The arts community suffered a great loss when playwright, librettist, poet, and longtime Guild member Bridgette Wimberly passed away December 1, 2022, at age 68, following complications related to a series of strokes.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1954, Bridgette did not begin her playwriting career until her mid-40s. It was her interest in poetry and involvement with a Harlem-based reading group that eventually led to her participation in a 1997 directing workshop through Lincoln Center. One of the scenes she wrote in the workshop would become her first play, Saint Lucy’s Eyes.
Saint Lucy’s Eyes, produced at WP Theater in 2001, was hailed by the New York Times as “one of the country’s most powerful chroniclers of the Black underclass.” Set in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, the play examines the issue of illegal abortions, a topic just as pertinent today as it was over 50 years ago—abortion was completely banned in Tennessee on August 25, 2022. “Poetic and powerful,” Adam Kraar said of his friend’s work, which flourished under the mentorship of Wendy Wasserstein through Cherry Lane’s Alternative Mentorship Project. “Bridgette was a remarkable, multi-faceted artist and human being.”
“Bridgette had a glorious laugh, a sophisticated sense of style, and more talent than one thought possible from one human being,” said Angelina Fiordellisi, Executive Director and Founding Artistic Director of Cherry Lane Theatre in an email. “She had a radiant spirit and soft and calming voice. I miss her kindness and tender look at humanity.”
After its initial production, Saint Lucy’s Eyes transferred off-Broadway to Cherry Lane in July 2001, where Bridgette would later serve on the Board of Directors for ten years. The play received three AUDELCO Awards, a Kesslering nomination for best new play, and a Lucille Lortel nomination for best actress for Ruby Dee’s role in the production.
“Bridgette was warm and funny, so funny,” recalled Andrea Lepcio. “I liked to just get her talking. I’d soak in her insights, wisdom, and unique perspective. Saint Lucy’s Eyes touches deep and has stayed with me all these years.”
Faye Sholiton first became acquainted with Bridgette’s work after seeing the 2003 premiere of Forest City at Cleveland Play House: “I loved that she wrote about the 1960s, a decade that had also been life-defining for me. But Bridgette’s stories reflected an African American perspective that dug much deeper into what I thought I knew.”
As a commission for the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Bridgette wrote The Separation of Blood, which received its world premiere at Kuntu Repertory Theatre in Pittsburgh and won the 2007 Healthy Black Family Award from the University of Pittsburgh. This marked the beginning of a lifelong relationship with EST, of which Bridgette would later become a lifetime member.
Alice Eve Cohen, who met Bridgette through the Ensemble Studio Theatre Playwrights Unit, said she will remember her honest and insightful feedback, and the “deep humanity” and “expansive imagination” she brought to her characters. “Her contribution to the group was unlike anyone else’s... and it was invaluable.”
In 2009, Bridgette initiated EST’s Going to the River series to celebrate African American female playwrights. Her ten-minute play Rally ran alongside plays by Lynn Nottage, France-Luce Benson, and Naveen Bahar Choudhury, among others. For her contribution to Going to the River and for her continued support of women playwrights, Bridgette received an Appreciation Award from EST.
“I admired that Bridgette was always dressed to impress, and her carefully put together outfits were an extension of how she told stories: with intention, love, and style,” recalled Nottage. “She had a wise gentle spirit, and whenever I saw her face in the audience, I knew I had an ally and soul sister present.”
Bridgette’s work was diverse in both content and medium. She was a member of WP Theater’s inaugural 2006/08 Producers Lab and of the poetry Cave Canem; she received a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and was awarded grants from the New York Urban Arts Initiative and the Harlem Arts Alliance for Ballet Neo, a TV pilot she wrote with ballerina Virginia Johnson.
When her sister, Bernadette, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, Bridgette was anxious to better understand how the disease specifically impacted Black women. “She felt compelled to give their private stories a public airing,” wrote Sholiton in an article for The Dramatist in 2014. Together with her sister she began a writing group, SHOWS (Survivors Helping Other Women Survive), in Cleveland and New York for survivors to share their stories, and in 2009 she received a grant from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure for her teaching. Cherry Lane Theatre presented a staged reading of plays written by her New York writing group in fall 2009, while Cleveland Play House and Karamu House held readings in spring 2010. Later that year, Karamu presented From Breast Cancer to Broadway, featuring the work of eleven Cleveland-area playwrights led by Bridgette.
“I expect that Bridgette’s gifts will keep on giving,” said Sholiton, “as friends and colleagues celebrate her extraordinary talent, her generous spirit, her grace, and her ability to identify those challenging stories that need to be told.”
In 2014, Bridgette added the role of librettist to her multihyphenate career. She was approached by saxophonist and composer Daniel Schnyder to collaborate on Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, an opera commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Gotham Chamber Opera. After receiving its world premiere in Philadelphia in 2015, Charlie Parker’s Yardbird ran at Harlem’s Apollo Theater the following year and has since been produced at the Seattle Opera, the Arizona Opera, and most recently at the New Orleans Opera.
“I hope there will be more productions of her work,” said Kraar. “Bridgette was a great listener and a truth-teller...I will sorely miss my friend.”
At the time of her death, Cohen shared, Bridgette was working on a play commissioned by Audible based on interviews with her neighbor. “Bridgette wrestled with questions about whose story it was to tell, and whether she was telling Lulu’s story authentically. She told me, ‘I will never 100% get it right because I haven’t lived it. But I wanted to tell somebody else’s story as told to me. It’s all about the language, how the language sings out of your mouth or arises off the page.’”
