The Achievements of the Douglass Company in North America: 1758–1774

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Mays
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
The West ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Theatre History ◽  
A Company

On Monday, October 16, 1758., Hugh Gaine reported a novelty. “Friday last,” he told his readers in the New-York Mercury, “arrived here from the West Indies, a Company of Comedians; some Part of which were here in the Year 1753.” This brief notice, which went on to assure its readers that the company had “an ample Certificate of their Private as well as publick Qualifications,” marks the beginning of the most significant event in American theatre history: the establishment of the professional theatre on this continent. The achievements of the Company of Comedians during its sixteen-year residence in North America are virtually without parallel in the history of the theatre, and have not received sufficient recognition by historians and scholars.

A History of African American Theatre. By Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch. Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; pp. 608. $130 cloth.

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-129
Author(s):  
Harry Elam
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Black Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
American Theatre History ◽  
Daunting Challenge

Over the more than twenty years since the publication of two profoundly influential collections—Errol Hill's two-volume anthology of critical essays The Theatre of Black Americans (1980) and James V. Hatch's first edition of the play anthology Black Theatre USA (1974)—there has been considerable activity in African American theatre scholarship. Yet even as scholars have produced new collections of historical and critical essays that cover a wide range of African American theatre history, book-length studies that document particular moments in the historical continuum such as the Harlem Renaissance, and Samuel Hay's broader study African American Theatre: An Historical and Critical Analysis (1994), no one until now has written a comprehensive study of African American theatre history. Into this void have stepped two of the aforementioned distinguished scholars of African American theatre, Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch. To be certain, writing a comprehensive history of African American theatre poses a daunting challenge for anyone hearty enough to undertake it. Where to begin? What to include and exclude? With their study, A History of African American Theatre, Hill and Hatch show themselves indeed worthy of the challenge. They explore the evolution of African American theatre across time and space, documenting the particular efforts of artists, writers, scholars, and practitioners, from inside as well as outside the United States, that have had an impact on our understanding of African American theatre. The authors make clear that the definition of African American theatre from the beginning has been in constant flux and that it has been affected by the changing social times in American as much as it has influenced those times.

scholarly journals Book Reviews

1996 ◽  
Vol 70 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 309-381
Author(s):  
Redactie KITLV
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
West Indies ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
University Of Pittsburgh ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

