Towards A Queer Black Feminist Theatre Aesthetic:

“Black women playwrights in particular have ensured its [Black culture’s] survival through creating performance pieces that reflexively evaluate their life experiences” (Sunni-Ali). This book is an analysis of three queer black female playwrights and their plays – Mary Powell Burrill They That Sit in Darkness; Angelina Weld Grimké Rachel and Alice Dunbar Nelson Mine Eyes Have Seen - from the early twentieth century who did just that. I am interested in the reflexive analysis of black life in America that their plays offered their audiences. I am interested in how these plays reached black audiences - their manner of disbursement and performance – in magazine publications such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s The Crisis and Margaret Sanger’s The Birth Control Review. I am interested in how the form they created can be a model for creating and identifying a contemporary queer black feminist theater aesthetic.