Shirley Prendergast


Merris Shirley Prendergast was a theater lighting designer notable for being the first African-American woman admitted to the United Scenic Artists’ lighting division, in 1969, and the first African-American female lighting designer on Broadway in 1973. She designed lighting for Broadway shows such as Waltz of the Stork, Amen Corner, and the Paul Robeson one-man show. Prendergast designed lighting for fifty years, well in to her mid-80s. One of her last lighting design productions was Zora Neale Hurston: a Theatrical Biography in 2016.

Early life

Prendergast was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dorita and Wilford Prendergast. She grew up in Boston and New York. She studied microbiology at Brooklyn College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1954. She worked as a bacteriologist with the New York City Health Department, and did her art in the evenings. She took a lighting design class at the YWCA with Nicola Cernovich, a designer with Alvin Ailey's dance troupe. She then went on to study lighting at Lester Polakov's Studio of Stage Design.
Her first jobs were lighting design for the Negro Ensemble Company; one of their shows The River Niger, went to Broadway and established her in her new career.

Awards and honors