A Eulogy for “African American Theatre History”
Esteemed colleagues and cherished students, we gather today not only to mourn the passing of a cherished member of our academic family, but also to celebrate the indelible mark that it has left on our hearts and minds. “African American Theatre History” (formerly “History of African American Performance”) has touched the lives of many, but it has now been canceled due to low enrollments. As we bed it farewell, we reflect on its impacts and legacy.
“A Raisin in the Sun,” Lorraine Hansberry
“African American Theatre History” surveyed the formal development and major themes of African American theatre from the nineteenth century to the present. It examined individual and collective acts of self-fashioning, asking how dramatists and performers reimagined the various meanings of Blackness in the US public sphere.
This was a course that gave special attention to aesthetic experimentation and its role(s) in political theatre; transformations of genre and form; Black dramatic theory; the relationship between music, dance, spectacle, and drama; and the making—and continuous remaking—of Black radical theatre.
“for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf,” Ntozake Shange
Rest in peace, dear “African American Theatre History.” In a department whose staff, faculty, and graduate student body is primarily white or white-presenting, your loss is significant. Perhaps we should have done more to protect and preserve you, especially given the present political climate.
Indeed, how can we teach theater, let alone theater history, without specifically addressing the contributions of Black and Brown artists? And how do we expect our undergraduate students to have a well-rounded, diverse, and critical understanding of theater, let alone American theater, without providing them with such a course? If undergraduate interest is low, is it not our responsibility to awaken it? Should we have advertised via department-wide email blasts, social media posts, or even word-of-mouth announcements in our other classes? Should we have sought cross-listings with the Departments of English, African American and African Studies, Comparative Studies, or other affiliates?
“The America Play,” Suzan-Lori Parks
But let us not dwell on the causes of a death that could have been prevented. Let us remember “African American Theatre History” not with sadness, but with hope. Perhaps like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, its revenant will haunt the hallowed halls of our new, state-of-the-art building until the foul crime of its cancellation is burnt and purged away. Then, in a scene that is yet to come, Black performance might be reborn in the undergraduate curriculum.