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Shirley Jo Finney, a celebrated theater director and actor, died Tuesday after an eight-month battle with cancer. She was 74.
Finney is best known for her decades-long association with the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, a cultural space dedicated to multiethnic theater and dance artists, which announced her death on Friday.
During her long career, Finney directed works at some of the most respected regional theaters in America, including the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C, and the Humana Festival at the Actors Theater of Louisville in Kentucky. She earned plaudits, receiving the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Ovation and NAACP awards.
Discussing her work directing Pearl Cleage's play "Flyin' West" at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1999, Finney told The...