Shauneille Perry

Shauneille Perry is an American stage director and playwright. She was one of the first African-American women to direct off-Broadway. Wikipedia

Shauneille Perry was born on July 26, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois, to a prominent African-American family. She is the daughter of Graham T. Perry (1894–1960), one of the first African-American assistant attorneys-general for the State of Illinois and his wife, the former (Laura) Pearl Gant (1903–1957), one of the first African-American court reporters in Chicago. She is the niece by marriage of real-estate broker and political activist Carl Augustus Hansberry (who married her father’s sister, Nannie Louise Perry) and his brother, Africanist scholar William Leo Hansberry. She is also the first cousin of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, Carl Hansberry’s daughter.

Perry attended Howard University, where she was a member of the Howard Players under the direction of Owen Dodson. In 1950, she received a B.A. in drama from Howard. Her studies followed at the Goodman Theatre Art Institute in Chicago, where she received an M.A. in directing. She also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.