Plays by Black PlaywrightsLike this list

37 items

• A Raisin in the Sun

  Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965

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  "Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of Black America—and changed American theater forever. The…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Pipeline

  a Play

  Morisseau, Dominique,

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  "With profound compassion and lyricism, Morisseau brings us a powerful play that delves into the urgent issue of the “school-to-prison” pipeline that ensnares people of color. Issues of class, race, parenting, and education in America are brought to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Jitney

  a Play in Two Acts

  Wilson, August

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  "When the city threatens to board up the business and the boss’s son returns from prison, tempers flare, potent secrets are revealed, and the fragile threads binding these people together may come undone at last. Through rich dialogue and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sunset Baby

  Morisseau, Dominique

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  "Kenyatta Shakur is alone. His wife has died, and now, this former Black Revolutionary and political prisoner, is desperate to reconnect with his estranged daughter Nina. If Kenyatta truly wants to reconcile his past, he must first conquer his most…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Detroit Project

  Three Plays

  Morisseau, Dominique

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  "Three provocative dramas, Paradise Blue, Detroit ’67 and Skeleton Crew, make up Dominique Morisseau’s The Detroit Project, a play cycle examining the sociopolitical history of Detroit. Each play sits at a cross-section—of race and policing, of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box and Other Plays

  Kennedy, Adrienne

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  "In the titular play of this remarkable collection, Adrienne Kennedy journeys into Georgia and New York City in the 1940s to lay bare the devastating effects of segregation and its aftermath. He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box is the story of a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Les Blancs

  the Collected Last Plays

  Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965

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  "Here are Lorraine Hansberry's last three plays--Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, and What Use Are Flowers?--representing the capstone of her achievement. Includes a new preface by Jewell Gresham Nemiroff and a revised introduction by Margaret B.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Joe Turner's Come and Gone

  a Play in Two Acts

  Wilson, August

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  "When Harold Loomis arrives at a black Pittsburgh boardinghouse after seven years' impressed labor on Joe Turner's chain gang, he is a free man—in body. But the scars of his enslavement and a sense of inescapable alienation oppress his spirit still,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, When the Rainbow Is Enuf

  a Choreopoem

  Shange, Ntozake

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  "From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater & on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired &…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Choir Boy

  McCraney, Tarell Alvin,

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  "The Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys is dedicated to the creation of strong, ethical black men. Pharus wants nothing more than to take his rightful place as leader of the school's legendary gospel choir, but can he find his way inside the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Brother/sister Plays

  McCraney, Tarell Alvin,

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  "This is the first collection by Tarell Alvin McCraney, a major new playwright of the American theater. Lyrical and mythic, provocative and contemporary, McCraney’s dramas of kinship, love, and heartache are set in the bayou of Louisiana and loosely…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Twilight--Los Angeles, 1992 on the Road

  a Search for American Character

  Smith, Anna Deavere

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  "Twilight is a stunning work of "documentary theater" that explores the devastating human impact of the five days of riots following the Rodney King verdict. From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, Smith has chosen the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Notes From the Field

  Smith, Anna Deavere,

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  "Anna Deavere Smith’s extraordinary form of documentary theater shines a light on injustices by portraying the real-life people who have experienced them. "One of her most ambitious and powerful works on how matters of race continue to divide and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• House Arrest

  a Search for American Character in and Around the White House, Past and Present ; and Piano : Two Plays

  Smith, Anna Deavere

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  "In the provocative and at times bitterly funny play House Arrest, Smith examines the relationships between a succession of American presidents and their observers in and out of the press. Arcing from Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to Jefferson and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Radio Golf

  Wilson, August

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  "Radio Golf is August Wilson’s final play. Set in 1990 Pittsburgh, it is the conclusion of his Century Cycle—Wilson’s ten-play chronicle of the African American experience throughout the twentieth century—and is the last play he completed before his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Fences

  a Play

  Wilson, August,

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  "Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Flyin' West and Other Plays

  Cleage, Pearl

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  "Pearl Cleage is a passionate, challenging playwright whose concerns for the species are unmistakable and profound. As a woman, as an African-American, her artistic objectivity and sensitivity to history combine with, but do not overshadow, her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Ruined

  Nottage, Lynn

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  "A rain forest bar and brothel in the brutally war-torn Congo is the setting for Lynn Nottage’s extraordinary play, Ruined. The establishment’s shrewd matriarch, Mama Nadi, keeps peace between customers from both sides of the civil war, as…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Intimate Apparel

  Nottage, Lynn

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  "The time is 1905, the place New York City, where Esther, a black seamstress, lives in a boarding house for women and sews intimate apparel for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. Her skills and discretion are much in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Crumbs From the Table of Joy

  Nottage, Lynn,

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  "From the pen of the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama! The Crump family is adrift and in trouble. Recently widowed Godfrey is under the spell of Sweet Father Divine, while his teen daughters, Ernestine and Ermina, immerse themselves in…Read moreRead more of this annotation