The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance

The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance is an outstanding collection of specially written essays that charts the emergence, development, and diversity of African American Theatre and Performance—from the nineteenth-century African Grove Theatre to Afrofuturism. Alongside chapters from scholars are contributions from theatre makers, including producers, theatre managers, choreographers, directors, designers, and critics. This ambitious Companion includes: A "Timeline of African American theatre and performance." Part I "Seeing ourselves onstage" explores the important experience of Black theatrical self-representation. Analyses of diverse topics including historical dramas, Broadway musicals, and experimental theatre allow readers to discover expansive articulations of Blackness. Part II "Institution building" highlights institutions that have nurtured Black people both on stage and behind the scenes. Topics include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), festivals, and black actor training. Part III "Theatre and social change" surveys key moments when Black people harnessed the power of theatre to affirm community realities and posit new representations for themselves and the nation as a whole. Topics include Du Bois and African Muslims, women of the Black Arts Movement, Afro-Latinx theatre, youth theatre, and operatic sustenance for an Afro future. Part IV "Expanding the traditional stage" examines Black performance traditions that privilege Black worldviews, sense-making, rituals, and innovation in everyday life. This section explores performances that prefer the space of the kitchen, classroom, club, or field. This book engages a wide audience of scholars, students, and theatre practitioners with its unprecedented breadth. More than anything, these invaluable insights not only offer a window onto the processes of producing work, but also the labour and economic issues that have shaped and enabled African American theatre. Chapter 20 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. 

