Open Access edition of Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene ONeill, and the Transformation of Broadway by Katie N. Johnson.

FAIN: DR-292392-23

Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1015)
LeAnn Fields (Project Director: November 2022 to May 2024)
Sara Cohen (Project Director: May 2024 to May 2024)
Sara Cohen (Project Director: May 2024 to January 2025)

This project will allow us to publish the book Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene ONeill, and the Transformation of Broadway by Katie N. Johnson in an open access format under a Creative Commons license making it available for free download and distribution. The author will be paid a royalty of five hundred dollars upon release of the open-access ebook.

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Publication Type: Open Access Collection
Title: Racing the Great White Way: Black Performance, Eugene O'Neill, and the Transformation of Broadway
Year: 2023
ISBN: 9780472903603
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Author: Katie N. Johnson
Abstract: The early drama of Eugene O’Neill, with its emphasis on racial themes and conflicts, opened up extraordinary opportunities for Black performers to challenge racist structures in modern theater and cinema. By adapting O’Neill’s dramatic writing—changing scripts to omit offensive epithets, inserting African American music and dance, or including citations of Black internationalism--theater artists of color have used O’Neill’s texts to raze barriers in American and transatlantic theater. Challenging the widely accepted idea that Broadway was the white-hot creative engine of U.S. theater during the early 20th century, author Katie N. Johnson reveals a far more complex system of exchanges between the Broadway establishment and a vibrant Black theater scene in New York and beyond to chart a new history of American and transnational theater. In spite of their dichotomous (and at times problematic) representation of Blackness, O’Neill’s plays such as The Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Got Wings make ideal case studies because of the way these works stimulated traffic between Broadway and Harlem—and between white and Black America. These investigations of O’Neill and Broadway productions are enriched by the vibrant transnational exchange found in early to mid-20th century artistic production. Anchored in archival research, Racing the Great White Way recovers not only vital lost performance histories, but also the layered contexts for performing bodies across the Black Atlantic and the Circum-Atlantic.
Primary URL: https://press.umich.edu/Books/R/Racing-the-Great-White-Way2
Primary URL Description: University of Michigan Press
Secondary URL: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12340544
Secondary URL Description: JSTOR
URL 3: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/64040
URL 3 Description: OAPEN
Type: Single author monograph

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