Harry J. Elam, Jr.

"Theater scholar and critic Harry J. Elam, Jr., interprets Wilson's plays in relation to concepts of memory and history, culture and resistance, and race and representation, arguing that Wilson seeks to reevaluate the past in order to understand the present. Elam also places Wilson's dramatic work in the context of contemporary African American literature, and looks at the function of music in Wilson's plays and in African American history. The book also explores the important but often overlooked ways in which Wilson incorporates African mythology into his portrait of twentieth-century African American history."--Jacket.

The performances of Luis Valdez's El Teatro Campesino, the farmworkers' theater, and Amiri Baraka's Black Revolutionary Theater (BRT) during the '60s and '70s offer preeminent examples of social protest theater during a momentous and tumultuous historical juncture. In Taking It to the Streets, Harry Elam compares the performance methodologies, theories, and practices of the two groups, highlighting their cross-cultural commonalities and providing insights into the complex genre of social protest performance and its interchange with its audience. He examines the ways in which ritual can be seen to operate within the productions of El Teatro and the BRT, uniting audience and performers in subversive, celebratory protest by transforming spectators into active participants within the theater walls - and into revolutionary activists outside.

'Black Cultural Traffic' traces how blackness travels globally in performance. The essays engage with critical issues such as circulation, cultural appropriation, commodification, commercialization and hybridity.

Critical Theory and Performance presents a broad range of critical and theoretical methods and applies them to contemporary and historical performance genres—from stage plays, dance-dramas, performance art, cabaret, stand-up comedy, and jazz to circus, street theater, and shamanistic ritual. As the first comprehensive introduction to critical theory’s rich and diverse contributions to the study of drama, theater, and performance, the book has been highly influential for more than a decade in providing fertile ground for academic investigations in the lively field of performance studies. This updated and expanded edition presents nineteen new essays by the field’s leading scholars and practitioners as well as new critical introductions by editors Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach. Reflecting recent trends in performance studies, this revised edition now includes discussions of critical race theory, postcolonial studies, gender and sexualities, and mediatized cultures. The resulting volume is a unique and indispensable tool for critics, teachers, and students that paves the way for future scholarship.