Blueprints For A Black Federal Theatre

Author : Rena Fraden
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 1996-06-28
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 052156560X

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Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre by Rena Fraden Pdf

In the 1930s, the Work Progress Administration funded a massive Federal Theatre Project in America's major urban centres, presenting hundreds of productions, some of the most popular and memorable of which were produced in the highly controversial and avant garde 'Negro Units'. This experiment in government-supported culture brought to the forefront one of the central problems in American democratic culture - the representation of racial difference. Those in the profession quickly discovered inescapable ideological responsibilities attending any sort of show, whether apparently entertaining or political in nature. Exploring the liberal idealism of the thirties and the critical debates in black journals over the role of an African American theatre, Fraden also looks at the obstacles facing black playwrights, audiences, and actors in a changing milieu.

Author : Rena Fraden
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : African American theater
ISBN : OCLC:1193362465

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Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre, 1935-1939 by Rena Fraden Pdf

Author : Steven C. Tracy
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 538 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2011-11-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780252093425

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Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance by Steven C. Tracy Pdf

Writers of the Black Chicago Renaissance comprehensively explores the contours and content of the Black Chicago Renaissance, a creative movement that emerged from the crucible of rigid segregation in Chicago's "Black Belt" from the 1930s through the 1960s. Heavily influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and the Chicago Renaissance of white writers, its participants were invested in political activism and social change as much as literature, art, and aesthetics. The revolutionary writing of this era produced some of the first great accolades for African American literature and set up much of the important writing that came to fruition in the Black Arts Movement. The volume covers a vast collection of subjects, including many important writers such as Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lorraine Hansberry as well as cultural products such as black newspapers, music, and theater. The book includes individual entries by experts on each subject; a discography and filmography that highlight important writers, musicians, films, and cultural presentations; and an introduction that relates the Harlem Renaissance, the White Chicago Renaissance, the Black Chicago Renaissance, and the Black Arts Movement. Contributors are Robert Butler, Robert H. Cataliotti, Maryemma Graham, James C. Hall, James L. Hill, Michael Hill, Lovalerie King, Lawrence Jackson, Angelene Jamison-Hall, Keith Leonard, Lisbeth Lipari, Bill V. Mullen, Patrick Naick, William R. Nash, Charlene Regester, Kimberly Ruffin, Elizabeth Schultz, Joyce Hope Scott, James Smethurst, Kimberly M. Stanley, Kathryn Waddell Takara, Steven C. Tracy, Zoe Trodd, Alan Wald, Jamal Eric Watson, Donyel Hobbs Williams, Stephen Caldwell Wright, and Richard Yarborough.

Author : Sklaroff
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
Page : 594 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2010-07-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9781458782328

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Black Culture and the New Deal by Sklaroff Pdf

In the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration--unwilling to antagonize a powerful southern congressional bloc--refused to endorse legislation that openly sought to improve political, economic, and social conditions for African Americans. Instead, as historian Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff shows, the administration recognized and celebrated African Americ...

Author : Cecelia Moore
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2017-09-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781498526838

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The Federal Theatre Project in the American South by Cecelia Moore Pdf

The Federal Theatre Project in the American South introduces the people and projects that shaped the regional identity of the Federal Theatre Project. When college theatre director Hallie Flanagan became head of this New Deal era jobs program in 1935, she envisioned a national theatre comprised of a network of theatres across the country. A regional approach was more than organizational; it was a conceptual model for a national art. Flanagan was part of the little theatre movement that had already developed a new American drama drawn from the distinctive heritage of each region and which they believed would, collectively, illustrate a national identity. The Federal Theatre plan relied on a successful regional model – the folk drama program at the University of North Carolina, led by Frederick Koch and Paul Green. Through a unique partnership of public university, private philanthropy and community participation, Koch had developed a successful playwriting program and extension service that built community theatres throughout the state. North Carolina, along with the rest of the Southern region, seemed an unpromising place for government theatre. Racial segregation and conservative politics limited the Federal Theatre’s ability to experiment with new ideas in the region. Yet in North Carolina, the Project thrived. Amateur drama units became vibrant community theatres where whites and African Americans worked together. Project personnel launched The Lost Colony, one of the first so-called outdoor historical dramas that would become its own movement. The Federal Theatre sent unemployed dramatists, including future novelist Betty Smith, to the university to work with Koch and Green. They joined other playwrights, including African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who came to North Carolina because of their own interest in folk drama. Their experience, told in this book, is a backdrop for each successive generation’s debates over government, cultural expression, art and identity in the American nation.

Author : Megan E. Geigner,Stuart J. Hecht,Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
Page : 373 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2021-07-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9780810143838

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Makeshift Chicago Stages by Megan E. Geigner,Stuart J. Hecht,Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud Pdf

Since Chicago’s founding, theater has blossomed in the city’s makeshift spaces, from taverns to parks, living rooms to storefronts. Makeshift Chicago Stages brings together leading historians to share the history of theater and performance in the Second City. The essays collected here theorize a regional theater history and aesthetic that are inherently improvisational, rough-and-tumble, and marginal, reflecting the realities of a hypersegregated city and its neighborhoods. Space and place have contributed to Chicago’s reputation for gritty, ensemble-led work, part of a makeshift ethos that exposes the policies of the city and the transgressive possibilities of performance. This book examines the rise and proliferation of Chicago’s performance spaces, which have rooted the city’s dynamic, thriving theater community. Chapters cover well‐known, groundbreaking, and understudied theatrical sites, ensembles, and artists, including the 1893 Columbian Exposition Midway Plaisance, the 57th Street Artist Colony, the Fine Arts Building, the Goodman Theatre, the Federal Theatre Project, the Kingston Mines and Body Politic Theaters, ImprovOlympics (later iO), Teatro Vista, Theaster Gates, and the Chicago Home Theater Festival. By putting space at the center of the city’s theater history, the authors in Makeshift Chicago Stages spotlight the roles of neighborhoods, racial dynamics, atypical venues, and borders as integral to understanding the work and aesthetics of Chicago’s artists, ensembles, and repertoires, which have influenced theater practices worldwide. Featuring rich archival work and oral histories, this anthology will prove a valuable resource for theater historians, as well as anyone interested in Chicago’s cultural heritage.

