Study Guide Contents Director of Community Engagement & Education Joann Yarrow (315) 443-8603

Home , A Dialogue, A Rap on Race, Little Man Little Man, Nobody Knows My Name, No Name in the Street, Sol Stein

3.) Production Information Associate Director of Education 4.) Letter from Community Engagement and Education Team Kate Laissle (315) 442-7755 5.) Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage 6.) Synopsis Group Sales & Student Matinees Tracey White 7.) Meet the Playwright (315) 443-9844 8.) Meet the Director 9.) James Baldwin Box Office (315) 443-3275 11.) Evolution of LaGuardia Airport 12.) Harlem, 1940s To Donate To Our Education Programs: 13.) Paris, 1940s Wendy Rhodes Director of Development 14.) Baldwin and the Civil Rights Movement 315-443-3931 15.) People to Know [email protected] 16.) Baldwin’s Work and Speeches Research and text by J.R. Pierce 17.) Questions for Discussion Designed by Kate Laissle 18.) Elements of Drama

19.) Elements of Design 20.) Sources

2 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Dear Educator,

The best way of learning is learning while you’re having fun.

Live theatre provides the opportunity for us to connect with more than just our own story, it allows us to find ourselves in other people’s lives and grow beyond our own boundaries. While times are different, we still are excited to share with you new theatrical pieces through pre-recorded means.

We’re the only species on the planet who makes stories. It is the stories that we leave behind that define us. Giving students the power to watch stories and create their own is part of our lasting impact on the world. And the stories we choose to hear and learn from now are even more vital. Stories bring us together, even when we must stay apart. Stories are our connection to the world and each other.

We invite you and your students to engage with the stories we tell as a start- ing point for you and them to create their own.

Sincerely,

Joann Yarrow and Kate Laissle, Community Engagement and Education Team

2020/2021 EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH SPONSORS

Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that explore and examine what it is to be human. Research shows that children who participate in or are exposed to the arts show higher academic achievement, stronger self-esteem, and improved ability to plan and work toward a future goal.

Many students in our community have their first taste of live theatre through Syracuse Stage’s outreach programs. Last season more than 15,500 students from across New York State attended or participated in the Bank of America Children’s Tour, the Young Playwrights Festival, Backstory, Young Adult Council, and/or our Student Matinee Program.

We gratefully acknowledge the corporations and foundations who support our commitment to in-depth arts education for our community.

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 3 Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage

Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that connect to and reveal what it is to be human.

Education Advocacy Board YAC: Young Adult Council

The Education Advocacy Board is a group of teachers THE YOUNG ADULT COUNCIL (YAC) at Syracuse Stage from the Central New York region who meet four times a seeks to give teens a voice in the programming designed year with Syracuse Stage to share their ideas and con- for them while exploring how theatre impacts their lives. cerns about current arts education issues. Members work The program focuses on peer led discussion and events in with Education staff at Syracuse Stage to help tailor pro- addition to advocating for theatre and arts participation to gramming to best fit the educators and students served. fellow students. The Syracuse Stage YAC is a group of high This past year topics discussed have included creating school students from the Central New York area that meets more useful study guides, exchanging views on future monthly to create and implement pre-show events that will programming, working towards more effectively engaging help inspire the next generation of theatregoers. YAC mem- young people in the arts, as well as discussing the influ- bers can also take advantage of opportunities to learn from ence of the Common Core on arts education. professional theatre artists at Syracuse Stage and through workshops, internships, and shadow programs.

4 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage

Children’s Tour Backstory

Each fall, the Bank of America Children’s Tour brings high-energy, Each winter, the Backstory program brings history to life as pro- interactive, and culturally diverse performances to elementary school fessional actors portray historical figures in classrooms and other audiences. Each performance is fully staged with scenery, costumes, venues. Previous presentations have included historical figures and sound. This year you will be able to experience the performance such as Anne Frank; Ace, a Tuskegee Airman; and Annie Easley, a as a pre-recorded production. Performances include a talkback with human computer for NASA. the actors and our helpful study guide for further classroom explora- tion. Pre- or post-show sessions with our talented teaching artists can be arranged upon request.

