African American Theatre Analysis

When people think of theatre they usually think of acting, directing, and maybe script writers. They would correct, all of those disciplines are part of theatre but there's more to theatre than just that; however, due to personal interests those specific disciplines will be exactly what this essay is about. What most people don't think of when they think of theatre is how much thought is put into it. The different type of methods, not just for acting but, for directing, and script writing as well. Everyone has a different method of running a show but this paper will discuss some of the legendary people that have influenced theatre the most.

Fences took place in the 1950’s, during that time the role of women in the 1950 was repressive and constrictive in a lot of ways. The 1950s is often viewed as a period of conformity, when both men and women observed strict gender roles and complied with society’s expectations (Women in 1950’s). Society placed a very high significance on different expectations on behavior in public as well as at home. Women were to be homemakers, caring mothers, and to be an obedient wife to their husbands. A wife was only considered a “good wife” if she did anything and everything her husband asked for and agreed with everything the man would say. This was the type of way Troy treated Rose in fences and how he thought of women and their

The title of the work, Fences, acts as an extended metaphor throughout the play. Troy builds fences between himself and virtually everyone in the play, isolating himself further and further as he clings to the past and refuses to adapt to a world changing around him. He builds a fence between himself and his friend Bono when he takes a promotion at work, and then puts a fence between he and Rose when he goes outside of the confines of their marriage with Alberta. He also builds a fence between himself and Cory by his refusal to acknowledge his son's dreams. As Bogumil states, "By drawing a strict boundary around himself regarding familial relations, Troy loses virtually every sense of affection and bond between himself and his son, causing Cory to conclude that his father does not even like him" (48). When Cory alludes to the question of his father liking him, Troy responds, "....cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw." He continues with, "You my flesh and blood. Not 'cause I like you! Cause it's my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! (Wilson, 38). Later in the play, in the end of Act Two, Scene Four, Troy and

August Wilson is a well-known playwright from the 1980s, in which he wrote and published the “Pittsburg Cycle”, a series of plays about struggling black families in the city. In Wilson’s 1983 play, “Fences”, the topics of oppression and betrayal are discussed through the trials of a family living in Pittsburg whom the odds are seemingly stacked against. This play was made into a movie, where the trials and tribulations of this family are brought to life. Troy and Rose, husband and wife of eighteen years, share one climatic scene in which all the issues they face bubble to the surface. In this scene, Wilson utilizes rhetorical strategies to enhance the emotional appeal for the audience.

June 1st, 1921 will forever be remembered as a day of great loss and devastation. It was on this day that America experienced the deadliest race riot in the small town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ninety-four years later, that neighborhood is still recognized as one of the most prosperous African American neighborhoods to date. With hundreds of successful black-owned businesses lining Greenwood Avenue, it became a standard that African Americans are still trying to rebuild. The attack that took place in 1921 tore the community apart, claiming hundreds of lives and sending the once prosperous neighborhood up in smoke.

The history of African-Americans in theatre in performing arts and how they evolved is absolutely outstanding. African-Americans been entertaining audiences since the 1800s until this very day. It has made a colossal impact on the black theater community in today. The history of this topic is a combination of legendary years leading up to this very day. It’s mostly about how blacks, in the 1820s, finally got to take their theatre and performance name from the whites. Then took it upon themselves to stride for greatness.

Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were

Players in Los Angeles the most. The theater has introduced to the world over one hundred interesting plays and musicals that talk about the Asian American stories. From the early days of development, Asian American actors were very interested in playing roles of well-known characters in the history such as Shakespeare in traditional way, but Asian American writers couldn’t create a suitable program that worked best for actors in expressing the truly Asian American culture until the 1970s. As the result, nowadays plays and musicals produced by East West Players Company are all written in an Asian sense. The one thing that I like about the theater is that they work not only in favor of any specific Asian culture, not only about Chinese, Vietnamese

The History of Broadway Musicals What Is Broadway theater? Most would believe that it refers to the theaters that are located on Broadway street in New York. Surprisingly however, many Broadway theaters have moved to neighboring streets. In modern times, the definition of a Broadway theater actually refers to how many people the theater holds, as well as how much they pay the cast etc. So as a rule, a theater would be considered a Broadway if it seats at least 500 people.

