Author Description

A valuable contribution to African American literary and theatrical scholarship, this volume is a compilation of sixteen plays written during the Harlem Renaissance, brought together for the first time and set in a historical context. This important compilation of plays brings together for the very first time: On the Fields of France, by Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr. A Pillar of the Church, by Willis Richardson The Yellow Peril, by George S. Schuyler Mother Liked It, by Alvira Hazzard Son-Boy, by Joseph S. Mitchell The Girl from Back Home, by Ralf M. Coleman Black Damp, by John Frederick Matheus You Mus' Be Bo'n Ag'in, by Andrew M. Burris Environment, by Mercedes Gilbert Run Little Chillun, by Francis Hall Johnson Darker Brother, by Conrad Seiler Track Thirteen, by Shirley Graham And by Langston Hughes: Scarlet Sister Barry; Young Black Joe; The Organizer; The Em-Fuehrer Jones. James V. Hatch sets the plays in a historical context as he describes the challenges presented to artists by the political and social climate of the time. The topics of the plays cover the realm of the human experience in styles as wide-ranging as poetry, farce, comedy, tragedy, social realism, and romance. Individual introductions to each play provide essential biographical background on the playwrights. In the continuing rediscovery of writers and works from the Harlem Renaissance, this work serves as essential background for contemporary readers and is a valuable contribution to African American literary and theatrical scholarship.