Religion and African American Theatre, 1858-1945

FAIN: FB-53626-08

Craig Prentiss
Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO 64110-2508)

The NEH Faculty Fellowship will support the completion of a book, provisionally entitled "Religion and African American Theatre, 1858-1945." The book will be the first scholarly examination of the way in which religious ideology was reflected in plays written by African Americans through WWII, and contend that plays have been a vital site for conveying and contesting various theological perspectives within African American communities.

Associated Products

Staging Faith: Religion and African American Theater from the Harlem Renaissance to World War II (Book)
Title: Staging Faith: Religion and African American Theater from the Harlem Renaissance to World War II
Author: Craig R. Prentiss
Abstract: In the years between the Harlem Renaissance and World War II, African American playwrights gave birth to a vital black theater movement in the U.S. It was a movement overwhelmingly concerned with the role of religion in black identity. In a time of profound social transformation fueled by a massive migration from the rural south to the urban-industrial centers of the north, scripts penned by dozens of black playwrights reflected cultural tensions, often rooted in class, that revealed competing conceptions of religion's role in the formation of racial identity. Black playwrights pointed in quite different ways toward approaches to church, scripture, belief, and ritual that they deemed beneficial to the advancement of the race. Their plays were important not only in mirroring theological reflection of the time, but in helping to shape African American thought about religion in black communities. The religious themes of these plays were in effect arguments about the place of religion in African American lives. In Staging Faith, Craig R. Prentiss illuminates the creative strategies playwrights used to grapple with religion. With a lively and engaging style, the volume brings long forgotten plays to life as it chronicles the cultural and religious fissures that marked early twentieth century African American society.
Year: 2014
Publisher: New York: New York University Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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