THEA 201 Alternative Voices in American Theater

We study the artistry of contemporary theatrical movements as well as American writers from divergent cultural and aesthetic backgrounds. By looking at movements and artists in their cultural and social contexts we explore the sources the aims and the artistic strategies of their works while developing an understanding of important new voices in American Theater. The focus of the class will vary from year to year. May be repeated for credit one time with a different topic.

The Black Arts Movement Explored and Deconstructed

An in-depth, intellectually stimulating exploration into the complex and impactful Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Through reading and analyzing the poems, plays and criticism of the time, as well as lectures and small group discussions and “on your feet” performance activities, students will gain insights into the people, the places, and the critical junctures that emerged during this profoundly explosive era of art and culture. Artists explored include Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Henry Dumas, Audre Lorde, Ed Bullins, Ntozake Shange, and others. Themes/concepts include black identity, the connection between black arts and black power, the rejection of integration as an ideal, LGBTQ and Black Arts, the assassination of Malcolm X, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, black radical thought, the African-American male as a Christ figure, male chauvinism in Black Arts and Black Power, and “future directions,” i.e. the influence of the Black Arts Movement on other cultural movements and American aesthetics.