Through analyzing African-American theater and performance traditions, the authors gain new insight into how race has operated and continues to operate in American society.

The Device of Race: An Introduction, Harry J. Elam, Jr. PART I: SOCIAL PROTEST AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION 1. Uncle Tom's Women, Judith Williams 2. Political Radicalism and Artistic Innovation in the Works of Lorraine Hansberry, Margaret B. Wilkerson 3. The Black Arts Movement: Performance, Neo-Orality, and the Destruction of the "White Thing", Mike Sell 4. Beyond a Liberal Audience, William Sonnega PART II: CULTURAL TRADITIONS, CULTURAL MEMORY, AND PERFORMANCE 5. Deep Skin: Reconstructing Congo Square, Joseph R. Roach 6. "Calling on the Spirit": The Performativity of Black Women's Faith in the Baptist Church Spritual Traditions and Its Radical Possibilities for Resistance, Telia U. Anderson 7. The Chitlin Circuit, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 8. Audience and Africanisms in August Wilson's Dramaturgy: A Case of Study, Sandra G. Shannon PART III: INTERSECTIONS OF RACE AND GENDER 9. Black Minstrelsy and Double Inversion, Circa 1890, Annemarie Bean 10. Black Salome: Exoticism, Dance, and Racial Myths, David Krasner 11. Uh Tiny Land Mass Just Outside of My Vocabulary: Expression of Creative Nomadism and Contemporary African American Playwrights, Kimberly D. Dixon 12. Attending Walt Whitman High: The Lessons of Pomo Afro Homos' Dark Fruit, Jay Plum PART IV: AFRICAN AMERICAN PERFORMATIVITY AND THE PERFORMANCE OF RACE 13. Acting Out Miscegenation, Diana R. Paulin 14. Birmingham's Federal Theater Project Negro Unit: The Administration of Race, Tina Redd 15. The Black Performer and the Performance of Blackness: The Escape, or, A Leap to Freedom by William Wells Brown and No Place To Be Somebody by Charles Gordone, Harry J. Elam, Jr. 16 The Costs of Re-Membering: What's at Stake in Gayl Jones's Corregidora. Christina E. Sharpe PART V: ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WITH SENIOR SCHOLARS 17. African American Theater: The State of the Profession, Past, Present, and Future, Round-table discussion edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner Afterword: Change Is Coming, David Krasner Selected Bibliography Index

"An excellent collection of critical writings on issues of race, theater, and performance.... This volume offers compelling insights into producing and performing blackness on the American stage... A vital reference work for anyone interested in cultural studies, American theater, and literature."--Choice |k No