-Bridget Brereton, Emilia Viotti Da Costa, Crowns of glory, tears of blood: The Demerara slave rebellion of 1823. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. xix + 378 pp.-Grant D. Jones, Assad Shoman, 13 Chapters of a history of Belize. Belize city: Angelus, 1994. xviii + 344 pp.-Donald Wood, K.O. Laurence, Tobago in wartime 1793-1815. Kingston: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1995. viii + 280 pp.-Trevor Burnard, Howard A. Fergus, Montserrat: History of a Caribbean colony. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1994. x + 294 pp.-John L. Offner, Joseph Smith, The Spanish-American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895-1902. London: Longman, 1994. ix + 262 pp.-Louis Allaire, John M. Weeks ,Ancient Caribbean. New York: Garland, 1994. lxxi + 325 pp., Peter J. Ferbel (eds)-Aaron Segal, Hilbourne A. Watson, The Caribbean in the global political economy. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994. ix + 261 pp.-Aaron Segal, Anthony P. Maingot, The United States and the Caribbean. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1994. xi + 260 pp.-Bill Maurer, Helen I. Safa, The myth of the male breadwinner: Women and industrialization in the Caribbean. Boulder CO: Westview, 1995. xvi + 208 pp.-Peter Meel, Edward M. Dew, The trouble in Suriname, 1975-1993. Westport CT: Praeger, 1994. xv + 243 pp.-Henry Wells, Jorge Heine, The last Cacique: Leadership and politics in a Puerto Rican city. Pittsburgh PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. ix + 310 pp.-Susan Eckstein, Jorge F. Pérez-López, Cuba at a crossroads: Politics and economics after the fourth party congress. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994. xviii + 282 pp.-David A.B. Murray, Marvin Leiner, Sexual politics in Cuba: Machismo, homosexuality, and AIDS. Boulder CO: Westview, 1994. xv + 184 pp.-Kevin A. Yelvington, Selwyn Ryan ,Sharks and sardines: Blacks in business in Trinidad and Tobago. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Institute of social and economic studies, University of the West Indies, 1992. xiv + 217 pp., Lou Anne Barclay (eds)-Catherine Levesque, Allison Blakely, Blacks in the Dutch world: The evolution of racial imagery in a modern society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. xix + 327 pp.-Dennis J. Gayle, Frank Fonda Taylor, 'To hell with paradise': A history of the Jamaican tourist industry. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. ix + 239 pp.-John P. Homiak, Frank Jan van Dijk, Jahmaica: Rastafari and Jamaican society, 1930-1990. Utrecht: ISOR, 1993. 483 pp.-Peter Mason, Arthur MacGregor, Sir Hans Sloane: Collector, scientist, antiquary, founding Father of the British Museum. London: British Museum Press, 1994.-Philip Morgan, James Walvin, The life and times of Henry Clarke of Jamaica, 1828-1907. London: Frank Cass, 1994. xvi + 155 pp.-Werner Zips, E. Kofi Agorsah, Maroon heritage: Archaeological, ethnographic and historical perspectives. Kingston: Canoe Press, 1994. xx + 210 pp.-Michael Hoenisch, Werner Zips, Schwarze Rebellen: Afrikanisch-karibischer Freiheitskampf in Jamaica. Vienna Promedia, 1993. 301 pp.-Elizabeth McAlister, Paul Farmer, The uses of Haiti. Monroe ME: Common Courage Press, 1994. 432 pp.-Robert Lawless, James Ridgeway, The Haiti files: Decoding the crisis. Washington DC: Essential Books, 1994. 243 pp.-Bernadette Cailler, Michael Dash, Edouard Glissant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xii + 202 pp.-Peter Hulme, Veronica Marie Gregg, Jean Rhys's historical imagination: Reading and writing the Creole. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. xi + 228 pp.-Silvia Kouwenberg, Francis Byrne ,Focus and grammatical relations in Creole languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1993. xvi + 329 pp., Donald Winford (eds)-John H. McWhorter, Ingo Plag, Sentential complementation in Sranan: On the formation of an English-based Creole language. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1993. ix + 174 pp.-Percy C. Hintzen, Madan M. Gopal, Politics, race, and youth in Guyana. San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992. xvi + 289 pp.-W.C.J. Koot, Hans van Hulst ,Pan i rèspèt: Criminaliteit van geïmmigreerde Curacaose jongeren. Utrecht: OKU. 1994. 226 pp., Jeanette Bos (eds)-Han Jordaan, Cornelis Ch. Goslinga, Een zweem van weemoed: Verhalen uit de Antilliaanse slaventijd. Curacao: Caribbean Publishing, 1993. 175 pp.-Han Jordaan, Ingvar Kristensen, Plantage Savonet: Verleden en toekomst. Curacao: STINAPA, 1993, 73 pp.-Gerrit Noort, Hesdie Stuart Zamuel, Johannes King: Profeet en apostel in het Surinaamse bosland. Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1994. vi + 241 pp.

The Black Crook Myth

1966 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Julian Mates
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Common Reference ◽  
Musical Comedy ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Theatre History

Dates and events are frequently useful scholarly pigeonholes into which may be neatly tucked whole periods of literature or significant literary trends. The scholar knows them to be oversimplifications, but so long as their limitations are recognized, they remain useful tools for teaching, talking, and writing. Occasionally, however, history is hung from a date so unreliable and so unjustified that delineation of material is blurred rather than clarified, traditions are obscured rather than illuminated, and fields of research are closed rather than opened. American theatre history affords a perfect example of the misused common reference point. The year 1866, with its production of The Black Crook, has been accepted as the landmark indicating the beginnings of American musical comedy. Cecil Smith, in Musical Comedy in America, says, “For all important purposes, the history of musical comedy in America starts with The Black Crook, as everyone has always said it did.”

