In honor of Black History Month, Suite 101 Theatre continues its look around the net at a number of sites devoted to African-American theatre, its creators, performers, and historians.
As part of its American Memory series, the Library of Congress' site is featuring "The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939." As part of the Works Project Administration (WPA), the Federal Theatre Project was ostensibly created to provide employment to the thousands of writers, actors, stagehands, and designers left unemployed as a result of the Depression. The site provides a great deal of details about the creation and execution of the FTP, with many articles and images of original documents. There are also many photographs, posters, scripts, directors, notes, and such, reproduced and available throughout. You'll also find a scholarly examination of the FTP written by Lorraine Brown, entitled "Federal Theatre: Melodrama, Social Protest, and Genius," reprinted from the Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress.
An important area of the FTP was its "Negro Unit," led by John Houseman, known for directing the Virgil Thomson-Gertrude Stein Four Saints in Three Acts, an early experiment in color-blind casting (FTP head Hallie Flanagan original pushed for an African-American leader, but in consultation with black theatre owners and producers was convinced that a white man would ultimately carry more weight). To combat what he and many of his contemporaries believed was an "absorption" of the African-American theatre into the white mainstream, he set to the creation of productions about African-American life written by African-American authors. But most controversial, successful -- at least with the critics and audiences if not financially -- and the project that did the most to help in the establishment of "Negro Units" throughout the country, was the Orson Welles directed Macbeth, reset in 19th Century Haiti. In an article entitled "The Play That Electrified Harlem," originally published in Civilization magazine and reproduced at the Library of Congress site, Wendy Smith examines the history of the production, accompanied by a number of stunning archival photos.
For drama on a much larger scale, you can't get much bigger than re-enactments of Civil War Battles. September 12, 1996 saw the dedication of the African-American Civil War Memorial, the celebration of which featured re-enactments, concerts and readings. Re-enactor William Hamilton, member of the 27th SC Volunteer Infantry and honorary member of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry developed a page devoted to the events surrounding the dedication, part of his 54th Massachusetts pages, which are in turn part of the larger Civil War @ Charleston site.
Dade County's WLRN/ITV video on demand service, Teacher's Choice, makes available a four-part, hour-long program about the development of African-American theatre from 1820 to today, entitled Panorama of African-American Theatre.
Suite 101 celebrates Black History Month
C U @ the theatre!
Originally published at Suite101.com Theatre, 2/10/98
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