The Drama of Nommo

The Drama of Nommo
Author: Paul Carter Harrison
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 245
Release: 1972-01-01
Genre: African Americans
ISBN: 9780394177779

Black Theatre

Black Theatre
Author: Paul Carter Harrison
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2002-11-08
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1566399440

Generating a new understanding of the past—as well as a vision for the future—this path-breaking volume contains essays written by playwrights, scholars, and critics that analyze African American theatre as it is practiced today.Even as they acknowledge that Black experience is not monolithic, these contributors argue provocatively and persuasively for a Black consciousness that creates a culturally specific theatre. This theatre, rooted in an African mythos, offers ritual rather than realism; it transcends the specifics of social relations, reaching toward revelation. The ritual performance that is intrinsic to Black theatre renews the community; in Paul Carter Harrison's words, it "reveals the Form of Things Unknown" in a way that "binds, cleanses, and heals."

The Roots of African American Drama

The Roots of African American Drama
Author: James V. Hatch
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 1992-01-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 081433847X

Biographic information and a bibliographyof other plays follow each script, providing readers with added sources for study.

Black Theatre

Black Theatre
Author: Paul Carter Harrison
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2002-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781439901151

An insider's view of Black theatres of the world and how they reflect their culture, concerns, and history.

The Facts on File Companion to American Drama

The Facts on File Companion to American Drama
Author: Jackson R. Bryer
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
Total Pages: 657
Release: 2010
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1438129661

Features a comprehensive guide to American dramatic literature, from its origins in the early days of the nation to the groundbreaking works of today's best writers.

The American Theatre Reader

The American Theatre Reader
Author: Edited By the American Theatre Magazine
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 618
Release: 2010-06-29
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1458778452

In celebration of American Theatre 's twenty-fifth anniversary, the editors of the nation's leading theater magazine have chosen their best essays and interviews to provide an intimate look at the people, plays, and events that have shaped the American theater over the past quarter-century. Over two hundred artists, critics, and theater professionals are gathered in this one-of-a-kind collection, from the visionaries who conceived of a diverse and thriving national theater community, to the practitioners who have made that dream a reality. The American Theatre Reader captures their wide-ranging stories in a single compelling volume, essential reading for theater professionals and theatergoers alike.Partial contents include:Interviews with Edward Albee, Anne Bogart, Peter Brook, Lorraine Hansbury, Lillian Hellman, Jonathan Larson, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Joseph Papp, Will Power, Bartlett Scher, Sam Shepard, Tom Stoppard, Luis Valdez, Paula Vogel, August Wilson, and others.Essays by Eric Bentley, Eric Bogosian, Robert Brustein, Christopher Durang, Oskar Eustis, Zelda Fichandler, Eva La Gallienne, Vaclav Havel, Danny Hoch, Tina Howe, David Henry Hwang, Naomi Iizuki, Adrienne Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Kristin Linklater, Todd London, Robert MacNeil, Des McAnuff, Conor McPherson, Marsha Norman, Suzan-Lori Parks, Hal Prince, Phylicia Rashad, Frank Rich, JosÉ Rivera, Alan Schneider, Marian Seldes, Wallace Shawn, Anna Deavere Smith, Molly Smith, Diana Son, Wole Soyinka, and many others.

Career Paths of African American Directors

Career Paths of African American Directors
Author: Saundra McClain
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2024-06-03
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1040028055

Career Paths of African American Directors is a collection of in-depth conversations with African American directors. These conversations provide an insightful overview of the interviewees’ work and artistic vision and explore their personal influences, aesthetic philosophies, directorial styles, and some of the creative successes they achieved while navigating the obstacles, challenges, and biases encountered while establishing their careers in American theatre. The directors are presented with similar core questions as well as pertinent questions related to their own aesthetics, philosophy, and career. Often, these selected directors’ productions are grounded in a non-European aesthetic and philosophy, and their directorial styles are refracted through the prisms of ethnicity, gender, race, and culture, thus bringing a fresh approach to their work and the art of directing. Career Paths of African American Directors will be of interest to actors, early career and established directors, and students of Acting, Directing, and Theatre Studies.

Exceptional Spaces

Exceptional Spaces
Author: Della Pollock
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2018-06-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1469644169

Taking interdisciplinary and diverse approaches, these thirteen essays explore the multifaceted relationship between performance and history. By considering performance as both a useful frame for understanding historical practices and a mode of historical production itself--performance in history and performance as history--the contributors chart new directions in such fields as cultural studies, contemporary historiography, museum studies, and life narrative research. Geographically and chronologically, the collection's sweep is broad--ranging from the nineteenth century to the present, from Victorian theater to commissions of inquiry in Kenya, from dissent in post-Soviet Lithuania to plantation tours in the American South. Together, the essays make up a work that is truly interdisciplinary in breadth and focus. By combining the methodologies of history and performance studies, the contributors illuminate the structure and function of cultural production in all its forms. The contributors are Michael S. Bowman, Ruth Laurion Bowman, Elizabeth Gray Buck, Kay Ellen Capo, David William Cohen, Tracy Davis, Kirk W. Fuoss, Shannon Jackson, D. Soyini Madison, Carol Mavor, E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, Della Pollock, Jeffrey H. Richards, and Joseph R. Roach.

Myth Performance in the African Diasporas

Myth Performance in the African Diasporas
Author: Benita Brown
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2013-12-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0810892804

Diaspora studies continue to expand in range and scope and remain fertile terrain for investigating multiple techniques of myth creation in dance performance, history as performance, dramatic narrative, and staged rituals in the field. Similarly, research in postcoloniality, gender/sexuality, intercultural, and literary studies, among others, all engage and feature core components of performance and myth in articulating and understanding their fields. This sharing of similar components also demonstrates the interrelatedness of these fields. In Myth Performance in the African Diasporas: Ritual, Theatre, and Dance, the authors contend that performance traditions across artistic disciplines reveal a shared—if sometimes varied—journey among diasporic artists to reconnect with their African ancestors. The volume begins with a historical and aesthetic overview of how dramatists, choreographers, and performance artists have approached the task of interpreting African myth. The individual chapters reveal how specific artists, dramatists, and choreographers have interpreted African myth and what performative approaches and traditions they have used. Focusing on theatre practitioners from the nineteenth century through the present, the authors examine performative traditions from Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Drawing upon research in theatre, dance, and literary texts, Myth Performance in the African Diasporas will be crucial to academics interested in African performance viewed through the prism of myth making and spiritual/ritualistic stagings. Besides those interested in diasporic studies, this book will also be useful to scholars and students of history, drama, theatre, and dance.

Heroism in the New Black Poetry

Heroism in the New Black Poetry
Author: D.H. Melhem
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813189888

D.H. Melhem's clear introductions and frank interviews provide insight into the contemporary social and political consciousness of six acclaimed poets: Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jayne Cortez, Haki R. Madhubuti, Dudley Randall, and Sonia Sanchez. Since the 1960s, the poet hero has characterized a significant segment of Black American poetry. The six poets interviewed here have participated in and shaped the vanguard of this movement. Their poetry reflects the critical alternatives of African American life—separatism and integration, feminism and sexual identity, religion and spirituality, humanism and Marxism, nationalism and internationalism. They unite in their commitment to Black solidarity and advancement.