Virtual Syracuse Stage Education Classes and Workshops Young Playwrights Festival

Our program features engaging content for theatre-lovers of all ages. Each spring, Syracuse Stage invites Central New York high school Delve deep into the craft through private classes, group acting cours- students to write original ten-minute plays and other performance es, live virtual classroom experiences, and master classes on a variety pieces for entry in our annual Young Playwrights Festival contest. of subjects. Please note that due to COVID-19, all of our programming Our panel of theatrical and literary professionals evaluates each is virtual. New class workshops for all ages available here: student’s play. Semifinalists are invited to a writing workshop at https://syracusestage.coursestorm.com Syracuse Stage where their plays will be read and critiqued. Finalists will see their plays performed as staged reading by Syracuse University Department of Drama students at the annual Young Playwrights Festival. The festival is free and open to the public. Summer Youth Theatre Experience Our very successful 2020 season was presented as a virtual four Come and play with professional teaching artists of Syracuse Stage night experience on our social media platforms. Having the as we dive into the magical world of creativity and performance. This opporunity to showcase our top 16 virtually helped reach a much year we completed a wonderful 2-week summer virtual theatre larger audience in a fun, new, and safe capacity. program with 32 students, ages 11-14, from 4 different states.

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 5 Citizen James

Meet a 24-yearl-old James Baldwin at LaGuar- dia Airport. Young James is an unknown aspir- ing “Negro” writer whose first novel has yet to be published. He awaits his flight, having just left his family with the news of his decision to flee America for refuge in Paris. He speaks no French. He has a one-way ticket and $40 in his pocket.

Witness James Baldwin as he decides he must do something to save himself from the violent reality of racist America in 1948, a decision that sets him on the path to becoming a brilliant, powerful, and prophetic voice of the Civil Rights era and beyond.

Photograph by Richard Avedon

6 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Meet the Playwright Kyle Bass Kyle Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, which received its world premiere at Syracuse Stage, was subsequently produced at Franklin Stage Company, and will be produced next year at the East Lynn Theater Company in New Jersey. His new play salt/city/blues will have its world premiere in Syracuse Stage’s 21/22 season. Script consultant on Thoughts of a Colored Man, Kyle is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (for fiction in 1998 and playwriting in 2010), a finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Award, and Pushcart Prize nominee. His other full-length plays include Tender Rain, Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fa- thers, Bleecker Street, and Separated, a piece of documentary theatre about the student military veterans at Syracuse University, which was presented at Syracuse Stage and at the Paley Center in New York, directed by Robert Hupp. Kyle is the co-author (with Ping Chong) of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which had its world premiere at Syracuse Stage and was subsequently produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York, and the libretto for an opera based on the life and music of legendary folk singer and guitarist Libba Cotten, commissioned by the Society for New Music. As dramaturg, Kyle worked with acclaimed visual artist Carrie Mae Weems on her theatre piece Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, which had its world premiere at the 2016 Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, subsequently produced at Yale Rep and the Kennedy Center. As a screenwriter, Kyle is the co-author of the original screenplay for the film Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017), which stars award- winning veteran actor Tom Skerritt. His plays and other writings have appeared in the journals Callaloo, Folio, and Stone Canoe, among others, and in the essay anthol- ogy Alchemy of the Word: Writers Talk about Writing. Kyle has taught in the Colgate Writers Conference, has been guest lecturer in playwriting at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, was faculty in the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at Goddard College from 2006 to 2018, and from 2005 to 2018 he taught playwriting in Syracuse University’s

Department of Drama and theatre courses in the Department of African American Merritt Brenna by photograph Studies, and was the 2019/20 Susan P. Stroman Visiting Playwright at the University of Delaware. Kyle is currently full-time faculty as assistant professor in the Department of Theater at Colgate University where he previously served as the Burke Endowed Chair for Regional Studies. Kyle holds an M.F.A. in playwriting from Goddard College, is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and is represented by The Barbara Hogenson Agency.

