Penumbra: The Premier Stage for African American Drama

NOTES

175 NOTES Introduction 1. Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch, A History of African American Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 481. 1. Beginnings 1. Hill and Hatch, A History of African American Theatre, 412–13, 471–72. 2. Karamu Playhouse, “About Us: A Rich History,” http://www .karamuhouse.org. 3.“Board of Directors Meeting Minutes,” 30 January 1991, Penumbra Theatre Company Archives, Archie Givens Sr. Collection of African American Literature, Special Collections Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. 4. Shannon Jackson, Lines of Activity: Performance, Historiography, and Hull-House Domesticity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 5. 5. Ibid., 4. 6. Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008), 133. 7. David Vassar Taylor, African Americans in Minnesota: The People of Minnesota (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2002), 36–37. 8. Hallie Q. Brown, Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction (Xena, Ohio: Aldine Publishing Company, 1926); electronic copy transcribed by Apex Data Services Inc., Lee Ann Morawski, and Natalia Smith (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2000), http://docsouth.unc.edu/ neh/brownhal/brownhal.html. 9. Dorothea Burns, telephone interview by the author, 12 May 2011. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 176 NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 12. Lou Bellamy, interview by the author, 17 July 2008. 13. Seitu Jones, interview by the author, 2 January 2009. 14. Walter Shapiro, “CETA: A 70’s Government Jobs Program That Didn’t Work,” Politics Daily, 19 November 2009, http://www.politicsdaily .com/2009/11/19/ceta-a-70s-federal-jobs-program-that-didn-t-work/. 15. Hill and Hatch, A History of African American Theatre, 399–400, 406. 16. Lisa Gail Collins and Margo Natalie Crawford, New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 6–7. 17. Lou Bellamy, interview, 17 July 2008. 18. Gus Edwards, The Offering (New York: Dramatist Play Services, 1978); Negro Ensemble Company,“Production History, ” http://www.necinc.org. 19. James V. Hatch and Ted Shine, eds., Black Theatre USA, rev. ed., 2 vols. (New York: Free Press, 1996), 2:264. 20. Press clipping, Summit-University Free Press, November 1977, Penumbra Theatre Company Archives. 21. Claude Purdy, interview by Sarah Bellamy, undated, unpublished manuscript courtesy of Penumbra Theatre Company, 3–4. 22. Publicity poster, Eden, Penumbra Theatre Company Archives. 23. James A. Williams, interview by the author, 23 July 2010. 24. Burns, interview. 25. Larry Neal, “The Black Arts Movement, ” The Drama Review 12, no. 4 (1968), in Annemarie Bean, ed., A Sourcebook of African-American Performance: Plays, People, Movements (New York: Routledge, 1999), 55. 26. Mike Sell, “[Ed.] Bullins as Editorial Performer: Textual Power and the Limits of Performance in the Black Arts Movement,” Theatre Journal 53, no. 3 (2001): 411–28. 27. Ed Bullins, The Taking of Miss Janie, in Famous American Plays from the 1970s, Laurel Drama Series (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1981), 197–235. 28. For a detailed account of some of the major New York theatres participating in the Black Arts movement, see Mance Williams, Black Theatre in the 1960s and 1970s: A Historical-Critical Analysis of the Movement (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985). 29. Press clipping, “Shades on Stage: Penumbra Opens Permanent St. Paul Residency Nov. 10,” Highland Villager Newspaper, 9 November 1977, Penumbra Theatre Company Archives. 30. Mixed Blood Theatre, “Our Mission,” http://www.mixedblood.com/ about.mission. 31. Marion McClinton,interview by Sarah Bellamy,undated,unpublished manuscript, courtesy of Penumbra Theatre Company, 3. 32. Guthrie Theater,“Past Plays,” http://www.guthrietheater.org. NOTES TO CHAPTER 2 177 33. Gerald M. Berkowitz, New Broadways: Theatre across America: Approaching a New Millennium (New York: Applause 1997). 34. Phyllis Rawls Goff, telephone interview by the author, 4 May 2011. 35. William Wells Brown, The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom, in Black Theater USA: Plays by African Americans, ed. James V. Hatch and Ted Shine, rev. ed., 2 vols. (1974; New York: The Free Press, 1996), 1:35–60. 36. For a lengthier description of the characteristics of nineteenthcentury melodrama, see Oscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy, History of the Theatre, 9th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2003), 344. 37. Ibid., 304–5, 335. 38. Ethnic Notions, directed by Marlon Riggs, narrated by Esther Rolle (1985; San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2004), DVD. 39. Sarah Bellamy, e-mail correspondence with the author, 11 August 2011. 40. Poster layout for...