Basil Wallace

Basil Wallace (born January 15, 1951) is a Jamaica-born American actor. He was born in Kingston and immigrated to the United States as a child. His family first settled in Brooklyn, New York City. He, his parents, and his siblings then moved to Long Island, where he attended Hempstead High School. Wallace became interested in theater and, after graduating high school, entered New York University. He attended NYU for two years, during which time he performed in his first Off-Off-Broadway play. He went on to work for many years as a playwright, actor, and theatre director in New York. Early in Wallace's career, he became involved with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in Manhattan's East Village. He acted in a production, called "Short Bullins", of four Ed Bullins one-act plays at La MaMa in 1972. The Jarboro Company then took those one-acts (How Do You Do?, A Minor Scene, Dialect Determinism, and It Has No Choice, along with Bullins' Clara's Old Man and Richard Wesley's Black Terror) on tour to Italy. He also acted in Clifford Mason's Sister Sadie, directed by Allie Woods at La MaMa in 1972. Wallace co-wrote (with Angela Marie Lee) and directed the play Sounds of a Silent Man at La MaMa in 1973, and directed Edgar Nkosi White's Lament for Rastafari at La MaMa in 1977. He returned to La MaMa in 1987 to direct a work-in-progress reading of White's Tres Cepas (The Love Songs for China).