Anthologies of African American Writing

Black Theater, U.S.A.: Forty-Five Plays by Black Americans, 1847-1974

"Black Theater, U.S.A.: Forty-Five Plays by Black Americans, 1847-1974" . Ed. James V. Hatch and Ted Shine. New York: Free, 1974. x+886 pp. 

rev. ed. as "Black Theatre USA: Plays by African Americans 1847 to Today". 2 vols. New York: Free Press, 1996. xix+916 pp. (Vol. 1, "The Early Period, 1847-1938", xiii+415 pp. ; Vol. 2, "The Recent Period, 1935-Today", xiv+507 pp.)

Contents (1974 ed.): The black doctor / Ira Aldridge -- The brown overcoat / Victor Sejour -- The escape; or A leap for freedom / William Wells Brown -- Caleb the degenerate / Joseph S. Cotter Sr. -- Appearances / Garland Anderson -- Rachel / Angelina Grimke -- Mine eyes have seen / Alice Dunbar Nelson -- They that sit in darkness / Mary Burrill -- For unborn children / Myrtle Smith Livingston -- The church fight / Ruth Gaines-Shelton -- Undertow / Eulalie Spence -- The purple flower / Marita Bonner -- A Sunday morning in the South / Georgia Douglas Johnson -- Balo / Jean Toomer -- 'Cruiter / John Matheus -- The Idle Head / Willis Richardson -- Bad men / Randolph Edmonds -- Job Hunters / H.F.V. Edward -- Don't You Want to be Free? / Langston Hughes -- Big White Fog / Theodore Ward -- Divine Comedy / Owen Dodson -- Graven Images / May Miller -- Natural Man / Theodore Browne -- Flight of the Natives / Willis Richardson -- Native Son / Richard Wright and Paul Green -- District of Columbia / Stanley Richards -- Walk Hard / Abram Hill -- The Tumult and the Shouting / Thomas Pawley -- The Amen Corner / James Baldwin -- Take a Giant Step /Louis Peterson -- In Splendid Error / William Branch -- Star of the Morning / Loften Mitchell -- Limitations of Life / Langston Hughes -- Dry August (Mrs. Patterson) / Charles Sebree -- Fly Blackbird / Bernard Jackson and James V. Hatch -- Day of Absence / Douglas Turner Ward -- The Drinking Gourd / Lorraine Hansberry -- Wine in the Wilderness / Alice Childress -- The Owl Answers /Adrienne Kennedy -- Job Security / Martie Charles -- Little Ham / Langston Hughes -- The Slave / Imamu Amiri Baraka -- Goin' a Buffalo / Ed Bullins -- Herbert III / Ted Shine -- Blk Love Song #1 / Val Ferdinand.

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• The plays are "presented in  a full historical context to illustrate not only 'the evolution of black dramaturgy in America,' but also 'what black playwrights think and feel about themselves, their people, and their country.' The editorial apparatus is exemplary in its scholarship. One can argue about the relative merits of anthologies in poetry and fiction, but Black Theater, U.S.A. is unrivaled in the genre of drama" (Kinnamon 1997: 476).

Hatch 1991: 186-87] [Kinnamon 1997: 476]

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