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Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation (Performance and American Cultures)
by Julius B. Fleming Jr.Honorable Mention, 2024 Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies (New York University)2024 College Language Association Book Award Winner2023 Hooks National Book Award Winner (Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change)Honorable Mention, Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present 2023 Book PrizeHonorable Mention, 2023 John W. Frick Book Award (American Theatre and Drama Society)Finalist, 2022 George Freedley Memorial Award of the Theatre Library Association.Finalist, Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History (ASTR)Finalist, ATHE Outstanding Book AwardA bold rethinking of the Civil Rights Movement through the lens of Black theater“Freedom, Now!” This rallying cry became the most iconic phrase of the Civil Rights Movement, challenging the persistent command that Black people wait—in the holds of slave ships and on auction blocks, in segregated bus stops and schoolyards—for their long-deferred liberation. In Black Patience, Julius B. Fleming Jr. argues that, during the Civil Rights Movement, Black artists and activists used theater to energize this radical refusal to wait. Participating in a vibrant culture of embodied political performance that ranged from marches and sit-ins to jail-ins and speeches, these artists turned to theater to unsettle a violent racial project that Fleming refers to as “Black patience.” Inviting the likes of James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Douglas Turner Ward, Duke Ellington, and Oscar Brown Jr. to the stage, Black Patience illuminates how Black artists and activists of the Civil Rights era used theater to expose, critique, and repurpose structures of white supremacy. In this bold rethinking of the Civil Rights Movement, Fleming contends that Black theatrical performance was a vital technology of civil rights activism, and a crucial site of Black artistic and cultural production.
Black Playwrights and Heightened Text: When Shakespeare Ain’t Enuf
by null Jacqueline SpringfieldBlack Playwrights and Heightened Text: When Shakespeare Ain’t Enuf breaks down the misconception that heightened text sits only within a white tradition and brings the work of Black playwrights from across history to the forefront by highlighting the use of heightened dramatic text in their work.Interrogating the use of linguistic techniques often seen in heightened text, such as: enjambment, assonance, and consonance, author Jacqueline Springfield looks at the ways in which these techniques allow the text itself to have a kind of permanence in audiences’ minds and works to reinforce a character’s objective within the play. The book presents examples of works from a plethora of Black playwrights, including Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson, Katori Hall, Marcus Gardley, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and many more, as well as providing the context in which they’re writing. Theatre artists who read, teach, direct and perform the work of Black playwrights answer key questions in their own words in interviews with the author. Interviewees include Dominique Morisseau, Ron OJ Parson, Mfoniso Udofia, Zora Howard and many other theatre practitioners. Taking a chronological approach, the book examines the history of heightened text in the works of Black playwrights and re-defines the ways in which theatre students and scholars can understand the techniques of heightened texts outside of a purely Eurocentric and white perspective.Ideal for students of theatre history, acting, playwriting, and text analysis, as well as researchers of African American theatre.
Black Poetic Inquiry: A Daily Writing Project on Race, Culture, and Life (International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) Foundations and Futures in Qualitative Inquiry)
by Bryant Keith Alexander Mary E. WeemsThe poems in this project were written within a 24‑hour period of each other and are presented in order of their appearance for the month of January 2024.Written as a call and response to each other, the poems are at times direct responses in content and form, or a mediation on what the offering triggered in the other. Using poetry writing as a methodological engagement with the reflective and reflexive attributes of autoethnography, this project offers an examination of lived experience and will provide a critical expansion of poetic inquiry. An example of "collaborative spirit‑writing," this text uses a dialogical exchange of responsiveness, excavating the lived experiences of the two authors (a Black man and a Black woman) with complex intersectional identities. Using poetic writing as both form and function, this book provides a performance of remembrance and resistance.Students and researchers working with qualitative inquiry and in areas from performative writing to Critical Race Studies will find this book a useful addition to their research. Teachers will also find this book facilitates pedagogies of engagement.
Black Protagonists of Early Modern Spain: Three Key Plays in Translation
by Michael KiddRemarkable products of a nation deeply implicated in the Atlantic slave trade, the seventeenth-century Spanish plays Juan Latino, The Brave Black Soldier, and Virtues Overcome Appearances appear together in English for the first time in this volume. The three protagonists not only defy the period&’s color-based prejudices but smash through its ultimate social barrier: marriage into the white nobility. Michael Kidd&’s fluid translations and extensive critical introduction, bibliography, and glossary are enhanced by Hackett&’s title support webpage. Black Protagonists of Early Modern Spain is essential reading for students of theater history, Spanish literature, and the African diaspora.
