Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2014 - 31

The only play she
recalled attending
was as a small child

photo by richard finkelstein

during the 1940s
ords cannot express my excitement when I learned
that my lifelong mentor, Shirley Prendergast, would
be honored with the USITT's 2014 Distinguished Achievement
Award in Lighting Design. During my undergraduate years
at Howard University in Washington, DC, as well as graduate days at the University of Michigan, Shirley's name was often mentioned as someone I should meet, as she was one of
the few African American women working as a professional
lighting designer and the only one in the country who was a
member of United Scenic Artists (USA). Since my goal was
to become a professional lighting designer, many suggested
Shirley could advise me on how to navigate my path and possibly provide valuable experience as her assistant.
My first opportunity to meet Shirley came in 1979
when she was the festival lighting designer for Hazel Bryant's
Black Theatre Festival at Lincoln Center. Fresh out of graduate school, I had spoken to Shirley a few days earlier about
stopping by Lincoln Center to watch her focus and set cues
for the festival. Having heard so many amazing stories over
the years about her work, I was expecting this larger than
life individual with a certain degree of arrogance. However,
Shirley Prendergast stands four feet nine inches tall and was
as far from arrogant as you could imagine. With her signature
greeting of "Better and better," when asked, "How are you," I
found Shirley to be an incredibly humble human being.

The Early Years
Winner of the 1997 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in
Lighting Design, four New York City Audelco Awards, the only
formally established awards presented to the black theatre
community in New York, the 2009 National Black Theatre

summer

at the Lafayette

Festival's Outstanding
Achievement Award in Theatre in Harlem
Lighting Design, the
1998 Winona Lee Fletch- with her uncle, but
er Award from the Black
Theatre Network, and has no recollection
the Estelle Evans Award,
of the event other
Shirley took an unusual
road to reach this height
than having an
of success. Merris Shirley
Prendergast was born enjoyable evening.
June 15, 1932, in Boston,
Massachusetts, to Dorita
and Wilford Prendergast. Her father was a chemist, and her
mother was a dressmaker. Raised as an only child, Shirley
attended school in Boston up until the fifth grade, when her
parents separated, and she relocated with her mother to New
York City. She admits that she witnessed very little theatre
growing up. The only play she recalled attending was as a
small child during the 1940s at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem with her uncle, but she has no recollection of the event
other than having an enjoyable evening.
Shirley's interest in theatre would develop much later while
she was a pre-med major at Brooklyn College, where she completed the BA degree in 1954. As Shirley said in a 1982 interview,
one of our many interviews over the years, "I was going to get my
master's in microbiology, and I went to Columbia for a semester
and got bored with the whole thing. I left Columbia and had to go
to work because my mother became very ill. I took an exam for
the New York City Health Department and became a junior bacteriologist. We tested milk, water, the beaches, all the foods, and
we did a little of everything. I did this for about ten years."

2014

theatre design

& technology

Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2014

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