Lost Plays of the Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1940 (African American Life Series)
Like Kathy Perkins's Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays Before 1950 (Indiana Univ., 1989) and Hatch and Hamalian's own The Roots of African American Drama: An Anthology of Early Plays, 1958-1938 (Wayne State Univ., 1991), this is one of several relatively recent works that help make long out-of-print or previously unpublished plays available to contemporary readers. Nine of the 16 plays in Hatch and Hamalian's new collection have not been published before. Playwrights range from the well known (Langston Hughes, George S. Schuyler) to the obscure (Ralf M. Coleman, Andrew M. Burris). Among the best of these plays are Schuyler's The Yellow Peril, Conrad Seiler's Darker Brother, Francis Hall Johnson's folk opera Run Little Chillun, and Shirley Graham's radio drama Track Thirteen. The editors provide a useful introduction, headnotes on each author, and a short bibliography. Of special interest is an appendix containing 20 key articles (written from 1919 to 1928) on black theater. Recommended for all collections interested in drama and/or African American literature.?Louis J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn CampusCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.