Theater in the 20th Century

Black theater in the 20th century comprises a wide array of dramatic productions by black Americans growing out of the legacies of minstrel-era performance of the 19th century. As a result, black theater has largely been driven by the desire to present depictions of black life that were not overdetermined by the white gaze. A dynamic corpus of literary, dramatic, and expressive art, black theater of the 20th century has been foundational to the development of black theater as it is known today. This period was also concerned with questions central to black theater such as: What should black plays be about? Where should black theaters be located? Who can write a black play? What is a black play? Various theater companies, playwrights, and artistic movements have forged responses to such questions with each deepening the textures of black theater. In a significant and early articulation of what black theater should be, W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the July 1926 issue of The Crisis, established the governing mantra for the Harlem-based theater company the Krigwa Players and black theater more broadly. He states that it should be should be “About us by us . . . for us . . . [and] near us.” Voices such as Alain Locke and Theophilus Lewis would deepen these conversations with their own perspectives on the purpose of black theater with Locke advocating for a lessened emphasis on social issues and Lewis expressing the need to appeal to working-class black Americans whose support for black theater was unwavering. Moreover, theater companies; artistic and social movements; and the work of playwrights such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, August Wilson, George C. Wolfe, Adrienne Kennedy, and Suzan-Lori Parks would go on to develop a critical body of work that makes up black theater of the 20th century. Black theater of the 20th century is intrinsically tied to black performance histories of storytelling, improvisation, “signifyin’,” humor, and masking. This dramatic work has contributed greatly to the project of self-authorship and expression that sits at the heart of black literature. This entry traverses the many contours of 20th-century black theater moving from broader explorations of anthologies and theater histories to close analyses of playwrights and finally to emergent thematic examinations that signal future directions for the study of 20th-century black theater.