The Development of African American Theatre: A Historical Analysis

This essay delves into the historical development of African American theatre, highlighting its origins in struggle and its evolution through movements like the Harlem Renaissance. It discusses early challenges, including racial discrimination and limited opportunities, and examines the impact of key figures and theatrical groups like the Negro Little Theatre Movement. The essay further explores the influence of white dramatists and the Federal Theatre Project during the Great Depression. It also touches upon the contemporary state of Black theatre, considering the effects of post-racial practices and political events such as the election of Barack Obama, emphasizing the ongoing need for equity and inclusion in the American theatre landscape. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools for students.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Early.......................................................................................................................................3
Middle....................................................................................................................................4
Present....................................................................................................................................6
Reference................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The development of the African-American tradition has been a history of struggle.
The Americans having their origin in Africa had been proactive in establishing themselves as
a community with equal rights after difficult struggle for a long time. However there is still
evidences of racial discrimination shown towards the community. The development of the
African American Theatre has been such a similar struggle which the performers had to go
through in order to establish the art form. Harlem Renaissance was one of the important
events in the history of the African-American struggle. Harlem Renaissance was one of the
“intellectual, social, and artistic explosion” that happened at New York in the Harlem region
which went down in History as one of the most famous struggles to establish intellectual
equality in America and the world (Colbert, n.d.). The movement had the elements of the
expressions that included cultural and social elements of the African-American community.
The theatre movement of the African American community against the inequalities shown to
them also started during the Harlem Renaissance. The first theatre produced during this time
is Angelina Weld Grimke’s Rachel during the 1916. The subject of the theatre was “lynching
on women and families” and the “ghastly practice in terms of black female reproductively”.
The theatre had hit one of the most important issues faced by the African-American women
in the contemporary times, however the required change in the perception of people in
America towards the community was yet to take place.
The discrimination in the times of development of theatre in the community also
raised a larger question about the “white” people with racial mentality not agreeing to allow
the “black community to take over the cultural landscape of the country.

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Discussion
Early
A slave named Nat Turner discharged a shocking uprising in Southampton County,
Virginia that terrified white Southerners, zaps white abolitionists, and energized periods of
black progressives. After his catch, Turner depicted stories of butchering women and youths,
and of hacking to death the white proprietors who had aggrieved slaves for a significant long
time. Turner's rebellion lit a comparatively shocking response among whites who tormented
slaves related with complicity in the plot. To be sure, even slaves who had no before data of
Turner's plans were regarded with question and much of the time mercilessly viewed as a pre-
emptive measure against any future stirrings of revolt, as the Richmond Enquirer noted, “Bits
of babble are sufficient to keep alive the deliberateness of the overall public.” Yet in the
midst of the free for all and fear, the one inclination that had all the earmarks of being
discernibly truant was flabbergast. While a couple of every day papers guaranteed
puzzlement that a slave who had been taught to scrutinize and create, and who had become
no “cause or instigation,” would revolt, those records include the no matter how one looks at
it understanding that enslavement was a normally savage system and that slave uprisings
were “not separated and conflicting events.” By underscoring Turner's sensitive treatment
before the disobedience, the day by day papers verifiably perceived that there were specialists
who carried on seriously toward their slaves. As their tone prescribes, whites recognized
somehow or another that the brutality embedded in the state of bondage was simply kept
inside legitimate breaking points by a kind of normal limit among blacks and whites. Whites
grasped that black oppression must be maintained with a measure of ruthlessness, yet not to
such an extent, to the point that blacks would revolt. Blacks appreciated that they could
express contrast through various ritualized hones, for instance, Pinkster festivities or
approved singing and acting celebrations on the home in the midst of uncommon seasons, yet

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that previous a particular point whites would respond with disciplines that could realize
arrangement to the Deep South, ravaging, or murder. In any case, despite specialists' risks of
requital, a "custom of hemispheric assurance from subjugation" past custom foundations
continued up to the Civil War. The mass migration of freed slaves toward the North and West
suggested that the contingent deals counselled among pro and slave would should be
revamped in new terms and by new individuals whose legal status (if not their money related
or political one) had encountered a total change. Additionally, the failure of radical
Reconstruction and the fast political and budgetary difference in the white South in the post-
Civil War period basically changed the importance of racially impelled viciousness in that
district (Nathans, 2017).
This was the reason why the movement of the African American members started and
singing, theatre and art were taken as the primary tools with which the protest movement was
carried on. The Negro Little Theatre Movement was one of the starting endeavours towards
the establishment of an organised theatre group within the community (Shandell, 2013). In
1821, an organization of characters of African plunge performed Shakespeare 's Richard III
for a group of people of black onlookers at New York City's African “Grove Pleasure
garden”. The creation was the debut offering of the African Theatre, established by a
previous vendor sailor named William Alexander Brown. For a long time, the African
Theatre performed at different settings in New York City. Brown and his troupe started the
enthusiasm of numerous African American supporters, and stirred interest and some
antagonistic vibe among white New Yorkers, before the organization immediately disbanded.
This troupe is presently celebrated as “the earliest known black theatre organization in North
America.”