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 7 Meet the Director Joann Yarrow

Joann Maria Yarrow is the Director of Community Engagement and Education at Syracuse Stage. She began her work and training with Double Edge Theatre in Boston and Odin Teatret in Denmark. Joann co-founded A Laboratory for Actor Training with Vernice Miller (currently at John Jay College) while working with Richard Schechner’s company East Coast Artists. She spent three years with Broadway director, Harold Prince on the productions of Parade, Whistle down the Wind, Candide, Show Boat, Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Phantom of the Opera. With over 30 years of experience, she has directed and produced productions in Denmark, London, Madrid, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Texas, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. For twelve years, she was the Artistic Director of Teatro Prometeo, a Spanish-language theatre repertory and conservatory in Miami where she worked on more than 80 productions and translated, adapted, and commissioned new works that have toured nationally and internationally. There she translated Oliver Mayer’s Blade to the Heat and developed workshops and readings for a Spanish translation of his play Dark Matters (winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Initiative Award for Plays about Science). She is a member of the Latinx Theater Commons and the Director’s Lab West in Los Angeles. Joann received her BFA from Boston University and an MFA in Directing from UC Irvine. She is a featured director in the book “The Art and Practice of Directing in Latin America: Central America and United States.” She has recently directed Stephanie photograph by Brenna Merritt Brenna by photograph Leary’s Commanding Space: The Rise of Annie Easley and the Centaur Rocket, a Syracuse Stage Backstory production.

8 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION James Baldwin Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without “ and know we cannot live within. ” James Baldwin was born in 1924 in Harlem, the upper Manhattan neighbor- hood in New York City, to a single mother. At the age of three, his mother, Emma Jones, married David Baldwin, a Baptist minister. Despite having a strained relationship with his father, Baldwin followed in the elder Baldwin’s footsteps, working as a preacher in a small revivalist church between the ages of 14 and 16. Later in life, Baldwin would write about and draw upon this time in his life in the first of his novels, the semi-autobiographical Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), as well as in his play The Amen Corner (1965), about a woman evangelist.

Growing up, Baldwin developed a passion for reading and a gift for writing. Working on his high school’s magazine--alongside future award-winning photographer Richard Avedon--Baldwin began publishing poems, short stories, and plays. After graduating from high school in 1942, Baldwin put college plans on hold while he helped support his family, which had grown to include seven younger half-siblings. During this time, he took a series of ill- paid jobs, including laying railroad tracks in New Jersey for the Army, while also engaging in self-study and a literary apprenticeship in Greenwich Village. In 1943, Baldwin lost his father the same day (July 29) his eighth sibling was born. He moved to Greenwich Village soon after.

Baldwin devoted himself to writing a novel, befriending writer Richard Wright, and eventually landing a fellowship in 1945 that covered his expenses. Baldwin’s essays and short stories began being published in national peri- odicals like The Nation, Partisan Review, and Commentary. Following the receipt of another fellowship, Baldwin moved to Paris, France, in 1948, where he lived for eight years. This also marked the beginning of Baldwin’s life as a “transatlantic commuter”--from 1969, Baldwin lived alternatively in the south of France, New York, and New England.

Photo courtesy of blackpast.org The shift to Paris in 1948 was also a move that Baldwin would later note gave him clarity as he looked back across the ocean and dealt with the real-

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 9 James Baldwin ity that came with being the grandson of a slave. His first novel, Go Tell It on King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers. (Baldwin’s book Nothing Personal, the Mountain, saw Baldwin examine his life growing up in Harlem, issues with a collaboration with Avedon published in 1964, was a tribute to Evers.) his father, as well as his religion. Baldwin received a Guggenheim Fellowship Critics point to Baldwin’s 1972 collection of essays, No Name in the Street, the next year, leading to the publication of his second novel Giovanni’s Room as a turning point in Baldwin’s work, where he took a more strident tone in 1956, a groundbreaking novel for its complex depiction of homosexuality. than his earlier works. Between these two novels, Baldwin also published a collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son (1955). In the final years of his life, Baldwin was teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Hampshire College, sharing his views and Baldwin, who was open about his homosexuality and relationships with both experiences as an observer of race and American culture. Baldwin died at men and women, would often explore topics that were controversial for his his home in St. Paul de Vence, France, on Dec. 1, 1987. time, including homosexuality and interracial relationships. In 1957, Baldwin returned to the United States and became active in the civil rights movement. Themes around race were central to works like his book of essays Nobody Knows My Name (1961) and his novel Another Country (1962).

