#african american theatre

[afrotumble]

Glory Van Scott next to Elizabeth Catlett's sculpture, Glory.

[twixnmix]

Lena Horne and her father Teddy Horne backstage at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, 1944.

Photos by Charles Harris

[oldvintageglamour]

Ballet dancers of the Dance Theatre of Harlem performs 'Rondo Capriccioso' for Dance magazine, 1989 🩰🖤🩰🖤🩰

📸: Jack Mitchell

[garadinervi]

[To Aid / Southern States Sit in Movement / Martin Luther King Defense] [An Evening of / Music and Drama / for Freedom Now / Starring in person / Harry Belafonte / Mahalia Jackson / Sidney Poitier / Shelley Winters / (1960 Academy Award Winner) / Diahann Carroll / Production Supervised by / Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee / Freedom Drama written by / Lorraine Hansbury (author of ‘Raisin In The Sun’) – John Killens – George Tabori], New York, NY, 1960 [Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.]

[tomorrowusa]

The Donald "Dozy Donny" Trump trial has been pushing other items out of the news. But it is not the only news story making history in New York.

Zeita Merchant just became the first woman of color to reach the rank of admiral in the US Coast Guard.

Her promotion ceremony took place at the NYC theater which hosts the play Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton happens to be the father of the Coast Guard.

Adm. Merchant decided to join the Coast Guard at the last minute. It turned out to be a good choice and she became a career officer, rising through the ranks to admiral.

By coincidence, I visited Alexander Hamilton after the solar eclipse earlier this month. He probably would have been pleased by this connection to him in the 21st century.

[kemetic-dreams]

Marian Anderson (1897-1993)

Though she’s considered one of the greatest contralto singers in the world, Anderson was often denied the opportunity to show off her unique vocal range because of her race. However, in 1955, she became the first African American to perform at the Metropolitan Opera, and in 1957, she went on a 12-nation tour sponsored by the Department of State and the American National Theatre and Academy. She documented the experience in her autobiography, My Lord What a Morning. In 1963, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her last major accomplishment before her death was receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in 1991.

[personal-blog243]

The Book of Mormon musical:

. Portrays black people as stupid, uneducated, dirty, unhygienic, violent, baby-raping, primitive, savages, who thing raping babies is a magical cure for AIDS and have maggots in their scrotums and have never heard of Disney or texting even though white western missionaries visit their town EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. YEAR.

. Makes fun of African accents.

. Portrays white supremacist colonialists and imperialists as harmless, innocent, charming, lovable, naïve, well-meaning, nice, goofballs, with individuality and complex personalities and character arcs. (And significantly more lines and stage time).

. Is directed and produced by an almost entirely white crew who did not hire a single African consultant.

. Doesn’t properly subvert the white savior narrative and instead just plays the traditional trope vaguely “ironically”

. Only includes cis-het, abled, white men in all advertisements so you don’t know it’s about Africans until you’ve already bought your ticket. Instead the ads just have a picture of a random doorknob???

Eclipsed: play by Danai Gurira

. Is a powerful play about the Liberian civil war told from the perspective of Liberian women (writtten by Danai Gurira of The Walking Dead and Black Panther). Starring Lupita Nyong’o from Black Panther, The Woman King, 12 years ago slave, and US; it’s historically and culturally accurate and has a message about the ethics of different strategies of activism.

[writemarcus]

Dev Bondarin is directing a reading of my kitchen-sink dramedy TUMBLEWEED with the UP Theater Company (www.uptheater.org). The reading will take place on Sunday, January 21st at 3pm at Ft. Washington Collegiate Church located at 729 W. 181st St. (1 train to 181st).

Kirby Fields, artistic director of the UP Theatre Company recently spoke with the Manhattan News recently about their Dead of Winter series: ‘Fields says it is particularly gratifying to establish relationships with writers. Marcus Scott, who wrote the third play in the series, “Tumbleweed,” came to a staged reading last year. Then he sent Fields a number of his own plays.

“This guy is just bursting with ideas,” said Fields. “He’s pulling from philosophy, pop culture…he’s culling from all different racial dynamics on stage and putting them all together.” Directed by Dev Bondarin, the play revolves around a young Black woman with “hair like a tumbleweed” who tries to reconcile different standards of beauty.’

👩🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱👩🏽‍🦱👩🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱👩🏽‍🦱👩🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱👩🏽‍🦱👩🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱👩🏽‍🦱👩🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱👩🏽‍🦱👩🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱👩🏽‍🦱

Read the story: Manhattan Times

[africanamericanreports]

Lena Horne is now the first Black woman to have a Broadway theater named after her. On Tuesday, the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on West 47th Street was renamed the Lena Horne Theatre.

[cowgirl-frog]

Blackness and Theater: A Rant

Soo I know no one will see this and it's kinda random but I saw a post saying new tumblrs need to actually post things so imma ramble.

