![]() ![]() Young 2012 does much of the same but focuses particularly on black theater through lenses of political and cultural change. Apprehending the various movements and historical developments within the field, Elam and Krasner 2001 takes up black theater across the 20th century with special attention to its performative underpinnings. ![]() Peterson 1998 proves much more exhaustive and comprehensive in providing copious information on the development of black theater across time. Sanders 1988 presents an early effort to theorize the development of black theater more broadly, though it unfortunately omits black women from the discourse. If only for its longer reach and inclusion of more expansive archival material, Hill and Hatch 2003 offers a deeper exploration of the dramatic production of this period. This is characteristic of Hay 1994 and Hill and Hatch 2003, each of which is described by their authors as a first comprehensive history of black theater. So, any attempt to give a comprehensive understanding of 20th-century black theater is sure to be ambitious. The project of producing a history of black theater is fraught with difficulty due to historical underdocumentation of its dramatic production, particularly of the early 20th century. This entry traverses the many contours of 20th-century black theater moving from broader explorations of anthologies and theater histories to close analyses of playwrights and finally to emergent thematic examinations that signal future directions for the study of 20th-century black theater. This dramatic work has contributed greatly to the project of self-authorship and expression that sits at the heart of black literature. Black theater of the 20th century is intrinsically tied to black performance histories of storytelling, improvisation, “signifyin’,” humor, and masking. Wolfe, Adrienne Kennedy, and Suzan-Lori Parks would go on to develop a critical body of work that makes up black theater of the 20th century. Moreover, theater companies artistic and social movements and the work of playwrights such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, August Wilson, George C. near us.” Voices such as Alain Locke and Theophilus Lewis would deepen these conversations with their own perspectives on the purpose of black theater with Locke advocating for a lessened emphasis on social issues and Lewis expressing the need to appeal to working-class black Americans whose support for black theater was unwavering. He states that it should be should be “About us by us. Du Bois, writing in the July 1926 issue of The Crisis, established the governing mantra for the Harlem-based theater company the Krigwa Players and black theater more broadly. In a significant and early articulation of what black theater should be, W.E.B. This period was also concerned with questions central to black theater such as: What should black plays be about? Where should black theaters be located? Who can write a black play? What is a black play? Various theater companies, playwrights, and artistic movements have forged responses to such questions with each deepening the textures of black theater. ![]() A dynamic corpus of literary, dramatic, and expressive art, black theater of the 20th century has been foundational to the development of black theater as it is known today. As a result, black theater has largely been driven by the desire to present depictions of black life that were not overdetermined by the white gaze. Black theater in the 20th century comprises a wide array of dramatic productions by black Americans growing out of the legacies of minstrel-era performance of the 19th century.
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