Download or read book The National Black Drama Anthology written by Woodie King and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1995 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents plays by African American playwrights, including Robert Johnson's "Trick the Devil", Marsha Jackson's "Sisters", and Nubia Kai's "Harvest the Frost"
Download or read book Black Thunder written by William B. Branch and published by Signet Book. This book was released on 1992 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology of nine contemporary plays (all produced between 1975 and 1990) actively confronts the racial realities of American culture and celebrates the African American experience with originality and meaning. Playwrights include George C. Wolfe, Leslie Lee, Steve Carter, Amiri Baraka, P.J. Gibson, William Branch, Alexander Simmons, Ed Bullins, and August Wilson.
Download or read book The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers written by Mustapha Matura and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers provides an essential anthology of six of the key plays that have shaped the trajectory of British black theatre from the late-1970s to the present day. In doing so it charts the journey from specialist black theatre companies to the mainstream, including West End success, while providing a cultural and racial barometer for Britain during the last forty years. It opens with Mustapha Matura's 1979 play Welcome Home Jacko which in its depiction of a group of young unemployed West Indians was one of the first to explore issues of youth culture, identity and racial and cultural identification. Jackie Kay's Chiaroscuro examines debates about the politics of black, mixed race and lesbian identities in 1980s Britain, and from the 1990s Winsome Pinnock's Talking in Tongues engages with the politics of feminism to explore issues of black women's identity in Britian and Jamaica. From the first decade of the twenty-first century the three plays include Roy Williams' seminal pub-drama Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads, exploring racism and identity against the backdrop of the World Cup; Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre play of 2004, Fix Up, about black cultural history and progress in modern Britain, and finally Bola Agbage's terrific 2007 debut, Gone Too Far!, which examines questions of identity and tensions between Africans and Caribbeans living in Britain. Edited by Lynnette Goddard, this important anthology provides an essential introduction to the last forty years of British black theatre.
Download or read book Seven Black Plays written by Chuck Smith and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven winners of the nation's most distinguished award for African American playwriting.
Download or read book The Methuen Drama Book of New American Plays written by David Adjmi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Methuen Drama Book of New American Plays is an anthology of six outstanding plays from some of the most exciting playwrights currently receiving critical acclaim in the States. It showcases work produced at a number of the leading theatres during the last decade and charts something of the extraordinary range of current playwriting in America. It will be invaluable not only to readers and theatergoers in the U.S., but to those around the world seeking out new American plays and an insight into how U.S. playwrights are engaging with their current social and political environment. There is a rich collection of distinctive, diverse voices at work in the contemporary American theatre and this brings together six of the best, with work by David Adjmi, Marcus Gardley, Young Jean Lee, Katori Hall, Christopher Shinn and Dan LeFranc. The featured plays range from the intimate to the epic, the personal to the national and taken together explore a variety of cultural perspectives on life in America. The first play, David Adjmi's Stunning, is an excavation of ruptured identity set in modern day Midwood, Brooklyn, in the heart of the insular Syrian-Jewish community; Marcus Gardley's lyrical epic The Road Weeps, The Well Runs Dry deals with the migration of Black Seminoles, is set in mid-1800s Oklahoma and speaks directly to modern spirituality, relocation and cultural history; Young Jean Lee's Pullman, WA deals with self-hatred and the self-help culture in her formally inventive three-character play; Katori Hall's Hurt Village uses the real housing project of "Hurt Village" as a potent allegory for urban neglect set against the backdrop of the Iraq war; Christopher Shinn's Dying City melds the personal and political in a theatrical crucible that cracks open our response to 9/11 and Abu Graib, and finally Dan LeFranc's The Big Meal, an inter-generational play spanning eighty years, is set in the mid-west in a generic restaurant and considers family legacy and how some of the smallest events in life turn out to be the most significant.
Download or read book Black South African Women written by Kathy Perkins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-01-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first anthology to focus on the lives of Black South African women. Includes the work of, and interviews with, award-winning and emerging authors. Contains 6 full-length and 4 one-act plays.
