Walter Dallas assumed the artistic leadership of Philadelphia's Freedom Theatre in 1992, bringing with him a wealth of experience and recognition from his work on and Off-Broadway, as well as regionally at esteemed theaters such as the Negro Ensemble Company, American Place, Yale Rep, Crossroads, Alliance, and Baltimore's Center Stage, where he was a Director Fellow for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Dallas has won numerous awards for his direction, including an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Arts in 2002, a local Emmy Award in San Francisco, the prestigious AUDELCO National Achievement Award for Excellence in Black Theatre, and several Bronze Jubilee Awards for Outstanding Direction. He has also received a Proclamation, "Walter Dallas Day," from Atlanta's Mayor Maynard Jackson, and two Creative Genius Awards from the Atlanta Circle of Drama Critics.
Dallas's production of Having Our Say at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum earned him a 1997 NAACP Theatre Award nomination for Best Director, while his off-Broadway production of Moms resulted in an Obie Award for its star, Clarice Taylor, and two successful national tours. His production of Desire Under the Elms at Chicago's Court Theatre received two 2000 Black Theatre Alliance Award nominations.
World premieres under Dallas's direction include works by James Baldwin, Leslie Lee, Sam Kelley, Kia Corthron, Ntozake Shange, Samm-Art Williams, Clarice Taylor, Thulani Davis, and others. His own adaptations of the films Cooley High and Sparkle premiered at Freedom, and he also premiered John Henry Redwood's The Old Settler at the McCarter Theatre.
Dallas's world-premiere production of Charles Smith's Pudd'nhead Wilson, produced by New York's Acting Company, enjoyed a national tour, a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run, and earned him a 2002 AUDELCO nomination for Best Director.
As an award-winning playwright, Dallas's latest play, Lazarus, Unstoned, had its world premiere at Freedom Theatre in April 2002, to popular and critical acclaim. The Philadelphia Weekly theatre critic wrote: "It's often said that the role of the director coincided with the birth of vernacular religious drama, and in Philadelphia nobody is more adept at this style of theatre than Walter Dallas."
Dallas has also worked extensively in new play development, with experiences at Sundance, the O'Neill, the Public Theatre, New Dramatists, and in Africa, England, France, and Russia.
A graduate of Morehouse College and the Yale School of Drama, Dallas also studied music and theology at Harvard University, and dance and theater in traditional African societies at the University of Ghana at Legon. He taught theatre at Antioch College and the University of California, Berkeley, and created the School of Theatre for Philadelphia's University of the Arts in 1983. In 1992, he left to become the artistic director at Freedom Theatre.
