Charles Ludlam

Charles Braun Ludlam (April 12, 1943 – May 28, 1987) was an American actor, director, and playwright. Biography Early life Ludlam was born in Floral Park, New York, the son of Marjorie (née Braun) and Joseph William Ludlam. He was raised in Greenlawn, New York, and attended Harborfields High School. He was openly gay, and performed in plays with the Township Theater Group, a community theatre in Huntington, and worked backstage at the Red Barn Theater, a summer stock theatre in Northport. During his senior year of high school, Ludlam directed, produced, and performed plays with a group of friends, students from Huntington, Northport, Greenlawn, and Centerport. Their "Students Repertory Theatre", housed in the loft studio beneath the Posey School of Dance on Main Street in Northport, seated an audience of 25, and was sold out for every performance. Their repertoire included Kan Kikuchi's Madman on the Roof; Theatre of the Soul; a readers' theatre adaptation of Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology; and plays by August Strindberg and Eugene O'Neill. He received a degree in dramatic literature from Hofstra University in 1964. At Hofstra, Ludlam met Black-Eyed Susan, whom he cast in one of his college productions. The two became close friends, and Black-Eyed Susan performed in more of Ludlam's plays over the following decades than any other actor, except Ludlam himself.