Download or read book Ottemiller s Index to Plays in Collections written by Denise L. Montgomery and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2011-08-11 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representing the largest expansion between editions, this updated volume of Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections is the standard location tool for full-length plays published in collections and anthologies in England and the United States throughout the 20th century and beyond. This new volume lists more than 3,500 new plays and 2,000 new authors, as well as birth and/or death information for hundreds of authors.
Download or read book African American Performance and Theater History written by Harry J. Elam and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-18 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner, and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field, this anthology is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance interact and enact continual social, cultural, and political dialogues. Ranging from a discussion of dramatic performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Black Art Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, articles gathered in the first section, "Social Protest and the Politics of Representation," discuss the ways in which African American theater and performance have operated as social weapons and tools of protest. The second section of the volume, "Cultural Traditions, Cultural Memory and Performance," features, among other essays, Joseph Roach's chronicle of the slave performances at Congo Square in New Orleans and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s critique of August Wilson's cultural polemics. "Intersections of Race and Gender," the third section, includes analyses of the intersections of race and gender on the minstrel stage, the plight of black female choreographers at the inception of Modern Dance, and contemporary representations of black homosexuality by PomoAfro Homo. Using theories of performance and performativity, articles in the fourth section, "African American Performativity and the Performance of Race," probe into the ways blackness and racial identity have been constructed in and through performance. The final section is a round-table assessment of the past and present state of African American Theater and Performance Studies by some of the leading senior scholars in the field--James V. Hatch, Sandra L. Richards, and Margaret B. Wilkerson. Revealing the dynamic relationship between race and theater, this volume illustrates how the social and historical contexts of production critically affect theatrical performances of blackness and their meanings and, at the same time, how African American cultural, social, and political struggles have been profoundly affected by theatrical representations and performances. This one-volume collection is sure to become an important reference for those studying black theater and an engrossing survey for all readers of African American literature.
Download or read book African American Theater written by Glenda Dicker/sun and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-08-23 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in a clear, accessible, storytelling style, African American Theater will shine a bright new light on the culture which has historically nurtured and inspired Black Theater. Functioning as an interactive guide for students and teachers, African American Theater takes the reader on a journey to discover how social realities impacted the plays dramatists wrote and produced. The journey begins in 1850 when most African people were enslaved in America. Along the way, cultural milestones such as Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Freedom Movement are explored. The journey concludes with a discussion of how the past still plays out in the works of contemporary playwrights like August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks. African American Theater moves unsung heroes like Robert Abbott and Jo Ann Gibson Robinson to the foreground, but does not neglect the race giants. For actors looking for material to perform, the book offers exercises to create new monologues and scenes. Rich with myths, history and first person accounts by ordinary people telling their extraordinary stories, African American Theater will entertain while it educates.
Download or read book The Actor in You written by Robert Benedetti and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2022-10-28 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the first edition of The Actor in You was published a quarter-century ago, thousands of students have benefited from Robert Benedetti’s decades of experience educating some of the United States’ finest actors. In this Seventh Edition, Benedetti expresses the fundamental elements of acting in simple language, leading readers through understanding their own bodies and voices, acting technique, and the basics of rehearsals and staging shows. Each step includes exercises to aid students in self-discovery and self-development as they grow from novices into practiced actors.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre written by Harvey Young and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition provides an expanded, comprehensive history of African American theatre, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Including discussions of slave rebellions on the national stage, African Americans on Broadway, the Harlem Renaissance, African American women dramatists, and the New Negro and Black Arts movements, the Companion also features fresh chapters on significant contemporary developments, such as the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the mainstream successes of Black Queer Drama and the evolution of African American Dance Theatre. Leading scholars spotlight the producers, directors, playwrights, and actors who have fashioned a more accurate appearance of Black life on stage, revealing the impact of African American theatre both within the United States and around the world. Addressing recent theatre productions in the context of political and cultural change, it invites readers to reflect on where African American theatre is heading in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Black Theater City Life written by Macelle Mahala and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-15 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Macelle Mahala’s rich study of contemporary African American theater institutions reveals how they reflect and shape the histories and cultural realities of their cities. Arguing that the community in which a play is staged is as important to the work’s meaning as the script or set, Mahala focuses on four cities’ “arts ecologies” to shed new light on the unique relationship between performance and place: Cleveland, home to the oldest continuously operating Black theater in the country; Pittsburgh, birthplace of the legendary playwright August Wilson; San Francisco, a metropolis currently experiencing displacement of its Black population; and Atlanta, a city with forty years of progressive Black leadership and reverse migration. Black Theater, City Life looks at Karamu House Theatre, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh Playwrights’ Theatre Company, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the African American Shakespeare Company, the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company to demonstrate how each organization articulates the cultural specificities, sociopolitical realities, and histories of African Americans. These companies have faced challenges that mirror the larger racial and economic disparities in arts funding and social practice in America, while their achievements exemplify such institutions’ vital role in enacting an artistic practice that reflects the cultural backgrounds of their local communities. Timely, significant, and deeply researched, this book spotlights the artistic and civic import of Black theaters in American cities.
