Theater Historian, Professor, Folklorist Beverly Robinson Dies

Beverly Robinson, theater historian, folklorist, professor, producer, writer and director, died May 5 of pancreatic cancer. She was 56.

A professor in the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Robinson began teaching on the Westwood campus in 1978. A pioneer in her field, she ushered in a climate of intercultural exchange with her African American Theater History course, which became a magnet for generations of students as well as international guest scholars and lecturers. She received several achievement and teaching awards during her tenure at UCLA, including the Outstanding Teaching and Cultural Contribution Award in 1978. As a faculty member, she wrote, directed and produced several theater productions.

“Professor Robinson’s passionate commitment to socially conscious theater has inspired thousands of UCLA students,” said Robert Rosen, dean of the school. “She was a great teacher, a significant scholar and a life force for her colleagues.”

An authority in the field of African American theater and performance, Robinson was frequently hired as a media consultant, working on such films as “The Color Purple,” “Coming to America” and “Miss Evers’ Boys.”

A producer in her own right, she created the speaker series “Black Speakers in the Arts Forum at UCLA,” which ran from 1978-81 and featured artists and scholars such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin and John Bubbles. Robinson’s dynamic public speaking skills led to numerous presentations as guest speaker, panelist and moderator. She was engaged as a scholar-in-residence at universities across the United States as well as in France, Ghana and Ethiopia.

“Each human being is unique, perfect and irreplaceable,” said poet/author Angelou. “While I know that is true, Beverly Robinson’s life and work and devotion and death make me know just how true that is. There never was anyone like Beverly Robinson, yet she was like everybody in the world – ordinary and extraordinary. The silence of her voice, her intelligence and her laughter will haunt us forever. Yet that we knew that voice and were informed by that intelligence and uplifted by her laughter makes us grateful that we knew her and that we had her, even as she had us.”

As a folklorist, Robinson had a wide range of accomplishments. She maintained long-term relationships with several museums, including the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, where she produced and curated exhibitions on black folk arts that highlighted her specialization in black dolls and puppets.

Robinson was also an accomplished photographer and her photographic works became part of the Library of Congress Traveling Photographic Exhibitions “Sketches of Southern Folklife” and “Generation to Generation – Sharing the Intangible.”

Robinson’s numerous published works examine expressions of African American heritage and folk culture. Among her better-known publications are “Aunt (Ant) Phylis” (Regent Press, 1988), a study of the history and role of wise women in African American communities; and a 1987 Afro American Museum journal article, “Home and Yard: Black Folk Life Expressions in Los Angeles,” which theorized that the arrangement of African Americans’ backyards in Los Angeles display vestiges of their African cultural heritage. She recently co-edited “The Life and Work of Oscar Micheaux: Pioneer Black Author and Filmmaker” (Khafra K. Omrazeti/KMT Publications, 2002).

Robinson earned a degree in computer engineering and came to UCLA in 1968 to work as a technician. It was veteran actress Madie Norman’s “History of Black People’s Theater in America” class that inspired her to change the focus of her career. She enrolled full-time in Ethnic Arts at UCLA and later was named Phi Beta Kappa, Danforth Fellow, Chancellor’s Marshal and Outstanding Senior earning a B.A. in 1974. Ethnic Arts later became World Arts and Cultures at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture.

Robinson earned an M.A. in Folklore in 1976 from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Performing Arts and History from the University of Pennsylvania. She returned to UCLA in 1978 when Norman, her mentor, asked her to take over teaching her course until a permanent replacement could be hired. Robinson taught the course for more than 20 years.

A resident of both Oakland and Los Angeles, Robinson was a member of the NAACP, the Black Actors Guild and the National Task Force on Folk Arts in Education.

A celebration of Robinson’s life will take place Friday, May 10, at 11 a.m. at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.

Keywords

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