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Horacena J. Taylor

American theatre director

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ16105499 ↗
Source-derived summary

Horacena J. Taylor (born November 21, 1940) is an American director and stage manager. She is best known for staging the original off-Broadway production of Steve Carter's critically acclaimed play Nevis Mountain Dew.

Biography

Taylor was born in Columbia, South Carolina and is a graduate of Hampton Institute. She also attended Howard University where she was a business manager for the Howard Players. Relocating to New York City, she gained the reputation as "one of best stage managers in New York."

Starting in the early 1970s, Taylor has worked extensively as a stage manager on numerous productions for the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) including The Sty of the Blind Pig, The First Breeze of Summer and The Brownsville Raid.

In 1978, she made her off-Broadway debut as a director with the play Nevis Mountain Dew by Steve Carter. The critically acclaimed production was selected by the Burns Mantle Yearbook as one of the ten best plays of the 1978–1979 season. For her work as a director, Taylor received a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Horacena J. Taylor” as american theatre director. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 1978, 1979—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1940-11-21. The account is most persuasive where Horacena, Taylor and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american theatre director. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16105499. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1978 and 1979.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Horacena J. Taylor”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Horacena J. Taylor primary sources, Horacena J. Taylor archive and Horacena research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Horacena J. Taylor”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Horacena J. Taylor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.