Dreaming in Color: Contemporary Multi-Cultural Theatre in the United States

Instructor:  Professor Susan F. Russell
                 Department of Theatre Arts

The United States is a rainbow nation, and increasingly theatres across the country are beginning to reflect our demographics. Understanding contemporary theatre in the U.S. requires a knowledge of various sub-groups and studying their theatrical histories and works of art. In this course, students will read, watch (on video and live onstage), analyze, write about and perform plays that encompass the American experience in all its diversity. We will take advantage of our proximity to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. and visit theatres to see multicultural plays, if possible.

In this course, we will study the historical background of the plays as well as analyzing and performing them. For example, the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, building upon previous writers of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, has led to an explosion of new dramas by African American writers in off-Broadway and regional theatres across the U.S. Likewise, the Chicano theatre movement, beginning with Luis Valdez's Teatro Campesino in California, has led to an outpouring of writings by Chicano and other Latino writers and performers, like John Leguizamo and Cherrie Moraga. Asian Americans have also contributed significantly to theatre, especially on the West Coast. As a result of the women's movement of the 1970s, feminist theatre and plays by women have multiplied. And finally, the gay and lesbian civil rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s has led to an increase in theatre chronicling the experiences of gay life, including plays like The Laramie Project and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Angels in America.