THR 327 | African American Theater Performance Department of Theatre, the University of Kansas Professor: Dr

THR 327 | African American Theater Performance Department of Theatre, The University of Kansas Professor: Dr. Nicole Hodges Persley | Spring 2010 Office Hours: Tuesday & Thursday: 3:30 – 4:30 PM or by appointment GTA: Jeff List [email protected] Office: Murphy Hall, Room 229 Contact Phone (785) 864-2820 Email: [email protected] Class Blog: www.kuafamtheater2010.blogspot.com Course Description This course will introduce students to key plays and performances that have produced the African American Theatre repertoire from 1958 to the present. From A Raisin in the Sun to the Urban Theater Circuit, students will engage in a wide range of theater and performance texts that reflect expressions of African American life in performance. Broad themes of the course include but are not limited to the performance of black subjectivity; double consciousness; performing race; racial essentialism; color politics; cultural nationalism; racial stereotypes; civil rights; and social protest. Students are encouraged to attend performances of African American plays, spoken word events and performance art in Lawrence (or the surrounding area) for class participation credit. This course employs an inter-textual perspective that privileges texts for the stage as it engages African American Theatre as a site of performance that continues to strongly influence other theatrical genres of performance such as television, film, fine art and performance art. Goals: The goals of the course are to help students: 1) understand the key playwrights, actors and general history of African American Theater and performance of the time period discussed; 2) understand the specific social, cultural, political factors that produce a play; 3) critically and artistically articulate verbally and in writing, the genealogy of African American Theatre; 4) identify how African American Theatre shapes popular culture and influences and contributes to mainstream American Theatre. Grade Evaluation: 1) Class Participation, Presentations and Blog – 30% a) Class participation: is made up of attending and commenting in the class on a regular basis, doing presentations in class and writing blogs each week. Students are required to attend lectures and to participate in class discussions. b) Thursday Class Presentations: Each Thursday, students should be prepared to present on the week’s readings and materials that we relate to the play (s) we are reading. We will divide the class into “companies” based on the class roll. We will have three students in each group. Once we complete a series of 2 presentations, we will rotate again. PRESENTATIONS BEGIN THE SECOND WEEK OF CLASS. Your group should shoot for about a 10-minute presentation and then pose some questions to the class to discuss. c) Blog: Each student must create a 250-word maximum blog to respond to the plays, videos and/or critical text for the week. Students are required post these weekly responses by Thursday at: www. kuafamtheater2010.blogspot.com. These blogs count as a “reaction paper” and are crucial to your total grade average in the course. I do not want play summaries, but critical engagement with the plays, films, video clips, and/or and secondary readings. If this is your first time writing a critical analysis, please see me during office hours and I will help you. 2) Final Presentations – 20% - Students will create and present a critical creative project (e.g. paper, play, web project, performance, etc.) that: 1) comments on African American Theater generally; 2) shows how African American Theater is relative to our everyday lives. You must submit your project idea to me or the GTA for approval so that I can suggest sources to help you shape your project. If you do not wish to do this project, you can write an 8-page paper with bibliography. You must consult with me or the GTA about your topic after mid-term and post your project on Blackboard. You can work in groups (4 max) to complete your final presentations. 3) Midterm Exam – 25% - The midterm is an essay form test based on plays, films, critical texts and class discussions from lecture one to midterm. You will have five (5) identifications and two (2) essays. The final exam will be in the same format. Both exams are open book and take homes. You can work in groups of 4 to complete them. 4) Final Exam – 25% - The final exam will be based on all of the readings and discussions from the mid-term to the end of the course. It will be in the same format as the midterm. I will offer one extra credit question. Classroom Protocol Statements 1) Cell phones, PDAS, etc.: Keep your phones on vibrate. I understand that you have lives, so please excuse yourself if you have to take a call. If you text in class, you will be asked to leave. I will not cover what you missed when you take a phone call. 2) Academic Integrity: KU’s Policies on academic integrity will be enforced in this course. Papers suspected of containing plagiarized material will be verified for authenticity. The academic integrity guidelines can be found at www.usc.edu/dept/publications/scampus. 