Writer, teacher, stage director, actress, and playwright Eulalie Spence was born on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies on June 11, 1894. She and her family moved to New York in 1902. Poverty forced their mother to make clothes from discarded uniform fabric at the school where she worked,. There was a great sense of loss when their father "gave up his dream of returning to their homeland." Spence overcame her impoverished childhood and managed to obtain an exceptional education. She graduated from Wadleigh High School and the New York Training School for Teachers.
Spence began teaching in the New York public school system in 1918, including over thirty years (1927-1958) at the Eastern District High School in Brooklyn. She taught elocution, English, and dramatics. Spence’s creative journey wasn’t an easy one. Her star as a playwright shone brightest in the 1920s, in the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance era. Her first play, "Being Forty", was written in 1920 and performed in 1924 by the National Ethiopian Art Players at Harlem's Lafayette Theater. In that same year she was a student at the National Ethiopian Art Theatre School, which was dedicated to the training and employment of Black actors.
Eulalie Spence was an influential member of the Harlem Renaissance, writing fourteen plays, at least five of which were published. Spence, who described herself as a "folk dramatist" made plays for fun and entertainment. She was considered one of the most experienced female playwrights before the 1950s. Eulalie Spence received more recognition than other Black playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance period, winning several competitions. As a follower of Alain Locke, she held fast to her belief that her actors have the voice of the everyday working people, Black dialect included.
W.E.B Du Bois, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) surmised that Black Drama must be built from scratch, by Blacks for a Black theater. In 1926, he founded Krigwa Players (Crisis Guild of Writers and Artists). Krigwa sponsored a yearly literary contest that included a playwrighting competition and fostered a theater company, the Krigwa Players. Spence finished second in the 1926 Krigwa playwright contest for her one-act play "Foreign Mail". She also won a second-place prize for "Her", which was entered into a contest held by "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life", the official publication of the National Urban League.
That play opened the Krigwa Players' second season, and her sisters, Olga and Doralene Spence, acted in the Krigwa Players' productions. They both received praise for their acting performances. Spence also directed two plays, "Before Breakfast" by Eugene O'Neill and "Joint Owners in Spain" by Alice Brown for the Dunbar Garden Players. It was a short-lived theater group that was named in honor of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Spence had been a major figure in the theatre world of the Harlem Renaissance, contributing to the community as an actor, director, and playwright. She was overshadowed by the counterparts of her day such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson.
In 1927, "Fool’s Errand", with sets designed by artist Aaron Douglas competed in the Fifth Annual International Little Theatre Tournament. This was a first for Blacks since the finalists competed in a Broadway theatre. The Krigwa Players won one of four $200.00 prizes and the play was published by Samuel French. Another play from the Krigwa Players, "Undertow" tied for third place in the 1927 Crisis contest. Eulalie Spence was considered one of the Harlem Renaissance's rising young playwrights, although she did not have a great deal of financial success. The $5,000.00 payment she received for her screenplay of "The Whipping" was the only compensation she ever received as a writer.
The plays of Eulalie Spence helped to make a name for the Krigwa Players amongst both Black and White critics. However, Spence and Du Bois did not see eye to eye, artistically or politically. Du Bois felt that theatre should be used as a vehicle for propaganda to advance the cause of the American Negro. Spence, on the other hand, always acutely aware that she was from the West Indies, had a different outlook on the theatre. She felt that the theatre was a place for people to be entertained and not antagonized by the problems of society.
In a 1928 essay for "The Opportunity" she wrote, "The White man is cold and unresponsive to this subject and the Negro, himself, is hurt and humiliated by it. We go to the theatre for entertainment, not to have old fires and hates rekindled." Du Bois tried several times to get Spence to write politically themed drama but she refused. Spence "insisted that plays obey the rules of dramatic form, not a political agenda." Du Bois took the $200.00 prize money from the 1927 Little Theatre Tournament and used it to reimburse production expenses and paid neither the actors nor Spence. The Krigwa Players disbanded as a result. Eulalie Spence never saw any of the prize money.
One of Eulalie's prize winning works was three one-act plays collectively called "She’s Got Harlem on her Mind". These one-act vignettes "The Starter" (1923), "Hot Stuff" (1927), and "The Hunch" (1927) reflect the everyday lives and cultures of its Black community. They provide a window into the hopes and shattered dreams of Harlem’s inhabitants. "The Hunch", won second place in the 1927 Opportunity contest, while "The Starter" won third place. They were included in "Plays of Negro Life", an early collection of Black theater written by Alain Locke and Montgomery Gregory.
During the mid-1920s, a time when there was conflict about how African-Americans should be represented on stage, she insisted on using Black dialect in her plays. When asked by Willis Richardson to submit a play without dialect, she replied that she was "very sorry indeed, that I have no play on hand suitable for the book you have in mind." Spence's use of Black dialect onstage, considered "a bold and dangerous choice", actually "underscored race consciousness". It dramatized Black women's struggle to maintain racial and gender identity. She received her B.A. in 1937 from New York University and an M.A. in speech in 1939 from Teacher's College, Columbia University.