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Home In the Harris Family Gallery A Brief History of Weathervane Playhouse Mission and Vision Statement For an Enjoyable Experience Board of Trustees and Staff Our Generous Donors Our Hardworking Volunteers Show your Support
Terrence Spivey
Director

TERRENCE SPIVEY is a native of Kountze, Texas, and a graduate of Prairie View A&M University under the guidance of late legends, playwright/professor Dr. Ted Shine and director/professor, Clarance Lee Turner. After college, Spivey relocated to New York City and studied at William Esper Studio. Appeared in plays such as Elmo Terry- Morgan’s AUDELCO award-winning The Fruits of Miss Mourning, the late Monteria Ivey’s Only For a Moment at The National Black Theatre, Waiting for Lefty at Michael Chekhov Studio, Lisa Jones Combination Skin: The $100,000 Tragic Mulatto Show at New Voices/New Vision Festival, Ethnic Cleansing for NPR. Films; indie West New York with Frank Vincent, Norman Loftis Messenger, indie slasher cult-classic Slime City. Soaps includes One Life to Live, music videos with Anita Baker and The Fat Boys. His NYC directing included Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuff in Harlem, A Solo Song: For Doc for Blackgirl Ensemble. His first script, Smokestack Lightnin' was a finalist for Theodore Ward Prize for African American Playwriting, in Chicago.  

After New York, he was the artistic director of Karamu House, the oldest black theatre in the country, in Cleveland Ohio, for twelve years. During his position at Karamu House, he directed award-winning productions included bee- luther-hatchee, Dream of Monkey Mountain, The Blacks: A Clown Show, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Bourbon at the Border, Permanent Collection, The Wiz, God’s Trombones and more. He and the historical institution garnered multiple accolades; 2005 National Black Theatre Festival Longevity Award, 2005 BTN Pathfinder Award, AUDELCO 2013 Repertory Company of the Year. Spivey was awarded a Proclamation from the City of Cleveland in 2010, 2017 Best Director by Cleveland Scene and 2017 Alan Schneider Award Nominee.

He is currently the founder of Powerful Long Ladder and The Ultimate Reach (TUR), its outreach program. He inaugurated his company with James Baldwin's The Amen Corner and produced the Ohio premiere of Resistance by Golden Globe winner Regina Taylor in collaboration with Cleveland's Borderlight Theatre Festival. His freelance work included; Fences, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Weathervane Playhouse), Radio Golf (Cleveland Ensemble Theatre), Bootycandy, Neighbors (convergence-continuum), Objectively/Reasonable: A Community Response to Tamir Rice, 11/22/14, The Phoenix Society, Live Bodies for Sale, (Playwrights Local), Breath, Boom (John Carroll University), Bourbon at the Border (Alleghany College), Master Harold and the Boys (Cleveland State University), No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs (Kent State University Pan African Studies.

In 2022, he was commissioned to write and direct An Ocean in My Bones, about the last illegal slaves by Joycelyn Davis for the Clotilda Descendants Association in Mobile Alabama. It premiered February 2022 in Africatown, the only black community in the country founded by enslaved Africans. Accolades followed such as Who’s Who in Black Cleveland 2023, 2023 Resolution from Cleveland City Council. He was also bestowed the Preserving Truth in Education Award in 2023 by Color of Change, one of the nation’s largest organizations on racial justice. His original short play. Outta da Horse's Mouth was presented at Africatown Heritage House last summer. 

Spivey has worked with legends Ruby Dee, Bill Cobbs, Leslie Uggams, Ntozake Shange, Je Franklin, Regina Taylor, Spike Lee Richard Brooks, Mississippi Charles Bevels, Arthur French, Frank Vincent, Clebert Ford, Javon Johnson, Kim Sullivan. He has appeared in prestigious magazines and newspapers; New York Times American Theatre, Artist and Influence, Back Stage, Black Theatre, Ebony, Macelle Mahala’s Black Theatre, City Life, featured in PBS /Ideastream Karamu: 100 Years in the House. He was Keynote Speaker at the 2015 USITT Conference at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers, Dramatist Guild, board member for AUDELCO in New York City.