List of Figures Editor/Contributor Biographies Black Art Now by Nambi E. Kelley Introduction: Renee Alexander Craft, Thomas F. DeFrantz. Kathy A. Perkins, and Sandra L. Richards. Part I: Highlights of African American Theatre and Performance Part II: Seeing Ourselves Onstage Edited and Introduced by Thomas F. DeFrantz Chapter 1 Dudley, The Smart Set, and the Beginning of the Black Entertainment Industry Nadine George-Graves Chapter 2 Black Theatre History Plays: Remembering, Recovering, Re-envisioning Sandra Mayo Chapter 3 "Hung Be the Heavens with Black" Bodies: An Analysis of the August 1822 Riot at William Brown's Greenwich Village Theater Marvin McAllister Chapter 4 Mulattoes, Mistresses, and Mammies: The Phantom Family in Langston Hughes's Mulatto Alison Walls Chapter 5 Interview with Woodie King, Jr. - Producer and Director JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell Chapter 6 Freedom Forward: Alice Childress and Lorraine Hansberry Circling Broadway in the 1950s Barbara Lewis Chapter 7 Navigating Respectability in Turn of the Century New York City: Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage Marta Effinger-Crichlow Chapter 8 Earle Hyman: Scandinavian Successes Baron Kelly Chapter 9 Pittsburgh Piety: A Century of Symbolism Pedro E. Alvarado Chapter 10 Interview with Ron Simons - Broadway Producer Lisa B. Thompson Chapter 11 Interview with Paul Tazewell - Costume Designer Niiamar Felder Chapter 12 Race on the Opera Stage Twila L. Perry Chapter 13 The Wiz and the African Diaspora Musical: Rethinking the Research Questions in Black Musical Historiography Sam O’Connell Chapter 14 Bob Cole's "Colored Man's Declaration of Independence": The Case of Shoo Fly Regiment and George C. Wolfe's Shuffle Along Paula Marie Seniors Chapter 15 Shuffle Along and Ethnic Humor: A Family Story Sandra Seaton Chapter 16 Interview with Eva Yaa Asantewaa - Dance Critic Thomas F. DeFrantz Chapter 17 Black Female Sexuality in the Drama of Pearl Cleage Beth Turner Chapter 18 Coming-of-Age and Rituals of Gender Nonconformity in Leslie Lee's The First Breeze of Summer Rhone Fraser Chapter 19 Pomo Afro Homos: A Revolutionary Act Tabitha Jamie Mary Chester PART III: Institution Building: Making a Space of OUR Own Edited and Introduced by Kathy A. Perkins Chapter 20 Being Black on Stage and Screen: Black Actor Training Before Black Power and the Rise of Stanislavski’s System Monica White Ndounou Chapter 21 Three Visionary African American Women Theatre Artists: Anita Bush, Barbara Ann Teer and Ellen Stewart Sandra Adell Chapter 22 The Birth of Queen Anne: Re-Discovering Anne Cooke at Spelman College Leslye Joy Allen Chapter 23 The Howard University Players: From Respectability Politics to Black Representation Denise J. Hart and Kathy A. Perkins Chapter 24 An African American Theatre Program for the 21st Century Nefertiti Burton Chapter 25 Interview with Karen Allen Baxter – Managing Director of Rites and Reason Theatre Jasmine Johnson Chapter 26 The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc.: One Moment in Time? Susan Watson Turner Chapter 27 Interview with Shirley Prendergast - Lighting Designer Kathy A. Perkins Chapter 28 Interview with Femi Sarah Heggie – Stage Manager Kathy A. Perkins Chapter 29 Weathering the Winds of Change: The Sustainability of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company Gregory S. Carr Chapter 30 The National Black Theatre Festival and the "Marvtastic" Legacy of Larry Leon Hamlin J. K. Curry Chapter 31 The Black Feminist Theatre of Glenda Dickerson Khalid Yaya Long Chapter 32 Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Acting: A Theatre of Common Sense Elizabeth M. Cizmar Chapter 33 Black Acting Methods®: Mapping the Movement Sharrell D. Luckett Chapter 34 Financial Fitness of Black Theatres: Roundtable of Artistic Directors K. Zaheerah Sultan Chapter 35 A Reflection on The University of Arkansas Pine Bluff’s The Hip Hop Project: Insight into the Hip Hop Generation Johnny Jones Chapter 36 Interview with Ekundayo Bandele – Founder and CEO of Hattiloo Theatre Shondrika Moss-Bouldin PART IV: THEATRE AND SOCIAL CHANGE Edited and Introduced by Sandra L. Richards Chapter 37 W.E.B. DuBois, Dramatist FREDA SCOTT GILES Chaper 38 The Third Gift of the Negro: Muslim Identity and DuBois’ Star of Ethiopia CRISTAL CHANELLE TRUSCOTT Chapter 39 Oh, Ma Dear! What's Going On?: Staging Angelina W. Grimke's Rachel in the Wake of Black Lives Matter NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY Chapter 40 Leaning Left: Why Theater Artists in the 1930s Were Attracted to the Red Movement KIMMIKA L. H. WILLIAMS-WITHERSPOON Chapter 41 Fighting Fire with Fire: Violence and the Black Liberation Movement PORTIA OWUSU Chapter 42 "When We Gonna Rise": Free Southern Theater Performances of Slave Ship and Black Power in Mississippi Susan Stone-Lawrence Chapter 43 From "Poemplays" to Ritualistic Revivals: The Experimental Works of Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement LA DONNA L. FORSGREN Chapter 44 Interview with Micki Grant KATHY A. PERKINS Chapter 45 Keeping His Gloves Up: August Wilson and His Critics Sandra G. Shannon Chapter 46 Interview with Edward Everett Haynes, Jr. KATHY A. PERKINS Chapter 47 Afro-Latinx Themes in Theatre Today Daphnie Sicre Chapter 48 To be Young, Performing, and Black: Situating Youth in African American Theatre and Performance History Asantewa Fulani Sunni-Ali Chapter 49 Interview with Mama Kariamu Welsh Amoaba Gooden Chapter 50 Robert O'Hara's Defamiliarizing Dramaturgy Isaiah MATTHEW Wooden Chapter 51 Black Plight in Flight Tezeru Teshome Chapter 52 Creatively Censoring African American Drama While Teaching in the Arab Gulf Region PhyLlisa smith Deroze Chapter 53 Mike Wiley: A Multi-Faceted Artist on a Mission for Social Change Sonny Kelly Chapter 54 "Locked Away But Not Defeated": African American Women Performing Resilience Lori D. Barcliff Baptista Chapter 55 A Hundredfold: An Experiential Archive of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the Opera. Alexis Pauline Gumbs PART V: Expanding the Traditional Stage Edited and Introduced by Renée Alexander Craft Chapter 56 Many Stories/One Body: Black Solo Performance from Vaudeville to Spoken Word E. Patrick Johnson Chapter 57 Standing Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Katelyn Hale Wood Chapter 58 My Name Mudbone: What I learned about playwriting from Richard Pryor Howard L. Craft Chapter 59 Ntozake Shange and the Choreopoem Nicole M. Morris Johnson Chapter 60 Interview with Donna Walker-Kuhne – Audience Development Kathy A. Perkins Chapter 61 Performed Ethnography D. Soyini Madison Chapter 62 The United States of Lucia: Three Generations of Haitian-Americans Reconfigure Ancestry, Home and Host Lands through Storytelling Mario LaMothe Chapter 63 We Were What No One Else Had Rikki Byrd Chapter 64 Interview with Pam Green – Artist Management and Consulting Melanie Greene Chapter 65 Sidelong Glances: Black Divas in Transit, 1945-1955 Katherine Zien Chapter 66 Black Indians of New Orleans: Performing Resistance and Remembrance Sascha Just Chapter 67 Interview with Darryl Montana- Black Indian Chief and Master Artisan Loyce L. Arthur Chapter 68 African Performance in the Feast of St. Francis Xavier in 17th century Luanda, Angola Margit Edwards Chapter 69 Afro-Futurism and the 2018 Wakanda Diaspora Carnival Renée Alexander Craft Chapter 70 A Beginner’s Guide to Implementing Hip Hop Theatre in the Classroom Kashi Johnson Chapter 71 Interview with Shirley Basfield Dunlap – Educator and Director Eric Ruffin Index

Kathy A. Perkins is Professor Emerita of the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a professional lighting designer who has designed throughout the U.S. and internationally, and as an author has edited six anthologies focusing on African/African Diaspora women. Sandra L. Richards is Professor Emerita in African American Studies and Theatre at Northwestern University. Specializing in African American, African, and African Diaspora drama, she has published articles on a range of playwrights and on tourism to slave sites in the Black Atlantic. Renée Alexander Craft is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a joint appointment in the Department of Communication and Curriculum in Global Studies. She is a performance studies trained Black feminist writer, scholar, and educator. Thomas F. DeFrantz is Professor of African and African American Studies and Theater Studies at Duke University. He directs SLIPPAGE:Performance | Culture | Technology, a research group that explores live processing in theatrical contexts.