Performing Arts/Theatre: American Theatre History and Books

Broadway Goes to War

The American theater was not ignorant of the developments brought on by World War II, and actively addressed and debated timely, controversial topics for the duration of the war, including neutrality and isolationism, racism and genocide, and heroism and battle fatigue

Circle in the Square Theatre: A Comprehensive History

Based on years of research as well as interviews conducted with Circle in the Square's major contributing artists, this book records the entire history of this distinguished theatre, from its beginning conception and early night club origins to its current status as a Tony Award-winning Broadway institution known and admired around the world by theatre professionals and the public . Over the course of seven decades, Circle in the Square theatre profoundly changed ideas of what American theatre could be. 

MacBeth in Harlem: Black Theatre in America from the Beginning to Raisin in the Sun

 1936 Orson Welles directed a celebrated all-black production of Macbeth that was hailed as a breakthrough for African Americans in the theater. For over a century, black performers had fought for the right to perform on the American stage, going all the way back to an 1820s Shakespearean troupe that performed Richard III, Othello, and Macbeth, without relying on white patronage.'Macbeth'in Harlem tells the story of these actors and their fellow black theatrical artists, from the early nineteenth century to the dawn of the civil rights era.

Victorians on Broadway: Literature, Adaptation, and the Modern American Musical

Broadway productions of musicals such as The King and I, Oliver!, Sweeney Todd, and Jekyll and Hyde became huge theatrical hits. Remarkably, all were based on one-hundred-year-old British novels or memoirs. What could possibly explain their enormous success? Victorians on Broadway is a wide-ranging interdisciplinary study of live stage musicals from the mid- to late twentieth century adapted from British literature written between 1837 and 1886. Investigating musical dramatizations of works by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Christina Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, and others, Sharon Aronofsky Weltman reveals what these musicals teach us about the Victorian books from which they derive 

Harlem's Theaters: A Staging Ground for Community, Class and Contradiction: 1923-1939

Honorable Mention, 2016 Errol Hill Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in African American Theater - Adrienne Macki Braconi's illuminating study of three important community-based theaters in Harlem shows how their work was essential to the formation of a public identity for African Americans and the articulation of their goals, laying the groundwork for the emergence of the Civil Rights movement. Macki Braconi uses textual analysis, performance reconstruction, and audience reception to examine the complex dynamics of productions by the Krigwa Players, the Harlem Experimental Theatre, and the Negro Theatre of the Federal Theatre Project.