New Federal Theater, which Mr. King founded in 1970 during the heyday of the Black Arts Movement, was tucked away on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, at the Henry Street Settlement. But Mr. King quickly made it a cultural hot spot, with plays by writers like Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins and Charles Fuller, and a roll call of actors who later found fame, including Debbie Allen, Laurence Fishburne, Morgan Freeman, Jackée Harry, S. Epatha Merkerson, Garrett Morris and Leslie Uggams.