Description
Book SynopsisThis is a critical biography examining the life and work of Ernie McClintock, the founder of the Jazz Acting Method and 1997 recipient of the Living Legend Award from the National Black Theatre Festival, whose inclusive contributions to acting and actor training have largely remained on the fringes of scholarship and practice.
Trade Review"In Ernie McClintock and the Jazz Actors Family: Reviving the Legacy Cizmar excavates the practices of Black Arts Movement activist and acting teacher Ernie McClintock’s ground breaking acting techniques which de-centered Stanislavski based approaches to actor training to combine African and African American experiential aesthetics with voice work centered in jazz music, yoga, karate, and African movement. Cizmar deftly explores McClintock’s "common sense" or "jazz acting" methods to illuminate his powerful social justice agenda used in many regional black theatres across the country during the Black Arts Movement and beyond. Cizmar’s beautiful book makes McClintock’s archive feel urgent and resonant in the 21st century as Black theater artists around the world ask for accountability and legibility within the mainstream theater landscape. Cizmar’s descriptive prose and archival research are coupled in a fascinating account of 20th century Black acting methods that challenged the American actor training repertoire. Cizmar’s thoughtful analysis leaves the reader asking how McClintock’s work could be erased from the history of American actor training. The book is a must read for any artist, scholar, or theater enthusiast interested in the early practices of anti-racist theater and the struggles for equity and representation of Black artists in the American theater."
Nicole Hodges Persley, Associate Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies, University of Kansas
"Ernie McClintock may not be well-known to the masses of people, but he was both a larger-than-life pioneer and a living legend of the American and African American theater scene. With Ernie McClintock and the Jazz Actors Family, Dr. Elizabeth Cizmar has given us an awe-inspiring exploration not only of his life and work, but of the community Mr. McClintock built, bricks in bare hands, across generations, which would include a young Tupac Shakur. This hugely engaging book is a necessary addition to our understanding not just of theater and the arts, but of America itself during the course of Ernie McClintock’s life."
Kevin Powell, author of Grocery Shopping with My Mother: Poems
Table of Contents1. Afrocentric Roots in Chicago’s Blackbelt (1937-1964) 2. Shaking Up Harlem (1965-1972) 3. Canonizing the Contemporary Black Classics (1973-1981) 4. Quaring the Black Theatre Movement (1981-1986) 5. Rebel in Richmond (1987-1993) 6. The Persistence of a Living Legend (1994-1997) 7. To See Another Day (1998-2003)
