Broadway Is Brimming With Black Playwrights. But for How Long?

This season, numerous works by Black writers are being performed, including “Chicken & Biscuits,” an underrated classic, “The Trouble in Mind,” an autobiographical look back, “The Lackawant to Blues,” and “The Skeleton Crew,” as well as “Pass Over” and “Thoughts of a Colored Man.”

Broadway Is Brimming With Black Playwrights. But for How Long?

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Broadway Is Brimming With Black Playwrights. But for How Long?

Previews for “Clyde’s,” a play by Nottage about a truck stop sandwich shop proprietor overseeing a group of ex-offenders, start on November 3 at the Hayes Theater. She continued, “There are seven different plays that explore fundamentally different dimensions of the Black experience.

With two Pulitzer Prizes for “Sweat” and “Ruined,” both of which were presented on Broadway in 2017 despite extensive Off Broadway runs, Nottage is the most well-known dramatist of this season.

Up until the outbreak, the majority of Broadway audiences were white. Because of this, movie theatres have long cited it to support their programming choices.

“I continue to battle with why Broadway counts and why we are so interested in presenting our work in these commercial settings that historically have rejected our stories,” Nottage said when asked why Broadway matters. “It is a huge platform, though. You are speaking to a worldwide audience on Broadway.”

Like Lyons, The Majority of the Playwrights have Never had a Broadway Play Presented.

The Golden Theater will host previews of Keenan Scott II’s play “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” which chronicles a day in the lives of seven black men in Brooklyn.

For many years, Scott produced his own work at places like the Frigid Festival and Frostburg State University, his alma mater, utilising funds he borrowed from family and friends. After working as a slam poet for a while, Scott started a career in theatre.

“I didn’t recognise myself when I started reading plays in college,” he said. “I wasn’t seeing my essence captured onstage,” a young Black man once said.

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