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Middle
There was general resistance at least in terms of mentality of the white people towards
the development of the black cultural development in the country and such discrimination
also caused the audience to be divided into two groups, one which were the regular viewers
of such theatre, which was mainly composed of the black members, and the white elitists who
were mainly audience of the traditional theatre dominated by the white actors. The Harlem
Renaissance opened up the stage for the artists and the actors who were black. Now there
were theatre groups which were dedicated to the cause of the African American identity
formation. They were aimed at voicing against the racial discrimination against the black
community (Thomas, 2015). As stated by Colbert, “The seemingly sudden emergence of a
number of black playwrights in the first decades of the twentieth century did not occur in a
vacuum but reflected the efforts of Alain Locke, Montgomery T. Gregory, W. E. B. Du Bois,
and Georgia Douglas Johnson to cultivate Black theatre.”
The African American community had just been liberated from the bondage of
slavery. The community was gathering strength in order to establish its identity and the rights
in the country they were considering their own. The accounts of the slavery was one of the
main topics which was used in the theatres, art and the books that came into existence within
the African American community during this time. The primary need of the people was
recognition of their rights. The larger section of the Harlem Renaissance Play writers were
focused on the issues about identity and discrimination (Jones, n.d.).
The general population started showing interest in the black theatre works in the midst
of a divided climate of cultural scenario. There were discrimination in the audience but the
good works produced by the directors and the authors have been helpful in growing interest
among the people.

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At the same time that black theatre thrived, white dramatists began trying to examine
the place of blacks in American society. The black characters in Eugene O’Neill's The
Emperor Jones (1920) and All God's Chillun Got Wings (1924) and in Marc Connelly's The
Green Pastures (1930) are little better than stereotypes, though Paul Green's In Abraham's
Bosom (1926) and Dubose Heyward’s Porgy (1927) are somewhat more perceptive. Black
characters also became common in white-written musicals, notably Hammerstein and Kern’s
Show Boat (1927) and Heyward and the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (1937). In the Great
Depression of the 1930s, most black theatre companies folded, and many black theatre artists,
like poor Americans of all backgrounds, became politically radicalized. Langston Hughes, a
young poet and playwright, founded the Harlem Suitcase Theatre to produce his short plays,
such as Don't You Want to be Free? (1937), which combined the political activism of white
Agitprop drama with black music and Hughes’ own poetry. The United States’ only foray
into theatrical production, the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project
(1935–9), organized a Negro Theatre as one of its major production units. Under the
supervision of Rose McClendon, and, after her death, of John Houseman, a white producer,
the Negro Theater created dozens of productions in major cities around the country (King,
2016). Many of their shows were black adaptations of well-known works, such as the
‘voodoo’ Macbeth (1936) directed by Orson Welles, and Swing Mikado (1938), which was
copied by a Broadway producer as Hot Mikado (1939).
Present
The Black theatre history has been a matter for complex situation, even today. Within
the last decade the concept of post-racial practices, the Black theatre has improved than ever
before. By understanding the culture of and the challenges faced by the community, it can be
said that it has redrawn from the other theatre communities. During the time of Obama, the
effects were impactful and young black voters between the ages of eighteen to thirty five

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voted for him. However Obama did not directly use his campaign authority for the civil right
and social justice but he did worked on the issue afterwards (Elam, n.d.).
There was an adjustment noticeable all around from the following election, the
approaching National Theatre chief, showed that an assurance to make the NT a more
permeable place and has talked about the absence of chances in American performance centre
for women and black actors (Elam, n.d.). The Advance activity, which urges theatres to self-
screen their advance, should accelerate the procedure across the country. It was an
enthusiasm to think in multi-year and see what improvement has been made. On the off
chance that the Advance activity powers genuine change, it could change the showy scene
until the end of time. That thus may proclaim more prominent receptiveness and mindfulness
about alternate imbalances that, for a really long time, have basically been acknowledged as a
feature of theatre’s business as usual.
Crossing over the racial disparity in business must be an unequivocal objective of any
administration employments program, as should a following instrument to archive whether
disappointed minorities are being contracted at an adequate level. As of now, African
Americans make up around 23 percent of the jobless and Latinos roughly 20 percent. Hence,
among the individuals who discover work from the administration work program, in excess
of 23 percent ought to be African Americans and in excess of 20 percent ought to be Latinos,
keeping in mind the end goal to connect racial business disparity.
Unquestionably, the governmental issues of race amid and after the decision of
Barack Obama have affected the nations of, and access to, African American theatre.
Supposition surveys of youthful voters, matured eighteen to thirty, who overwhelmingly
voted in favour of Obama, uncover that they see race uniquely in contrast to prior ages of
United States subjects. In addition, in his battle and consequent decision, Obama has

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introduced another time of dark legislative issues that has intentionally thought back to, and
has moved past, before ideal models of race-based political support. As a presidential
competitor, Obama did not pitch his battle at purportedly African American issues for
example, social equity and social equality. Or maybe, he successfully came to over racial
partitions and spoke to what he saw as the normal concerns everything being equal. His own
family history as the child of a white mother from Kansas and a dark African migrant from
Kenya convolutes the issues of race. Indeed, even as Obama identified as dark and checked
the black box on his 2010 registration, his legacy has enabled others to build diverse stories;
he was dark however extraordinary; he was blended race and not dark, or, for those in the
extraordinary, not by any means American.

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Reference
Colbert, S. D. (n.d.). Drama in the Harlem Renaissance. The Cambridge Companion to
African American Theatre, 85-117.
Elam, H. (n.d.). Black Theatre in the Age of Obama. The Cambridge Companion to African
American Theatre, 255-78.
Jones Jr, D. A. (n.d.). Slavery, Performance, and the Design of African American Theatre.
The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre, 15-33.
King, B. (2016). Contemporary American Theatre. Springer.
Nathans, H. S. (2017). Hideous Characters and Beautiful Pagans: Performing Jewish Identity
on the Antebellum American Stage. University of Michigan Press.
Shandell, J. (2013). The Negro Little Theatre Movement. The Cambridge Companion to
African American Theatre, 103-17.
Thomas, L. M. (2015). Barbara Ann Teer and the National Black Theatre: Transformational
Forces in Harlem. Routledge.