Monday, May 7, 2007
Where do you see African American Theater in tne next five years?
In this course we read a wide range of plays and ciritcal texts and viewed several film versions of African American plays. Now that you can create a definition of what African American Theater was in the past and is currently, what projections can you make for a future African American Theater audience in the next five years? What do you think that writers and producers can do to cultivate new plays by African Americans and a new audience for African American Theater?
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3 comments:
I think in the future we will see more types of historical re-imagining in black theatre. i think we are in a place where there is a general collective agreement that we have to fill in the holes of history even if it is fabricated, because after all, without blacks in the dominant narrative of american, that too is not entirely true. i think we will see black playwrights being more daring and theatre artist using the stage as a place for anything dealin with black experiences even if it comes from a place of complete absurdity--that's the power to create that we need.
I said this in my final, but hopefully the avant garde African theater and the Chitlin Circuit-type stuff can find a sort of middle ground that mixes popular appeal with really high-quality work. I think also that we're gonna see a lot more color-blind casting, as people continue to insist that race no longer matters. Word on the street is they're gonna do Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with LL Cool J and Felicia Rashad. August Wilson is probably rolling in his grave.
I have to disagree with MAtt on this one. In my humble opinion, I view African American theatre in five years about the same as it is now. I think that AA THTR, using Gates' deifnitions of legitimate and illegitimate will continue to run parrellel to each other, with neither giving ground to the other. sure, there will be transiece between the two with some actors and maybe even production crews. but in my humble opinion, i do not see tyler perry having a show at the Public anytime soon. it is an unfortunate fact, but i think that AA THTR is in a state of transtion. I am not sure if a happy medium between the two will be found, if it is it wont certainly be soon.
to be perfectly honest, the state fo transition extends to theatre in general. Regional theatre is consistently decomposing. In my opinion, I feel that the Chitlin circuit will win out, eventually. I dont think this will happen, though, until the failure of the regional theatre system. This will happen, i think, is theatre continues the way it is currently established. there is no new blood going into the legitimate theatre, at least as far as audiences go. should this conitinue, i imagine that in 50 years what we now know as the legitimate theatre will be relegate to the status of opera, where a handful of majoy production companies produce perpetual revivals. If this is indeed the case, i can easily see work like Perry's filling that vacuum.
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