Gilbert Moses; Award-Winning Director

Gilbert Moses, 52, an award-winning director-producer and co-founder of a pioneering black theater company, who won an off-Broadway Obie award for his 1969 production of “Slave Ship” by Imamu Baraka. He directed Melvin Van Peebles’ “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” and Ed Bullins’ “Taking of Miss Janie,” which the New York Drama Critics Circle named the best new American play of 1975. He also presented “Louis,” a musical about Louis Armstrong, and “Dreaming Emmett” by Toni Morrison. For television, Moses directed episodes of “Roots,” “Benson” and “Law and Order” and produced “After-School Specials.” “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh” and “Willie Dynamite” were his two films. Moses co-founded the Free Southern Theater, which toured the South in the 1960s with such plays as “In White America” and “Waiting for Godot.” He left the group amid death threats and arrests of company members. On April 14 in New York City of multiple myeloma.