The Donald T. Evans Memorial Endowment honors Donald Evans (1938-2003), a renowned playwright, educator, co-founder and former chair of TCNJ’s Department of African American Studies.
The Donald T. Evans Memorial Endowment Fund was established in December 2003 and is intended to memorialize Don Evans for his many contributions to African American Studies and to the arts and humanities over a career of three decades at the College. Funds raised will help support students who are experiencing significant financial challenges while attending TCNJ, and will provide funding to underwrite TCNJ student field trips in the arts and humanities.
Evans’ lifelong interest in the theater ranged from playwriting (18 of his plays have been produced and six published) to acting, directing and teaching. He won fellowships in playwriting from the National Endowment for the Arts and other organizations and taught courses in playwriting, African American literature and drama, and jazz. A member of TCNJ’s faculty since 1972, Evans worked also as director of the Minority Executive Council, where he served as assistant to the president. His also directed plays at the College, including Ed Bullins’ “Taking of Miss Janie” and August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” His plays have been produced in virtually every major city of the United States, as well as in England , Germany , and Hong Kong.
You can watch a New Jersey Network performance of one of Evans’ most widely-performed plays, “A Love Song for Miss Lydia” here: