Download or read book The Dramatic Genius of Charles Fuller An African American Playwright written by Molefi Kete Asante and published by . This book was released on 2015-01-16 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOK OVERVIEW Charles Fuller is a pre-eminent American dramatist. The Dramatic Genius of Charles Fuller is an accessible and appropriate introduction to the mind of Fuller for those who know his work and those who do not. For an author who did not set out to be a Pulitzer Prize winner but rather one who would use every dimension of his multifaceted life to dramatize the narratives of African American people he has succeeded in being an influential voice in the dramatic arena. Few critics have examined Fuller seriously and in some ways his work, like that of other black writers, has fallen outside the gaze of contemporary literary and dramatic writers even though he has received some of the highest awards in the nation. Part of this is because few African American dramatists have been looked at critically or studied in classrooms or spoken of in terms of their philosophy, style, originality, and brilliance. This book brings a critical reading and sympathetic location of Fuller's drama in the center of African American dramatic and social history Anyone who teaches drama or who performs or produces African American drama should use this book as a supplemental reading for theater and literary classes at the undergraduate level. Serious scholars of the philosophy of African American drama can use the book at the graduate level. In Theater, English or African American Studies the book is sure to be used in the classes on African American Drama or Theater, Black Writers, and The History of American Drama. Charles H. Fuller, Jr., was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 5, l939. He was educated at Roman Catholic High School and Villanova University. In l959 he joined the United States Army and served in Japan and Korea. When he completed his service in the army he went to LaSalle University in l965-1967 where he received a DFA. During l967 he co-founded the Afro-American Arts Theatre in Philadelphia. In the late l960s he teamed with Larry Neal as Philadelphia's dynamic duo in the arts. No one was more intellectually involved with the early thinking and writing of Larry Neal than Charles Fuller. Their interactive relationship from the time that stole away as teenagers to hear Ralph Ellison to the death of Neal was the foundation for much of what Fuller developed as his thesis about human beings. Although he found many of his characters on Broad Street in Philadelphia he was already a mature revolutionary thinker when he moved to New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Fuller's travels, including his major tour of the Soviet Union, must be seen as a part of his aesthetic, ethical, social, and literary influences. In the strictest sense of the word Charles Fuller is an intellectual, not merely someone who writes, but someone who reflects on the entire process of bringing into existence new ideas. Thinking outside of the box could have been invented by him because his parents taught him that things are not always as they seem. He knew this from his early childhood and became involved in the drama of ordinary lives from listening to the provocative conversations that took place in his house when he was still a young man. This book is an attempt to understand how this prize-winning writer articulates what he sees in human nature.
Download or read book Branches of Asanteism written by Abdul Karim Bangura and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Branches of Asanteism explores the epistemologies and research methodologies that have sprung from Mwalimu Molefi Kete Asante’s treatises on Afrocentricity. The book identifies and analyzes thirteen such epistemologies and methodologies while defining and explicating the various “branches” of Asante’s idea of Afrocentricity.
Download or read book Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise written by Christel N. Temple and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africana literary critic and cultural theory scholar, Christel N. Temple, whose groundbreaking books, Literary Pan-Africanism: History, Contexts, and Criticism (2005) and Literary Spaces: Introduction to Comparative Black Literature (2007),have been some of the most influential models of contemporary Africana Studies-based literary criticism, responds to the demand for a core disciplinary source that comprehensively defines and models literary praxis from the vantage point of Africana Studies. This highly anticipated seminal study finally institutionalizes the discipline’s literary enterprise. Framing the concept of transcendence, she covers over a dozen traditional African American works in an original and thought-provoking analysis that places canonical approaches in enlightened discourse with Africana studies reader-response priorities. This study makes traditional literature come alive in conversation with topics of masculinity, womanism, Black Lives Matter, humor, Pan-Africanism, transnationalism, worldview, the subject place of Africa, cultural mythology, hero dynamics, Black psychology, demographics, history, Black liberation theology, eulogy, cultural memory, Afro-futurism, the Kemetic principle of Maat, social justice, rap and hip hop, Diaspora, and performance.Scholars now have a focused Africana Studies text—for both introductory and advanced literature courses—to capture the power of the African American literary canon while modeling the most dynamic practical applications of humanities-to-social science practices.
Download or read book The America That I Didn t Know Existed written by Francis Kwarteng and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2020-09-09 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Dream is a popular concept. It is a celebrated mantra. But does it really exist? Even if it does, is it for everyone? The American experiment tells a different story. Examples abound of many for whom the American Dream is an empty rhetoric. Although America prides itself on liberal ideas of equity, social justice and equality for all, harnessing the potential benefits of the American Dream is far from true for many hardworking, educated Americans. Inasmuch as the American Dream may exist for some, white privilege, employment and educational discrimination, racism...may stand in the way of achieving one's fullest potential. This is compounded by the Eurocentric content of the American curriculum which denies equal representation to non-white Americans in the marketplace of ideas, reinforcing their sociopolitical and epistemic marginalization. "In a remarkably wide ranging and moving book Francis Kwarteng has provided us with one of the most honest and earnest assessments of what immigrants find in the United States. The book The America That I Didn't Know Existed reminds me of the complex reasons people are attracted to the American society and the disappointment that they find when they sometimes discover that what one reads about America is not truly the best way to know America. Kwarteng has lived, studied, and learned in America and he counts these experiences as blessings as anyone would who has seen possibilities. However, this determined intellectual has shown us a path forward with acceptance and humanity. This riveting book has the making of an incredibly powerful drama as well." Molefi Kete Asante, author of Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation "Francis Kwarteng's book recounts his personal journey to America by reliving the challenges and struggles he had to overcome to realize that the dream he once imagined was only a mirage. The author provides the rationale behind his decision to come to America and the subsequent disillusion with the gap between his aspirations and realities on American soil. Framed within the intellectual lens of Afrocentricity, Kwarteng exposes and critiques the prevailing dominance of Eurocentric constructs that systemically dehumanizes, and perforce disempowers, persons of African descent. The result of this is a readable, empowering page-turning memoir that will resonate with every African immigrant." Kwame Akonor is Associate Professor of Political Science at Seton Hall University (USA), founding director of the New York-based African Development Institute, and author of African Economic Institutions.
Download or read book Contemporary African American Theater written by Nilgun Anadolu-Okur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Black Arts Movement was sparked by the Civil Rights movement and the urge to produce and revitalize functional, realistic, and holistic symbols to express African American creativity. When Larry Neal began his quest for a new dramatic form to epitomize African American self-determination he laid the foundation upon which his friends and compatriots-Amiri Baraka and Charles Fuller-would build. Expressing their individual protests through their writings, these artists soon united in their attack against Eurocentrism, which traditionally minimized or neglected the roles played by Africans and African Americans on the world stage. Their writings signaled a radical change in the form and content of African American writing, particularly drama. In this insightful examination of African American cultural history, the author explores the heart of the dramatic imagination of African Americans during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. 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 American drama and literature.ࠁ
Download or read book Black Acting Methods written by Sharrell Luckett and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black Acting Methods seeks to offer alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles that many actors find themselves working with. A wealth of contributions from directors, scholars and actor trainers address afrocentric processes and aesthetics, and interviews with key figures in Black American theatre illuminate their methods. This ground-breaking collection is an essential resource for teachers, students, actors and directors seeking to reclaim, reaffirm or even redefine the role and contributions of Black culture in theatre arts.
Download or read book The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature written by William L. Andrews and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-15 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking achievement, this Concise Companion is a suitable crown to the astonishing production in African American literature and criticism that has swept over American literary studies in the last two decades. It offers an enormous range of writers-from Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass, from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison, and from Toni Morrison to August Wilson. It contains entries on major works (including synopses of novels), such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It also incorporates information on literary characters such as Bigger Thomas, Coffin Ed Johnson, Kunta Kinte, Sula Peace, as well as on character types such as Aunt Jemima, Brer Rabbit, John Henry, Stackolee, and the trickster. Icons of black culture are addressed, including vivid details about the lives of Muhammad Ali, John Coltrane, Marcus Garvey, Jackie Robinson, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. Here, too, are general articles on poetry, fiction, and drama; on autobiography, slave narratives, Sunday School literature, and oratory; as well as on a wide spectrum of related topics. Compact yet thorough, this handy volume gathers works from a vast array of sources--from the black periodical press to women's clubs--making it one of the most substantial guides available on the growing, exciting world of African American literature.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of African American Theater written by Anthony D. Hill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition of Historical Dictionary of African American Theater reflects the rich history and representation of the black aesthetic and the significance of African American theater’s history, fleeting present, and promise to the future. It celebrates nearly 200 years of black theater in the United States and the thousands of black theater artists across the country—identifying representative black theaters, playwrights, plays, actors, directors, and designers and chronicling their contributions to the field from the birth of black theater in 1816 to the present. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of African American Theater, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on actors, playwrights, plays, musicals, theatres, -directors, and designers. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know and more about African American Theater.
Download or read book Willis Richardson Forgotten Pioneer of African American Drama written by Christine R. Gray and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1999-12-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1920s and 1930s, Willis Richardson (1889-1977) was respected as a significant African-American playwright and drama anthologist. His plays were performed by numerous black high school, college, and university drama groups and by various theater companies in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Baltimore, and Atlanta. Several of his 46 plays were published in various magazines. In his essays, he urged African Americans to seek their dramatic material in their own experiences. He also edited three anthologies of plays by black dramatists. With the opening performance of The Chip Woman's Fortune (1923), he became the first African American to have a play produced on Broadway. But between 1940 and his death in 1977, Richardson came to realize that his plays were period pieces and that they no longer reflected the African-American experience. In spite of his enormous contributions, Richardson died in obscurity, and his work has been neglected by scholars. This critical biography offers the first extensive consideration of Richardson's life and work and firmly reestablishes his place in the history of the theater.
Download or read book No Place to Be Somebody written by Charles Gordone and published by Broadway Play Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-20 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Charles Gordone's Pulitzer signified two "firsts" he was the first African American playwright to receive a Pulitzer, and NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY was the first off-Broadway play to receive the award. "Charles Gordone's NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY...seemed to grow in theatrically, raw energy, power and stature.... The denizens of Johnny's bar, like those of Harry Hope's saloon in THE ICEMAN COMETH, are waiting for a fulfillment of their dreams, which are illusions, and in some cases delusions.... ...Its humor is full of bile. On one level this was an extraordinarily funny play and it now seems even funnier in the most malicious way.... ...NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY is a drama of great force and commitment, one that must be seen--wherever it is playing. If nothing else--and there is much else--Gordone has a marvelous talent for dialogue, for bitter epithets and insults; for confrontations (each one a striking set piece); for small details that reveal character...and for creating whole and vivid characters." Mel Gussow, The New York Times
Download or read book The Oxford Companion to African American Literature written by William L. Andrews and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 902 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This, the first comprehensive one-volume reference work devoted to African American literature, contains much information on little known writers unavailable elsewhere. The book covers all types of genre and examines unique aspects of Afro-Americanism
Download or read book I m Black When I m Singing I m Blue When I Ain t and Other Plays written by Sonia Sanchez and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-17 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sonia Sanchez is a prolific, award-winning poet and one of the most prominent writers in the Black Arts movement. This collection brings her plays together in one volume for the first time. Like her poetry, Sanchez’s plays voice her critique of the racism and sexism that she encountered as a young female writer in the black militant community in the late 1960s and early 1970s, her ongoing concern with the well-being of the black community, and her commitment to social justice. In addition to The Bronx Is Next (1968), Sister Son/ji (1969), Dirty Hearts (1971), Malcolm/Man Don’t Live Here No Mo (1972), and Uh, Uh; But How Do It Free Us? (1974), this collection includes the never-before-published dramas I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t (1982) and 2 X 2 (2009), as well as three essays in which Sanchez reflects on her art and activism. Jacqueline Wood’s introduction illuminates Sanchez’s stagecraft in relation to her poetry and advocacy for social change, and the feminist dramatic voice in black revolutionary art.
Download or read book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings written by Maya Angelou and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-07-21 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity.”—James Baldwin From the Paperback edition.
Download or read book New York Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1982-09-20 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.
Download or read book Theatrical Worlds Beta Version written by Charles Mitchell and published by Orange Grove Texts Plus. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the University of Florida College of Fine Arts, Charlie Mitchell and distinguished colleagues form across America present an introductory text for theatre and theoretical production. This book seeks to give insight into the people and processes that create theater. It does not strip away the feeling of magic but to add wonder for the artistry that make a production work well." -- Open Textbook Library.
Download or read book A Book about the Theater written by Brander Matthews and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Theory and technique of playwriting written by J.H. Lawson and published by Рипол Классик. This book was released on 1960 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a new introduction.
