The African American Theatre Directory, 1816-1960: A Comprehensive Guide to Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, Theatres, and Performing Gro (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780313295379)

A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol Hill, a noted critic, playwright, scholar and Willard Professor of Drama Emeritus, Dartmouth College.

A comprehensive directory of more than 600 entries, this detailed ready reference features professional, semi-professional, and academic stage organizations and theatres that have been in the forefront in pioneering most of the advances that African Americans have made in the theatre. It includes groups from the early 19th century to the dawn of the revolutionary Black theatre movement of the 1960s. It is an effort to bring together into one volume information that has hitherto been scattered throughout a number of different sources. The volume begins with an illuminating foreword by Errol Hill, a noted critic, playwright, scholar and Willard Professor of Drama Emeritus, Dartmouth College.

Included in the volume are the earliest organizations that existed before the Civil War, Black minstrel troupes, pioneer musical show companies, selected vaudeville and road show troupes, professional theatrical associations, booking agencies, stock companies, significant amateur and little theatre groups, Black units of the WPA Federal Theatre, and semi-professional groups in Harlem after the Federal Theatre. The A-Z entries are supplemented with a classified appendix that also includes additional organizations not listed in the main directory, a bibliography, and three indexes for shows, showpeople, and general subjects. Cross referencing makes related information easy to find.

Author: Lena McPhatter Gore
ISBN-10: 0313295379
ISBN-13: 9780313295379
Publisher: Greenwood
Language: English
Published: 05/28/1997
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.41lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.75d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 02/15/1997 pg. 1039
Library Journal 02/15/1997 pg. 128
Booklist 10/01/1997 pg. 350
Library Journal 02/01/1997