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation, and funded by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, had its premiere playing as part of a 24-hour programming block celebrating the 60th anniversary of the UCLA Film Festival & Television Archive on September 25, 2025. The new print (in 35 mm) had its New York premiere as part of the 63rd New York Film Festival on September 28, when it was introduced by Franklin. On October 1, Franklin was joined by Peggy Pettitt in a Q&A after another screening of the film.

Later Writing In 1972, Franklin published the short-story "The Enemy" in Black Short Story Anthology edited by Woodie King Jr., along with stories by James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, and King himself. and then at Theatre de Lys in November 1974, where it was warmly reviewed by Clive Barnes. Christchild was published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 1993, edited by Marisa Smith (Smith & Kraus, 1994). Miss Honey's Young'Uns, a revised version of May-Mau Room, was published in Black Drama in America: An Anthology, edited by Darwin T. Turner (Howard University Press, 1994). Two Men'es Daughter was published in The Best American Short Plays 1994-1995, edited by Howard Stein (Applause Theatre Books, 1995), and was included in the seventh edition of Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, edited by Thomas R. Arp (Harcourt-Brace College Publishers, 1998). Other plays of Franklin include Cut Out the Lights And Call the Law (1972), CrUSAde for Justice (1975), Another Morning Rising (1976), and The Hand-Me-Downs (1978). In 2003, she published Coming to the Mercy Seat, the first of her ten-minute play collections. A number of her play manuscripts are held in the archives of Emory University library. In 2013 she self-published To Break Every Yoke (Xlibris, 2013), which contained the plays Freedom Rider, Mother, Dear Mother, I Reckon That's Why They Call Us Colored... Bless They Hearts!, and the original television play of Black Girl.

In 2009, Franklin published the play The Race Primer (Xlibris, 2009). With her daughter, N'zinga Franklin, Franklin published Our Lady Of The Winding Sheets (2006), and A Hip Hop Aesop: Jazzed, Bopped, and Beat-Boxed (2007), an adaptation of some of Aesop's Fables. In 2018, Franklin adapted a hip-hop version of The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs for a music video, Hip Hop Aesop: A Musical Aesop (2018). Franklin has also published retellings of Aesop's Fables, sometimes in hip-hop style, with illustrations by Brett Forsyth, for Xlibris: Cool Kid and the Wolf (2020) (a retelling of The Goat and the Wolf); The Tortoise and the Hare (2021); The Little Ant and the Happy Grasshopper (2021) (a retelling of The Ant and the Grasshopper); and The Lion and the Mouse (2022).

Teaching In 1969, Franklin was hired as a part-time Lecturer in the Department of Education at Lehman College in the Bronx. The following year, she was hired as a full-time Lecturer. She taught at Lehman College until 1975. She worked with Associate Professor Mary Rita Donleavy (sister of J. P. Donleavy) on the Eureka-Unitive Education Program. During this time she wrote several plays for her Lehman students (Eureka Theatre Group), including Four Women: A Play in One Act, based on the Nina Simone song Four Women, reimagined as roommates attending an integrated college, which was performed at Lehman College in 1973. Where Dewdrops Of Mercy Shine Bright was performed at Brown University in 1993. It led to the first three ten-minute plays of Franklin's being performed at the festival. Wonderchild was performed at the University of Iowa in 1993 and directed by Jones, who had requested that the play be written. In 1992–1993, Franklin was a Fellow of the Schomburg Center at the New York Public Library. In the 1990s, she was a faculty member at the Harlem School of the Arts. She also founded the Blackgirl Ensemble Theatre in New York City. In April 2021, during the pandemic, she joined a class, "African American Plays from Stage to Screen" at Middlebury College remotely to talk about her career and to "provide advice for the next generation of creative minds." On May 30, 2024, at the 56th Commencement of Lehman College, Franklin was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters. As stated in the Commencement program, "Franklin's impact as playwright, educator, and activist is evident in her fearless exploration of the Black experience in America, particularly the experience of Black women and families."

Personal

Franklin married Lawrence Siegel in 1964. Her daughter is the actress, spoken word artist, and director N'zinga Franklin, who goes professionally by Malika Nzinga, and who has appeared in the television series Daredevil and Luke Cage.

Selected credits

Theatre Year Production Theatre(s) Notes1993Wonderchild (New Federal Theatre) Henry Street Playhouse / Theatre de LysMusical written by J. E. Franklin and Micki Grant, based on Franklin's play, Prodigal Daughter (1971); directed by Shauneille Perry1973Four Women Lehman College Written by J. E. Franklin; based on the song Four Women by Nina Simone; directed by J. E. Franklin; performed by Eureka Theatre Group1971Black Girl (New Federal Theatre) St. Augustine's Church (Manhattan) / Theatre de LysWritten by J. E. Franklin; directed by Shauneille Perry1969Mau Mau Room (Negro Ensemble Company) St. Mark's PlayhouseWritten by J. E. Franklin; directed by Shauneille Perry1967The In-Crowd: Rock Opera in One Act Montreal Expo, Youth PavilionWritten by J. E. Franklin; choreographed by Woodie King Jr.; performed by Mobilization for Youth (MOY)1966Two Flowers New Feminist TheatreWritten by J. E. Franklin1964A First Step to Freedom Sharon Waite Community Center, Harmony MississippiWritten by J. E. Franklin; directed by J. E. Franklin

Television

Year Production Producer(s) Notes1969Black Girl WGBH (Boston)Produced by George Houston BassScreenplay by J. E. Franklin

Film

Year Production Producer(s) Notes1972Black GirlProduced by Robert H. Greenberg and Lee SavinScreenplay by J. E. Franklin; directed by Ossie Davis

Publications

Awards Media Woman Award (1971) Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright (1971–1972 season) CaPS Award (1972) Institute for the Arts and Humanities Dramatic Arts Award, Howard University (1974) Globe award Audelco award Better Boys Foundation Playwriting Award (1978) Ajabei Children's Theater Annual Award (1978) National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship (1979) Rockefeller Grant (1980) Eugene O'Neill Fellow (1981–1982) John F. Kennedy New American Play Award (1992)