Beyond Lift Every Voice and Sing : The Culture of Uplift, Identity, and Politics in Black Musical Theatre / Paula Marie Seniors.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: Black performance and cultural criticism | Book collections on Project MUSEPublisher: Columbus : Ohio State University Press, 2009Manufacturer: Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2015Copyright date: ©2009Description: 1 online resource (292 pages): illustrationsContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780814271513
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Online resources:
Contents:
The origins of the Cole and Johnson musical theater team -- Cole and Johnson's social and political thought : the case of Shoo fly regiment and the Spanish-American war -- Theatrical imaginings : Cole and Johnson's The shoo fly regiment -- The red moon : the interconnections between theater and history, the black and native Americanization program at Hampton Institute -- Cole and Johnson and the Gibson Gal : gender, race and uplift.
Summary: Paula Marie Seniors's Beyond Lift Every Voice and Sing explores the realities of African American life and history as refracted through the musical theater productions of one of the most prolific black song-writing teams of the early twentieth century. James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson, and Bob Cole combined conservative and progressive ideas in a complex and historically specific strategy for overcoming racism and its effects. In Shoo Fly Regiment (1906-1908) and The Red Moon (1908-1910), theater, uplift, and politics collided as the team tried to communicate a politics of uplift, racial pride, gender equality, and interethnic coalitions. The overarching question of this study is how roles and representations in black musical theater both reflected and challenged the dominant social order. While some scholars dismiss the team as conformists, Seniors's contention is that they used the very tools of hegemony to make progressive political statements and to create a distinctly black theater informed by black politics, history, and culture. These men were writers, musicians, actors, and vaudevillians who strove to change the perception of African Americans on stage from one of minstrelsy buffoonery to one of dignity and professionalism [Publisher description].
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The origins of the Cole and Johnson musical theater team -- Cole and Johnson's social and political thought : the case of Shoo fly regiment and the Spanish-American war -- Theatrical imaginings : Cole and Johnson's The shoo fly regiment -- The red moon : the interconnections between theater and history, the black and native Americanization program at Hampton Institute -- Cole and Johnson and the Gibson Gal : gender, race and uplift.

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Paula Marie Seniors's Beyond Lift Every Voice and Sing explores the realities of African American life and history as refracted through the musical theater productions of one of the most prolific black song-writing teams of the early twentieth century. James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson, and Bob Cole combined conservative and progressive ideas in a complex and historically specific strategy for overcoming racism and its effects. In Shoo Fly Regiment (1906-1908) and The Red Moon (1908-1910), theater, uplift, and politics collided as the team tried to communicate a politics of uplift, racial pride, gender equality, and interethnic coalitions. The overarching question of this study is how roles and representations in black musical theater both reflected and challenged the dominant social order. While some scholars dismiss the team as conformists, Seniors's contention is that they used the very tools of hegemony to make progressive political statements and to create a distinctly black theater informed by black politics, history, and culture. These men were writers, musicians, actors, and vaudevillians who strove to change the perception of African Americans on stage from one of minstrelsy buffoonery to one of dignity and professionalism [Publisher description].

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