In 1962, The New Yorker gave almost an entire issue of the magazine over to Baldwin’s article on the Black Muslim separatist movement and the civil rights movement. That article, “Letters from a Region of My Mind,” as well as another essay in The Progressive, “My Dungeon Shook,” were then combined and published in 1963 under the title The Fire Next Time. This book, intended to educate white Americans on what it meant to be Black, would go on to be considered one of the most influential books about race relations in the ‘60s.

The same year The Fire Next Time was published, Baldwin was featured on the cover of Time magazine. By diving into his own life, Baldwin gave readers an unflinching look at the experience of Black Americans. Baldwin’s writing re- sulted in him becoming one of the leading voices in the civil rights movement.

During this time, Baldwin was also writing for the stage, beginning with The Amen Corner, which was first published in 1954 before opening on Broadway in 1965. A year earlier, his play Blues for Mister Charlie, which was loosely based on the murder of Emmett Till, also premiered on Broadway.

Baldwin’s house in St. Paul De Vence as of 2009 Baldwin continued writing until he died in 1987, though his later works did not achieve the popular or critical success of his earlier work. By the ‘70s, Baldwin had witnessed the assassinations of civil rights leaders Martin Luther

10 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Origins of LaGuardia Airport Located in the New York City borough of Queens, LaGuardia Airport combines with JFK International and Newark Liberty International airports to create the largest airport system in the country and the largest total flight operations in the world. Prior to becoming an airport, the location of LaGuardia Airport used to be the site of the Gala Amusement Park, run by the Steinway family (the same Steinway family that founded the Steinway and Sons piano company). In 1929, the park was torn down and converted into a private airport called the Glenn H. Curtiss Airport after the Ameri- can aviation pioneer. The airport was renamed in 1935 and became the North Beach Airport.

Shortly thereafter, New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia led an effort to turn North Beach Airport into an airport for commercial flights. At the time, Newark Commercial Airport was the only commercial airport for the area. Over $20 million was invested in the project, which had its share of critics; however, in December 1939, the New York Municipal Airport (alternatively being known as LaGuardia Field) opened. The airport captured the public’s attention and capitalized on their fascination with air travel. Two years into the new airport being open, income from parking and non-travel (with people coming to watch airlines taking off and landing) surpassed $900,000 a year, making the airport a financial success. This also spelled doom for nearby airports like Jackson Heights’ Holmes Airport, that couldn’t keep up and were unable to stop the expansion of the larger LaGuardia Airport, 1939 airport.

During World War II, the airport was used as a training facility for aviation technicians and as a logistics field. It wasn’t until June 1947 that the modern name of LaGuardia Airport was adopted. The change followed an agreement to switch control of the airfield to the Port of New York Author- ity. The airport’s namesake died from pancreatic cancer three months after the agreement was finalized.

The airport’s reveune in 2019 reached over $429 million and served 22 million passengers

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 11 Harlem: 1940s As the United States emerged from World War II, New York City found itself in a drastically different place than it was in before the war. Commercial activ- The 1940s also saw ity brought on by the war reignited the city’s economy, lifting the city out of the Harlem enter into the Depression and into a period of prosperity. In fact, New York had become the political infrastructure. world’s largest manufacturing center by the late 1940s, it was the world’s biggest In 1941 Adam Clayton port, and it was the world’s financial capital. Unfortunately, continued discrimi- Powell Jr. was elected nation meant that many Black New Yorkers did not benefit as many were denied to the New York City factory positions created by the war. While many Black Americans went off to Council. Three years fight for democracy overseas, injustices in America remained. later, after a congres- sional district was Still, the hope for these wartime jobs as America recovered from the Great placed in Harlem, Depression led to the second great migration, a period between 1940 and 1970 Powell became the that saw more than 5 million African Americans leave the South and move to first African-American the Northeast, Midwest, and West. In the first two decades, half a million Black from New York elected southerners migrated to New York State alone. Of the approximately 485,000 to congress, where he Black New Yorkers in the early 1940s, 300,000 lived in Harlem. Segregation, a served until 1971. housing shortage, and a struggling working class led to crowded conditions in the city. Meanwhile, post-war New York was expe- Tensions boiled over in Harlem, resulting in a series of riots. The first, which riencing a cultural took place in 1935 during the Great Depression, happened after a boy was ac- boom, with creators The Lenox and Fifth Avenue Tenants League demands fair housing conditions and tenant rights, 1949 cused of stealing and subsequently killed by the police. Three men died and 600 like Leonard Bernstein stores were looted. The summer of 1943 saw eruptions of racial disturbances in and Jerome Robbins leading the way. In the Harlem nightclub, musicians 47 cities across the country, including in Detroit; Mobile, Alabama; and Beau- like Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk were pioneering a new style of mont, Texas. In August of that year, a soldier intervened as a white police officer jazz called “Be-bop.” This period also saw dozens of modern artists, in- tried to arrest and struck a Black woman who was involved in an argument over cluding Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Leger, and Wassily Kandinsky, move an unsatisfactory hotel room. The soldier was shot by the police officer. For two to New York amid the rise of fascism in Europe and the conflict that fol- days, angry residents poured into the streets, despite being faced with a force of lowed. In addition to their own work, these artists influenced a younger 16,100 city police, military police, civil patrolmen, state guardsmen, and civilian generation of artists, like Jackson Pollock. Where Paris had previously volunteers brought in to end the violence. By the end, six people died, hundreds reigned as the center of the art world, post-World War II marked a shift were injured, 500 were arrested, and more than 1,400 businesses were destroyed, of the art and culture world to the island of Manhattan. damaged, or looted.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. “ - James Baldwin ”

12 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION Paris: 1940s Like many countries in Europe, France in the 1940s was marred by World War 1944 to 1949, the French conducted “épuration légale” (“legal purge”), a series II. Paris started mobilizing for war in September 1939, and France was attacked of trials that saw over 300,000 cases investigated. While the total number of ex- by the Germans eight months later. The French army was defeated quickly, with ecutions that took place before and after the liberation are unknown, estimates the French government leaving Paris on June 10 and the Germans occupying range from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands. the city on June 14. The occupation lasted until August 1944, when the city was liberated by French and American troops. After the war, Parisians wound However, despite the wartime backdrop, the Paris that Baldwin moved to in up needing to do much more rebuilding mentally than physically. Though the 1948 was one of revitalization as a new generation of artists, writers, musicians, Nazis had been comparatively less destructive to Paris than they had been else- and actors gathered in the cafes and nightclubs of the Left Bank to bring French where in the country, Paris also had to work to overcome the shame of the four culture back. Philosophers and writers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beau- year occupation and the country’s history of collaboration with Germany. voir, and Albert Camus commanded the attention of the world with existen- tialism. Sartre and Camus would both go on to win Nobel Prizes (with Sartre The result was a wave of violent purges called “l’épuration sauvage,” or “wild refusing his out of fear it would limit the impact of his writing), though exis- purification,” where Parisians turned on each other, targeting anyone suspected tentialism’s appeal faded over the next decade as economic recovery set in and of colluding with the Germans. Because these purges happened before the the dark postwar mood lifted. It wasn’t long before Paris regained its position as establishment of the French Provisional Government’s authority, these execu- one of the world’s leaders for intellectual creativity. tions, public humiliations, and assaults lacked any institutional justice. From

Baldwin in Paris, 1949

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 13 Baldwin & The Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement mainly took place during the 1950s and mental in showing civil rights as a moral issue rather than a political ‘60s as Black Americans, almost 100 years after the abolition of one. Baldwin also made an appearance at the Civil Rights March on slavery, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Despite criticisms for his pacifist ideals, the face of continued discrimination. Even after many Black men Baldwin was a crucial figure in the civil rights movement. and women served in World War II, including the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Black As the ‘60s continued, the movement faced tragedy as Malcolm X and veterans returned home to be met with prejudice. The 1950s saw King were assassinated. In 1965, the same year Malcolm X was assassi- historical moments like the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of nated, a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, turned Education ruling making segregation in public schools illegal (1954), violent as protesters were beaten and tear gassed by police sent by Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus (1955), the Alabama governor George C. Wallace. The ‘60s also saw the pass- and the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first major civil rights legisla- ing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act (1965), and the tion since the end of the Civil War. Fair Housing Act (1968), the final legislation enacted during the Civil Rights era. During the early 1960s, after Baldwin had returned to the United States from France, Baldwin traveled throughout the South. During his travels, he found himself aligning with the ideals of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). CORE was founded in 1942 by an interracial group of students in Chicago and members of the group pioneered the use of nonviolent action in the civil rights movement, including providing advice and support to Martin Luther King during the Montgomery bus boycott. King worked with CORE into the mid- 1960s, when CORE adopted Black separatist policies and abandoned its dedication to nonviolence. When Baldwin went on to conduct a lecture tour of the South for CORE, Baldwin discussed his own racial ideology, one that positioned him between the “muscular approach” of Malcolm X and the nonviolent ideals of King.

Additionally, Baldwin stood alongside Lorraine Hansberry, Harry Belafonte, and other civil rights figures in a meeting with then at- torney general Robert F. Kennedy where they discussed the moral

implications of the civil rights movement. The meeting left most The 1963 Civil Rights March attendees feeling “devastated,” though the meeting proved instru-

14 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION People to Know

Bessie Smith - From humble beginnings, Bessie Smith emerged as one of the most renowned and recognizable singers from the Jazz Age. Bessie Smith sang for and about her audiences, with many of her songs detailing the struggles that her community faced under crude discrimination laws. Her most popular songs include, “St. Louis Blues,” “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” and “Down Hearted Blues.” Her work went on to inspire dozens of female artists throughout the 20th century, and continues to influence popular music today.

Photograph by Carl Van Vechten Countee Cullen - Born in Kentucky in 1903, Countee Cullen grew up to be an accomplished poet, and a strong voice at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance. Some of his more popular publications include, “For A Lady I Know” and “A Brown Girl Dead.” Despite his budding career as a poet, Cullen took on a brief position at Frederick Douglass Junior High School, where he served as a French teach- er. This is where he would go on to meet his future student, and soon-to-be mentee, James Baldwin. He died in 1946, having published dozens of works of poetry and establishing himself as a powerful force throughout the pre-civil rights movement era.

Photograph by Carl Van Vechten

Beauford Delaney made his mark on the world as a painter during the Harlem Renaissance. As a Modernist artist, Delaney focused much of his work on the lively scenes around him, in addition to painting the portraits of many different African American figures in the early 20th century, including the likes of W.E.B Du Bois, Duke Ellington, and James Baldwin. Although he shifted to a more abstract approach as time went on, his earlier paintings still stand today as significant contributions to the artistic work done throughout the Harlem Renaissance.

Beauford Delaney, 1950 Richard Wright - Most famously known for his 1940 novel, Native Son, author Richard Wright sought to write about the African American experience and explicate what life was like for the Black community prior to the civil rights movement. Wright's work depicted life in America for Black people in a visceral and real way that had never been put on the page before. Having established himself as a strong voice within the African American community, many young Black writers used him as inspi- ration, including James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, and Chester Himes. To this day, his writing is attributed to having helped lay the foundation for the civil rights movement.

