2022 SDCF Zelda Fichandler Award Recipient: Ron OJ Parson

The 2022 Zelda Fichandler Award will be presented to Ron OJ Parson, a Chicago-based director. He will receive an unrestricted award of $5,000 from SDCF. Lili-Anne Brown has been named the finalist. Both artists will be recognized in a virtual ceremony open to the public in the winter of 2023.

The Fichandler Award recognizes directors and choreographers who have demonstrated great accomplishment to date with singular creativity and deep investment in a particular community or region, and is named for Zelda Fichandler, the founding artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The award is presented annually, with a focus each year on a different region; all of nominees for this year’s Fichandler Award were directors and choreographers from the Central United States.

The selection committee for the Fichandler Award was chaired by director D. Lynn Meyers, who  was joined on the committee by directors Steven John Dietz and Marcela Lorca.

“What great joy it brings me to share the committee’s decision to honor Ron OJ Parson and finalist Lili-Anne Brown,” said Meyers. “Ron OJ Parson has worked brilliantly as a stage director. He has also changed the industry with his careful, thoughtful work in his community, which goes beyond Chicago to reach every part of this region. He is truly deserving and a great pioneer walking in Zelda Fichandler’s shoes. He has opened the door for so many artists along his path and continues to break new ground in growing the future of our work. And how exciting to celebrate Lili-Anne Brown for all that she has done already with anticipation of all that is to come!”

Ron OJ Parson is a native of Buffalo, New York, and a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Professional Theatre Program. Parson is a Resident Director at the Tony Award-winning Court Theatre at the University of Chicago on Chicago’s South Side. He is also the co-founder and former Artistic Director of Onyx Theatre Ensemble of Chicago.

He is a TimeLine Theatre Company Member where his credits include Too Heavy for Your Pocket, To Catch a Fish, Paradise Blue, Sunset Baby, A Raisin in the Sun, and most recently Trouble in Mind. Since moving to Chicago from New York in 1994, he has worked as both an actor and director. His Chicago credits include work with Urban Gateways, Chicago Theatre Company, Victory Gardens, Goodman, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Dramatists, Black Ensemble Theatre, Congo Square Theatre Company, Northlight Theatre, Urban Theatre Company, City Lit Theater, ETA Creative Arts, and Writers Theatre.

Regionally, Parson has worked with Studio Arena Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Milwaukee Repertory, South Coast Repertory, Pasadena Playhouse, Geva Theatre, Virginia Stage, Wilshire Theatre, The Mechanic Theatre, CenterStage, St. Louis Black Repertory, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, Signature Theatre (New York), Kansas City Rep, Portland Stage, Indiana Repertory Theatre, American Players

Theatre, and Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, among others. In Canada, he directed the world premiere of Palmer Park by Joanna McClelland Glass at the Stratford Festival in Stratford Ontario.

Parson has directed over 30 August Wilson productions, nine at Court Theatre, and at theatres across the country. He is co-founder of Passport Programs, a former arts-in-education program, and the creator of the spotlight reading series at Court Theatre, developed to introduce young and old to the plays of the Black theatre movement and beyond. He is a member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and SDC.