In the first half of the twentieth century, a number of American theatres and theatre artists fostered interracial collaboration and socialization on stage, behind the scenes, and among audiences. In an era marked by entrenched racial segregation and inequality, these artists used performance to bridge America’s persistent racial divide and to bring African American, Latino/Latina, Asian American, Native American, and Jewish American communities and traditions into the nation’s broader cultural conversation.
 
In Experiments in Democracy, edited by Cheryl Black and Jonathan Shandell, theatre historians examine a wide range of performances—from Broadway, folk plays and dance productions to scripted political rallies and radio dramas. Contributors look at such diverse groups as the Theatre Union, La Unión Martí-Maceo, and the American Negro Theatre, as well as individual playwrights and their works, including Theodore Browne’s folk opera Natural Man, Josefina Niggli’s Soldadera, and playwright Lynn Riggs’s Cherokee Night and Green Grow the Lilacs (the basis for the musical Oklahoma!). Exploring the ways progressive artists sought to connect isolated racial and cultural groups in pursuit of a more just and democratic society, contributors take into account the blind spots, compromised methods, and unacknowledged biases at play in their practices and strategies. Essays demonstrate how the gap between the ideal of American democracy and its practice—mired in entrenched systems of white privilege, economic inequality, and social prejudice—complicated the work of these artists.
 
Focusing on questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality on the stage in the decades preceding the Civil Rights era, Experiments in Democracy fills an important gap in our understanding of the history of the American stage—and sheds light on these still-relevant questions in contemporary American society. 

Theatre History Studies, currently edited by Rhona Justice-Malloy, is a peer-reviewed journal of theatre history and scholarship published annually since 1981 by the Mid-American Theatre Conference (MATC), a regional body devoted to theatre scholarship and practice. The conference encompasses the states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The purpose of the conference is to unite persons and organizations within the region with an interest in theatre and to promote the growth and development of all forms of theatre.

 

 

Contributors
Penny Farfan / Victor Holtcamp / Lisa Jackson-Schebetta / Richard
L. Poole / Bill Rauch / Thomas Robson / Marlis Schweitzer / Virginia
Scott / Christine Woodworth

Volume 33 of Theatre History Studies explores war. War is a paradox—horrifying and compelling, galvanizing and devastating, a phenomenon that separates and decimates while at the same time creating and strengthening national identity and community bonds. War is the stuff of great drama.
 
War and theatre is a subject of increasing popularity among scholars of theatre. The essays in this special edition of Theatre History Studies brings together a unique collection of work by thirteen innovative scholars whose work explores such topics as theatre performances during war times, theatre written and performed to resist war, and theatre that fosters and promotes war.
 
The contributors to this volume write poignantly about nationhood and about how war—through both propaganda and protest—defines a people. The contributors also delve into numerous fascinating themes that transcend time, peoples, nations, and particular conflicts: the foundations of nationalism and the concepts of occupied and occupier, nostalgia and utopia, and patriotism and revolution.
 
These essays survey a march of civil and international wars spanning three centuries. Arranged chronologically, they invite comparisons between themes and trace the development of the major themes of war. Ideas manifest in the theatre of one period recall ideologies and propaganda of the past, reflect those of the present, and anticipate wars to come.