Overview

Starting in 1966, African American activist Stokely Carmichael and other political leaders adopted the phrase ""Black Power!"" The slogan captured a militant, revolutionary spirit that was already emerging in the work of playwrights, poets, musicians, and visual artists throughout the Black Arts movement of the mid-1960s. But the story of those theater artists and performers whose work helped bring about the Black Arts revolution has not fully been told. Readying the Revolution: African American Theater and Performance from Post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement explores the dynamic era of Black culture between the end of World War II and the start of the Black Arts Movement (1946-1964) by illuminating how artists and innovators such as Jackie Robinson, Lorraine Hansberry, Ossie Davis, Nina Simone, and others helped radicalize Black culture and Black political thought. In doing so, these artists defied white cultural hegemony in the United States, and built the foundation for the revolutionary movement in Black theater that followed in the mid 1960s. Through archival research, close textual reading, and an analysis of performance artifacts, Shandell demonstrates how these artists negotiated a space on the public stage for cultivating radical Black aesthetics and built the foundation for the revolutionary movement in Black theater that followed in the mid-1960s.

Full Product Details

9780472077182

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Reviews

""Shandell deftly uses a 21st-century lens to identify specific plays with progressive thought. Theater professors, students, and enthusiasts should take note""-- ""Anjelica Rufus-Barnes, Library Journal""

Author Information

Jonathan Shandell is Associate Professor of Theater Arts at Arcadia University.

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