Shauneille Gantt Perry Ryder (July 26, 1929 – June 9, 2022) was an American stage director and playwright.

[3][4][5] She later said, "Lorraine and I sat at the table a lot with people visiting our parents, like Sidney Williams, who headed the Chicago Urban League, who used to talk about Africa and wear dashikis long before it happened in the sixties.

And when I met [faculty members] Anne Cooke [Reid], Owen Dodson, and James Butcher, I felt comfortable and enjoyed being in plays.

On the opening night in Denmark of Mamba's Daughters, they received fifteen curtain calls: "Shauneille Perry especially was relieved because she had been shocked by being spit on as she was going onstage!

Cookie [Anne Cooke] had failed to warn us that the Danes spit on the costumes of the actors for good luck.

She continued her studies at the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago (now at DePaul University) (1950-1952), where she received an MFA in directing in 1952 with a production and thesis of the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

They put me on the women's page, where I didn't want to be, writing about weddings, peau de soie and all of that.

Several months after her marriage, she received national exposure as the second-place winner in the 1958 Picturama Contest, an essay competition sponsored by Ebony Magazine.

[16] In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she acted in various productions on the New York City stage including The Goose (1959), Dark of the Moon (1960) (directed by Vinnette Carroll, where she played alongside James Earl Jones and Harold Scott (director)[17]), Talent '60 (1960), Ondine (1961), Clandestine on the Morning Line (1961) and The Octoroon (1961).

[12] Her work as Lilly Ruth, a pregnant girl in the short-lived off-Broadway production of Clandestine on the Morning Line, received particular notice: "It is a young actress named Shauneille Perry... who is the surprise of the evening.

She plays the pregnant girl with such quiet, innocent strength and apparent unawareness of the character's pathos that we almost forget it, too.

[3] Despite her success as a performer, Perry became disenchanted with acting and turned her focus toward writing, directing, and raising a family.

Two of them were Rosalie Pritchett, by Barbara and Carlton Molette,[23][24] and The Sty of the Blind Pig, by Phillip Hayes Dean,[25] both by the Negro Ensemble Company Workshop at St. Mark's Playhouse.

"[26] She also directed the stage production by the New Federal Theatre (founded by Woodie King Jr.) of J. E. Franklin's play, Black Girl, at St. Augustine's Church (Manhattan) on Henry Street.

... Perry's attention to detail and grasp of character garnered the respect and admiration of Franklin, as well as theater critics.

Perry, however, hoped that the success of Black Girl and the play's important theme of self-determination would have a more far-reaching effect.

[33] In addition to directing, Perry has written several plays including the book of the children's musical Mio, which she staged as a workshop production at the New Federal Theatre in the fall of 1971.

[12] Perry also wrote Sounds of the City, a 15-minute daily soap opera that aired on the Mutual Black Network in the mid-1970s.

Along the way, her aunt pointed out the Kentucky hills where her father (Shauneille's and Lorraine's grandfather) George Perry had hidden after he escaped from slavery.

She became a prominent director, writer, and actor, and her home at 444 Central Park West became a cultural mecca, the unofficial headquarters of the Black Arts Movement.

On any given day, I'd be sitting in the corner of Aunt Shauneille's living room while Nikki Giovanni read her poetry aloud or ensembles rehearsed plays.

... Aunt Shauneille's enormous living room housed a tall avocado tree, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, paintings, and gorgeous African masks that mesmerized me.

[1] Perry is also the recipient of a Broadcast Media Award, a Fulbright scholarship, a New York State Council of the Arts Young Audiences Play Commission and a Black Rose of Excellence from Encore Magazine.