I haaate black "representation" in theater. Before anybody comes for my neck, I am black. But as a musical lover specifically, i am sick of slave stories and racism and one black character per production so you can meet your quota(*cough* dear evan hansen *cough*). All the groundbreaking representation people talk about is usually just black comedic side characters who talk about oppression every two seconds and are loud and angry and they fight and they only listen to rap music. There isn't anything wrong with characters like that, but it's so annoying to have that be the only representation of your race. People scream about how broadway is soooo diverse, but when you are any minority that isn't white (or white passing, or white adjacent), you and your culture will become the same monolithic, stereotypical representation that you could get anywhere else. It's just really frustrating. And honestly, I can't even really be mad at theater specifically, because it's EVERYWHERE. When you watch a horror movie, the black character always dies first. When you watch a drama or a comedy, there's always a sassy uppity black friend to give the white female lead advice, OR its a black show in which there is a wrongful imprisonment/police brutality incident/overtly racist white characters/absent father/gangs/drugs/robbery etc. I'm just so tired of it. Why can't black characters have fantastical stories free of racism in two parent households? Why can't black women have emotions? Why can't black men have hobbies? In Funny Girl, the issue isn't that Fanny Brice is Jewish, that's just a thing that she is. It might inform how she sees the world or how she interacts with it, but that's not the plot. In black stories, them being black IS the plot. The existence of blackness is enough of an issue to warrant a whole story being told, and I hate it. I wish black people could engage with escapism like everyone else. It's come to the point where I sometimes avoid watching shows with large black casts because I KNOW that it will become a tragedy by virtue of their blackness. When you look up articles about black theater, you get results like:

ALL of the works cited in BOTH of these articles are focused on slavery and or racism. And there's nowhere I can look to make that picture any better, because according to producers and writers, that's all my culture is and all it ever will be.

Tl:dr In both theater and and society at large, being black is boiled down to racism and tragedy, and a wrote a very long post to my other wise unproductive blog to ramble about how my culture's representation is awful. (Aka I'm trying to be an opinion journalist in an attempt to graduate from my wish I was white era)

[thenerdsofcolor]

'Rise' is an Inspired Story of Love and Legacy

Theater is a wide and wonderful world; a place of imagination, depth, and hundreds, if not thousands, of years of historical relevancy. It’s given us the gift of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, August Wilson’s Fences, and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, among so many other classics that have affected not just audience sensibilities but have helped frame…

[lenbryant]

Here's this week's Variety interview with playwright Jeremy O. Harris at Cannes.

[sylviareviar]

Make a Blinkie for your Character(s)!

Tagged by: @the-flower-karasu

Tagging: steal from me <3

[garadinervi]

a RAISIN in the SUN, «Playbill», April 2014 [Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.]

[ukdamo]

The Lyric Theatre: Lyceum of Dreams

Nick Finney - On the occasion of the reopening of the Lyric Theatre, 1940s Black dream house, Lexington, Kentucky

On the East End, we shine our own shoes, dress our own legs,

smooth down willful hair, let all new trouble float. Done-up.

We promenade and pass, Deweese (DoAsYouPlease) & 3rd, where

Winkfield & Murphy once hoofed & flew backwards, black-winged,

on horseback. Under the blazing marquee we hand our shiny quarter

over, glide toward, then across, our eight-point star, rose-tile light

of regeneration. In the dark theatre, the salt-cod sweat of work, now left

behind, names hurled our way all day, now set aside, pay cheques that never

match our labour folded away now. House lights dim: Paul Robeson is

Othello. Miss Ella strikes & swings. The Duke & Count jazz-juice the night,

royalty speaks to royalty. The Ink Spots spill all with Sarah Vaughan, Miss Mahalia

orchestrates & moans and moonbeams, Candy Johnson & his Peppermint Sticks

fill every inch of stage. Marian Anderson poses her hands in alto-soprano.

Woody Strode, our Black cowboy, wild-rides the open oat fields & range.

Our dusty eyes drink in Beah Richards, Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne.

Intermission at the Lyric: Lights up! Freda Jones tries on a brand-new

hat and no one is arrested. Bernard Lewis licks his ice cream cone on every

melting side, no one is booked for licking or loitering. Morgan and

Marvin Smith, the famous picture- taking twins, take our picture too.

At the Lyric we pose, bright futures we portray. At the Lyric we fall in love

with our lips: Lucinda kisses Big Tank clear through the opening act. Julia

can’t see the show for looking at the ocean of their mouths; open, close.

We cry at the Lyric, laugh out loud at the Lyric. Whisper Quiet! Here comes

the principal! Miss Lucy Harth Smith proudly takes her seat. At the Lyric,

William Wells Brown pulls out his indelible pen to write us down. Isaac

Scott Hathaway shapes our faces in a mustard-amber clay on new money.

We come to the Lyric to rise, rejuvenate, see ourselves win, watch ourselves lifted

up in lights, hit the home run, be hero champion of the world. Only to file

back out live & alive, stroll back across the rays of the eight-point star, rose-tile

light of return, sink back into the race- track of the East End with everything

we have now become. Sweet Lyric, lyceum of dreams, where once we came

to rise into who Mama, not dime-store magazines, promised us we were.

[hillaryisaboss]

A film set to unwinnable expectations. Too “woke” for having Halle Bailey play Ariel; not “woke” enough because it is still a classic fairytale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837, where a princess falls in-love with a prince.

What I saw was a fabulous live-action adaptation. The acting & music is truly on-point.

Disney also added backstory to the Prince, which was very worthwhile storytelling. Visually, it was a stunning movie. The water effects on the hair are a sight-to-behold. And if you’ve seen Pirates of the Caribbean, it is that style/mood mixed with Disney magic & great songs.

Though the 2023 live-action will never be our cartoon imagination from childhood, the original film from 1989 will always be there for us to watch over-and-over again.

However, if you watch the other live-action Disney adaptations, this one truly is the best one by far. Some just want to hate it for whatever reason.

Halle Bailey did a phenomenal job as Ariel & I saw many African American kids in the audience at the theatre. Representation matters ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Go see The Little Mermaid!! It is the right film for the moment — a moment where Disney is being banned in Florida.

Sing & celebrate under the sea with this truly amazing film!! Go Halle Go!! Our Disney heroine 🧜🏾‍♀️