Herb Newsome

Biography

Herb Newsome is an actor, writer, director, designer and all-around artist born and raised in New York City and holds an MFA from Penn State University.

As an actor his selected theater credits include The First Deep Breath and Paradise Blue (Geffen Playhouse) A Raisin in the Sun (Fresno City Theater), A Fox on the Fairway, Fences, and Twelfth Night, Driving Miss Daisey and Noel Coward's Hay Fever (Lyric Repertory Company) Macbeth and  Richard III (Colorado Shakespeare Festival) , Revenge of a King (National Arts Festival-South Africa) , Take Me Out (Foothills Theater) , 911: A Day in the  Life of a People  and  The Meeting (LAF Rep) , News To Me and Riding the Turnpike (Hartbeat Ensemble) Re:Definition (HHTF), No Place To Be Somebody (Penn Stage Center Stage) and six August Wilson plays- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Kuntu Rep), Fences, The Piano Lesson,  and Radio Golf (Penn State Centerstage) King Hedley II (A Noise Within) and Jitney (Elmwood Playhouse). His Film credits include The Brother from Another Planet, Untamed, American Exit, Sweet Nothings, Pimpin' Ain't Easy and Abandoned. 

As a director his credits include Topdog/Underdog, Detroit '67,  Front Porch Society and Too Heavy For Your Pocket and Blues is the Roots at the New Horizon Theater, Revenge of a King for the Cincinnati Black Theater, the national tour of Roll of Thunder Hear, My Cry for the National Theater of Arts and Education, Forgivable Sins, a finalist at the Samuel French One Act Festival in NYC, Sing Black Hammer and Journey of the Spirits at the Kuntu Repertory Theater, and The Colored Museum  and She Kills Monsters for the Oakwood School,  Interact for the Lyric Repertory Company along with many readings and workshops. He also developed and directed a One-Man Show entitled Problem Child, which he co-wrote, starring Matt McManus for the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019.

As a playwright he has penned three solo shows in which he was also the performer, In Devil’s Heaven, Break It Down and Freeman in Paris (which was honored with 2011 Humanities Script writing Award presented by the Institute of African American Research at UNC-Chapel Hill). His full length play Revenge of a King, a hip-hop musical based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, has been produced in 8 cities across the country as well as the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa.