Wendell Edward Carter hails originally from Charlottesville, Virginia.  Educated as an undergraduate at Haverford College, and as a PhD student at Stanford and Cornell Universities, he became a playwright after the tragic death of a younger sibling lead to the near-spontaneous genesis of a play about the experience and its aftermath (Hurricane House).  Hurricane House plums the depths of loss and the strength of family ties as a southern family deals with the tragic murder of a ‘holy’ daughter, whose spirit they believe merges with an approaching hurricane.

Wendell is the author of some 14 plays, and several screenplays and teleplays.  As a theatre producer or playwright, he has had productions along the Eastern Seaboard.  His play Revolutionaries earned acclaim at the 1993 Evening Shades Theater Festival at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School (NYC).  It is a One-act play about the last woman in American with an Afro in the year 2150 pursued by a handsome government agent who may be the reincarnation of the African God Eshu, and crazed, superhuman African American women who reject their African heritage.  It was remounted at the Acting Studio (NYC) in 1994, and was later selected for inclusion in the Source Theater Festival of 1997 (Washington, DC).

His play Editorious (renamed Tank & Drum), about a low-level African American newspaper editor who bounces off the glass ceiling straight into his own fantasies of African rebellion, was among a handful of plays selected for inclusion in the George Houston Bass Play-Rites Festival at the Rites & Reasons Theatre (Providence, RI) of 1994.

In The Dark With The Walter Lees, a black comedy that interweaves ‘live’ theater performers on a stage with a ‘live’ audience in an examination of what happens to sexual mores, racial tensions and personal allegiances when you break the 4th Wall, began at the 1994 Evening Shades Theater Festival at Playwrights Horizons Theater School, then went on to a run at the Acting Studio (NYC) the same year.  It was a featured performance at the 1995 National Black Theatre Festival (Winston-Salem, NC).  It was also featured in the East of the Anacostia One-Act Play Festival by the American Theatre Project (Washington, DC, 1996). 

Jermaine The No-Brain, a children’s play about the consequences of getting what you wish for and sidestepping an education, premiered at The Goldman Theatre of the Jewish Community Center (Washington, DC) in 1998, before a presentation at The Harmony Hall Regional Arts Center (Fort Washington, MD) the same year.

Wendell’s most recent production, the premiere of his play RARA AVIS (Rare Bird), about a woman wrongly imprisoned for the murder of a drug dealer who lives vicariously through the idealized lives of Phyllis Wheatley, Sally Hemmings, and Fanny Lou Hamer, was featured in the “Celebrate The Glory of Sugar Hill” Festival at Temple M in New York City in June 2009, where he appeared as special guest artist. 

He has a Gospel-inspired Musical available for development, Lay Your Hands On Me, featuring the music of Tomas Doncker.  Lay Your Hands On Me takes a ‘Broadway’ approach to the Gospel Musical as it follows a quartet of characters—a pair of young churchwomen,  a well-meaning real estate developer and a reforming street dealer—who must foil an attempt at blackmail by a mob kingpin and find faith and love in the process.

He is hard at work on a new script, The Last Queen Roams The City In Exile, about a young African American woman, T’Kaya Thomas, who must learn hard lessons to transform the morass which her life has become, her Guyanese mother, and her daughter, given up to her mother to be raised when T’Kaya gave birth at a very young age and never acknowledged as her own.

Wendell firmly believes in the intuitive process of theater, that a dramatic production is a dynamic collaboration of talented specialists.  His production process is always to workshop a script through the genesis of its premiere, pulling from the cast, directors, and other creative team members the finalizing touches of each script.

Wendell’s other works for the stage include:

A Holiday Wrinkle; in which a boy learns the meaning of Kwanzaa through an unlikely friendship with a homeless old man who may be more than he seems.

All The Driving In The Holy Land ; Four intertwined one-act plays about the reckless hazards of being black and gay and searching for emotional connection in the big city.

Hair Today,  Hair Tomorrow; Full version of the play about the fate of the last woman in America with an Afro in the year 2150, pursued by a handsome government agent who may also be the reincarnation of the African God Eshu, and a trio of crazed African American women who reject their African heritage.

Heart of the Company; A pair of recently released, bumbling ex-cons hold employees of a large corporation hostage in the boiler room, to get a full-time job for one of their former flames on a temp job there in this offbeat Pinter-esqu dramedy.

My Antonio; A sequel to Shakespeare’s Othello, in which Othello’s family returns to Spain after the death of Othello, only to face betrayal and the dissolution of a wedding.

Shaneen and the Seven Gators; A young woman moves to New York City and falls for a kept man, who must find a way to escape his voodoo lover in this Disney-type, African American themed costume musical.

Wendell completed his first novel, Melting The Snow, in 2015.  Melting The Snow is a tongue-in-cheek, first person narrative following Darryl Reed, 26, as he journeys from a 'white-identified' gay consciousnessness into a 'blackgaysexlife' through a series of relationships.