Little postcolonial magazines

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Bulson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
North America ◽  
West Indies ◽  
The West ◽  
Black Internationalism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
African Writers

In Nigeria and Uganda during 1950s and 60s, the little magazine was being nurtured by postcolonial nations looking to produce a literature that was regional, national, and global. By importing the foreign form of the little magazine, a diasporic network was created linking newly independent African nations with cities in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and the West Indies. Black Orpheus (Nigeria), Transition (Uganda), Bim (Barbados), Kyk-Over-al (Guyana), and The Beacon (Trinidad), accommodated a black internationalism that challenged the hegemony of a globalized book business (anchored in London and New York) actively repackaging “African writers” for a Western audience.

The Franciscan Provinces of Spanish North America

1944 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion A. Habig
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
West Indies ◽  
New World ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of

Although the Franciscan Province in the West Indies was the first in the New World, it was the Province founded in Mexico shortly after its conquest by Cortés that became the parent unit of most of the other Provinces in Spanish America. By its extraordinary missionary achievements it likewise set the pace for the work of the other Provinces. It would require much more than a few pages to present a mere outline of the history of the Franciscan mother Province of Spanish America; we can call attention only to some outstanding facts.

scholarly journals Book Reviews

1986 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-112
Author(s):  
Redactie KITLV
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Research University ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eastern Caribbean

-John Parker, Norman J.W. Thrower, Sir Francis Drake and the famous voyage, 1577-1580. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Contributions of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Vol. 11, 1984. xix + 214 pp.-Franklin W. Knight, B.W. Higman, Trade, government and society in Caribbean history 1700-1920. Kingston: Heinemann Educational Books, 1983. xii + 172 pp.-A.J.R. Russel-Wood, Lyle N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, Europe and the World in the Age of Expansion Volume III, 1984. xxxi + 585 pp.-Tony Martin, John Gaffar la Guerre, The social and political thought of the colonial intelligentsia. Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1982. 136 pp.-Egenek K. Galbraith, Raymond T. Smith, Kinship ideology and practice in Latin America. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. 341 pp.-Anthony P. Maingot, James Pack, Nelson's blood: the story of naval rum. Annapolis MD, U.S.A.: Naval Institute Press and Havant Hampshire, U.K.: Kenneth Mason, 1982. 200 pp.-Anthony P. Maingot, Hugh Barty-King ,Rum: yesterday and today. London: William Heineman, 1983. xviii + 264 pp., Anton Massel (eds)-Helen I. Safa, Alejandro Portes ,Latin journey: Cuban and Mexican immigrants in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. xxi + 387 pp., Robert L. Bach (eds)-Wayne S. Smith, Carlos Franqui, Family portrait wth Fidel: a memoir. New York: Random House, 1984. xxiii + 263 pp.