Photograph by Carl Van Vechten SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 15 Baldwin’s Work & Speeches Novels • 1967. “Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because • 2004. Native Sons, with Sol Stein • 1953. Go Tell It on the Mountain They’re Anti-White.” New York Times Maga- • 1956. Giovanni’s Room zine. Posthumous collections • 1962. Another Country • 1976. The Devil Finds Work — a book-length • 1998. Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the • 1968. Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone essay published by Dial Press. Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, • 1974. If Beale Street Could Talk Going to Meet the Man, edited by Toni Mor- • 1979. Just Above My Head Collections rison. • 1955. Notes of a Native Son • 1998. Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son, Essays and Short Stories • 1961. Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, • 1953. “Stranger in the Village.” Harper’s Maga- a Native Son No Name in the Street, The Devil Finds Work, zine. • 1963. The Fire Next Time Other Essays, edited by Toni Morrison. • 1954. “Gide as Husband and Homosexual.” The • 1965. Going to Meet the Man • 2014. Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems. New Leader. • 1972. No Name in the Street • 2015. Later Novels: Tell Me How Long the • 1956. “Faulkner and Desegregation.” Partisan • 1983. Jimmy’s Blues Train’s Been Gone, If Beale Street Could Talk, Review. • 1985. The Evidence of Things Not Seen Just Above My Head, edited by Darryl Pinckney. • 1957. “Sonny’s Blues.” Partisan Review. • 1985. The Price of the Ticket • 2016. Baldwin for Our Times: Writings from • 1957. “Princes and Powers.” Encounter. • 2010. The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected James Baldwin for an Age of Sorrow and Strug- • 1958. “The Hard Kind of Courage.” Harper’s Writings. gle, with notes and introduction by Rich Blint. Magazine. • 1959. “The Discovery of What It Means to Be an Plays and Audio Links to Speeches American,” The New York Times Book Review. • 1954. The Amen Corner (play) • https://www.c-span.org/video/?170651-1/james- • 1959. “Nobody Knows My Name: A Letter from • 1964. Blues for Mister Charlie (play) baldwin-speech the South.” Partisan Review. • 1990. A Lover’s Question (album) • https://www.youtube.com/ • 1960. “Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from • Collaborative works watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ Harlem.” Esquire. • 1964. Nothing Personal, with Richard Avedon • https://www.youtube.com/ • 1960. “The Precarious Vogue of Ingmar Berg- (photography) watch?v=NUBh9GqFU3A man.” Esquire. • 1971. A Rap on Race, with Margaret Mead • https://www.youtube.com/ • 1961. “A Negro Assays the Negro Mood.” New • 1971. A Passenger from the West, narrative with watch?v=EMYgOfcgMaI York Times Magazine. Baldwin conversations, by Nabile Farès; ap- • https://www.youtube.com/ • 1961. “The Survival of Richard Wright.” Re- pended with a long-lost interview. watch?v=QWF2Wjie7Vs porter. • 1972. One Day When I Was Lost (orig.: A. • https://www.youtube.com/ • 1961. “Richard Wright.” Encounter. Haley) watch?v=3y6xwH88kpg • 1962. “Letter from a Region of My Mind.” The • 1973. A Dialogue, with Nikki Giovanni • https://www.youtube.com/ New Yorker. • 1976. Little Man Little Man: A Story of Child- watch?v=jNpitdJSXWY • 1962. “My Dungeon Shook.” The Progressive. hood, with Yoran Cazac • 1963. “A Talk to Teachers”

16 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION • After viewing Citizen James, take a momement to record your initial impressions about the interpretation of James Baldwin seen in this show versus any preconceived notions of the man. Where were the similarities and differences? If this is your first intorduction to James Baldwin, what are your first impressions? In small groups, discuss your different perspectives. Why do you think you learned about James Baldwin when you did? How does his story differ from more well known civil rights figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr.

• The play makes many connections to today and how James Baldwin’s words and thoughts were often prophetic. Read the following quotes and discuss their relevance to today’s world: • What is it you want me to reconcile myself to?...You always told me it takes time. It has taken my father’s time, my mother’s time, my uncle’s time, my brothers’ and my sisters’ time, my nieces’ and my nephews’ time. How much time do you want for your ‘progress’? • I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. • I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do. • To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time • If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not. • The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. • I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

• Read the following - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-obit.html#:~:text=James%20 Baldwin%2C%20whose%20passionate%2C%20intensely,He%20was%2063%20years%20old. In Citizen James, we meet a 24-year-old James Baldwin. The above is his obituary and includes quotes from him reflecting on his younger life. What hints do you see of who he is to become throughout the show. What parts of Baldwin’s passtion and knowledge where there from the begining? Reflect on your own life and big decisions you’ve made or will make. How do you think these decisions will continue to echo?