Download or read book Acting Up and Getting Down written by Sandra M. Mayo and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the few books of its kind, Acting Up and Getting Down brings together seven African American literary voices that all have a connection to the Lone Star state. Covering Texas themes and universal ones, this collection showcases often-overlooked literary talents to bring to life inspiring facets of black theatre history. Capturing the intensity of racial violence in Texas, from the Battle of San Jacinto to a World War I–era riot at a Houston training ground, Celeste Bedford Walker’s Camp Logan and Ted Shine’s Ancestors provide fascinating narratives through the lens of history. Thomas Meloncon’s Johnny B. Goode and George Hawkins’s Br’er Rabbit explore the cultural legacies of blues music and folktales. Three unflinching dramas (Sterling Houston’s Driving Wheel, Eugene Lee’s Killingsworth, and Elizabeth Brown-Guillory’s When the Ancestors Call) examine homosexuality, a death in the family, and child abuse, bringing to light the private tensions of intersections between the individual and the community. Supplemented by a chronology of black literary milestones as well as a playwrights’ canon, Acting Up and Getting Down puts the spotlight on creative achievements that have for too long been excluded from Texas letters. The resulting anthology not only provides new insight into a regional experience but also completes the American story as told onstage.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to African American Women s Literature written by Angelyn Mitchell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature covers a period dating back to the eighteenth century. These specially commissioned essays highlight the artistry, complexity and diversity of a literary tradition that ranges from Lucy Terry to Toni Morrison. A wide range of topics are addressed, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement, and from the performing arts to popular fiction. Together, the essays provide an invaluable guide to a rich, complex tradition of women writers in conversation with each other as they critique American society and influence American letters. Accessible and vibrant, with the needs of undergraduate students in mind, this Companion will be of great interest to anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important and vital area of American literature.
Download or read book Nineteenth Century American Plays written by Myron Matlaw and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). Seven hits that have been the staples of the American dramatic repertoire. Myron Matlaw's introduction provides a splendid survey of the development of American drama. Individual prefaces focus each work in the perspective of its historical context.
Download or read book Black on Black written by John Cullen Gruesser and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black on Black provides the first comprehensive analysis of the modern African American literary response to Africa, from W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk to Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Combining cutting-edge theory, extensive historical and archival research, and close readings of individual texts, Gruesser reveals the diversity of the African American response to Countee Cullen's question, "What is Africa to Me?" John Gruesser uses the concept of Ethiopianism—the biblically inspired belief that black Americans would someday lead Africans and people of the diaspora to a bright future—to provide a framework for his study. Originating in the eighteenth century and inspiring religious and political movements throughout the 1800s, Ethiopianism dominated African American depictions of Africa in the first two decades of the twentieth century, particularly in the writings of Du Bois, Sutton Griggs, and Pauline Hopkins. Beginning with the Harlem Renaissance and continuing through the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia, however, its influence on the portrayal of the continent slowly diminished. Ethiopianism's decline can first be seen in the work of writers closely associated with the New Negro Movement, including Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, and continued in the dramatic work of Shirley Graham, the novels of George Schuyler, and the poetry and prose of Melvin Tolson. The final rejection of Ethiopianism came after the dawning of the Cold War and roughly coincided with the advent of postcolonial Africa in works by authors such as Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and Alice Walker.
Download or read book The Best American Short Plays 1996 1997 written by Glenn Young and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2000-02 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of one-act plays from American playwrights, which cover such themes as love, fantasy, politics, grief, marriage, crime, and deceit.
