The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance is an outstanding collection of specially written essays that charts the emergence, development, and diversity of African American Theatre and Performance - from the nineteenth-century African Grove Theatre to Afrofuturism.

Table of Contents

• List of figures
• Notes on editors and contributors
• “Black Art Now” Nambi E. Kelley
• Introduction Renée Alexander Craft, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Kathy A. Perkins, and Sandra L. Richards
• Highlights of African American theatre and performance
• Part I: Seeing ourselves onstage
• Preface Thomas F. DeFrantz
• 1. Dudley, the Smart Set, and the beginning of the Black entertainment industry Nadine George-Graves
• 2. Black theatre history plays: remembering, recovering, re-envisioning Sandra M. Mayo
• 3. “Hung be the heavens with Black” bodies: an analysis of the August 1822 riot at William Brown’s Greenwich Village Theatre Marvin McAllister
• 4. Mulattoes, mistresses, and mammies: the phantom family in Langston Hughes’ Mulatto Alison Walls
• 5. Interview with Woodie King, Jr.: producer and director JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell
• 6. Freedom forward: Alice Childress and Lorraine Hansberry circling Broadway in the 1950s Barbara Lewis
• 7. Navigating respectability in turn-of-the-century New York City: Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage Marta Effinger-Crichlow
• 8. Earle Hyman: Scandinavian successes Baron Kelly
• 9. Pittsburgh piety: A century of symbolism Pedro E. Alvarado
• 10. Interview with Ron Simons: Broadway producer Lisa B. Thompson
• 11. Interview with Paul Tazewell: Costume designer Niiamar Felder
• 12. Race on the opera stage Twila L. Perry
• 13. The Wiz and the African Diaspora musical: Rethinking the research questions in Black musical historiography Sam O’Connell
• 14. Bob Cole’s “Colored Actor’s Declaration of Independence”: The case of The Shoo Fly Regiment and George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along Paula Marie Seniors
• 15. Shuffle Along and ethnic humor: A family story Sandra Seaton
• 16. Interview with Eva Yaa Asantewaa: Dance writer Thomas F. DeFrantz
• 17. Black female sexuality in the drama of Pearl Cleage Beth Turner
• 18. Coming-of-age and rituals of gender nonconformity in Leslie Lee’s The First Breeze of Summer Rhone Fraser
• 19. Pomo Afro Homos: A revolutionary act Tabitha Jamie Mary Chester
• Part II: Institution building: a space of our own
• Preface Kathy A. Perkins
• 20. Being Black on stage and screen: Black actor training before Black Power and the rise of Stanislavski’s system Monica White Ndounou
• 21. Three visionary African American women theatre artists: Anita Bush, Barbara Ann Teer, and Ellen Stewart Sandra Adell
• 22. The birth of Queen Anne: Re-discovering Anne M. Cooke at Spelman College Leslye Joy Allen
• 23. The Howard University Players: From respectability politics to Black representation Denise J. Hart and Kathy A. Perkins
• 24. An African American theatre program for the twenty-first century Nefertiti Burton
• 25. Interview with Karen Allen Baxter: Senior managing director of Rites and Reason Theatre Jasmine Johnson
• 26. The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc.: One moment in time? Susan Watson Turner
• 27. Interview with Shirley Prendergast: Lighting designer Kathy A. Perkins
• 28. Interview with Femi Sarah Heggie: Stage manager Kathy A. Perkins
• 29. Weathering the winds of change: The sustainability of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company Gregory S. Carr
• 30. The National Black Theatre Festival and the “Marvtastic” legacy of Larry Leon Hamlin J.K. Curry
• 31. The Black feminist theatre of Glenda Dickerson Khalid Yaya Long
• 32. Ernie McClintock’s jazz acting: A theatre of common sense Elizabeth M. Cizmar
