Joseph Mydell

Joseph Mydell (born 1955) is an American screen and stage actor.

Mydell was born in Savannah, Georgia. He attended West Savannah elementary school, Tompkins High School (class of 1963), and Morehouse College (1964–65), where he met Martin Luther King when King spoke at his alma mater after receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace. Inspired by King, and the call of Bahá'ís, Mydell participated in the (probably third) Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.

He continued his education at the New York University, School of the Arts(B.F.A., 1970; M.F.A., 1974) City University of New York (CUNY Ph. D Theatre studies, 1976–1979).[citation needed ]

Mydell trained as an actor, working with Dr. Baldwin Burroughs and the Atlanta Morehouse Spelman Players in Shakespeare”s The Tempest, and Trials of Brother Jero by Wole Soyinka. In 1969 he co-performed a play, Who is America, at the US Bahá'í national convention, the first "Youth for the World" conference in Nashville, Tennessee, then at another one in Dayton, Ohio that summer, and later in November at the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania State University. At NYU, he was trained by Lloyd Richards, Olympia Dukakis and Kristin Linklater, and directed by Andre Gregory. His professional career began in New York with the New York Shakespeare Festival and Lincoln Center theatre. He got his Equity card understudying Clevon Little off- Broadway. He also worked at Seattle Repertory theatre and for the National Endowment for the Arts in their touring production of "For All Times".

He traveled to England in 1979 to research his one-man show on Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lyrics of the Hearthside", which he developed while studying for a Ph.D in theatre.

In 1980 he won a Fringe First and Best One-Man Show award at the Edinburgh Festival. The United States Information Service sponsored an African tour of his show. He later began work with Royal Shakespeare Company, and has continued his association with them for over 30 years. He has also worked extensively at The Royal National theatre.