The Collected Works of Langston Hughes Vol. 5. The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move

SANDERS, Leslie Catherine; JOHNSTON, Nancy (eds.)

ISBN 10: 0826213693 / ISBN 13: 9780826213693

Published by U. of Missouri Press, Columbia, 2002

About this Item

xvi, [2], 652 p. 24 cm. Black cloth. Ex library with labels on spine and front cover, ink stamps on top edge and title.

Seller Inventory # 151537

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes Vol. 5. The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move
• Publisher: U. of Missouri Press, Columbia
• Publication Date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0826213693
• ISBN 13: 9780826213693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: ex library-very good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Theatre

About this title

Synopsis

But someday somebody'll Stand up and talk about me - Black and beautiful - And sing about me. And put on plays about me! I reckon it'll be Me myself! Yes, it'll be me. Langston Hughes is least known for his theatrical endeavors, yet his attention to the theater was lifelong. His love of the stage began in childhood, and from the late 1920s on he was continually writing plays, for black community theater, for theater companies he established himself, and for the Broadway and off-Broadway stage. His early plays endeavor to provide ""authentic"" representations of African American life, both to counter and correct the stereotypical stage portrayals of African Americans in white theater and to provide suitable plays for black theater companies hungry for scripts that would entertain and challenge black audiences. Volume 5 of The Collected Works of Langston Hughes includes the plays Hughes wrote between 1930 and 1942, alone and in collaboration. Almost all the plays were performed during the same period; a few have never seen the stage, but are included because they indicate the range of Hughes's artistic and political concerns. Because very few of the plays in this volume have been previously published, they disclose a side of Langston Hughes's artistry that is virtually unknown.

About the Author

Lesile Sanders is on the faculty at York University and is the cofounder of the Centre for the Study of Black Cultures in Canada. She is the author of The Development of Black Theater in America.