• 33. Black Acting Methods®: Mapping the movement Sharrell D. Luckett
• 34. Financial fitness of Black theatres: Roundtable of artistic directors K. Zaheerah Sultan
• 35. A reflection on the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff’s The Hip Hop Project: Insight Into the Hip Hop Generation Johnny Jones
• 36. Interview with Ekundayo Bandele: Founder and CEO of Hattiloo Theatre Shondrika Moss-Bouldin
• Part III: Theatre and social change
• Preface Sandra L. Richards
• 37. W.E.B. Du Bois, dramatist Freda Scott Giles
• 38. The Third gift of the Negro: Muslim identity and Du Bois’ Star of Ethiopia Cristal Chanelle Truscott
• 39. Oh, Ma Dear! What’s going on?: Staging Angelina W. Grimke’s Rachel in the wake of Black Lives Matter Nicole Hodges Persley
• 40. Leaning left: Why theatre artists in the 1930s were attracted to the Red movement Kimmika L.H. Williams-Witherspoon
• 41. Fighting fire with fire: Violence and the Black Liberation movement Portia Owusu
• 42. “When we gonna rise”: Free Southern Theater performances of Slave Ship and Black Power in Mississippi Susan Stone-Lawrence
• 43. From “poemplays” to ritualistic revivals: The experimental works of women dramatists of the Black Arts Movement La Donna L. Forsgren
• 44. Interview with Micki Grant: Actor, singer, composer, lyricist Kathy A. Perkins
• 45. Keeping his gloves up: August Wilson and his critics Sandra G. Shannon
• 46. Interview with Edward Everett Haynes, Jr.: Designer Kathy A. Perkins
• 47. Afro-Latinx themes in theatre today Daphnie Sicre
• 48. To be young, performing, and Black: Situating youth in African American theatre and performance history Asantewa Fulani Sunni-Ali
• 49. Interview with Dr. Kariamu Welsh: Professor and choreographer Amoaba Gooden
• 50. Robert O’Hara’s defamiliarizing dramaturgy Isaiah Matthew Wooden
• 51. Black plight in flight Tezeru Teshome
• 52. Creatively censoring African American drama while teaching in the Arab Gulf region Phyllisa Smith Deroze
• 53. Mike Wiley: a multi-faceted artist on a mission for social change Sonny Kelly
• 54. “Locked away but not defeated”: African American women performing resilience Lori D. Barcliff Baptista
• 55. A hundredfold: an experiential archive of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower: The Opera Alexis Pauline Gumbs
• Part IV: Expanding the traditional stage
• Preface Renée Alexander Craft
• 56. Many stories/one body: Black solo performance from vaudeville to spoken word E. Patrick Johnson
• 57. Standing up: Black feminist comedy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries Katelyn Hale Wood
• 58. My name Mudbone: What I learned about playwriting from Richard Pryor Howard L. Craft
• 59. Ntozake Shange and the choreopoem Nicole M. Morris Johnson
• 60. Interview with Donna Walker-Kuhne: Audience development Kathy A. Perkins
• 61. Performed ethnography D. Soyini Madison
• 62. The United States of Lucia: Three generations of Haitian-Americans reconfigure ancestry, home, and host lands through storytelling Mario LaMothe
• 63. “We were what no one else had”: How Black fashion models constructed a new wave of performance and visibility Rikki Byrd
• 64. Interview with Pam Green: Artist management and consulting Melanie Greene
• 65. Sidelong glances: Black divas in transit, 1945–1955 Katherine Zien
• 66. Black Indians of New Orleans: Performing resistance and remembrance Sascha Just
• 67. Interview with Darryl Montana: Black Indian chief and master artisan Loyce L. Arthur
• 68. African performance in the feast of St. Francis Xavier in seventeenth-century Luanda, Angola Margit N. Edwards
• 69. Afrofuturism and the 2018 Wakanda Diaspora carnival Renée Alexander Craft
• 70. A beginner’s guide to implementing Hip Hop theatre Kashi Johnson
• 71. Interview with Shirley Basfield Dunlap: Educator and director Eric Ruffin