• Use the following PBS resource for in depth biographical information, further lesson plans, and videos of James Baldwin - https://www.pbs. org/wnet/americanmasters/james-baldwin-about-the-author/59/

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 17 elements of drama

PLOT Any piece of theatre comprises multiple art forms. What is the story line? What happened before the As you explore this production with your students, play started? What do the characters want? What examine the use of: do they do to achieve their goals? What do they stand to gain/lose? WRITING VISUAL ART/DESIGN THEME MUSIC/SOUND What ideas are wrestled with in the play? What DANCE/MOVEMENT questions does the play pose? Does it present an opinion? CHARACTER ACTIVITY Who are the people in the story? What are their At its core, drama is about characters working toward relationships? Why do they do what they do? How does age/status/etc. effect them? goals and overcoming obstacles. Ask students to use their bodies and voices to create characters who are: LANGUAGE very old, very young, very strong, very weak, very What do the characters say? How do they say it? When do they say it? tired, very energetic, very cold, very warm. Have their characters interact with others. Give them an objective MUSIC to fulfill despite environmental obstacles. Later, How do music and sound help to tell the story? recap by asking how these obstacles affected their SPECTACLE characters and the pursuit of their objectives. How do the elements come together to create the whole performance?

Other Elements: Conflict/Resolution, Action, Improvi- INQUIRY How are each of these art forms used in sation, Non-verbal Communication, Staging, Humor, this production? Why are they used? Realism and other styles, Metaphor, Language, Tone, Pat- How do they help to tell the story? tern and Repetition, Emotion, Point of view.

18 | SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION elements of design

LINE can have length, width, texture, direction, and curve. There are five basic varieties: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and zig-zag.

SHAPE is two-dimensional and encloses space. It can be geometric (e.g. squares and circles), man-made, or free-form.

FORM is three-dimensional. It encloses space and fills space. It can be geometric (e.g. cubes and cylinders), man-made, or free-form.

COLOR has three basic properties: HUE is the name of the color (e.g. red, blue, green), INTENSITY is the strength of the color (bright or dull), VALUE is the range of lightness to darkness. TEXTURE refers to the “feel” of an ob- SPACE is defined and determined by ject’s surface. It can be smooth, rough, shapes and forms. Positive space is en- soft, etc. Textures may be ACTUAL (able closed by shapes and forms, while nega- to be felt) or IMPLIED (suggested visually tive space exists around them. through the artist’s technique).

SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION | 19 Sources “1940-1959.” BlackNYers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture - World, 30 May 2018, www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/05/how- NYPL, blacknewyorkers-nypl.org/education/. postwar-paris-became-intellectual-capital-world.

“Adam Clayton Powell Jr.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Dec. 2020, “Infrastructure.” NYCdata: LaGuardia Airport (LGA), www.baruch.cuny.edu/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell_Jr. nycdata/infrastructure/airport_laguardia.html.

“The Amen Corner.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Nov. 2020, “James Baldwin.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 23 June 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amen_Corner. www.biography.com/writer/james-baldwin.

Backes, Aaron D., et al. “The History Of New York's LaGuardia Airport.” Clas- “James Baldwin.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 27 sicNewYorkHistory.com, 16 Jan. 2020, classicnewyorkhistory.com/the-history- Nov. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/James-Baldwin. of-new-yorks-laguardia-airport/. “James Baldwin.” James Baldwin: African American Writer, www.myblackhis- “Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).” The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research tory.net/James_Baldwin.htm. and Education Institute, 4 Aug. 2020, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/ congress-racial-equality-core. “James Baldwin.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Jan. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin. “The Cultural Scene.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/place/France/The-cultural-scene. “New York After WWII.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/ wgbh/americanexperience/features/newyork-postwar/. “The Fire Next Time.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Dec. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_Next_Time. “The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964.” NobelPrize.org, www.nobelprize.org/ prizes/literature/1964/sartre/documentary/. “France since 1940.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/place/France/France-since-1940. Yardley, Jonathan. “A History of Paris during Nazi Occupation.” The Washing- ton Post, WP Company, 29 Aug. 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a- “History of Harlem.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Dec. 2020, history-of-paris-during-nazi-occupation/2014/08/29/fce9e112-222c-11e4- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harlem. 958c-268a320a60ce_story.html.

“History of Paris (1946–2000).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Nov. “Épuration Légale.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Dec. 2020, 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Paris_%281946%E2%80%932000%29. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89puration_l%C3%A9gale.

History.com Editors. “Civil Rights Movement.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 27 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights- movement.

Hussey, Andrew. How Postwar Paris Became the Intellectual Capital of the

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