R.I.P. Arthur W. French

Out of the Box Theatre Company is deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved colleague Arthur W. French. We were privileged to have Arthur direct our 2016 production of Deep are the Roots and perform in Out of the Box Theatre's 2017 staged reading of Waiting in the Wings.

A member of the original Negro Ensemble Company, Arthur directed for numerous companies and won an Audelco Award as Best Director for his production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Classical Theater of Harlem. His decades-long acting career included the Broadway production of Dividing the Estate and the Broadway revival and film version of The Trip to Bountiful.

In 2015 he was honored with the Paul Robeson Award from Actors' Equity Association. Arthur was slated to perform in OotB's upcoming productions of The Exonerated and Five By Tenn: 5 Short Plays by Tennessee Williams. A dear man as well as a talented director and actor, Arthur will be greatly missed by Out of the Box and the theater community at large.

​Our hearts go out to his family.