LeNoire, Rosetta [neé Rosetta Olive Burton] (1911–2002), actress and manager. LeNoire was an untiring African‐American actress‐singer who also ran the Off‐Broadway AMAS Repertory Theatre for many years. A native New Yorker who was educated at Hunter College, she worked as a secretary while she trained at the American Theatre Wing School. LeNoire made her professional debut in 1936 as one of the witches in Orson Welles's legendary all‐black production of Macbeth and she later shone as Stella in Anna Lucasta (1944). Much of her long New York stage career would be in supporting roles in such varied works as Finian's Rainbow (1955), Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), Lost in the Stars (1972), The Sunshine Boys (1975), and You Can't Take It With You (1983).
The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.