A History of African American Theatre

by Errol G. Hill , James V. Hatch

• ISBN13: 9780521624725
• ISBN10: 052162472X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Foreword	xii
Lloyd G. Richards
Preface	xiv
Acknowledgments	xviii
List of abbreviations	xxii
Introduction	1	(10)
Slavery and conquest: background to black theatre	11	(13)
The African theatre to Uncle Tom's Cabin	24	(37)
The Civil War to The Creole Show	61	(32)
American minstrelsy in black and white	93	(42)
New vistas: plays, spectacles, musicals, and opera	135	(51)
The struggle continues	186	(28)
The Harlem Renaissance	214	(41)
Educational theatre	255	(18)
The Caribbean connection	273	(34)
The Great Depression and federal theatre	307	(28)
Creeping toward integration	335	(40)
From Hansberry to Shange	375	(55)
The millennium	430	(52)
Appendix: theatre scholarship 2002	482	(6)
Notes	488	(59)
Bibliography	547	(18)
Index	565