The Black Theater: The Making of a Movement with Maséqua Myers

4455 South King Drive,Chicago IL 60653

30 October, 2021

Description

The second in our series looks at the Black Theater movement of the 1960s and 70s. Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement documents the birth of a new theatre out of the Civil Rights activism of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. It is a veritable video encyclopedia of the leading figures, institutions and events of a movement that transformed the American stage. Amiri Baraka, Ossie Davis, James Earl Jones, and Ntozake Shange describe their aspirations for a theatre serving the Black community. Excerpts of A Raisin in the Sun, Black Girl, Dutchman and For Colored Girls… reveal how these actors and playwrights laid the basis for the Black theater of the present. (Woodie King Jr., 1978, 114 min., DVD) Discussion led by Maséqua Myers, longtime theater and film producer and former director of the South Side Community Art Center.