 

Spivey was recently selected as a 2024 Roe Green Visiting Voices Ambassador by the Dramatist Guild Foundation in New York City. DGF was the a recipient of the Tony Honors at the 2024 Tony Awards.

 

Terrence Spivey
Director

TERRENCE SPIVEY is a native of Kountze, Texas, and a graduate of Prairie View A&M University under the guidance of late legends, playwright/professor Dr. Ted Shine and director/professor, Clarance Lee Turner. After college, Spivey relocated to New York City and studied at William Esper Studio. Appeared in plays such as Elmo Terry- Morgan’s AUDELCO award-winning The Fruits of Miss Mourning, the late Monteria Ivey’s Only For a Moment at The National Black Theatre, Waiting for Lefty at Michael Chekhov Studio, Lisa Jones Combination Skin: The $100,000 Tragic Mulatto Show at New Voices/New Vision Festival, Ethnic Cleansing for NPR. Films; indie West New York with Frank Vincent, Norman Loftis Messenger, indie slasher cult-classic Slime City. Soaps includes One Life to Live, music videos with Anita Baker and The Fat Boys. His NYC directing included Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuff in Harlem, A Solo Song: For Doc for Blackgirl Ensemble. His first script, Smokestack Lightnin' was a finalist for Theodore Ward Prize for African American Playwriting, in Chicago.  

After New York, he was the artistic director of Karamu House, the oldest black theatre in the country, in Cleveland Ohio, for twelve years. During his position at Karamu House, he directed award-winning productions included bee- luther-hatchee, Dream of Monkey Mountain, The Blacks: A Clown Show, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Bourbon at the Border, Permanent Collection, The Wiz, God’s Trombones and more. He and the historical institution garnered multiple accolades; 2005 National Black Theatre Festival Longevity Award, 2005 BTN Pathfinder Award, AUDELCO 2013 Repertory Company of the Year. Spivey was awarded a Proclamation from the City of Cleveland in 2010, 2017 Best Director by Cleveland Scene and 2017 Alan Schneider Award Nominee.

He is currently the founder of Powerful Long Ladder and The Ultimate Reach (TUR), its outreach program. He inaugurated his company with James Baldwin's The Amen Corner and produced the Ohio premiere of Resistance by Golden Globe winner Regina Taylor in collaboration with Cleveland's Borderlight Theatre Festival. His freelance work included; Fences, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Weathervane Playhouse), Radio Golf (Cleveland Ensemble Theatre), Bootycandy, Neighbors (convergence-continuum), Objectively/Reasonable: A Community Response to Tamir Rice, 11/22/14, The Phoenix Society, Live Bodies for Sale, (Playwrights Local), Breath, Boom (John Carroll University), Bourbon at the Border (Alleghany College), Master Harold and the Boys (Cleveland State University), No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs (Kent State University Pan African Studies.

In 2022, he was commissioned to write and direct An Ocean in My Bones, about the last illegal slaves by Joycelyn Davis for the Clotilda Descendants Association in Mobile Alabama. It premiered February 2022 in Africatown, the only black community in the country founded by enslaved Africans. Accolades followed such as Who’s Who in Black Cleveland 2023, 2023 Resolution from Cleveland City Council. He was also bestowed the Preserving Truth in Education Award in 2023 by Color of Change, one of the nation’s largest organizations on racial justice. His original short play. Outta da Horse's Mouth was presented at Africatown Heritage House last summer. 

Spivey has worked with legends Ruby Dee, Bill Cobbs, Leslie Uggams, Ntozake Shange, Je Franklin, Regina Taylor, Spike Lee Richard Brooks, Mississippi Charles Bevels, Arthur French, Frank Vincent, Clebert Ford, Javon Johnson, Kim Sullivan. He has appeared in prestigious magazines and newspapers; New York Times American Theatre, Artist and Influence, Back Stage, Black Theatre, Ebony, Macelle Mahala’s Black Theatre, City Life, featured in PBS /Ideastream Karamu: 100 Years in the House. He was Keynote Speaker at the 2015 USITT Conference at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers, Dramatist Guild, board member for AUDELCO in New York City.

 

Spivey was recently selected as a 2024 Roe Green Visiting Voices Ambassador by the Dramatist Guild Foundation in New York City. DGF was the a recipient of the Tony Honors at the 2024 Tony Awards.