Playwright

THE AFRICAN COMPANY PRESENTS RICHARD III

Copyright

In 1821, forty years before Lincoln ended slavery, and fifty years before black Americans earned the right to vote, the first black theatrical group in the country, the African Company of New York, was putting on plays in a downtown Manhattan theatre to which both black and white audiences flocked.  Earning their bread with satires of white high society, the African Company came to be known for debunking the sacred status of the English classics (which many politically and racially motivated critics said were beyond the scope of black actors).  Inside the Company’s ranks, similar debates raged about whether to mimic the English tongue, or to provide a more lively interpretation of white theater by acknowledging the vibrancy of the black experience (in the words of the African Company’s manager: “Say ya Shakespeare like ya want.”)  Shakespeare is the chosen cultural battleground in this inventive retelling of a little known, yet pivotal event in the African Company’s history.  Knowing they are always under prejudicial pressures from white society, and facing their own internal shakeups, The African Company battles for time, space, audiences and togetherness.  Their competition, Stephen Price, an uptown, Broadway-type impresario, is producing Richard III at the same time as the African Company’s production is in full swing.  Price has promised a famous English actor overflowing audiences if he plays Richard in Price’s theatre.  Fearing competition from the African Company, which is garnering large white audiences, Price manipulates the law and closes the African Company down.  The Company rebounds and finds a space right next door to Price’s theatre.  As the rise of curtain of the next performance, Price causes the arrest of some of the actors on a trumped up riot charge.  The play ends with the Company, surviving, its integrity intact, and about to launch an equally progressive new chapter in the American Theatre: They’ll soon be producing the first black plays written by black Americans of their day.

Developed: The Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis

World Premiere:  Penumbra Theatre Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1987

                             Arena Stage, Washington, DC 1991

Published:  Dramatists Play Service