-Sergio G. Roca, Claes Brundenius, Revolutionary Cuba: the challenge of economic growth with equity. Boulder CO: Westview Press and London: Heinemann, 1984. xvi + 224 pp.-H. Hoetink, Bernardo Vega, La migración española de 1939 y los inicios del marxismo-leninismo en la República Dominicana. Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1984. 208 pp.-Antonio T. Díaz-Royo, César Andreú-Iglesias, Memoirs of Bernardo Vega: a contribution to the history of the Puerto Rican community in New York. Translated by Juan Flores. New York and London: Monthly Review, 1984. xix + 243 pp.-Mariano Negrón-Portillo, Harold J. Lidin, History of the Puerto Rican independence movement: 20th century. Maplewood NJ; Waterfront Press, 1983. 250 pp.-Roberto DaMatta, Teodore Vidal, Las caretas de cartón del Carnaval de Ponce. San Juan: Ediciones Alba, 1983. 107 pp.-Manuel Alvarez Nazario, Nicolás del Castillo Mathieu, Esclavos negros en Cartagena y sus aportes léxicos. Bogotá: Institute Caro y Cuervo, 1982. xvii + 247 pp.-J.T. Gilmore, P.F. Campbell, The church in Barbados in the seventeenth century. Garrison, Barbados; Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 1982. 188 pp.-Douglas K. Midgett, Neville Duncan ,Women and politics in Barbados 1948-1981. Cave Hill, Barbados: Institute of Social and Economic Research (Eastern Caribbean), Women in the Caribbean Project vol. 3, 1983. x + 68 pp., Kenneth O'Brien (eds)-Ken I. Boodhoo, Maurice Bishop, Forward ever! Three years of the Grenadian Revolution. Speeches of Maurice Bishop. Sydney: Pathfinder Press, 1982. 287 pp.-Michael L. Conniff, Velma Newton, The silver men: West Indian labour migration to Panama, 1850-1914. Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1984. xx + 218 pp.-Robert Dirks, Frank L. Mills ,Christmas sports in St. Kitts: our neglected cultural tradition. With lessons by Bertram Eugene. Frederiksted VI: Eastern Caribbean Institute, 1984. iv + 66 pp., S.B. Jones-Hendrickson (eds)-Catherine L. Macklin, Virginia Kerns, Woman and the ancestors: Black Carib kinship and ritual. Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 1983. xv + 229 pp.-Marian McClure, Brian Weinstein ,Haiti: political failures, cultural successes. New York: Praeger (copublished with Hoover Institution Press, Stanford), 1984. xi + 175 pp., Aaron Segal (eds)-A.J.F. Köbben, W.S.M. Hoogbergen, De Boni-oorlogen, 1757-1860: marronage en guerilla in Oost-Suriname (The Boni wars, 1757-1860; maroons and guerilla warfare in Eastern Suriname). Bronnen voor de studie van Afro-amerikaanse samenlevinen in de Guyana's, deel 11 (Sources for the Study of Afro-American Societies in the Guyanas, no. 11). Dissertation, University of Utrecht, 1985. 527 pp.-Edward M. Dew, Baijah Mhango, Aid and dependence: the case of Suriname, a study in bilateral aid relations. Paramaribo: SWI, Foundation in the Arts and Sciences, 1984. xiv + 171 pp.-Edward M. Dew, Sandew Hira, Balans van een coup: drie jaar 'surinaamse revolutie.' Rotterdam: Futile (Blok & Flohr), 1983. 175 pp.-Ian Robertson, John A. Holm ,Dictionary of Bahamian English. New York: Lexik House Publishers, 1982. xxxix + 228 pp., Alison Watt Shilling (eds)-Erica Williams Connell, Paul Sutton, Commentary: A reply from Williams Connell (to the review by Anthony Maingot in NWIG 57:89-97).

