While many historically significant or interesting plays by white playwrights are easily found in anthologies, few by early African American writers are equally accessible. Indeed until the 1970s, almost none of these early plays could be located
outside of a library.
The Roots of African American Drama fills this gap. Five of the thirteen scripts included here have never been in print, and only three
others are presently available anywhere. The plays represent a variety of styles--allegory, naturalism, realism, melodrama, musical comedy, and opera. Four are full length,
eight are one-acts, and one is a skit. Their subjects include slavery, share-cropping, World War I, vaudeville, religion, and legend and mythology.
In making their selections, the editors used a variety of criteria to insure each play is dramatically sound and historically important.
They also searched for those scripts that were unjustly consigned to obscurity. Each selection begins with headnotes that place it in its historical and cultural context. Biographic information and a bibliography
of other plays follow each script, providing readers with added sources for study.
Outraged , Bray and Barnett filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Seattle Rep , citing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act , which forbade giving federal funds to any institution that practiced discrimination in their hiring ...
Although no materials exist that speak to the experiences of the Negro performers in the Birmingham unit , Clyde Limbaugh's frustration with the unit's sudden close illustrates the vulnerability of the Negro units in the face of white ...
In 1922, Willis Richardson wrote The Chip Woman's Fortune.
The analysis of the works of these three important dramatists reveals the roots of an Afrocentric approach to the theater, and introduces a new methodology for exploring Afrocentrism that is particularly suited to classes in African ...
Textbook
From slavery to freedom to the arduous battle for civil rights, the ten-volume Drama of African-American History series traces the black American experience from its roots to the present day.
"In 1001 short, eminently readable essays, Jeffrey C. Stewart, Associate Professor of History at George Mason University, takes us on a journey through five hundred years of African American history....
This book traces the history of African American theatre from its beginnings to the present.
Tracing how African American playwrights and troupes developed these manuscripts and how they were then contested, revised, and reinterpreted, Dossett argues that these texts constitute an archive of black agency, and understanding their ...
class whites stand to gain from a black theater's demise ? Lower - class whites , who resided in disadvantaged communities alongside blacks , had more in common with them than wealthy whites . In particular , poor Irish Americans and ...