Steve Broadnax III has a well-earned reputation behind the stage as well as on it.
The director, actor, playwright and Little Rock native made a national name for himself at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, where he headed the theater department and created and directed The Hip Hop Project. What was first a one-act play written by the students in his creative writing class became a two-act production that went on to earn the Association of Theatre in Higher Education Playwriting Award and to be performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
Then, in 2021, he directed "Thoughts of a Colored Man" at the Shubert Organization's John Golden Theatre. It was his Broadway debut. Broadnax was a Democrat-Gazette High Profile cover subject in November of that year while directing George Brant's "Marie and Rosetta" for TheatreSquared in Fayetteville.