black theatre

black theatre

In the U.S., a dramatic movement encompassing plays written by, for, and about blacks. The first known play by an American black was James Brown's King Shotaway (1823). After the Civil War, blacks began to perform in minstrel shows, and musicals written, produced, and acted entirely by blacks appeared by c. 1900. The first real success of a black dramatist was Angelina W. Grimké's Rachel (1916). Theatre flourished during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s, and by 1940 the American Negro Theater and the Negro Playwrights' Co. were firmly established. After World War II black theatre grew more progressive and militant, seeking to establish its own mythology, abolish racial stereotypes, and integrate black playwrights into the mainstream. Its strongest proponent, Amiri Baraka, established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre in 1965. In the 1980s and '90s the African American playwrights Charles Fuller and August Wilson won Pulitzer Prizes.