African-American Performance and Theatre History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two respected scholars in black theater and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field (Joseph Roach and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. among other), this volume is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance past and present interact and enact continuous social, cultural, and political dialogues. The premise behind the book is that analyzing...

African American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner, and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field, this anthology is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance interact and enact continual social, cultural, and political dialogues.

Ranging from a discussion of dramatic performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin...

The performances of Luis Valdez's El Teatro Campesino, the farmworkers' theater, and Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones's) Black Revolutionary Theater (BRT) during the 1960s and 1970s, offer preeminent examples of social protest theater during a momentous and tumultuous historical juncture. The performances of these groups linked the political, the cultural, and the spiritual, while agitating against the dominant power structure and for the transformation of social and theatrical practices in the U.S. Founded during the Delano Grape Pickers' Strike and Black Power rebellions of the mid-1960s, both...