Black Queer Dance: Gay Men and the Politics of Passing for Almost Straight (ISSN)
by Mark BroomfieldThis book is a groundbreaking exploration of black masculinity and sexual passing in American contemporary dance.Based on ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, the book features keen observations and in-depth interviews with acclaimed dancer-choreographers Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden Co-Artistic Directors of Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Ronald K. Brown, Artistic Director of Evidence. Black Queer Dance examines one of the most visible crucibles for masculinity—the male dancer—and illuminates the contradictory and conditional acceptance of black gay men’s contributions to American modern dance. The book questions the politics of "coming out" and situates a new framework of "doing out" for understanding marginalized black LGBTQ people in the 20th and 21st century. Narratives of black queer male dancers’ performance of identity reveals the challenges posed navigating strategic gender performances in a purportedly post-gay and post-race American culture. Broomfield demonstrates how the experiences of black queer, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary men expose the illusions of all masculine gender performances. Drawing on masculinity studies, dance studies, critical race and performance theory, and queer studies Black Queer Dance implicates the author’s embodied history, autoethnography, memoir and poetry that shines light on how black queer men offer an expansive vision of masculinity.This book will be a vital read for graduate and undergraduate students within dance and performance studies.
Black Sheep: The Authorised Biography of Nicol Williamson
by Gabriel HershmanOnce hailed by John Osborne as ‘the greatest actor since Brando’, latterly known as a ruined genius whose unpredictable, hellraising behaviour was legendary, Nicol Williamson always went his own way. Openly dismissive of ‘technical’ actors, or others who played The Bard as if ‘their finger was up their arse’, Williamson tore up the rule book to deliver a fast-talking canon of Shakespearean heroes, with portrayals marked by gut-wrenching passion. According to one co-star, Williamson was like a tornado on stage – ‘he felt he was paddling for his life’. Fiercely uncompromising, choosy about the roles he accepted, contemptuous of the ‘suits’ who made money from artists, and a perfectionist who never accepted second best from himself or others, Nicol sometimes alienated those around him. But even his detractors still acknowledge his brilliance. After an extraordinary career on both stage and screen, Williamson was burnt out as an actor by the age of 60. Yet, as Gabriel Hershman explains in this authorised biography, a premature end was perhaps inevitable for an actor who always went the extra mile in every performance.
Black South African Women: An Anthology of Plays
by Kathy A. PerkinsThis is the first anthology to focus exclusively on the lives of Black South African women. This collection represents the work of both female and male writers, including national and international award-winning playwrights. The collection includes six full-length and four one-act plays, as well as interviews with the writers, who candidly discuss the theatrical and political situation in the new South Africa. Written before and after apartheid, the plays present varying approaches and theatrical styles from solo performances to collective creations. The plays dramatise issues as diverse as: * women's rights * displacement from home * violence against women * the struggle to keep families together * racial identity * education in the old and new South Africa * and health care.
Black Theatre in Britain
by TompsettFirst Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Black Theatre USA: Plays by African Americans from 1847 to Today
by James V. Hatch Ted ShineThe plays in this book represent authentic voices that address the complexities of African American life in the United States, from chattel slavery of pre-Emancipation days to the economic slavery of the Depression and beyond. Alongside these works stand the few that made it to the professional stage, but are nevertheless rooted in the rich soil of Black life and thought from the first decades of this century. Most of the volume is organized chronologically up to the Great Depression of the 1930s, with each section pursuing a theme and opening with an enlightening discussion of the period and the plays. In this volume, the plays represent only a small portion of the great body of Black dramatic literature. Each is a microcosm of reflections, perspectives, and ideas growing out of Black life and culture, and each represents hundreds of other equally challenging works.
Black with 'Equal'
by Vikram KapadiaA play which offers a sharp analysis of the seedy, selfish, and mean aspects of middle-class society in urban India.
Black Women Centre Stage: Diasporic Solidarity in Contemporary Black British Theatre (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Paola Prieto LópezThis book examines the political alliances that are built across the diaspora in contemporary plays written by Black women playwrights in the UK. Through the concept of creative diasporic solidarity, it offers an innovative theoretical approach to examine the ways in which the playwrights respond creatively to the violence and marginalisation of Black communities, especially Black women. This study demonstrates that theatre can act as a productive space for the ethical encounter with the Other (understood in terms of alterity, as someone different from the self) by examining the possibilities of these plays to activate the spectators’ responsibility and solidarity towards different types of violence experienced by Black women, offering alternative modes of relationality. The book engages with a range of contemporary works written by Black women playwrights in the UK, including Mojisola Adebayo, Theresa Ikoko, Diana Nneka Atuona, Gloria Williams, Charlene James, or Yusra Warsama, bringing to the fore a gendered and intersectional approach to the analysis of the texts. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in contemporary theatre, gender studies and diaspora studies.
