Known for heavy roles, Tony Todd just wants to spread positivity

August Wilson’s groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama “Fences” is at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival with previews on July 27 and 28, opens on July 29, and runs through Aug. 7 on the main stage at the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of DeSales University.

Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America, Wilson’s “Fences” depicts the yearnings and struggles of the Maxson family. Troy Maxson is a former home run king of the Negro baseball league who now supports his family as a garbage collector and builds fences around a world he has battled his whole life.

An epic work of stunning poetry by a Pennsylvania native, “Fences” has been hailed by critics as “a blockbuster piece of theater” and “the strongest, most passionate American dramatic writing since Tennessee Williams.”

Wilson’s award-winning drama will be helmed by veteran stage, film ad television actor Tony Todd, who returns to the festival following his one-man performance last season in Wilson’s play “How I Learned What I Learned.”

“It’s great to be back,” Todd says. “I did ‘Fences’ about 10 years ago and I think I’m in a much better position to play it now. I’m more mature, and have a better understanding and awareness of what Black lives mean. And I’m working with an excellent cast that I can’t do without – people like Ella Joyce, Brian D. Coats, Shane Taylor and others.”

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Hartford, Conn. by his aunt, Todd credits her with giving him his start – both in performing and learning to live life as a contented person.

“I began living with her when I was just three, and every summer she’d put me into a different program to keep me busy and interested in a variety of things. And one of those things was acting.” Todd explains.

“And with that, I feel I’ve been blessed. I was raised on the edge of poverty,” Todd continues, “but it was my aunt, who worked as a maid, who kept me out of trouble and encouraged my interest in theater.’

Later, in high school, it was an English teacher who introduced Todd to Shakespeare and cemented his desire to perform. Seeking to better learn his craft, the six-foot-five Todd attended the University of Connecticut, and then went on to study theater at the prestigious Eugene O’Neill National Actors Theater Institute on a full scholarship, and the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island.

“Because of my height, I guess, people expected me to play basketball. But I was a terrible athlete,” Todd says. “And I think, people in the athletic department got tired of seeing me bump into lockers! So eventually I got to follow my true passion in life.”

And follow it he did, amassing a long lost of credits and awards in all genres. “But I will admit my first love is the theater, and I insist I do at least one play every year and a half.”

Today, one might best describe Todd as an eternal optimist, citing COVID as giving him the opportunity to learn more about himself as the years wore on. He says “I got to travel the world. I mastered skills in cooking. I raised cats. And I learned how to value things. I think before the pandemic many of us were running on automatic, but COVID made me understand things. Today, I’m content.”

He wants to spread that positivity around. Todd says that he’s continuing to work on his autobiography. “I want to share this wonderful life. I grew up poor, raised by an aunt who was a domestic, and I often looked down on her for that. But I’ve learned a lot. Now I am a happy man. Today all that’s changed. I smile a lot.”