10 Black playwrights whose works should be produced when theatre resumes

Nicholas Pinnock, Tosin Cole in debbie tucker green’s ‘ear for eye’ (© Stephen Cummiskey)

• Imogen Underwood

Since June, the flurry of anti-racism resources has significantly declined. Black contributions to the arts have often been overlooked by creators and consumers of theatre, but there are so many artists to celebrate, read, and learn about. This list reflects is just a small handful of remarkable black theatrical talent from the last century, and only goes into brief detail on their achievements. It is by no means an exhaustive list – if any of these names are new to you, I’d urge you to seek out their work, and start including other black creatives in your everyday reading and watching habits.

With theatres set to reopen in the next year, they should definitely look at this list for some fantastic works to consider.

1.    Tarrell Alvin McCraney

McCraney is best known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Moonlight (2016), which was based on his project from drama school called In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. He is currently Chair of Playwrighting at the Yale School of Drama, and in 2008 became the International Playwright in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company in association with the University of Warwick, one of the UK’s top universities.

2.    Alice Childress

In 1949, Childress began her playwrighting career, and would spend the next four decades writing and producing plays. Gold Through the Trees (1952), made her one of the first African-American women to have worked professionally produced in New York. From 1966 to 1968, she was scholar-in-residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard.

3.    Winsome Pinnock

Pinnock is a British playwright born to parents who emigrated from Jamaica. Her work, including the award-winning Leave Taking, has been presented at the National Theatre and Royal Court Theatre in London, as well as on BBC Radio. She lectures at Kingston University, London, and has been a Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

4.    Dominique Morriseau

Morrisseau wrote the book for the Broadway jukebox musical Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations, which was nominated for a Tony in 2019. She has also written over nine plays, and received the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 2018.

5.    August Wilson

Born to a German father and African-American mother, Wilson’s works include the Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten plays which detail African-American experiencea in the twentieth century. During his lifetime he won two Pulitzer Prizes and one Tony. Today, he gives his name to Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre, where Jersey Boys was performed for twelve years, and since 2018 has hosted Mean Girls.

6.    George C Wolfe

Wolfe is now best known as a director, winning a Tony in 1993 as the director of Angels in America’s infamous Broadway debut. He wrote the book for and directed Jelly’s Last Jam, a musical about black jazz musician Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, for which he was nominated for two Tonys.

7.    James Baldwin

Baldwin was a novelist and essayist as well as a playwright, and his plays include The Amen Corner and Blues for Mister Charlie,  though he is perhaps best known for novels like If Beale Street Could Talk and Giovanni’s Room. His works also addressed obstacles facing gay and bisexual men in the 1950s, before the Gay Liberation Movement. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954.

8.    Lorraine Hansberry

Hansberry was the first African-American woman to have her play performed in Broadway, when A Raisin in the Sun premiered in 1959. Aged 29, she was the youngest American playwright to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Her final play, Les Blancs, which deals with white colonialism in Africa, premiered after her death in 1970 and was revived by London’s National Theatre in 2016. A recording of the 2016 production was streamed for free by the National Theatre during lockdown this year.

9.    Michaela Coel

Best known for writing, producing, co-directing and starring in the powerful and hugely successful BBC/HBO series I May Destroy You, Coel was born to Ghanian parents in London in 1987. She attended Birmingham University before becoming the first black woman in five years to enrol at the world-famous Guildhall School of Musical and Drama in 2009. She has also featured in Black Mirror, and took leading roles at the National Theatre, including Medea in 2014.

10 . debbie tucker green

tucker green, who spells her name in lowercase letters, is a British playwright. Her work, such as eare for eye, has been staged at London’s Royal Court and Old Vic, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 2004, she won the Olivier Award for Best Newcomer, and won a BAFTA in 2012.