Description
Book SynopsisArguing that the community in which a play is staged is as important to the work’s meaning as the script or set, Macelle Mahala focuses on four cities’ ‘arts ecologies’ to shed new light on the unique relationship between performance and place.
Trade Review“Mahala’s book moves beyond the microcosm of production history to the macrocosm of community, theater history, and American history. It is an informative contribution to historical scholarship on African American theater, and thus American theater.” —Sandra M. Mayo, coauthor of
Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas“In this smart, important, and necessary history of Black theater companies in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Oakland and San Francisco, and Atlanta, Macelle Mahala spotlights artists—including Langston Hughes, Nora Vaughn, Kenny Leon—whose ingenuity and commitment to telling the stories of Black folk transformed American theater over the past hundred years. Mahala, a gifted chronicler of American urban history, offers an absorbing and richly researched study of the communities and cities that have nurtured Black excellence.” —Harvey Young, coauthor of
Black Theater is Black Life: An Oral History of Chicago Theater and Dance, 1970-2010 (Northwestern, 2014)
Table of Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Karamu: A Hundred Years of Joyful Gathering in Cleveland
- 2. The Legacy of August Wilson: Black Theatre in Pittsburgh
- 3. Displacement and Resilience: Bay Area Black Theatres
- 4. In the Mecca: Atlanta Based Black Theatre Production
- 5. Finding Joy, Creating Justice
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