The National Black Theater (NBT) is one of the few surviving black theaters created during the Black Arts Movement. The theater was founded in 1968 in Harlem, New York by the late Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. Dr. Teer was known as an award winning artist and entrepreneur. She worked for the community sending out a message of positivity through hardships. Dr.Teer used the theater to uplift the community through black arts. Fortunately, she accomplished her goal because the theater has been serving the community for 46 years. NBT works through three top core programs such as Theatre Arts Program (TAP), Entrepreneurial Arts Program (EAP) and the Communication Arts Program (CAP). Each program brings in different elements that contributes to the success

Finding the core of something as broad as black theatre is an ultimate task for one to take on. Black theatre is very complex in nature and structure and not everyone agrees on the exact components of what black theatre really is. How does anyone decide what black theatre is? Who has the right to decide what black theatre is? What are these decisions based on? It has been my privilege to explore these aspects of black theatre. Through extensive research and discovery, I plan to evaluate the perceptions of what black theatre is and develop a refined definition of black theatre.

Schools use Shakespeare as a tool to educate and thus stimulate a widespread familiarly in his works. Schools believe that by performing and reading Shakespeare, students are equipped with extensive language skills as well being able to explore their imagination and ideas through drama. 8 Similarly, stage and film productions reuse Shakespeare’s scripts as this allows room for creativity for each new performance. Since his scripts are used, this means that there is a standard story for the audience to make comparisons on the casts and characters played over various performances. Hence the performers will have to inject new and creatively interesting ways of bringing Shakespeare’s works into life, lest they lose their audience. In addition, although each audience will view every performance with varied interpretations as Shakespeare's plays bring the audience into real life situations. Due to the differing personal experiences of each member of the audience, emotions and thoughts will be provoked. This keeps the thinking and feeling person wanting to come back for more of Shakespeare’s works to discover more about him or herself.

“Aren’t you a little old for that?” “Isn’t that for little kids?” “You need to grow up.” There comes a time where everyone hears those words. It normally happens when you get into high school. Teenagers try to ditch their childish image just as Miley Cyrus tried to ditch her Hannah Montana image. Those young adults are trying to remove the “young” part and prove they are just adults. I never personally went through that phase myself. Of course, I matured and acted like a professional when I was expected too. However, I never stopped loving the things that might be considered weird for a high school student to do in his free time. I still watched cartoons and played with bubbles and drew on the sidewalk with chalk. I didn’t see anything wrong with these enjoyable hobbies even though it made people look at me strange or tease me in the halls. I never really got over the enjoyment of acting immature in a mature way. However, I felt like I was out of place at times. It wasn’t until my the end of my junior year that I decided to say “screw it” and break the status quo of feeling ashamed of enjoying the happiness of life. I had been involved in the theatre program for almost two years. The state theatre competition was coming up and my theatre troupe decided to do a modern telling of Peter Pan as our one act play.

Drama and dramatic performances have consistently been present throughout human society, both as a medium for entertainment as well as a forum for education and critique. Aristophanes, the “father of modern drama”, was the first to really successfully amalgamate these two ideas together within his dramatic pieces, as can be seen in his works Wasps and Frogs. Shakespeare was the next great dramatist, and arguably the great dramatist, and he has evolved Aristophanes’ ideas and methods and developed them to greater extent. These can be seen in works such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear and Hamlet, but are present in the large majority of his works. And with

In our lives, we are surrounded by moments of tragedy that drives our will to keep moving forward. Our daily lifestyles are no different from the famous stories that playwrights have written throughout history. Playwrights are masters at combining theatre elements of tragedy, religion, violence, and numerous relative elements that the audience embrace faithfully. Today, Greek and Roman influence is the main topic since they have inspired the famous plays Desire under the Elms and The Glass Menagerie.