Author : Anthony D. Hill
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 755 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2018-11-09
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781538117293

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Historical Dictionary of African American Theater by Anthony D. Hill Pdf

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.

Author : Errol G. Hill,James V. Hatch
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 652 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2003-07-17
Category : Drama
ISBN : 0521624436

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A History of African American Theatre by Errol G. Hill,James V. Hatch Pdf

Table of contents

Author : Anthony D. Hill,Douglas Q. Barnett
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 624 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2009-09-02
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0810870614

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The A to Z of African American Theater by Anthony D. Hill,Douglas Q. Barnett Pdf

African American Theater is a vibrant and unique entity enriched by ancient Egyptian rituals, West African folklore, and European theatrical practices. A continuum of African folk traditions, it combines storytelling, mythology, rituals, music, song, and dance with ancestor worship from ancient times to the present. It afforded black artists a cultural gold mine to celebrate what it was like to be an African American in The New World. The A to Z of African American Theater celebrates nearly 200 years of black theater in the United States, identifying representative African American theater-producing organizations and chronicling their contributions to the field from its birth in 1816 to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on actors, directors, playwrights, plays, theater producing organizations, themes, locations, and theater movements and awards.

Author : Shannon Steen
Publisher : Springer
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-30
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780230297401

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Racial Geometries of the Black Atlantic, Asian Pacific and American Theatre by Shannon Steen Pdf

An exciting new work on how black and Asian racial structures were woven together within US theatrical practices in the run up to the Second World War, Steen uses this history to model how we might use performance histories to more carefully assess how racial formation occurs on the boundaries between racial groups in an international context.

Author : Etsuko Taketani
Publisher : Dartmouth College Press
Page : 398 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2014-11-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781611686142

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The Black Pacific Narrative by Etsuko Taketani Pdf

The Black Pacific Narrative: Geographic Imaginings of Race and Empire between the World Wars chronicles the profound shift in geographic imaginings that occurred in African American culture as the United States evolved into a bioceanic global power. The author examines the narrative of the Òblack PacificÓ_the literary and cultural production of African American narratives in the face of AmericaÕs efforts to internationalize the Pacific and to institute a ÒPacific Community,Ó reflecting a vision of a hemispheric regional order initiated and led by the United States. The black Pacific was imagined in counterpoint to this regional order in the making, which would ultimately be challenged by the Pacific War. The principal subjects of study include such literary and cultural figures as James Weldon Johnson, George S. Schuyler, artists of the black Federal Theatre Project, Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Walter White, all of whom afford significant points of entry to a critical understanding of the stakes of the black Pacific narrative. Adopting an approach that mixes the archival and the interpretive, the author seeks to recover the black Pacific produced by African American narratives, narratives that were significant enough in their time to warrant surveillance and suspicion, and hence are significant enough in our time to warrant scholarly attention and reappraisal. A compelling study that will appeal to a broad, international audience of students and scholars of American studies, African American studies, American literature, and imperialism and colonialism.

Author : Eve Dunbar,Ayesha K. Hardison
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2022-04-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781108472555

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African American Literature in Transition, 1930-1940: Volume 10 by Eve Dunbar,Ayesha K. Hardison Pdf

This book illustrates African American writers' cultural production and political engagement despite the economic precarity of the 1930s.

Author : Harry Justin Elam,David Krasner
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0195127250

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African-American Performance and Theater History by Harry Justin Elam,David Krasner Pdf

An anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America.

Author : Harvey Young
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2012-10-25
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9781107495791

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The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre by Harvey Young Pdf

This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of African American theatre, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Along the way, it chronicles the evolution of African American theatre and its engagement with the wider community, 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. Leading scholars spotlight the producers, directors, playwrights and actors whose efforts helped to fashion a more accurate appearance of black life on stage, and reveal the impact of African American theatre both within the United States and further afield. Chapters also address recent theatre productions in the context of political and cultural change and ask where African American theatre is heading in the twenty-first century.

Author : Anne Meis Knupfer
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2023-02-13
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780252054846

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The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women's Activism by Anne Meis Knupfer Pdf

Following on the heels of the Harlem Renaissance, the Chicago Renaissance was a resonant flourishing of African American arts, literature, theater, music, and intellectualism, from 1930 to 1955. Anne Meis Knupfer's The Chicago Black Renaissance and Women's Activism demonstrates the complexity of black women's many vital contributions to this unique cultural flowering. The book examines various groups of black female activists, including writers and actresses, social workers, artists, school teachers, and women's club members to document the impact of social class, gender, nativity, educational attainment, and professional affiliations on their activism. Together, these women worked to sponsor black history and literature, to protest overcrowded schools, and to act as a force for improved South Side housing and employment opportunities. Knupfer also reveals the crucial role these women played in founding and sustaining black cultural institutions, such as the first African American art museum in the country; the first African American library in Chicago; and various African American literary journals and newspapers. As a point of contrast, Knupfer also examines the overlooked activism of working-class and poor women in the Ida B. Wells and Altgeld Gardens housing projects.