Ruth Sloane, a Charlotte playwright, director and ‘global phenomenon,’ dies at 78
Charlotte playwright and director Ruth Sloane wasn’t alone when she died at the hospital on Saturday at 78-years-old — or two years from 80, as she would prefer to say, her daughter said.
Sixty people, many of them former students, visited Sloane when the staple of Charlotte’s theater scene was in the ICU with pneumonia.
“She was a playwriting teacher for the Children’s Theatre of Charlotte,” state Rep. Aisha Dew said about her mother in a phone interview Monday. “She had invested in their wellbeing ... because she saw the best in people. She pulled out their better parts and their potential.”
People were likely familiar with her work in the Charlotte region, where she often wrote about Black history and centered Black stories. She was also active in politics and in the community, Dew said. She and her mother shared a love of theater and humanity.
Sloane’s play “Second City,” debuted in 1996 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Brooklyn, one of Charlotte’s historic Black communities that was demolished in the 1960s and 70s. In 2003, The Mint Museum commissioned her to write a play called “Romare Bearden 1911–1988” about the Charlotte-born artist.
When the city held a groundbreaking for the uptown park named after Bearden in 2011, Sloane was invited to read from her play at the ceremony.
“She was a beacon to all of us, especially to those of color who felt invisible and with no voice,” the Metrolina Theatre Association said in a social media statement. “She made the visibility happen and with a voice that was felt throughout Charlotte, throughout the state and beyond the United Sates of America.”
Sloane’s career, which spanned several decades, was bigger than she may have been willing to admit, Dew said. She put on more than 35 major works and traveled around the world, Dew said.
“She’s still a global phenomenon,” Dew said. Her mother performed for the Kennedy family at their compound, sang at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and was recruited to perform with “Sing Out!” which later became “Up with People.”
Sloane preferred to focus on others rather than herself and her achievements, Dew said.
“What she wanted to do is to discover the best of others and to make them fulfill their destiny,” Dew said. “So she led with love.”
Sloane was still busy with her craft in recent years. In 2022, she was awarded a $15,000 Arts & Science Council Creative Renewal Fellowship to visit Ghana for inspiration for her writing. Sloane’s ancestral roots trace back to Ghana.
Sloane said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer in December 2022 that she expected to produce poetry, plays and a book of monologues based on that visit.
“Being able to see and feel and to create in that environment will be an absolutely invigorating opportunity,” Sloane said in 2022.
It was also important to Sloane to inject history and context in her productions, said Roshunda Anthony, who is from Charlotte and was cast by Sloane a couple of times.
“She knew how important it was for us younger people to understand things that we are not taught in school or college or pretty much anywhere,” Anthony said in a phone interview Monday. “She knew this, and she learned this, and she wanted to impart the knowledge to us.”
Anthony was cast by Sloane in performances of “The Amen Corner” and “Crowns” after encouraging her to audition. Despite not really knowing how to dance, Anthony said she pushed through and was cast.
When Sloane believed in someone and their ability, she would push them, Anthony said.
“When I would doubt myself, she would take me by my hands and tell me she believed in me,” Anthony said. “ She knew I could do this role. She knew I was great for this role. And it ended up being true.”
She could be stern if she thought people weren’t giving it their all, Anthony said, but it was done out of love.
Dew said her mother was one of the most loving people she knew. And she said that when her mother passed, she and many others lost someone who deeply cared for them. She lost the person she spoke to every day and who helped her navigate through life, Dew said.
“I lost my bestie.”
