Danitra Vance
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Danitra Vance was born on July 13th, 1954.
She studied playwriting and acting and graduated with honors from Roosevelt University in 1975 and went on to study at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London where she was classically trained in Shakespeare and received a MFA.
After moving back to Chicago, she began her career as a performer, performing at Chicago bars and eventually with the legendary improv group, Second City.
In 1981, she moved to NYC It would be four years before she would get her big break on SNL.
During those four years, she moved to Gary, Indiana Chicago and took a job as a teacher after being told in NYC, “Sorry. Blacks don’t do Shakespeare.”
1984, she had her own variety show, “Danitra Vance and the Mell-o White Boys,” which she performed while working part time at Bloomingdale’s.
When she made her debut on SNL in 1995, she became the first Black woman to join the regular cast. It was revealed after her death that she was a lesbian and had been with her partner for 10 years, making her the first Black lesbian on SNL.
There are discrepancies on if she quit or if she was fired from SNL, the show did fire several cast members at the end of season 11.
What’s well documented is her frustration over having to consistently play stereotypical Black female characters.
Her post SNL career demonstrated her range and desire to portray Black women as full human beings. She starred in two George C. Wolfe plays, The Colored Museum and Spunk.
The latter being an adaptation of the Zora Neale Hurston short story collection of the same name.
In 1986, she earned an Obie Award for Distinguished Performance by an Actress and an NAACP award for her work in Spunk.
She starred in 1989’s Limit Up.
In 1990, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent a single mastectamony and turned the experience into a performance piece, The Radical Girl's Guide to Radical Mastectomy.
She was supposed to expound on that performance piece in her 1993 autobiographical show, Pre-Shrunk but when her cancer returned that year it never materialized.
Danitra Vance died from breast cancer on August 21st, 1994. She was 40 years old.