scholarly journals Book Reviews

1985 ◽  
Vol 59 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 225-278
Author(s):  
Redactie KITLV
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
American People ◽  
New York University ◽  
The West ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
History Of

-John F. Szwed, Richard Price, First-Time: the historical vision of an Afro-American people. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture, 1983, 191 pp.-Thomas J. Spinner Jr., Reynold Burrowes, The Wild Coast: an account of politics in Guyana. Cambridge MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1984. xx + 348 pp.-Gad Heuman, Edward L. Cox, Free Coloreds in the slave societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984. xiii + 197 pp.-H. Michael Erisman, Anthony Payne, The international crisis in the Caribbean. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. 177 p.-Lester D. Langley, Richard Newfarmer, From gunboats to diplomacy: new U.S. policies for Latin America. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. xxii + 254 pp.-Trevor W. Purcell, Diane J. Austin, Urban life in Kingston, Jamaica: the culture and class ideology of two neighbourhoods. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Caribbean Studies Vol. 3, 1984. XXV + 282 PP.-Robert A. Myers, Richard B. Sheridan, Doctors and slaves: a medical and demographic history of slavery in the British West Indies, 1680-1834. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985. xxii + 420 pp.-Michéle Baj Strobel, Christiane Bougerol, La médecine populaire á la Guadeloupe. Paris: Editions Karthala, 1983. 175 pp.-R. Parry Scott, Annette D. Ramirez de Arellano ,Colonialism, Catholicism, and contraception: a history of birth control in Puerto Rico. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. xii + 219 pp., Conrad Seipp (eds)-Gervasio Luis García, Francis A. Scarano, Sugar and slavery in Puerto Rico: the plantation economy of Ponce, 1800-1850. Madison WI and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. xxv + 242 pp.-Fernando Picó, Edgardo Diaz Hernandez, Castãner: una hacienda cafetalera en Puerto Rico (1868-1930). Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Edil, 1983. 139 pp.-John V. Lombardi, Laird W. Bergad, Coffee and the growth of agrarian capitalism in nineteenth-century Puerto Rico. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. xxvii + 242 pp.-Robert A. Myers, Anthony Layng, The Carib Reserve: identity and security in the West Indies. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983. xxii + 177 pp.-Lise Winer, Raymond Quevedo, Atilla's Kaiso: a short history of Trinidad calypso. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of the West Indies, 1983. ix + 205 pp.-Luiz R.B. Mott, B.R. Burg, Sodomy and the pirate tradition: English sea rovers in the seventeenth-century Caribbean. New York: New York University Press, 1983, xxiii + 215 pp.-Humphrey E. Lamur, Willem Koot ,De Antillianen. Muiderberg, The Netherlands: Dick Coutihno, Migranten in de Nederlandse Samenleving nr. 1, 1984. 175 pp., Anco Ringeling (eds)-Gary Brana-Shute, Paul van Gelder, Werken onder de boom: dynamiek en informale sektor: de situatie in Groot-Paramaribo, Suriname. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris, 1985, xi + 313 pp.-George L. Huttar, Eddy Charry ,De Talen van Suriname: achtergronden en ontwikkelingen. With the assistance of Sita Kishna. Muiderberg, The Netherlands: Dick Coutinho, 1983. 225 pp., Geert Koefoed, Pieter Muysken (eds)-Peter Fodale, Nelly Prins-Winkel ,Papiamentu: problems and possibilities. (authors include also Luis H. Daal, Roger W. Andersen, Raúl Römer). Zutphen. The Netherlands: De Walburg Pers, 1983, 96 pp., M.C. Valeriano Salazar, Enrique Muller (eds)-Jeffrey Wiliams, Lawrence D. Carrington, Studies in Caribbean language. In collaboration with Dennis Craig & Ramon Todd Dandaré. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Society for Caribbean Linguistics, University of the West Indies, 1983. xi + 338 pp.

scholarly journals Book Reviews

2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-196
Author(s):  
Redactie KITLV
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
West Indies ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
New York University ◽  
The West ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
History Of

