Lisa B. Thompson

“Making History Black: Theatre and the Art of Reimagination” examines the instances in which contemporary African American playwrights embrace a black feminist theatrical aesthetic that centers black women within a historical era or transformative flashpoint. This project discusses how diverse and critically acclaimed theatre artists such as Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Katori Hall, Dominique Morisseau, and Colman Domingo place black womanhood at the focal point of their reimaginings of the Antebellum period, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and the Post-Soul era respectively. The study also considers how these playwrights use their renderings of the past to highlight the political and cultural climate in the present.