This comprehensive reference book provides succinct information on almost thirteen hundred musical stage works written and produced from the 1870s to the 1990s involving contributions by black librettists, lyricists, composers, musicians, producers, or performers or containing thematic materials relevant to the black experience. Organized alphabetically, they include tent and outdoor shows, vaudeville, operas and operettas, comedies, farces, spectacles, revues, cabaret and nightclub shows, children's musicals, skits, one-act musicals, one-person shows, and even a musical without songs. In addition to the hundreds of shows independently created, produced, and performed by black writers and theatrical artists, it presents hundreds more representing a collaboration of black and white talents. An appendix organizes the shows chronologically and highlights those that were most significant in the history of the black American musical stage. An extensive bibliography and indexes of names, songs, and subjects complete the work.
Peterson has done a great service to students of African-American theater. . . . Peterson's scholarship is impressive; the book's format is inviting . . . an indispensable reference book for academic libraries. Choice This reference volume addresses an often overlooked area in the history of the American theatre, the contributions of early black playwrights and dramatic writers. At a time when they were denied full participation in many aspects of American life, including the mainstream of the theatre itself, black artists were compiling an impressive record of achievement on the American stage. This book, the most comprehensive on the subject, provides a complete look at these achievements by offering biographical information and a catalog of works for approximately 200 writers, including playwrights, librettists, screenwriters, and radio scriptwriters. From the emergence of black playwrights in the time prior to the Civil War, to the early days of film and radio in this century, the efforts of early black writers are fully documented in this work. The book begins with an author's preface and is followed by an introductory essay that discusses the development of black American playwrights from the antebellum period to World War II. The heart of the book, the biographical directory, is organized alphabetically, with each entry providing highlights of the author's life and career; collected anthologies that include any works; and an annotated chronological list of individual dramatic works, including genre, length, synopses, production history, prizes and awards, and script sources. Three appendixes offer information on other playwrights and their works, additional librettists and descriptions of their shows, and a chronology of dramatic works by genre. A bibliography cites such information sources as reference books and critical studies, dissertations, play anthologies, and newspapers and periodicals frequently consulted, as well as significant libraries and repositories. The book concludes with title and general indexes and an index to early black theatre organizations. This work will be an important reference source for courses in black American drama and theatre history, and a valuable addition to both public and academic libraries.
This directory includes over 500 African American performers and theater people who have made a significant contribution to the American stage from the early 19th century to the beginning of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Entries provide succinct biographical and theatrical information gathered from a variety of sources including library theater and drama collections, dissertations and theses, newspaper and magazine reviews and criticism, theater programs, theatrical memoirs, and earlier performing arts directories. Among the professional artists included in this volume are performers, librettists, lyricists, directors, producers, choreographers, stage managers, and musicians. The individuals profiled represent almost every major category and genre of the professional, semiprofessional, regional, and academic stage including minstrelsy, vaudeville, musical theater, and drama. Persons of historical significance are included as well as those stars and theatrical personalities that were well known during their time but who are relatively forgotten today. This comprehensive volume will appeal to theater and musical theater, Black studies, and American studies scholars. Cross-referenced throughout, this reference also includes an extensive bibliography and appendices of other theater personalities excluded from the main text. Separate indexes list the personalities, teams and partnerships, and performing groups, organizations, and companies.
A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol Hill, a noted critic, playwright, scholar and Willard Professor of Drama Emeritus, Dartmouth College. A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol Hill, a noted critic, playwright, scholar and Willard Professor of Drama Emeritus, Dartmouth College. Included in the volume are the earliest organizations that existed before the Civil War, Black minstrel troupes, pioneer musical show companies, selected vaudeville and road show troupes, professional theatrical associations, booking agencies, stock companies, significant amateur and little theatre groups, Black units of the WPA Federal Theatre, and semi-professional groups in Harlem after the Federal Theatre. The A-Z entries are supplemented with a classified appendix that also includes additional organizations not listed in the main directory, a bibliography, and three indexes for shows, showpeople, and general subjects. Cross referencing makes related information easy to find.
This work provides a wealth of information on obscure and overlooked American playwrights as well as some famous ones; it will be a welcome addition for collections specializing in the theater arts. Reference Books Bulletin This directory and index, the first such volume devoted exclusively to contemporary black American dramatists, will have an important place in theatre collections. It captures and preserves an elusive part of artistic endeavor, giving access to literally thousands of dramatic works that would otherwise be lost to scholars and the public. Organized as an encyclopedia, it provides information on more than 600 noteworthy Black American playwrights whose plays have been written, produced, or published between 1950 and the present. The volume begins with an introductory essay surveying the history of contemporary black American drama. Playwrights, screenwriters, radio and television scriptwriters, and musical theatre collaborators are treated in individual entries that comprise the bulk of the book. The volume also supplies a bibliography of anthologies, books, and periodicals cited; mailing addresses for more than 200 of the playwrights; and title and subject indexes.
Most of the blacks in our community were not able to attend school during the planting, cultivating and harvesting season due to the fact that they were sharecroppers. My parents, however, made sure we received an education by making us attend school anyhow. There were four families residing on this rented land. All of us were related. I called it a village, because looking back, all the adults took part in raising all the children. In modern day language, whether near or far, I guess it really does "take a village to raise a child." We all went to school together. Our school was one large room with a pot belly stove. It is where children of all ages gathered together to get an education. My aunts were all teachers, and it often seemed to me that they were harder on me and then they were on many of the other students. I understand now why, and I am grateful they didn't cut me slack because my name was Peterson. Even with the education I have received, it has been difficult at best to maintain employment. I can't imagine how difficult it would have been had I not been educated and motivated by teachers such as my "Aunties" as I call them. I was raised during a time when the parents raised up children using the wise counsel offered in the Scriptures ... Particularly "spare the rod and spoil the child" located in the Proverbs of Solomon. Our parents were keenly aware of the importance of us having an education. I remember attending school at the beginning of the school year earlier than other children so that the teachers were encouraged to apply the "board of education" to the "seat of knowledge" lest we not take our education seriously. I can personally attest to the fact that they took heed to our parent's instruction. When my father died of leukemia, I was only 14 years old. Although my oldest brother Eddie and my sister Esther were away from home attending boarding school, my education had to be put on hold. I had to go to work and support our family as every able-bodied male in the family was supposed to do. At that time, there were no social security benefits, and certainly no welfare benefits. So, Eddie and I began working at the same sawmill where my father had also worked to help support the family. Although we were all devastated by the loss of our father, by the grace of God, in whom we were taught to believe in from a child, we were able to survive.
Shoji Hamada, along with Bernard Leach, was one of the key figures in the development of studio pottery in the 20th century. His influence both in England and the US as well as in his native Japan cannot be underestimated. The Japanese government designated him a Living National Treasure" in 1955 and awarded him the Order of Culture in 1968. This book has been totally redesigned with colour photographs and a new chapter.
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