3) Changes in the Syllabus – I reserve the right to make changes to this syllabus based on the needs of the students. If this happens, I will notify each student and provide a revised version. 3 Disabilities and Special Needs The KU office of Disability Resources coordinates accommodations and services for all students who are eligible. If you have a disability for which you wish to request accommodations and have not contacted DR, please do so as soon as possible. Their office is located in 22 Strong Hall; their phone number is 785-864-2620 (V/TTY). Information about their services can be found at http://www2.ku.edu/~disability/index.shtml. Please also contact me privately in regard to your needs in this course. Inclement Weather To determine the operating plan in effect during times of bad weather or other emergency conditions please tune in to your local radio, television or web stations. You can also call the “Inclement Weather Line” at 864-SNOW or the Information Center, 864-3506 after 6:00 a.m. If for some reason I cancel class, I will post it on BLACKBOARD and will also email you. 4 Work Plan Week 1 - Intro to African American Theater and Performance: Thurs 1/14 Course reader references for lecture: • Dubois, William E. B. “Criteria of Negro Art: Address to the Annual Meeting of the NAACP, june 1926, Chicago.” The Crisis, Vol. 32 (October 1926) (course reader) • Suzan-Lori Parks “Equation for Black People on Stage” (course reader) • Blog Prompt: What is African American Theatre? • For this week only – read these articles over the weekend and post a blog about what you know about African American Theatre Week 2 - From Negro to Colored to Black to Afro-American to African American- the Separate Unequal Struggle for Civil Rights: Tues 1/19 - Thurs 1/21 • Watch: A Raisin in the Sun (on reserve Music Library) • Read: Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun (Hatch and Shine) • Read: Margaret Wilkerson’s Political Radicalism and Artistic Innovation in the works of Lorraine Hansberry” pp. 40-55 (Posted on Blackboard) • Google: “African American World |Time Line- Civil Rights Era” http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/civil_01.htmlCivil Rights eyes on the pbs.org • Blog Prompt: Civil Rights Week 3 - The American South and Intraracial Struggles: Tues 1/26 - Thurs 1/28 • Watch: A Soldier’s Story (on reserve at Music Library) • Read: Charles Fuller A Soldier’s Play (course reader) • Read: Amiri Baraka “The Descent of Charlie Fuller into Pulitzerland and the Need for African-American Institutions” (course reader) • Google: The Negro Ensemble Company • Blog Prompt: Internalized Racism Week 4 - The Black Arts Movement: Tues 2/2 - Thurs 2/4 • Watch: The Dutchman (Hatch and Shine) • Read: Mike Sell “The Black Arts Movement: Performance, Neo-Orality and the Destruction of the ‘White Thing’ ”p. 56-80 (course reader). • Read: The Dutchman (Hatch and Shine) • Blog Prompt: Inter-racial Conflict Week 5 - The Black Theater and the Avant-Garde: Tues 2/9 - Thurs 2/11 • Read: Jean Genet The Blacks • Read: Ben K. Mkapa “What Black is Black?: Thoughts on Jean Genet’s The Blacks” (course reader) • Blog Prompt: Performing Blackness 5 Week 6 - Disrupting the Black -White Binary: Tues 2/16 - Thurs 2/18 • Read: Adrienne Kennedy Funnyhouse of A Negro (Hatch and Shine) • Suggested Read: Philip Kolin “A War of Selves in Funnyhouse of a Negro” (course reader) • Read: Lynn Nottage Crumbs From the Table of Joy (Elam and Alexander) • Google: Images of artist Kara Walker • Blog Prompt: Racial Passing Week 7 - Sisters and Brothers, Mothers and Fathers: Tues 2/23 - Thurs 2/25 • Read: Excerpt from Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf (Hatch and Shine) • Read: Andrea Benton Rushing “For Colored Girls, Suicide or Struggle” (course reader) • Watch: for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf (on reserve Music Library) • Blog Prompt: Negro, Colored, Black, Afro-American, African American Week 8 - Colored Contradictions: Tues 3/2 - Thurs 3/4 • Tuesday Mid-Term posted on Blackboard at 12 noon- Return in class on Thursday • For Thursday Read: George Wolfe’s The Colored Museum • Read: Harry Elam’s “Signifyin(g) On African-American Theatre: The Colored Museum By George Wolfe” (course reader) • Blog Prompt: Black Racial Stereotypes in the United States Week 9 - Why African American Theater Matters: Tues 3/9 - Thurs 3/11 • Read: August Wilson’s Fences • Read: August Wilson’s “The Ground

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