Waves of change Fairview, by Jackie Sibblies Drury, is part of a growing new canon of plays by Black writers. A co-commission from Berkeley Rep and Soho Rep, Fairview was developed as part of The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Shown here: Natalie Venetia Belcon, Monique Robinson, and Charles Browning in Berkeley Rep’s production (photo by Kevin Berne).
MAKING SOME NOISE
WRITERS OF COLOR AND THE CONTEMPORARY THEATRICAL LANDSCAPE BY MADELEINE OLDHAM
HISTORICALLY, THE AMERICAN THEATRE has largely excluded
Black writers from its canon. August Wilson’s work received a rare exception, as did one play by Lorraine Hansberry… and that’s about it. For decades, common parlance posited that production-worthy writing by Black authors didn’t exist. Artistic directors insisted that they just simply “chose the best plays.” We are finally as a field beginning to see this for the bias it is, and recognizing that our culture demands and deserves a more expansive ideology, particularly when it comes to our storytelling. For so long, western societies have assumed the white male experience as the baseline; and the people holding the power, wealth, and influence drove the choices about what stories got told. This hierarchical structure assumes a tacit agreement among the culture at large, and handily dismisses work that fails to fall in line. Important Black playwrights have written seminal texts for a very long time, and yet plays by Adrienne Kennedy, Alice Childress, Ed Bullins, or Amiri Baraka rarely receive productions on our stages. Literary giants Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin all wrote for the theatre. It’s not that Black writers didn’t exist; the mainstream decision-makers just weren’t paying attention.
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However, perhaps as a result of this glaring blind spot, generations of people of color and women learned how to see the world through the eyes of characters who didn’t necessarily look like them. From Willy Loman’s everyman struggles to Stanley Kowalski’s tragic brutality, these iconic stories encouraged audiences to ponder big questions about human nature, and their narratives were considered universal. Maybe, ironically, that’s why it took so long to invite a more inclusive conversation: the people with the power rarely had to imagine themselves in the shoes of someone “other.” This seems to have finally begun to shift: critics, artists, and audiences alike have recognized that we are living through a significant moment in the American Theatre, where artists of color are being embraced. Many large theatres program plays by Black playwrights regularly, and not just in February for Black History Month. Names like Lynn Nottage, Dominique Morisseau, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, and Suzan-Lori Parks appear regularly on year-end lists of the most produced playwrights. Another wave of successful writers is following hot on their heels, with Jocelyn Bioh, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Michael R. Jackson, and Ngozi Anyanwu gaining nationwide attention and acclaim for their work. Their