Black Women Playwrights: Visions on the American Stage (Studies in Modern Drama #Vol. 11)
by Carol P. Marsh-LockettFirst published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Blackout: The Concordia Computer Riots
by Tamara Brown Kym Dominique-Ferguson Lydie Dubuisson Mathieu Murphy-PerronIn February 1969, hundreds of students occupied a computer centre at what is now Montréal’s Concordia University to protest the mismanagement of a racism complaint lodged by Caribbean students against their biology professor. When an agreement to end the occupation fell through, riot police were called in, resulting in widespread damage, a mysterious fire, and nearly a hundred arrests. Created and devised by some of Montréal’s most prolific artists, Blackout re-examines the events that led to the occupation and protests, asking how race relations have changed in Québec and Canada.
Blackout
by Gary LennonDrama / 4m, 5f / Blackout takes place on Christmas Eve at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. A diverse group has gathered to share their stories of hope and madness. They crave strength, integrity, and friendship as they struggle to make sense of their lives after years of drinking, drugging, and excess. A unique sense of family, love, and home prevails. Richard Lewis, Dianne Wiest, Faye Dunaway, Spalding Gray, and Howard Rollins, Jr. star in the movie version which is titled Drunks.
Blackout
by Anthony Whyte Jerry LamotheIt's August, 2003. All of the Northeast is sweltering, but no place is hotter than Brooklyn, especially the gritty neighborhood known as East Flatbush. Then, in the midst of the heat wave, the unthinkable happens: the power goes out. And stays out. And the longer it's out, the edgier people get, until finally, edginess gives way to anger. For 48 hours, the community is in chaos. Looters are everywhere. No one is safe. Violence erupts suddenly, randomly, scarring the innocents as well as the agitators, until Flatbush finally explodes into deadly conflict. Based on actual events that occurred during the Northeast Blackout of August 14-15, 2003, this riveting novel tells the little-known story of a neighborhood thrown not only into darkness, but utter mayhem. Illustrated throughout with scenes from the film, Blackout is a heart-stopping, page-turning drama that keeps readers unable to put it down.
The Blacks: A Clown Show (Genet, Jean Ser.)
by Jean GenetGenet has strong claims to be considered the greatest living playwright. His plays constitute a body of work unmatched for poetic and theatrical power which reaches, in at least two of the plays The Balcony and The Blacks a pitch of inspiration and mastery.” Jack Kroll, Newsweek In form, it flows as freely as an improvisation, with fantasy, allegory and intimations of reality mingled into a weird, stirring unity. . . . Genet’s investigation of the color black begins where most plays of this burning theme leave off. . . . This vastly gifted Frenchman uses shocking words and images to cry out at the pretensions and injustices of our world. . . . One of the most original and stimulating evenings Broadway or Off Broadway has to offer.” Howard Taubman, The New York Times
Blacktino Queer Performance
by E. Patrick Johnson Ramón H. Rivera-ServeraStaging an important new conversation between performers and critics, Blacktino Queer Performance approaches the interrelations of blackness and Latinidad through a stimulating mix of theory and art. The collection contains nine performance scripts by established and emerging black and Latina/o queer playwrights and performance artists, each accompanied by an interview and critical essay conducted or written by leading scholars of black, Latina/o, and queer expressive practices. As the volume's framing device, "blacktino" grounds the specificities of black and brown social and political relations while allowing the contributors to maintain the goals of queer-of-color critique. Whether interrogating constructions of Latino masculinity, theorizing the black queer male experience, or examining black lesbian relationships, the contributors present blacktino queer performance as an artistic, critical, political, and collaborative practice. These scripts, interviews, and essays not only accentuate the value of blacktino as a reading device; they radiate the possibilities for thinking through the concepts of blacktino, queer, and performance across several disciplines. Blacktino Queer Performance reveals the inevitable flirtations, frictions, and seductions that mark the contours of any ethnoracial love affair. Contributors. Jossiana Arroyo-Martinez, Marlon M. Bailey, Pamela Booker, Sharon Bridgforth, Jennifer Devere Brody, Bernadette Marie Calafell, Javier Cardona, E. Patrick Johnson, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, John Keene, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, D. Soyini Madison, Jeffrey McCune, Andreea Micu, Charles I. Nero, Tavia Nyong'o, Paul Outlaw, Coya Paz, Sandra L. Richards, Charles Rice-González, Matt Richardson, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Celiany Rivera-Velázquez, Tamara Roberts, Lisa B. Thompson, Beliza Torres Narváez, Patricia Ybarra, Vershawn Ashanti Young
Blake’s Drama
by Diane PiccittoBlake's Drama challenges conventional views of William Blake's multimedia work by reinterpreting it as theatrical performance. Viewed in its dramatic contexts, this art form is shown to provoke an active spectatorship and to depict identity as paradoxically essential and constructed, revealing Blake's investments in drama, action, and the body.
