GILES: Well, he really appreciated expressionism. He never published them, but I read them in his papers.īOGAEV: Huh. They even had a running segment in The Crisis called, “The Negro in Art: How Will He Be Portrayed.” And all of the intellectual voices of the period, white and Black, chimed in on what theater should be and what the theater should do.īOGAEV: Wow, so it was seminal. He himself started a theater company, and he wanted to build up a national black theater that would have a circuit of theaters through the United States where plays by, for, and about African Americans would be performed. Du Bois thought that theater would be a major element in changing people’s minds about who African Americans are, what the problems are. But the people who were living in that time thought that theater was very significant. How big a role did theater play in the Harlem Renaissance? Because when I think back to my history books, they seem to play a-you know, writers of all kinds and poets and painters, but what about theater and playwrights?įREDA SCOTT GILES: Yes, that’s the problem that when the theater component of this era is remembered, the theater is reduced in significance. Freda Scott Giles is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.īARBARA BOGAEV: Freda, just to start us off, I have a really basic question. She joined us for this podcast, which we call, “I Here Engage My Words.” Dr. Giles’ perspective on this intersection so fresh, that we had to bring it to you. Because there’s almost nothing in the English-language theater that isn’t touched by Shakespeare, you won’t be surprised to find him here too, and not just in the places you’d expect. Freda Scott Giles is an Associate Professor Emerita of Theatre and Film Studies and African American Studies at the University of Georgia and for decades, she’s studied the theater world of the Harlem Renaissance. The time I’m referring to is “The Harlem Renaissance.” Ten or so years of artistic and intellectual abundance fueled by the Great Migration, by Caribbean immigration, and by dreams to reconstruct the world of Reconstruction by Black soldiers coming home from World War I.ĭr. I’m Michael Witmore, the Folger’s director. And Shakespeare was a part of that one, too.įrom the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. MICHAEL WITMORE: Shakespeare’s work was written during a time that a lot of people call “The Renaissance.” There was another Renaissance-one that was closer to our time. Take a closer look at a typed letter from writer Langston Hughes in the Folger’s collection. Hughes writes to critic Dan Burley about the show Hughes is organizing in Los Angeles and Burley’s “jive Hamlet.” Listen to scholars Ayanna Thompson and Marvin MacAllister explore Black Shakespeare performance in the early 20th century. In the first episode of a two-part series from Shakespeare Unlimited, five scholars examine the long history of Black American Shakespeare performance. Previous: Naomi Miller on Mary Sidney and Imperfect Alchemist | Next: Meme García on house of sueños We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Ben Lauer is the web producer, with help from Leonor Fernandez. This podcast episode, “I Here Engage My Words,” was produced by Richard Paul. She was a contributor to three books: Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration, published in 2020 Constructions of Race in Southern Theatre: From Federalism to the Federal Theatre Project, published in 2003 and American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity, which was published in 1995.įrom the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Freda Scott Giles is Associate Professor Emerita of Theater at the University of Georgia. Listen to Shakespeare Unlimited on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, NPR One, or wherever you get your podcasts.ĭr. Plus, we visit the African Company of the 1820s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s to learn about more than a century of Black responses to Shakespeare. Giles, Associate Professor Emerita of Theatre and Film Studies and African American Studies at the University of Georgia, about how the artists and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance regarded the Bard. Banner Shakespeare productions included Orson Welles’s hit “Voodoo” Macbeth, produced by the Federal Theater Project, and the Midsummer-inspired Swingin’ the Dream, which was a Broadway flop despite the talents of musician Louis Armstrong and comedian Moms Mabley. Of course, because there’s little in the English-language theater untouched by Shakespeare, he was present in the Harlem Renaissance too. Freda Scott Giles, theater played a significant role in the blossoming of Black American arts and culture of the 1920s and ’30s. When you think about the Harlem Renaissance, theater might not be the first thing that comes to mind.
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