Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2021: Read a Play (BIPOC Playwrights)
- Ariel H.
- Monday, February 01, 2021
Collection
Fulfill the "Read a Play" prompt with these titles written by BIPOC playwrights.
This list is part of the #BroaderBookshelf 2021 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
Mixed Company
Three Early Jamaican Plays.
Published in 2012
In 2012 Jamaica celebrates the 50th anniversary of Independence. Mixed Company is a collection of three of the finest early Jamaican theatrical works, written for the most part before the dawn ofIndependence. Written in 1954 (The Creatures by Cicely Waite-Smith), 1960 (Bedwardby Louis Marriott) and 1970 (Maskarade by Sylvia Wynter), the plays are examples of works conceived with a Jamaican audience in mind, a Jamaican audience conscious of the melting pot in which it lived. Each offers a unique perspective on the spirit of a people who held on to traditional beliefs and customs in the face of colonial opprobrium as the populace struggled to gain its political, social and cultural independence.
The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary American Plays. Vol. 1.
Published in 2012
This new series brings together some of the best new writing from contemporary American playwrights. Volume One is introduced by Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of the Lincoln Center Theater, the most prestigious theatre in the USA. Each play is introduced by critically acclaimed writers themselves. The volume includes: KIN by Bathsheba Doran, (with an introduction by Chris Durang) Kin sheds a sharp light on the changing face of kinship in the expansive landscape of the modern world.
Tales of the out & the Gone
Published in 2009
Comprising short fiction from the early 1970s to the twenty-first century--most of which has never been published--Tales of the Out & the Gone reflects the astounding evolution of America's most provocative literary anti-hero. The first section of the book, "War Stories," offers six stories enmeshed in the vola-tile politics of the 1970s and 1980s. The second section, "Tales of the Out & the Gone," reveals Amiri Baraka's increasing literary adventurousness, combining an unpredictable language play with a passion for abstraction and psychological exploration. Throughout, Baraka's unique and constantly changing literary style will educate readers on the evolution of one of America's most accomplished literary masters of the past four decades.
The Day the Waters Came
Published in 2010
Winner of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Best Play for Children and Young People 2011. It is summer, 2005, New Orleans. Maya Marsalis takes you by the hand, sometimes the throat, and leads you through her landscape the day Hurricane Katrina came, the levees broke, the world watched and the US Government did nothing. Go with her, as she shows you how her world and that of thousands of black American citizens changed forever, the day the waters came. A sister piece to Evans' seminal play for young audiences. Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home, this new play explores the environmental and social impact of Hurricane Katrina on the communities in New Orleans.
Bulletproof Soul
Published in 2017
What these Africans need to be learning about is air-con, man. I mean, I thought we were making poverty history! What was Live 8 for, then?' In Uganda, at a school for ex-child soldiers, Sol and Rena meet Alice. Sol is a charity worker, trying to keep his rebellious, seventeen-year-old sister Rena in line. Alice is Rena's age, but she's seen worse - and done worse - that either of them realize. As friendship develops, so does the risk of betrayal. A sharp explosive play about trying to do the right thing, Bulletproof Soul opened at the Birmingham Rep in March 2007.
Trying to Find Chinatown
The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang.
Published in 1999
David Henry Hwang has created an extraordinary body of work over the last twenty years: the Tony Award-winning play, M. Butterfly; the OBIE Award-winning and 1998 Tony nominated Golden Child; the libretti to The Voyage (included here) and 1000 Airplanes on the Roof (both for composer Philip Glass); and the book to Aida, which he coauthored. He has received fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and The Pew /TCG National Artists Residency Program. This eight-play collection includes: FOB: - "fresh off the boat" explores the conflicts between old and new worlds - The Dance and the Railroad: a haunting play about the inhuman conditions of railroad workers in the 1860s American West - Family Devotions: a biting work which probes the religious conflicts in a modern Chinese-American family - The Sound of a Voice: a meditation on the traditional roles of man and woman set in feudal Japan - The House of Sleeping Beauties: a reworking of a novella by Yasunari Kawabata - The Voyage: the libretto to the opera by Philip Glass, which examines Columbus's arrival in America - Bondage: a one-act set in an S&M parlor, which examines racial stereotypes and sexual myths... Trying to Find Chinatown: a two-person play, in which two Asian-American men-one searching for his Asian heritage, the other trying to shake himself free-meet by chance in New York City David Henry Hwang knows America-its vernacular, its social landscape, its theatrical traditions. He knows the same about China. In his plays, he manages to mix both of these conflicting cultures until he arrives at a style that is wholly his own. Hwang's works have the verve of the well-made American stage comedies and yet, with little warning, they bubble over into the mystical rituals of Asian stagecraft. By at once bringing West and East into conflict and unity, this playwright has found the perfect
Scrape off the Black.
Published in 1998
London's East End 1973. Trevor organizes a surprise party on the release of his brother Andy from Borstal. But Rose, his bingo-playing, pill-popping mother, has other plans.
Detroit '67
Published in 2013
It's 1967 in Detroit. Motown music is getting the party started, and Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. But when a mysterious woman finds her way into their lives, the siblings clash over more much more than the family business. As their pent-up feelings erupt, so does their city, and they find themselves caught in the middle of the '67 riots. DETROIT '67 is presented in association with Classical Theatre of Harlem and the National Black Theatre.
Desdemona.
