Theatre 313 - MASTERS & MOVEMENTS IN DRAMA

Topics course. In their plays from the 1990's to the present, Pearl Cleage and other black women playwrights such as Lynn Nottage and Suzan Lori Parks declares themselves feminists and go about reinventing the narrative of America. What does a black woman feminist artist face then and now? How do these writers respond to the legacy of minstrel storytelling, the civil rights era, and the second wave of feminism? Building on the legacy of Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange, how do these playwrights negotiate overdetermined representations and conjure the story world they imagine?

Topic: Rehearsing the Impossible: Pearl Cleage and black women playwrights interrupting the Master Narrative.