Annotated Bibliography

1. Als, Hilton. "Mama's Gun: The World of Tyler Perry." The New Yorker 26 Apr. 2010: 68-72. Print.

By using Tyler Perry as the primary example of the article the author is able to analyze Perry’s faults in addressing his audience. He criticizes that Perry fails in his attempt to make African American films for he merrily uses stereotypes and in fact does not truly represent the difficulties/ struggles of urban America. Therefore, he demonstrates that even African Americans fail in targeting the African American population; thus, bolstering the argument that a white audience is kept in mind and that traditions of African Americans are compromised in order to make profit and get good reviews.

2. "The Art of Theatre No. 14 - August Wilson." The Paris Review. The Paris Review Foundation, Inc., 2005. Web. 16 May 2010.

This interview with August Wilson offers great insight to in what it means to produce an African American play in a predominately white society and for a predominately white audience. In the interview August Wilson offers his views on the inability to fully grasp all ideas of the “white” plays and thus refers to the opposite as well. It is a great personal account of the battle between creating for a target audience and being authentic to having to create for profit or acclaim.

3. Bass, George Houston. "Theatre and the Afro-American Rite of Being." Black American Literature Forum Black Theatre Issue 17.2 (1983): 60-64. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904580>.

The Rite and Reason program at Brown University arose in the 1970s as a program committed to creating original ritual dramas during the heated Black Empowerment movement. Thus, it uses historical African American political reactions and infuses them into their plays; thus, using transcendence, improvisation, and transformation as tools. Bass then analyzes the five modes of music and how they register the transformation of the African American in society. It is therefore helpful in assessing the how closely related drama and music are to the development not only of the theatre but of the African American people themselves.

4. Brown, Sterling A. "Negro Character as Seen by White Authors." The Journal of Negro Education 2.1 (1933): 179-203. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2292236>.

This article is capable of truly summing up the stereotypes and the cruel racism shown on African Americans. Having at first established the three definitions, or visions, of the African American Brown continues on in defacing and redefining these images. He allows for one to see the need to stray away from such stereotypes and allows a reader to see the dreary state of the African American theatre today—full of stereotypes that find no opposition in their audiences.

5. Burdine, Warren. "Let the Theatre Say "Amen"" Black American Literature Forum The Black Church and the Black Theatre 25.1 (1991): 73-82. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3041773>.

This article blatantly states that African American theatre targets a white audience. With this claim it attempts to demonstrate that since the beginning of the African American theatre it has fallen into a repetitive cycle of the same genre and plotline. Therefore, he claims that African American theatre has become commercialized in American society. This claim seems to propel one to ponder over the financing of African American theatres and the support that is given to them.

6. Dale, Michael. "Radio Golf: Green Fees." Rev. of Radio Golf. 2007. Web. <http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Radio_Golf_Green_Fees_20070531>. This review is a critique of the Broadway showing of Radio Golf which allows the reader to see the arch of August Wilson's ten plays depicting the African American people's struggle in the United States. This play offers a lot of insight into the very problems of African American theatre since the development of the theatre closely ties in with the development of the people themselves.

7. Dicker/sun, Glenda. "A Presence of Ancestry." African American Theater: A Cultural Companion. Oxford: Polity, 2008. 174-92. Print.

Glenda Dicker offers a companion reader to the development of African American theatre, which allows the reader to follow along historically the development of African American civil rights and their historical development. This grants the reader to access how history and politics have molded the African American theatre as an outlet for civil rights machine. Furthermore, the chapter in focus relates the present condition of the theatre to where African Americans stand today in society.

8. Hay, Samuel A. African American Theatre: an Historical and Critical Analysis. Cambridge [England: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.

This book thoroughly details and analyzes the five main stages, or eras, of the African American theatre. It provides a timeline of the progression of the theatre but furthermore allows one to see how the theatre today has evolved and where it may lead in the future. Gives detailed account of the opening of the first African American theatre company and how Sheriff Noah directed the major stereotypes we still see today in American society. Offers insight in the origins of the white and black struggle in the theatre as it pertained to political agendas and the formation of later schools of theatre that are still influential today.

9. Hay, Samuel A. "Escaping the Tar-and-Feather Future of African American Theatre." African American Review 31 (1997): 617-20. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3042328>.

The analysis offered in this article gives incite into the African American Theatre in the perspective of African Americans. It defines the criticism of the African American Theatre as bringing down the theatre's progression and that it has negatively affected the mind set of African American actors and directors. Hay's attempts to address the "four ropes" that will lead to the "hanging" of the African American theatre and offers resolutions to change the face and progression of the theatre by addressing the need to restructure the financial aspect and realign with its audience. `

10. Hill, Anthony D., and Douglas Q. Barnett. "Carpetbag Theatre(CT)." Historical Dictionary of African American Theater. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2009. 85-86. Print.

The Historical Dictionary of African American Theater enables a reader to easily look up

words and their definitions in relation to the African American Theater. Focusing in on the definition of “carpetbag theater” aided in the literal definition and historical importance/ development of the theater itself. Furthermore, it functioned as a foundation in order to stimulate further research in specific actors, playwrights, and plays under this genre.