Wines In The Wilderness, Vol. 135 »

ELIZABETH BROWN-GUILLORY is Associate Professor of English at the University of Houston.

Wines in the Wilderness brings together thirteen plays by black women from the 1920s to the present, including works by Marita Bonner, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Eulalie Spence, May Miller, Shirley Graham, Alice Childress, Sonia Sanchez, Sybil Kein, and Elizabeth Brown-Guillory. The plays and dramatists selected are representative of and have made considerable contributions to African American theater. Although the works of these playwrights span over sixty years, they are closely linked by the theme of women struggling to define their roles in society. The heroines speak out against interracial and intraracial biases, stereotyping, lynch mobs, illiteracy, poverty, promiscuity, self-righteousness, abusive men, rape, and miscegenation. Each play is preceded by a critical introduction that includes biographical information, an assessment of the playwright's contributions to black theater, and a synopsis and critical analysis of the play. The bibliography that follows the plays provides selected lists of published plays, produced plays, and anthologies. An index completes the work. This collection represents an effort to make available plays written by black women that have not been published or are now out of print. In recovering these plays, scholars will now be able to take a close look at the contributions that black women dramatists have made not only to African American theater, but to American theater in general.

Preface

Marita Bonner (1899-1971)

The Pot Maker (1927)

Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966)

Blue Blood (1926)

Safe (c. 1929)

Blue-Eyed Black Boy (c. 1930)

Eulalie Spence (1894-1981)

Hot Stuff (1927)

Episode (1928)

May Miller (1899- )

Riding the Goat (1929)

Shirley Graham (1896-1977)

It's Mornin' (1940)

Alice Childress (1920- )

Florence (1950)

Wine in the Wilderness (1969)

Sonia Sanchez (1934- )

Sister Son/ji (1969)

Sybil Kein (1939- )

Get Together (1970)

Elizabeth Brown-Guillory (1954- )

Mam Phyllis (1985)

Bibliography

Index