Macelle Mahala’s rich study of contemporary African American theater institutions reveals how they reflect and shape the histories and cultural realities of their cities. Arguing that the community in which a play is staged is as important to the work’s meaning as the script or set, Mahala focuses on four cities’ “arts ecologies” to shed new light on the unique relationship between performance and place: Cleveland, home to the oldest continuously operating Black theater in the country; Pittsburgh, birthplace of the legendary playwright August Wilson; San Francisco, a metropolis currently experiencing displacement of its Black population; and Atlanta, a city with forty years of progressive Black leadership and reverse migration. Black Theater, City Life looks at Karamu House Theatre, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh Playwrights’ Theatre Company, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the African American Shakespeare Company, the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company to demonstrate how each organization articulates the cultural specificities, sociopolitical realities, and histories of African Americans. These companies have faced challenges that mirror the larger racial and economic disparities in arts funding and social practice in America, while their achievements exemplify such institutions’ vital role in enacting an artistic practice that reflects the cultural backgrounds of their local communities. Timely, significant, and deeply researched, this book spotlights the artistic and civic import of Black theaters in American cities.

A series of interviews with prominet producers, directors, choreographers, designers, dancers, and actors who tell the history of African American culture in Chicago.

Richard Wesley was witness to a revolution. As both a celebrated participant and eager student of the Black Theater Movement in the late 1960s, he became part of a seismic force in American culture, breaking down barriers and helping to disrupt the cultural landscape. It’s Always Loud in the Balcony: A Life in Black Theater, from Harlem to Hollywood and Back is both history and memoir, tracing Wesley’s roots from riot-torn Newark, New Jersey, across the rocky terrain of Harlem, and finally to Hollywood, where he became partners with Sidney Poitier, writing several successful films before returning to New York and the theater world—a trip that Wesley has wryly characterized as "black power to black establishment." Wesley unfolds the history of black theater with love and precision, from the emergence of Amiri Baraka, and his own debut, the fiercely militant Black Terror—which landed him a deal with the legendary producer Joseph Papp—through his moviemaking experience in Los Angeles, working with Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, among others. Wesley lands on solid ground in the twenty-first century as an elder statesman, a happy witness to the great success of a new breed of black theater that includes the widespread success of Tyler Perry and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, which brought hip-hop to Broadway. It’s Always Loud in the Balcony is the passionate, firsthand account of a crucial American art movement whose effects will be felt for generations to come.

Generating a new understanding of the past—as well as a vision for the future—this path-breaking volume contains essays written by playwrights, scholars, and critics that analyze African American theatre as it is practiced today.Even as they acknowledge that Black experience is not monolithic, these contributors argue provocatively and persuasively for a Black consciousness that creates a culturally specific theatre. This theatre, rooted in an African mythos, offers ritual rather than realism; it transcends the specifics of social relations, reaching toward revelation. The ritual performance that is intrinsic to Black theatre renews the community; in Paul Carter Harrison's words, it "reveals the Form of Things Unknown" in a way that "binds, cleanses, and heals."

August Wilson's radical and provocative call to arms.

THE STORY: Earning their bread with satires of white high society, the African Company came to be known for debunking the sacred status of the English classics (which many politically and racially motivated critics said were beyond the scope of bla

- "Lively descriptions... compelling analysis... and careful attention to historical contexts." - Judith Weisenfeld, author of Hollywood Be Thy Name "Methodically and brilliantly probes the nuances... One of the most brilliant and engaging studies on African American theater." - David Krasner, author of A Beautiful Pageant

Written in a clear, accessible, storytelling style, African American Theater will shine a bright new light on the culture which has historically nurtured and inspired Black Theater. Functioning as an interactive guide for students and teachers, African American Theater takes the reader on a journey to discover how social realities impacted the plays dramatists wrote and produced. The journey begins in 1850 when most African people were enslaved in America. Along the way, cultural milestones such as Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Freedom Movement are explored. The journey concludes with a discussion of how the past still plays out in the works of contemporary playwrights like August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks. African American Theater moves unsung heroes like Robert Abbott and Jo Ann Gibson Robinson to the foreground, but does not neglect the race giants. For actors looking for material to perform, the book offers exercises to create new monologues and scenes. Rich with myths, history and first person accounts by ordinary people telling their extraordinary stories, African American Theater will entertain while it educates.

HER PORTMANTEAU is an installment in the Ufot Cycle, Udofia’s sweeping, nine-part saga which chronicles the triumphs and losses of Abasiama Ufot, a Nigerian immigrant, and her family. As Nigerian traditions clash with the realities of American life, Abasiama and her daughters must confront complex familial legacies that span time, geography, language and culture.

Chronicling over forty years of changes in African-American popular culture, the Regal Theatre (1928-1968) was the largest movie-stage-show venue ever constructed for a Black community. Semmes reveals the political, economic and business realities of cultural production and the institutional inequalities that circumscribed Black life.