Published in 2012
The story of Desdemona from Shakespeare's Othello is re-imagined by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison, Malian singer and songwriter Rokia Traor,̌ and acclaimed stage director Peter Sellars. Morrison's response to Sellars' 2009 production of Othello is an intimate dialogue of words and music between Desdemona and her African nurse Barbary. Morrison gives voice and depth to the female characters, letting them speak and sing in the fullness of their hearts. Desdemona is an extraordinary narrative of words, music and song about Shakespeare's doomed heroine, who speaks from the grave about the traumas of race, class, gender, war - and the transformative power of love. Toni Morrison transports one of the most iconic, central, and disturbing treatments of race in Western culture into the new realities and potential outcomes facing a rising generation of the 21st century.
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
Published in 2013
In her first new play since the critically acclaimed "Ruined, " Nottage tells the story of Vera Stark, an African-American maid and budding actress who has a tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold onto her career.
Ruined
Published in 2009
Mama Nadi, the owner of a brothel set in Congo, is a mother figure who keeps watch over her business, serving men from both sides of the conflict, and employing women, "ruined" by rape or torture, who are forced to work as prostitutes.
Sweat
Published in 2017
No stranger to dramas both heart-felt and heart-wrenching, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage has written one of her most exquisitely devastating tragedies to date. Set in one of the poorest cities in America, Reading, PA, a group of down-and-out factory workers struggle to keep their present lives in balance, tragically ignorant of the financial devastation looming in their futures.
Inside.
Published in 2010
Looking for relief from boredom and a chance to get off the wing, seven young fathers in prison sign-up for an education programme. They try to use the workshops to settle scores and to rise up the prison pecking order. But they're confronted with more than they'd bargained for, as they face up to their relationships with their children and their own fathers. Self-deceptions, vulnerabilities, and failed hopes and dreams are revealed, unleashing anger and violence that the workshop leaders struggle to contain. Researched in Rochester Prison with a young fathers group, the pilot project was devised at the National Youth Theatre in 2008 and was presented as Fathers Inside at Cookham Wood Young Offenders Institute and at the Soho Theatre to critical acclaim.
Father Comes Home from the Wars
Parts 1, 2 & 3
Published in 2015
"The stunning first installment of a new American Odyssey, set over the course of the Civil War, and penned by Pulitzer Prize & Tony Award winner Suzan-Lori Parks (Topdog/Underdog). Offered his freedom if he joins his master in the ranks of the Confederacy, Hero, a slave, must choose whether to leave the woman and people he loves for what may be yet another empty promise. As his decision brings him face-to-face with a nation at war with itself, the loved ones Hero left behind debate whether to escape or wait for his return, only to discover that for Hero, free will may have come at a great spiritual cost. A devastatingly beautiful dramatic work filled with music, wit and great lyricism, Father Comes Home From the Wars is an epic tale about holding on to who we are and what we love in a country that both brings us together and rips us apart. Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) enjoyed its world premiere production in October-December 2014, Off-Broadway at The Public Theater. It received rave reviews and was extended twice. The world premiere production will be seen at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, beginning January 2015. Praise for Father Comes Home From the Wars: "By turns philosophical and playful, lyrical and earthy, Suzan-Lori Parks's new play, Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), swoops, leaps, dives and soars across three endlessly stimulating hours, reimagining a turbulent turning point in American history through a cockeyed contemporary lens ... The finest work yet from this gifted writer ... [It] just be the best new play I've seen all year ... The wonder of Ms. Parks's achievement is how smoothly she blends the high and the low, the serious and the humorous, the melodramatic and the grittily realistic; [she has] a voice that can transform blunt, vernacular language into fluid, flowing free verse."--Charles Isherwood, New York Times"A nine-part serial whose first three parts are now being produced ... Can one-third of something already be a masterpiece? Seems like it to me ... People long for stories that engage the deepest possible issues in the most gripping possible ways. Father Comes Home From the Wars is one of those stories -- or maybe more than one." - Jesse Green, New York Magazine "Brilliant, beautiful ... With this vibrant freestanding trilogy ... Parks has achieved something that engages with a bold theatricality both lyrical and raw, without sacrificing any of her thematic ambition or her structural and intellectual complexity. Each of the three parts thrums with its own vitality [and they] form a mutually invigorating whole. Parks' incomparable command of percussive vernacular is no surprise, and her dialogue here might just as easily be sung. This haunting work is funny and tragic, whimsical and lacerating, poetic and poignant, navigating its radical tonal shifts with fluidity and grace ... If Parks can sustain her sprawling project at this level as it moves forward, there's every reason to hope it will ultimately become no less significant and emotionally resonant an undertaking than August Wilson's ten-play Century Cycle." - David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter "The best new play of the year ... It is bold, hugely entertaining, moving and thrillingly ambitious. Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks bids fair to create a sprawling multi-part epic to plant alongside August Wilson's monumental Century Cycle, one of the great achievements in theater history. Parts 4 through 9 (? or more?) can't come fast enough for me." - Michael Giltz, Huffington Post "-- Provided by publisher.
Bad Blood Blues.
Published in 2009
Are Africans being exploited as guinea pigs' to test new drugs for multi-national pharmaceutical companies? Why is HIV/AIDS treatment too expensive for countries where the virus is most rife? Is it okay to sacrifice lives to protect the integrity of medical studies? Bad Blood Blues is a powerfully intense new play that leads us deep into a personal and sexual moral maze while confronting the ethics of HIV/AIDS drug trials in Africa.
Obama-ology
Published in 2014
I am black enough to get stopped by the police, and I'm sure as hell black enough to work on a campaign for the first African American who has a chance at being the leader of the free world. When African-American college graduate Warren takes a job with the 2008 Obama campaign, he's fired up and ready to go - until he lands in the troubled streets of East Cleveland. But somewhere between knocking on doors, fending off cops, and questioning his own racial and sexual identity, he learns that changing society isn't as easy as he imagined...A stunning new play that demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit to overcome defeat at the hands of social repression and financial hardship.