A history of African American theatre

This is the first definitive history of African-American theatre. The text embraces a wide geography investigating companies from coast to coast as well as the anglophone Caribbean and African-American companies touring Europe, Australia, and Africa. This history represents a catholicity of styles - from African ritual born out of slavery to European forms, from amateur to professional. It covers nearly two and a half centuries of black performance and production with issues of gender, class, and race ever in attendance. The volume encompasses aspects of performance such as minstrel, vaudeville, cabaret acts, musicals and opera. Shows by white playwrights that used black casts, particularly in music and dance, are included, as are productions of western classics and a host of Shakespeare plays. The breadth and vitality of black theatre history, from the individual performance to large-scale company productions, from political nationalism to integration, is conveyed in this volume.

• List of illustrations p. ix
• Foreword p. xii Lloyd G. Richards
• Preface p. xiv
• Acknowledgments p. xviii
• List of abbreviations p. xxii
• Introduction p. 1
• 1 Slavery and conquest: background to black theatre p. 11
• 2 The African theatre to Uncle Tom's Cabin p. 24
• 3 The Civil War to The Creole Show p. 61
• 4 American minstrelsy in black and white p. 93
• 5 New vistas: plays, spectacles, musicals, and opera p. 135
• 6 The struggle continues p. 186
• 7 The Harlem Renaissance p. 214
• 8 Educational theatre p. 255
• 9 The Caribbean connection p. 273
• 10 The Great Depression and federal theatre p. 307
• 11 Creeping toward integration p. 335
• 12 From Hansberry to Shange p. 375
• 13 The millennium p. 430
• Appendix Theatre scholarship 2002 p. 482
• Notes p. 488
• Bibliography p. 547
• Index p. 565