Black drama : the story of the American Negro in the theatre / by Loften Mitchell

Includes index.

Includes black and white photographs of performers and performances.

Introduction -- Part one | The day before yesterday : I. Of New York in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: deliberate distortion of image -- II. Of the nineteenth century and the rise of minstrelsy -- III. Minstrelsy's opponents -- IV: The rise of the Theatrical Trust Syndicate and the negro's exile from Broadway -- Part two | Yesterday : V. Harlem and its development by negroes -- VI. The first Harlem theatre movement: 1909-1917 -- VII: 1917-1929: The Black Renaissance, Broadway, the Harlem Theatre and the Road -- VIII: The Depression years: propaganda plays, the Federal Theatre, efforts toward a New Harlem Theatre -- IX: Fear and War: the nineteen-forties -- Part three | Today : X: The nineteen-fifties and Millennium -- XI: The nineteen-sixties: Broadway reconsidered -- Part four | Tomorrow : XII: Tomorrow.

"In Black Drama, playwright and Harlem native Loften Mitchell documents the history of African American theater in the United States, beginning with the first theatrical depictions of black people in the racist white plays of seventeenth and eighteenth century America, and charting first the inception of minstrelsy and other racist American theatrical tropes, as well as the first plays written and performed by black people for black audiences. After describing how black people were effectively banned from performing on Broadway in the late nineteenth century, Mitchell discusses the rise of theatre in Harlem and the flourishing of black drama amid the Harlem Renaissance in the early twentieth century, relying on both original research and personal recollection, having been both present and participatory in many of the events he documents. Among those Harlem Renaissance figures he describes are W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Lester Walton, Rose McClendon, and many other, offering in some cases direct recollections of their works and performances. Mitchell goes on to describe the development and struggle of black theater under the Depression, demonstrating how the economic collapse threatened the existence of many black theaters and performing groups while also encouraging a more explicitly political and anti-racist form of black drama. These developments are documented alongside those of the "mainstream" white theater of the times, demonstrating how white and black theater commented on one another as well as the ways that black culture was appropriated and consumed by white performers and audiences. Emerging from the Depression and World War II, Mitchell describes the flourishing of black theatre in the fifties and sixties, as well as the growing acceptance of black performers and productions in formerly white theaters. At the same time the countercultural forces of the period gave rise to a black theater underground. Mitchell concludes with his own assessment of the contemporary state of black theater and speculation on what the future will hold, as well as an exhortation to future black playwrights and performers to not shrink away from producing plays with political messages." -- From the cataloger.