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A Raisin in the Sun is the first play by a black woman to be produced in a Broadway theater. First performed in 1959, before the civil rights and women's movements came to the fore, it raises issues of segregation, family strife, and relationships between men and women that are both representative ...

A Raisin in the Sun is the first play by a black woman to be produced in a Broadway theater. First performed in 1959, before the civil rights and women's movements came to the fore, it raises issues of segregation, family strife, and relationships between men and women that are both representative of the time and timeless in their universality. This interdisciplinary collection of commentary and forty-five primary documents will enrich the reader's understanding of the historical and social context of the play. A wide variety of primary materials sheds light on integration and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s; relationships between African Americans and Africans; relationships between men and women within African American culture; Chicago as a literary setting for the play; and contemporary race relations in the 1990s. Documents include first-person accounts, magazine articles and editorials espousing opposing arguments, excerpts from the works of Toni Morrison, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, bell hooks, Malcolm X, and Richard Wright, and a selection of pertinent government documents and eye-opening statistics. Many of the documents are available in no other printed form. Each chapter concludes with study questions and topics for research papers and class discussion, as well as lists of further reading for examining the themes and issues raised by the play.

"This is the first book-length study of black American women playwrights. It will be useful to scholars in the fields of black and women's literature and an excellent source of background reading in graduate and undergraduate courses on American women playwrights. The author's training as both a ...

"This is the first book-length study of black American women playwrights. It will be useful to scholars in the fields of black and women's literature and an excellent source of background reading in graduate and undergraduate courses on American women playwrights. The author's training as both a scholar and a playwright is evident in this book." Choice

Though Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) raised the world's awareness of the abilities of African American female playwrights, both the theater and the literary world often have neglected to include contemporary African American women dramatists within the circle of production ...

Though Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) raised the world's awareness of the abilities of African American female playwrights, both the theater and the literary world often have neglected to include contemporary African American women dramatists within the circle of production, publication, and criticism. This reference book sheds light on the achievement of these playwrights and directs researchers to studies of their works. The first section includes a selected listing of anthologies that contain one or more plays by an African American female dramatist who has published at least one play since 1959. The second provides entries for reference works and for general and scholarly criticism about the dramatists and their plays. The third gives a selected listing of individual dramatists' published plays, with summaries of each drama; the dramatists' primary works related to drama; and secondary works that treat the dramatists and their plays. Entries are accompanied by concise yet informative annotations. The volume closes with a selected listing of periodicals that typically publish criticism of African American female playwrights, brief biographical sketches of the dramatists, and extensive indexes.

African-American Performance and Theatre History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two respected scholars in black theater and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field (Joseph Roach and ...

African-American Performance and Theatre History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two respected scholars in black theater and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field (Joseph Roach and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. among other), this volume is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance past and present interact and enact continuous social, cultural, and political dialogues. The premise behind the book is that analyzing African-American theater and performance traditions offers insight into how race has operated and continues to operate in American society. The only one-volume collection of its kind, this volume is likely to become the central reference for those studying black theater.