Colleagues remember McClinton as a director who inspired trust in his actors

Growing up in the Selby-Dale neighborhood of St. Paul, Marion McClinton watched movies while other kids watched cartoons. His longtime friend, actor James Williams, said McClinton “would make these lists of dream casts of movies.”

“He was a director before he knew he was a director,” said Williams, who like McClinton went on to become a founding member of Penumbra Theatre Company.

McClinton, who died last Thanksgiving at age 65, was also an actor and playwright. But he made a name for himself directing the plays of August Wilson. His family and friends are gathering this Sunday at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis to remember and celebrate his life and accomplishments.

Penumbra opened in 1976 with the mission of telling stories of the African American experience. Williams and McClinton took turns doing everything -- acting, directing, running lights. McClinton became known as the intellectual in the bunch, spending what money he had on books.

"Marion's library was astounding,” said actor and Pillsbury Theatre co-director Faye Price. “He had a lot of books about black theater, but he also had books about directing and musicals and Stephen Sondheim. I mean, he just he knew it all. He knew it all. And it informed all of the work he did.”

Wilson came to town as a budding playwright and began working with Penumbra in its early years. McClinton acted in Wilson’s plays before directing them. According to Penumbra founder Lou Bellamy, Wilson viewed McClinton’s 1993 staging of “The Piano Lesson” as the definitive production of the play. Bellamy says that’s in part because McClinton showed such enormous respect for the text.

“The other thing that made him a very special director is he appreciated the complexity of the African American experience and he didn't want to abbreviate that complexity in any kind of way,” said Bellamy. “So his characters would be whole when they stepped on the stage.”

McClinton went on to direct Wilson’s plays around the country, including on Broadway. He was nominated for a Tony for directing “King Hedley II.” But failing health cut his career on Broadway short, and he returned to St. Paul.

As a director, McClinton believed the success of a production relied primarily on getting the right people in the room. Actress Christiana Clark, now a core member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, credits McClinton with laying the foundation of her career.

“He always talked about the jazz in what we do,” Clark said. “That there is a form and there is a structure. And there is technique, and know that and own it. And then how do we put our own into it? Specifically, as black artists in still a predominantly white space being the American theater? How do we take ownership of who we are and in the face of fear or being misunderstood?"

Clark said that, under his guidance, she pushed herself further than ever before – so much so that sometimes she barely recognizes herself in images from those shows.

Once actors worked with McClinton, they were eager to do it again.

“I worked with Marion with a sense of trust that I've never had with any other director,” said James Williams.

McClinton understood the importance of telling stories of richly layered black lives, and he did so with love and joy, as well a deep sense of cultural legacy, Williams said.

“We knew what it meant to be on August Wilson's shoulders,” he said. “We knew what it meant. And that's the legacy. The legacy, I hope, is that artists will come to understand what it means to stand on Marion's shoulders.”

Marion McClinton is survived by his wife, longtime high school theater teacher Jan Mandell, and their son Jesse.

• Minnesota native Slim Dunlap of The Replacements dies at age 73
• The M’s New Wing and exhibition glow after $14-million renovation and expansion
• MPR's favorite parenting books of 2024
• 'Love Is Blind' cast are employees, labor board says. Could a reality TV union be next?