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Rating: 
Summary: Definitely worthwhile
Review: African American Theatre: An Historical and Critical Analysis", by Samuel A. Hay, is a must for every theatre enthusiast who has long realized that general works on Theater History show an appalling lack in dealing with the contribution of the African American community to theatre (like so many other 'histories'!). The first two chapters of Hay's book provide a very dense history of African American theatre from 1898 to the present and correspond to the two major schools of African American theatre: the Black Experience School of Drama, and the Black Arts School of Drama, the first based on Alain Locke's philosophy, the second on the teachings of sociologist William E. B. DuBois. The classification of the two schools into periods, classes and subclasses gets very confusing very fast, but Hay provides a helpful outline of the divisions at the beginning of his book. I admit that Hay's system of classification presented a problem for me: I have never liked people putting everything into preconceived little boxes. This first part of the book is very informative, but also extremely dense. The last three chapters of Hay's book comprise the 'critical analysis' portion, which simultaneously works as a very passionate appeal to African American theatre enthusiasts/students to persevere and help keep African American theatre alive. I definitely recommend this book to all African American theatre students and to everyone else who is seriously interested in all aspects of theatre history, and who has long suspected that there might be more to African American theatre than "A Raisin in the Sun". It's not easy reading, but definitely worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worthwhile
Review: African American Theatre: An Historical and Critical Analysis", by Samuel A. Hay, is a must for every theatre enthusiast who has long realized that general works on Theater History show an appalling lack in dealing with the contribution of the African American community to theatre (like so many other 'histories'!). The first two chapters of Hay's book provide a very dense history of African American theatre from 1898 to the present and correspond to the two major schools of African American theatre: the Black Experience School of Drama, and the Black Arts School of Drama, the first based on Alain Locke's philosophy, the second on the teachings of sociologist William E. B. DuBois. The classification of the two schools into periods, classes and subclasses gets very confusing very fast, but Hay provides a helpful outline of the divisions at the beginning of his book. I admit that Hay's system of classification presented a problem for me: I have never liked people putting everything into preconceived little boxes. This first part of the book is very informative, but also extremely dense. The last three chapters of Hay's book comprise the 'critical analysis' portion, which simultaneously works as a very passionate appeal to African American theatre enthusiasts/students to persevere and help keep African American theatre alive. I definitely recommend this book to all African American theatre students and to everyone else who is seriously interested in all aspects of theatre history, and who has long suspected that there might be more to African American theatre than "A Raisin in the Sun". It's not easy reading, but definitely worthwhile.
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