Ted Shine

Ted Shine (1931-2018) was a dramatist, television scriptwriter, educator and contributor to the Black Arts movement and regional theatre. At Howard University, he was encouraged to pursue satiric playwriting by Owen Dodson, who tactfully indicated Shine’s limits as a tragic writer. His play Sho Is Hot in the Cotton Patch was produced at Howard in 1951. Graduating in 1953, Shine studied at the Karamu Theatre in Cleveland on a Rockefeller grant through 1955 and then served two years in the army. Earning his MA at the University of lowa in 1958, he began his career as a teacher of drama at Dillard University in 1960, moving to Howard University from 1961 to 1967, and then settling at Prairie View A&M University, where he became a professor and head of the drama department.