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Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, a classic of American theater, is the poignant story of a family in 1950s Harlem. In timeless prose, Lonne Elder explores the discontent of a generation that has grown old before its time, and the determination of the next generation to avoid such a fate. In the play, Russel B. Parker is a prodigal father and failed barber who exists on memories and "ceremonies" for survival. He spends his time recounting atmospheric tales of his life in vaudeville and tells, in darkly comic detail, about his days on the chain gang. Just beneath the surface of Elder's work lie the terrors of day-to-day life in a racist society--never directly mentioned, but always simmering unforgettably. Ceremonies in Dark Old Men had its debut Off-Broadway in 1969. It received enthusiastic reviews and moved into an extended run. Since its first performance, the play has been produced numerous times both on television and on the stage, with the leads being played by an honor roll of actors, including Laurence Fishburne, Denzel Washington, and Billy Dee Williams.
This powerful Newbery-winning classic tells the story of the great coon dog Sounder and his family. An African American boy and his family rarely have enough to eat. Each night, the boy's father takes their dog, Sounder, out to look for food. The man grows more desperate by the day. When food suddenly appears on the table one morning, it seems like a blessing. But the sheriff and his deputies are not far behind. The ever-loyal Sounder remains determined to help the family he loves as hard times bear down. This classic novel shows the courage, love, and faith that bind a family together despite the racism and inhumanity they face in the nineteenth-century deep South. Readers who enjoy timeless dog stories such as Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows will find much to love in Sounder, even as they read through tears at times.
Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, a classic of American theater, is the poignant story of a family in 1950s Harlem. In timeless prose, Lonne Elder explores the discontent of a generation that has grown old before its time, and the determination of the next generation to avoid such a fate. In the play, Russel B. Parker is a prodigal father and failed barber who exists on memories and "ceremonies" for survival. He spends his time recounting atmospheric tales of his life in vaudeville and tells, in darkly comic detail, about his days on the chain gang. Just beneath the surface of Elder's work lie the terrors of day-to-day life in a racist society--never directly mentioned, but always simmering unforgettably. Ceremonies in Dark Old Men had its debut Off-Broadway in 1969. It received enthusiastic reviews and moved into an extended run. Since its first performance, the play has been produced numerous times both on television and on the stage, with the leads being played by an honor roll of actors, including Laurence Fishburne, Denzel Washington, and Billy Dee Williams.
This revised and expanded Black Theatre USA broadens its collection to fifty-one outstanding plays, enhancing its status as the most authoritative anthology of African American drama with twenty-two new selections. This collection features plays written between 1935 and 1996.
How FBI surveillance influenced African American writing Few institutions seem more opposed than African American literature and J. Edgar Hoover's white-bread Federal Bureau of Investigation. But behind the scenes the FBI's hostility to black protest was energized by fear of and respect for black writing. Drawing on nearly 14,000 pages of newly released FBI files, F.B. Eyes exposes the Bureau’s intimate policing of five decades of African American poems, plays, essays, and novels. Starting in 1919, year one of Harlem’s renaissance and Hoover’s career at the Bureau, secretive FBI "ghostreaders" monitored the latest developments in African American letters. By the time of Hoover’s deat...
"As Keepin' it Hushed will illustrate, African American hush harbor rhetoric (AAHHR) remains a powerful aspect of African American rhetoric containing and conveying African American epistemes and rationalities central to African American life and culture and to what Black folks are puttin' down. Away from the disciplining gaze of whiteness. This rhetoric emerges from camouflaged spaces and places.... Enslaved and free African Americans referred to these spatialities as hush harbors" -- from the introduction.
Winner, 2017 American Theater and Drama Society John W. Frick Book Award Winner, 2017 ASTR Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theater History Hillary Miller’s Drop Dead: Performance in Crisis, 1970s New York offers a fascinating and comprehensive exploration of how the city’s financial crisis shaped theater and performance practices in this turbulent decade and beyond. New York City’s performing arts community suffered greatly from a severe reduction in grants in the mid-1970s. A scholar and playwright, Miller skillfully synthesizes economics, urban planning, tourism, and immigration to create a map of the interconnected urban landscape and to contextualize the struggle f...
Founded in 1943, Negro Digest (later “Black World”) was the publication that launched Johnson Publishing. During the most turbulent years of the civil rights movement, Negro Digest/Black World served as a critical vehicle for political thought for supporters of the movement.