Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Shearer White (died 1993) was an American independent film producer, Broadway dresser, and actress. Frustrated by the stereotypical roles available to her and other Black performers on Broadway, in the summers she would return to her native Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. There, in 1946, she founded the Shearer Summer Theatre, an all Black repertory theater group composed of her talented friends and family members. The Shearer Summer Theatre ran until the early 1960s and was one of the first summer theatre groups on the Island after World War II. She is best known for her adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello (1980), which featured an all-Black cast and crew and debuted Yaphet Kotto as Othello. The production also featured Liz White in the role of Bianca, as well as her son Richard in the role of Iago and his wife Audrey as Desdemona.

Othello started as an acclaimed theatrical production in 1960-1961 at Shearer Summer Theater and in 1960 in Harlem. Then, during the summers of 1962-1966, White directed a film version with the original cast. The film did not screen until 1980, when it had its official debut at Howard University. Despite never being released commercially, Liz White’s Othello has become a significant entry in the canon of Shakespearean film adaptations, not only because it is the first film version to star a Black man and the only Shakespearean film directed by a Black woman, but also for its ability to address colorism in the Black community, Afrocentrism, and the Black Power Movement. The Liz White Collection consists of 16mm prints and elements for the film Othello.