Week 12- New Black Subjectivities/Suzan-Lori Parks's The America Play

For Parks, history is. The Foundling Father is just as real as the Founding Father it just depends on who is writing the historical perspective. Parks's play is about black people, yet blackness is never mentioned. How do you feel that Parks' uses language to produce the blackness of her characters?

As you blog about blackness this week, consider Park's "New Black Math" and the myriad of ways that Parks's envisions a black play. Do you see Parks's work as different from and/or similar to other works we have read this semester? If Parks is "''to locate the ancestral burial ground, dig for bones, find bones, hear the bones sing, write it down.'' " (Possession, The America Play 1995), then what do you think is found in The America Play that supplements and/ or subverts existing narratives of Americanness? Why isn't this the African American play?

Week 10 - Who Can Write African American Theatre? Thomas Gibbons's Bee-Luther-Hatchee

This week, we are exploring notions of racial and cultural authenticity as explored in the play Bee-Luther-Hatchee by Thomas Gibbons. As the second non-African American playwright we have discussed in the course, Gibbons joins many white American writers who have written extensively on African American life and race relations in the United States in both positive and negative ways. Some of these writer's works have re-inscribed racial stereotypes and denigrated black subjects, while other have attempted to present the self-determination of African Americans.
In what ways do you think the race of the playwright does/does not impact his ability to write African American characters and their experiences in a believable fashion? Do you read the work as more/less "authentic" because of his racial identification? As you blog on authenticity this week, think broadly what it means to "authentically" represent racial and cultural experiences. Is this possible? For discussion, you may consider ways you can issues of authenticity to fictional representations of African American life in American popular culture such as television, film, music, etc.

Week 9 - Why African American Theater Matters/August Wilson's Fences

This week we read Fences by August Wilson and the playwrights polemic speech "The Ground on Which I Stand." As you think about how the notion of Africa is translated into the work of Wilson, consider how the aftermath of slavery becomes a link to the African past of African Americans. How, if at all, do you see references to Africa in Wilson's work? Are they obvious or masked? How does the past, and its recollection, in Fences suggest links to the history of slavery and African culture? Why does African American Theater matter to Wilson? Why does it matter to you?

Week 8-Colored Contradictions: The Colored Museum- Midterm reflection

This week we completed our midterm exam which was an opportunity for you to stretch out and explore what your thoughts are on African American Theatre thus far. We read The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe which is a meditation on the variosu representations of African American life by black playwrights and performers from slavery to the the contemporary moment. Written in 1985, the play presented a compelling cultural critique of many African American playwrights we have read to date, including Lorraine Hansberry,Charles Fuller, Amiri Baraka and Ntozake Shange. Wolfe critiques the work of these playwrights within a broader analysis of African American cultural production in the aftermath of slavery. As you blog about racial stereotypes in African American Theatre, consider how African American writers and performers manipulate these recognizable characters in both positive and negative ways. What social contradictions do you find? How do class and gender complicate the manipulation of these stereotypes?