Stanley Bennett Clay received 2 NAACP Theatre Awards and 2 Drama-logueAwards for writing and directing the stage play “Ritual.” The film version, starring Clarence Williams III and Denise Nicholas, marks Clay’s film writing/directorial debut and was voted The Jury Award at the 2000 Pan African Film Festival.
Clay produced on stage the GLAAD, L.A. Weekly, L.A. Times and NAACPAward-winning musical “Children of the Night” and the world premiere of James Graham Bronson’s “Willie & Esther.” That production received2 L.A. Weekly Awards as Best Play and Best Ensemble Performance.
Clay wrote, directed, and composed “Street Nativity” (commissioned by the National Council of Negro Women for the Black Family Reunion Festival), wrote/directed the play “Lovers,” (Theatre of Arts) directed west coast premieres of “Jonin’” at The Harmon Theatre (Drama-logue Award/Direction) and “The First Breeze of Summer” (Theatre of Arts).
He is the author of three novels, “Diva” (Holloway House), “In Search Of Pretty Young Men” and “Looker,” (Simon & Schuster/Atria Books). “Search” won the 2004 N.Y. Hotep Society Book Award for Best Gay Novel.
Former Editor-In-Chief of Black Beat magazine and American Correspondent for London’s Blues and Soul magazine, Clay published and edited SBC magazine for 10 years (1991-2001), at the time the most widely distributed periodical for the black LGBT community.
A Los Angeles-based actor, he starred, guest-starred, and/or has been featured in over 200 TV episodes, films and commercials, including “Good Times,” “Cannonball,” “Minstrel Man,” “Man Friday” and “Cheers.”
His received the NAACP Best Actor Image Award for his stage performance in the Inner City Cultural Center’s production of “Anna Lucasta” and was nominated for the same award (and won another Drama-logue Award) for his performance in the Lafayette Players West’s production of “Zooman and the Sign.” Other stage performances include “Or” by Felton Perry (One Flight Up), “Sonata” by Bill Duke (Theatre of Arts) Albert Camus’ “Caligula” (Zodiac Theatre) and “Six Pieces of Musical Broadway” (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion).
He is currently starring in his new play “Armstrong’s Kid” as a gay schoolteacher falsely accused of child molestation by his best friend’s 14-year-old son. “Armstrong’s Kid” is playing at the Lucy Florence Village Theatre in Los Angeles, CA.
Clay is the first recipient of the African American Gay and Lesbian Cultural Alliance Outstanding Achievement Award (1990) and received Genre magazine’s 1993 Role Model to the Gay Community’s Lifeguard Award. He is the recipient of the International Black Writers of America’s highest honor, The Edna Crutchfield Founder’s Literary Achievement Award “In recognition of outstanding work as writer, publisher, producer and director of the written word.” On August 18, 2007, he was awarded The Lifetime Achievement Award at the 5th Annual Black Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival in Oakland CA.
Check out his latest release " Looker".
Synopsis:
Brando Heywood is a handsome, popular, and successful black gay entertainment lawyer living in the fashionable Baldwin Hills section of Los Angeles. He seems to have everything in life but passion. Two years celibate after the break-up of a 10 year committed relationship, and a prisoner of his routine, he goes through life quietly on the sidelines while his promiscuous best friend, Omar Stevens, thrashes through life and love with all the dramatic ups and downs Brando barely realizes he longs for.
Brando's life takes a dramatic turn when he is asked to defend a lesbian friend who has killed her male rapist. The sensational and controversial trial that follows not only ignites Brando's fervor for his career but also helps him discover his passion and a true love that had been staring him in the face all along."
ISBN # is 139780743291026
Check out his radio interview with The Risque Cafe
July 26, 2009 5-6pm central
CALL IN TO 646-929-0523
$15 IN ADVANCE / $20 @ THE DOOR
go thru phases where they decide they want a husband...mate...ready to settle down...or just fed up with men and the BS. Thinking men are no good, too many baby mommas...blah,blah,blah...they'd rather be alone. During this phase some women even take a vow of celibacy. 
