Charles Fuller, award-winning playwright, dies at 83

Charles Fuller, who won the Pulitzer Prize for A Soldier’s Play, has died. He was 83.

Death details of Charles Fuller

“It’s with a heavy heart that I inform you of the passing of my Dad, Charles Fuller this morning,” Fuller’s son David wrote on Facebook. “Please keep my family in prayer.”

Fuller died in Toronto from natural causes.

One of the greatest playwrights of our time

Born in Philadelphia in 1939, Fuller primarily attended Villanova University for two years before joining the U.S. Army in 1959. After tours in Japan and South Korea, he left the military and earned a doctorate of fine arts from La Salle University in 1967, laying the groundwork for a career that unapologetically depicted the experiences of Black families and soldiers in America. His extraordinary work led him to be one of the greatest playwrights of our time.

Fuller was only the second Black playwright to win the Pulitzer for drama in 1982. (Charles Edward Gordone won in 1970 for No Place to Be Somebody.)

Fuller’s plays often examined issues of racism and sometimes drew on his experience as an Army veteran. Both of those elements were evident in the critically acclaimed A Soldier’s Play, which was centered on the murder of a Black Army sergeant and the search for the person responsible.

The play was first staged in 1981 by the Negro Ensemble Company with a cast that included Denzel Washington. The play was later reimagined as an Oscar nominated film.

In 2020, A Soldier’s Play debuted on Broadway, and it later won a Tony Award for best revival, nearly 40 years after its premiere. The play is currently being adapted into a limited TV series.

After A Soldier’s Play, Fuller began work on a series of plays devoted to African American history during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. The We cycle, as it became known, included Sally (1988), Prince (1988), Jonquil (1990), and Burner’s Frolic (1990). Continuing to draw inspiration from the military, Fuller later wrote One Night… (2013), about a female soldier who was raped by fellow servicemen while stationed in Iraq. He also penned the children’s book Snatch: The Adventures of David and Me in Old New York (2010).

Fuller is also the co-founder of the Afro-American Arts Theatre in Philadelphia, which he was codirector from 1967 to 1971. He leaves behind a legacy that was simply bar none.

Rest in power.