Wines in the Wilderness: Plays by African American Women from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present
Item
-
Title
-
Wines in the Wilderness: Plays by African American Women from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present
-
This edition
-
"Wines in the Wilderness: Plays by African American Women from the Harlem Renaissance to the Present" . Ed. Elizabeth Brown-Guillory. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990. xv+251 pp.; Praeger, 1990. (paperback).
-
Table of contents
-
● Elizabeth Brown-Guillory / Preface
● Marita Bonner (1899-1971) / The Pot Maker (1927)
● Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) / Blue Blood (1926)
● Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) / Safe (c. 1929)
● Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) / Blue-Eyed Black Boy (c. 1930)
● Eulalie Spence (1894-1981) / Hot Stuff (1927)
● Eulalie Spence (1894-1981) / Episode (1928)
● May Miller (1899- ) / Riding the Goat (1929)
● Shirley Graham (1896-1977) / It's Mornin' (1940)
● Alice Childress (1920- ) / Florence (1950)
● Alice Childress (1920- ) / Wine in the Wilderness (1969)
● Sonia Sanchez (1934- ) / Sister Son/ji (1969)
● Sybil Kein (1939- ) / Get Together (1970)
● Elizabeth Brown-Guillory (1954- ) / Mam Phyllis (1985)
Bibliography
Index
-
Publisher's description
-
"For those whose familiarity with black women playwrights is limited to the works of Lorraine Hansberry and Ntozake Shange, this collection of 15 plays written between 1925 and 1985 by eight authors will be a revelation. They express a passionate longing for social justice and for a stable, nurturing relationship between black men and women. Introductions for each author provide biographical information and critical analyses. A useful bibliography of plays and secondary sources is also included. This anthology helps to fill a serious gap in the standard histories of American drama. Library Journal
Wines in the Wilderness brings together thirteen plays by black women from the 1920s to the present, including works by Marita Bonner, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Eulalie Spence, May Miller, Shirley Graham, Alice Childress, Sonia Sanchez, Sybil Kein, and Elizabeth Brown-Guillory. The plays and dramatists selected are representative of and have made considerable contributions to African American theater.
Although the works of these playwrights span over sixty years, they are closely linked by the theme of women struggling to define their roles in society. The heroines speak out against interracial and intraracial biases, stereotyping, lynch mobs, illiteracy, poverty, promiscuity, self-righteousness, abusive men, rape, and miscegenation. Each play is preceded by a critical introduction that includes biographical information, an assessment of the playwright's contributions to black theater, and a synopsis and critical analysis of the play. The bibliography that follows the plays provides selected lists of published plays, produced plays, and anthologies. An index completes the work. This collection represents an effort to make available plays written by black women that have not been published or are now out of print. In recovering these plays, scholars will now be able to take a close look at the contributions that black women dramatists have made not only to African American theater, but to American theater in general."
-
Reviews and notices of anthology
-
• n/a
-
Commentary on anthology
-
• "Apparatus accompanying the nine playwrights' thirteen plays (seven from the 1920s) is outstanding, especially the ample bibliographies" (Kinnamon 1997: 477).
-
Cited in
-
Hatch 1991: 184] [Kinnamon 1997: 477]
-
Item Number
-
A0255
