Description:
In Experiments in Democracy, theatre historians explore the ways progressive artists sought to connect isolated racial and cultural groups in pursuit of a more just and democratic society.
Brief description: Cheryl Black is a professor of theatre, the director of graduate studies, and the Catherine Paine Middlebush Chair in Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Missouri. She is the author of The Women of Provincetown, 1915-1922, as well as essays published in Staging a Cultural Paradigm: The Political and the Personal in American Drama; Feminist Theatrical Revisions of Classic Works; and Violence in American Drama: Essays on Its Staging, Meaning, and Effects. She is the president of the American Theatre and Drama Society and a fellow of the Mid-America Theatre Conference.
Review Quotes: "[This book] brings fresh perspectives to interracial and cross-cultural exchange in the American theatre during the first half of the twentieth century . . . [and will] appeal to both scholars and general readers interested in US theatre history, political history, and social sciences such as ethnic studies."--Jorge A. Huerta, author of Chicano Theater: Themes and Forms and Chicano Drama: Performance, Society, and Myth
"Cheryl Black and Jonathan Shandell's fascinating collection convincingly makes the case that the roots of interracial and cross-cultural American theatre can be traced back to the work of early twentieth-century artists . . . [P]rominent theatre historians demonstrate[] how the performing arts served as a medium to express a widely held curiosity about race, revise popular ethnic stereotypes, and, ultimately, reflect the diversity of the nation."--Harvey Young, author of Theatre and Race This anthology comprises essays that consider cross-cultural borrowings in US theater in the decades prior to World War II. Unlike other recent scholarship that has focused mainly on ethnocentric inquiries, this collection probes the political possibilities of interracial "cross-fertilization" on the US stage. The essays consider a range of plays and performances, including Paul Robeson's role in Othello, the performance of Chinese exclusion in The Yellow Jacket, and race and citizenship in teatro vernaculo. --American Literature