Theatre 221 - REHEARSING THE IMPOSSIBLE

Building on the legacy of Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy and Ntozake Shange, this course explores the work of Pearl Cleage, Lynne Nottage, Suzan Lori Parks, Anne D. Smith and other playwrights who from the 1950s to the present go about reinventing the narrative of America. We consider their theatrical/artistic production in the context of black feminism. As artists, audiences and critics grapple with the enduring legacy of minstrel storytelling in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, what were/are the particular artistic and intellectual challenges for these theatre artists? What are/were their strategies, missteps, triumphs?