-Philip D. Morgan, Marcus Wood, Blind memory: Visual representations of slavery in England and America 1780-1865. New York: Routledge, 2000. xxi + 341 pp.-Rosemarijn Hoefte, Ron Ramdin, Arising from bondage: A history of the Indo-Caribbean people. New York: New York University Press, 2000. x + 387 pp.-Flávio dos Santos Gomes, David Eltis, The rise of African slavery in the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xvii + 353 pp.-Peter Redfield, D. Graham Burnett, Masters of all they surveyed: Exploration, geography, and a British El Dorado. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. xv + 298 pp.-Bernard Moitt, Eugenia O'Neal, From the field to the legislature: A history of women in the Virgin Islands. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. xiii + 150 pp.-Allen M. Howard, Nemata Amelia Blyden, West Indians in West Africa, 1808-1880: The African Diaspora in reverse. Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2000. xi + 258 pp.-Michaeline A. Crichlow, Kari Levitt, The George Beckford papers. Kingston: Canoe Press, 2000. lxxi + 468 pp.-Michaeline A. Crichlow, Audley G. Reid, Community formation; A study of the 'village' in postemancipation Jamaica. Kingston: Canoe Press, 2000. xvi + 156 pp.-Linden Lewis, Brian Meeks, Narratives of resistance: Jamaica, Trinidad, the Caribbean. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2000. xviii + 240 pp.-Roderick A. McDonald, Bridget Brereton, Law, justice, and empire: The colonial career of John Gorrie, 1829-1892. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 1997. xx + 371 pp.-Karl Watson, Gary Lewis, White rebel: The life and times of TT Lewis. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 1999. xxvii + 214 pp.-Mary Turner, Armando Lampe, Mission or submission? Moravian and Catholic missionaries in the Dutch Caribbean during the nineteenth century. Göttingen, FRG: Vandenburg & Ruprecht, 2001. 244 pp.-O. Nigel Bolland, Anton L. Allahar, Caribbean charisma: Reflections on leadership, legitimacy and populist politics. Kingston: Ian Randle; Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001. xvi + 264 pp.-Bill Maurer, Cynthia Weber, Faking it: U.S. Hegemony in a 'post-phallic' era. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. xvi + 151 pp.-Kelvin Santiago-Valles, Christina Duffy Burnett ,Foreign in a domestic sense: Puerto Rico, American expansion, and the constitution. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2001. xv + 422 pp., Burke Marshall (eds)-Rubén Nazario, Efrén Rivera Ramos, The legal construction of identity: The judicial and social legacy of American colonialism in Puerto Rico. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2000. 275 pp.-Marc McLeod, Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Winds of change: Hurricanes and the transformation of nineteenth-century Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. x + 199 pp.-Jorge L. Giovannetti, Fernando Martínez Heredia ,Espacios, silencios y los sentidos de la libertad: Cuba entre 1878 y 1912. Havana: Ediciones Unión, 2001. 359 pp., Rebecca J. Scott, Orlando F. García Martínez (eds)-Reinaldo L. Román, Miguel Barnet, Afro-Cuban religions. Princeton NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001. 170 pp.-Philip W. Scher, Hollis 'Chalkdust' Liverpool, Rituals of power and rebellion: The carnival tradition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1763-1962. Chicago: Research Associates School Times Publications and Frontline distribution international, 2001. xviii + 518 pp.-Asmund Weltzien, David Griffith ,Fishers at work, workers at sea: A Puerto Rican journey through labor and refuge. Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press, 2002. xiv + 265 pp., Manuel Valdés Pizzini (eds)-Riva Berleant-Schiller, Eudine Barriteau, The political economy of gender in the twentieth-century Caribbean. New York: Palgrave, 2001. xvi + 214 pp.-Edward Dew, Rosemarijn Hoefte ,Twentieth-century Suriname: Continuities and discontinuities in a new world society. Kingston: Ian Randle; Leiden: KITLV Press, 2001. xvi + 365 pp., Peter Meel (eds)-Joseph L. Scarpaci, Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, Power to the people: Energy and the Cuban nuclear program. New York: Routledge, 2000. xiii + 178 pp.-Lynn M. Festa, Keith A. Sandiford, The cultural politics of sugar: Caribbean slavery and narratives of colonialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 221 pp.-Maria Christina Fumagalli, John Thieme, Derek Walcott. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. xvii + 251 pp.-Laurence A. Breiner, Stewart Brown, All are involved: The art of Martin Carter. Leeds U.K.: Peepal Tree, 2000. 413 pp.-Mikael Parkvall, John Holm, An introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xxi + 282 pp.

Composing Ourselves: The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience. By Dorothy Chansky. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004; pp. 256; 15 illus. $55 cloth; Summer Stock! An American Phenomenon. By Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004; pp. 320; 25 illus. $27.95 cloth.

2005 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 343-346
Author(s):  
Barbara Ozieblo
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
Financial Policies ◽  
Southern Illinois ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Times Square ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

The theatre has long been recognized as a site from which national and social values can be promoted, and this was particularly the case with the Little Theatre and summer stock phenomena. Even when performing non-American plays, these movements addressed the education of the audience, as Dorothy Chansky and Martha Schmoyer LoMonaco make apparent in two rigorously researched studies. Both have chosen to focus on the audience as an integral component of the theatrical event and, eschewing postmodern theories of the spectator's gaze, they bring a sociohistorical perspective to their findings, which are based on in-depth research of theatre documents, memoirs, and reviews. Chansky examines how the Little Theatres constructed and educated their audiences, whereas LoMonaco, in tracing the history of a number of summer-stock theatres, uncovers the hold that the audience has on artistic and financial policies. The two books cover areas and aspects of theatre history not frequently studied; they examine the complex artistic and economic issues involved in founding and running a theatre, while also certifying that American theatre has never been contained by a few streets in the vicinity of Times Square.

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