Gene Frankel, 85; Stage Director Was Best Known for Landmark Off-Broadway Genet Drama

Gene Frankel, 85, who directed the landmark off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks,” died Wednesday of congestive heart failure.

Although Frankel also directed on Broadway -- most notably a 1969 production of Arthur Kopit’s “Indians,” starring Stacy Keach as Buffalo Bill -- it was off-Broadway where he enjoyed his greatest success.

His production of Genet’s sardonic drama about role-playing in society opened in 1961 and ran for more than 1,400 performances.

Its original cast included James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett, Cicely Tyson and Godfrey Cambridge -- all at the beginning of their careers.

Other cast members included two performers who later would gain more fame as writers: Maya Angelou Make (before she dropped her last name) and playwright Charles Gordone, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “No Place to Be Somebody.”

Among Frankel’s other Broadway productions were “A Cry of Players” (1968); a revival of the Kurt Weill musical “Lost in the Stars” (1972); and “The Night That Made America Famous” (1975), a musical revue featuring the songs of Harry Chapin and starring the composer.