Bleeding Kansas
by Kathryn WalatHistorical DramaCharacters: 3 male, 2 femaleIt's 1855, Kansas Territory. The country is divided. People are turning against their neighbors because of their beliefs. War is on the horizon. Good people will do bad things and love will grow in places it shouldn't. A provocative, funny and insightful play revisits a crucial moment in American history. Homesteading farmers George and Kitty fight the elements to start a new life as a politically divided country takes a dangerous step towards civil war."To Walat's credit, her fast-moving play does not preach, merely raises questions, among them: Who are we as a nation? What shaped us and why? And does what we were-violent, intractable and destructive-play into our present-day society?...Bleeding Kansas is an excellent work" -San Diego News
Blissful State of Surrender
by Sanita FejzićIn their suburban Canadian home, Sue and Emir's marriage is a battlefield of bitterness and constant bickering. Their past as Muslims living in Sarajevo haunts them, with flourishing careers lost to war and genocide. But, proud of their life in Canada, they choose to leave these painful memories behind them. When a birthday celebration brings their three daughters home again after eight years, bombshell after revealing bombshell is dropped, and an epic clash of wills erupts, awakening the family's darkest secrets.Blissful State of Surrender is a poignant dramatic comedy that delves into the lives of a Bosnian Canadian family grappling with trauma, social-class limbo, and intergenerational differences, challenging Canada's self-image as a haven for refugees and revealing how internalized oppression breeds lateral violence. For immigrants fleeing the horrors of genocide, even the act of remembering can be dangerous, yet the cycle of violence can only be broken when the truth is finally set free.
Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Private Lives: Three Plays
by Noël CowardA collection of Cowards' most memorable work. These plays, Blithe Spirit, Private lives and Hay Fever, bring out stories of a novelist, a divorced couple and of a person who visits an eccentric family respectively.
Blonde and Other Distractions
by David PatersonA great collection of shorts by Paterson, these award winning one-acts are perfect for scene studies, two person auditions, secen nights and showcases, providing a wide variety of characters bith humorous and thought provoking. A kid-napping gone awry, two distant brothers try to reconnect, a pair of lovers face a daunting family holiday, a smarmy stockholder tries to charm his way into heaven, a friend is forced to bury a friend, and siblings seeking an amicable divorce completes this theatrical compilation.
Blood: A Scientific Romance
by Meg BraemTwin sisters Poubelle and Angelique are bonded in both biology and shared tragedy after a car accident leaves them orphaned along a prairie highway in a pool of blood. But the young twins are brought home with Dr. Glass after their remarkable recovery, and quickly find themselves the subject of endless experiments. In a quest to study Poubelle and Angelique's undeniable bond, Dr. Glass's questionable practices are soon scrutinized by a young doctor who might be the twins' only hope for a normal life. Blood: A Scientific Romance probes the questions: Do relationships take on new meaning when they begin to shape not only our experiences, but our biology? And do we, in fact, complete one another?
Blood and Gifts: A Play
by J. T. RogersMy God, Russian soldiers being shot with Chinese bullets. Sometimes the world is so beautiful.It's 1981. As the Soviet army burns its way through Afghanistan, CIA operative Jim Warnock is sent to try to halt its bloody progress, beginning a secret spy war behind the official hostilities. Jim and his counterparts in the KGB and the British and Pakistani secret services wrestle with ever-shifting personal and political loyalties. With the outcome of the entire Cold War at stake, Jim and a larger-than-life Afghan warlord decide to place their trust in each other.Spanning a decade and playing out in Washington, D.C., Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Blood and Gifts is a sweeping, often shockingly funny epic set against one of the greatest historical events of recent history, the repercussions of which continue to shape our world.
Blood and Laughter: Plays
by Manjula PadmanabhanA neighbourhood that turns a blind eye to a recurring gruesome crime. A game show that puts the lives of its contestants on the line. An insidious tableau that pits three artists against each other. A world where organs of the poor are commercially harvested for the rich. Collected Plays brings together, in a much-anticipated series, the dramatic works of Onassis Prize-winning playwright and author Manjula Padmanabhan.Blood and Laughter, the first volume, presents within its covers Padmanabhan’s full-length plays – including the three-times cinematized Lights Out, the previously unpublished Mating Game Show and Artist’s Model, and the award-winning Harvest – all known for their masterful portrayal of the dilemmas of morality, relationships and the idea of justice. Horror, anticipation and chilling realism mark each of these works, drawing readers and audiences alike to the edge of their seats.With new introductions to the works that affirm the relevance of the themes of the plays, this collection showcases the playwright’s mastery of her art and reconfirms her standing among the leading dramatists of our time.