About the Book:
A Sourcebook on
African-American Performance:
Plays,
People, Movements is the first volume to consider
African-American performance between and beyond the Black Arts
Movement of the 1960s and the New Black Renaissance of the 1990s.
As with all titles in the Worlds of Performance series, A
Sourcebook on African-American Performance consists
of classic texts as well as newly commissioned pieces by notable
scholars, writers and performers. It comes complete with a
substantial, historical introduction by Annemarie Bean and includes
the plays:
Sally's Rape by
Robbie McCauley: A
story about slavery that was inspired by her
great-great-grandmother's life on a Georgia plantation. For this her
first play the internationally recognized performance artist and
director received an Obie Award for Best Play. (Cast: 2 women)
The American Play by Suzan-Lori Parks: A powerful
and provocative theatre piece ruminating on black identity, theatre
and American history. What is it like to have your identity as a
black American forever linked to, and displaced by, prominent images
from white history that seem to be about you, but aren't? Is there a
way for the theater to write originally about black experience? The
first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
distills and stages these questions haunted-house style, with
daunting intellectual and emotion results. (Cast: 2 women, 3 men)
Articles, essays,
manifestos and interviews included cover topics such as:
• theatre on the
professional, revolutionary and college stages
• concert dance
• community
activism
• step shows
• performance
art.
Contributors include Annemarie Bean, Ed Bullins, Barbara Lewis,
John O'Neal, Glenda Dickersun, James V. Hatch, Warren Budine Jr. and
Eugene Nesmith.
What people say:
"...an
excellent resource for teachers and researchers." —
Speech & Drama
"This
book is invaluable as an introductory text for students of black
performance." — American
Studies
"It will fill a tremendous
void, and save on all the legwork of tracking down articles. It will
definitely become a part of my courses. I think this will be a
terrific book." — Joni Jones, University of Texas,
Austin
"This collection brings
together significant primary and secondary materials on black theatre
and performance – a valuable and much needed research tool."
— Harry J. Elam, Jr., Stanford University
About the Author:
Annemarie Bean is an
independent scholar living n Vermont. She has taught in the theatre,
American Studies and African American Studies Programs at Williams
College and Wesleyan University. She is also the editor of A
Sourcebook of African-American Performance: Plays, People,
Movements.