An award-winning theater director and playwright known for his interpretations of playwright August Wilson’s work died in his hometown of St. Paul early Thursday.
Marion McClinton’s passing followed a lengthy battle with a kidney disease that complicated his life, but also didn’t prevent him from working with the passion and dedication that marked his career, according to Lou Bellamy, founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul.
McClinton was 65.
“That is a testament to his fierceness,” Bellamy recalled of his longtime friend’s work-ethic. “He’d be in different cities working and going to different hospitals three times a week getting dialysis and then coming in and being weak but still finding a way to inspire others to do the work. It was a herculean kind of task to do that.”
Bellamy directed McClinton in his first play nearly five decades ago, he said. McClinton would go on to become an “in-demand director at regional theaters around the country,” according to a 2008 Pioneer Press story about his work. He won numerous theater awards during his career.
McClinton made his Broadway debut in 2001, directing Wilson’s “King Hedley II,” which garnered him a Tony nomination. A couple years later, he returned to Broadway with a revival of Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” followed by the off-Broadway production of “Jitney.” He was directing Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” in 2004 when his kidney disease forced him from the production, the 2008 story noted.
McClinton, who was father to son Jesse Mandell-McClinton, also contributed extensively to the local theater scene with various productions over the years at Penumbra, of which he was a founding member, Children’s Theatre Company, Mixed Blood Theatre and Pillsbury House.
He loved working in the Twin Cities, telling the Pioneer Press while working on a show at Pillsbury in 2008:
“There’s something magical here. As a theater artist, you can’t buy it and you can’t put a price on it … this place is the wellspring.”
McClinton was born and raised in St. Paul, where he went to Catholic school before briefly attending the College of St Thomas in 1973 and then the University of Minnesota.
Swept up in the partying scene for awhile, McClinton credits theater with eventually straightening him out.
He earned his first acting gig under Bellamy’s directing of “The River Niger” in 1976, and made his own directing debut in 1992 at Baltimore’s Center Stage with his play, “Police Boys.”
“I think above all Marion was an intellectual and he cared very much about helping young people get started. As a director he was really good at showing the good stuff and covering up the bad,” Bellamy said.
His work was inspired, Bellamy added.
“I think he wanted very much to tell complicated, truthful stories about black people and in order to do that you have to study real hard and be a good observer and love the words and the people and Marion did.”