Course No: 350:589
Index #: 19051
Distribution Requirement: A4, A5, C
Tuesdays - 2:00 pm
MU 207
History of African American Drama
Kernan, Ryan
This course offers an overview of African American drama. We will begin our exploration with the inaugural moments of African American performance on the slave ship, plantation, and in the 19th century theater, and then trace the development of African American drama well into the 21st century. In the process, students will gain familiarity with the (often) overlooked theatrical contributions of some of the African American canon’s most important authors and with the histories, the theatrical and aesthetic movements, and the political movements that inform their work. This course does not assume a familiarity with Black studies, theatre or drama and should not be mistaken for a performance studies course. Although we will examine work by some theorists of Black drama like Leroi Jones and Paul Carter Harrison, for the most part (following in the footsteps of Barbara Christian), we will take our theoretical cues from the range and complexity of the texts themselves, allowing us to see how Black playwrights have conceptualized and portrayed Black life over the past 170 years. Some of the authors and plays we will consider include: William Wells Brown’s “The Escape; or A Leap for Freedom,” Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “In Dahomey,” Langston Hughes’s “Mulatto,” several plays by Lorraine Hansberry including “A Raisin in the Sun,” James Baldwin’s “Amen Corner” and “Blues for Mr. Charlie,” Amiri Baraka’s “Dutchman,” Adrienne Kennedy’s “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf,” Charles Gordone’s “No Place to Be Somebody,” Paul Carter Harrison’s “The Great MacDaddy,” Charles Fuller’s “A Soldier’s Play,” several plays from August Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” Anna Deveare Smith’s “Fires in the Mirror,” Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog,” and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “An Octoroon.” We will screen several productions of these plays (through the Canvas interface) with an eye to developing our skills as reviewers of theatre and as dramaturges. To that end, in addition to their engaged weekly participation, students will submit one or two theater reviews (5 pages) along with an oral presentation, and develop one conference length paper (and presentation) based on their research about several productions of one (or several) of our plays.