Famous African American Playwrights and Their Impact on American Theater

Black theater in the United States is a dramatic movement encompassing plays written by, for, and about African Americans. It has a rich and complex history, evolving from the minstrel shows of the early 19th century to the groundbreaking works of contemporary playwrights.

The Roots of Black Theater

The minstrel shows of the early 19th century are considered by some to be the roots of Black theater, but they initially were written by white people, acted by white performers in blackface, and performed for white audiences. After the American Civil War, Black actors began to perform in minstrel shows (then called “Ethiopian minstrelsy”), and by the turn of the 20th century they were producing Black musicals, many of which were written, produced, and acted entirely by African Americans. The first known play by a Black American was James Brown’s King Shotaway (1823). William Wells Brown’s The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858) was the first Black play published, but the first real success of an African American dramatist was Angelina W. Grimké’s Rachel (1916).

The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

Black theater flourished during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ’30s. Experimental groups and Black theater companies emerged in Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Among these was the Ethiopian Art Theatre, which established Paul Robeson as America’s foremost Black actor.

Garland Anderson’s play Appearances (1925) was the first play of African American authorship to be produced on Broadway, but Black theater did not create a Broadway hit until Langston Hughes’s Mulatto (1935) won wide acclaim. In that same year the Federal Theatre Project was founded, providing a training ground for African American artists. In the late 1930s, Black community theaters began to appear, revealing talents such as those of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Post-War Developments and the Civil Rights Era

After World War II Black theater grew more progressive, more radical, and sometimes more militant, reflecting the ideals of Black revolution and seeking to establish a mythology and symbolism apart from white culture. Councils were organized to abolish the use of racial stereotypes in theater and to integrate African American playwrights into the mainstream of American dramaturgy. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and other successful Black plays of the 1950s by such playwrights as Alice Childress, William Blackwell Branch, and Loften Mitchell portrayed the difficulty of African Americans maintaining an identity in a society that degraded them.

The 1960s saw the emergence of a new Black theater, angrier and more defiant than its predecessors, with Amiri Baraka (originally LeRoi Jones) as its strongest proponent. Baraka’s plays, including the award-winning Dutchman (1964), depicted white people’s exploitation of African Americans. He established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre in Harlem in 1965 and inspired playwright Ed Bullins and others seeking to create a strong Black aesthetic in American theater.

Contemporary Black Theater

During the 1980s and ’90s August Wilson, Charles Fuller, Suzan-Lori Parks, and George Wolfe were among the most important creators of Black theater. In 2002 playwright Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, for her play Topdog/Underdog.

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In the 21st century a new generation of playwrights introduced work into the canon of Black theater with plays addressing themes such as Black identity and kinship, masculinity, sexuality, war, and the illusion of the American Dream. Among the most lauded of this new generation were James Ijames, Katori Hall, Lynn Nottage, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and Michael R. Jackson, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins won a Tony Award in 2024 for his play Appropriate.

It's extremely important to read and study works by playwrights about the Black experience. August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, Suzan-Lori Parks, Anna Deavere Smith, Dominique Morisseau, Tarell Alvin McCraney… get familiar with their bodies of work.

Notable Plays and Playwrights

Here are some of the greatest plays of all-time.

1. Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau: With profound compassion and lyricism, Morisseau brings us a powerful play that delves into the urgent issue of the “school-to-prison” pipeline that ensnares people of color. Issues of class, race, parenting, and education in America are brought to the frontlines, as we are left to question the systematic structures that ultimately trap underserved communities.
2. Jitney by August Wilson: Set in 1970 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh that is served by a makeshift taxi company, Jitney is a beautiful addition to the author's decade by decade cycle of plays about the black American experience in the twentieth century.
3. Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy: A Black woman awakens in a phantasmagoric rooming house where she is visited by the Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria, Patrice Lumumba and Jesus Christ. Only she and Lumumba are not dressed in white; she has a white fixation and wants to become whiter and whiter. She harangues against her father who gave her a jungle strain and then sold out to white harlotry, dreams of returning to Africa to save the continent, and hangs herself amid swirling conflicts and desires, a victim of a nightmare world.
4. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry: Set on Chicago's South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husband's insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. Sacrifice, trust and love among the Younger family and their heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration.
5. The Piano Lesson by August Wilson: It is 1936 and Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell. He has an opportunity to buy some land down home, but he has to come up with the money right quick. He wants to sell an old piano that has been in his family for generations, but he shares ownership with his sister and it sits in her living room. She has already rejected several offers because the antique piano is covered with incredible carvings detailing the family's rise from slavery. Boy Willie tries to persuade his stubborn sister that the past is past, but she is more formidable than he anticipated.
6. Choir Boy by Tarrell Alvin McCraney: The Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys is dedicated to the creation of strong, ethical black men. Pharus wants nothing more than to take his rightful place as leader of the school's legendary gospel choir, but can he find his way inside the hallowed halls of this institution if he sings in his own key? Known for his unique brand of urban lyricism, Tarrell Alvin McCraney follows up his acclaimed trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays with this affecting portrait of a gay youth trying to find the courage to let the truth about himself be known. Set against the sorrowful sounds of hymns and spirituals, Choir Boy premiered at the Royal Court in London before receiving its Off-Broadway premiere in summer 2013 to critical and popular acclaim.
7. Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson: When Harold Loomis arrives at a black Pittsburgh boardinghouse after seven years' impressed labor on Joe Turner's chain gang, he is a free man-in body. But the scars of his enslavement and a sense of inescapable alienation oppress his spirit still, and the seemingly hospitable rooming house seethes with tension and distrust in the presence of this tormented stranger. Loomis is looking for the wife he left behind, believing that she can help him reclaim his old identity. But through his encounters with the other residents he begins to realize that what he really seeks is his rightful place in a new world - and it will take more than the skill of the local “People Finder” to discover it
8. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by Anna Deavere Smith: From acclaimed playwright Anna Deavere Smith, a captivating work of dramatic literature and a unique first-person portrait of a pivotal moment in American history: the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Twilight is a stunning work of "documentary theater" that explores the devastating human impact of the five days of riots following the Rodney King verdict. From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, Smith has chosen the voices that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil: a disabled Korean man, a white male Hollywood talent agent, a Panamanian immigrant mother, a teenage black gang member, a macho Mexican-American artist, Rodney King's aunt, beaten truck driver Reginald Denny, former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, and other witnesses, participants, and victims. A work that goes directly to the heart of the issues of race and class, Twilight ruthlessly probes the language and the lives of its subjects, offering stark insight into the complex and pressing social, economic, and political issues that fueled the flames in the wake of the Rodney King verdict and ignited a conversation about policing and race that continues today.
9. Dot by Colman Domingo: The holidays are always a wild family affair at the Shealy house. But this year, Dotty and her three grown children gather with more than exchanging presents on their minds. As Dotty struggles to hold on to her memory, her children must fight to balance care for their mother and care for themselves. This twisted and hilarious new play grapples unflinchingly with aging parents, midlife crises, and the heart of a West Philly neighborhood.
10. Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau: At the start of the Great Recession, one of the last auto stamping plants in Detroit is on shaky ground. Each of the workers have to make choices on how to move forward if their plant goes under. Shanita has to decide how she'll support herself and her unborn child, Faye has to decide how and where she'll live, and Dez has to figure out how to make his ambitious dreams a reality. Power dynamics shift as their manager Reggie is torn between doing right by his work family, and by the red tape in his office. Powerful and tense, Skeleton Crew is the third of Dominique Morisseau's Detroit cycle trilogy.
11. Fences by August Wilson: From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize. Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. Fences is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
12. The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years by Pearl Cleage: In the winter of 1964, ten years after the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is planning a massive voter registration drive that promises to put the city back at the center of the Civil Rights Movement. Among those watching closely is Grace Dunbar, pillar of Montgomery’s African-American aristocrats and doyenne of the Nacirema Society, an organization poised to celebrate its 100th anniversary by presenting an exclusive group of debutantes at their annual cotillion. Assisting Grace is her lifelong friend, Catherine, who hopes the cotillion will prompt her grandson to propose to Grace’s granddaughter. Of course, neither woman considers the fact that their grandchildren have their own plans. The anticipation is overshadowed by the arrival of Alpha Campbell, daughter of the Dunbar family’s late maid. But Alpha’s story is closer to the truth than anyone could have imagined, and Alpha is surprised. So is Janet Logan, a visiting reporter from the New York Times who finds herself in the middle of a story that Grace will do anything to suppress.
13. Fetch Clay, Make Man by Will Power: Set on the eve of the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston rematch and based on the friendship between the actor Stepin Fetchit and Clay-soon to become Muhammad Ali-Fetch Clay, Make Man explores how each handled a life in the public eye as black men in their respective eras―Hollywood in the 20s, where a black actor’s career depended on playing caricatures, and the mid-60s, after the assassination of Malcolm X. With “incisive characterizations, crackling dialogue and generous doses of dark humor” (Hollywood Reporter), Fetch Clay, Make Man audaciously recreates this improbably friendship and, through the relationship, digs to the heart of race relations during the highly charged days of 1960s America.
14. Ruined by Lynn Nottage: A rain forest bar and brothel in the brutally war-torn Congo is the setting for Lynn Nottage’s extraordinary new play. The establishment’s shrewd matriarch, Mama Nadi, keeps peace between customers from both sides of the civil war, as government soldiers and rebel forces alike choose from her inventory of women, many already “ruined” by rape and torture when they were pressed into prostitution. Inspired by interviews she conducted in Africa with Congo refugees, Nottage has crafted an engrossing and uncommonly human story with humor and song served alongside its postcolonial and feminist politics in the rich theatrical tradition of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage.
15. Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonne Elder III: Compared to A Raisin in the Sun by many critics, this drama shows us a family who aspire to better things but who go about in it in the wrong and tragic way. The father has a barbershop but no customers, and two sons and daughter. The sons are shiftless, and try to make a fast buck with home brew. It is the daughter who works and supports them all. Other characters of the family's Harlem neighborhood complete this portrait of one urban community at a pivotal time for the politics of race, business, and real estate.
16. An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins: Grandma’s birthday approaches. Beverly is organizing the perfect dinner, but everything seems doomed from the start: the silverware is all wrong, the carrots need chopping and the radio is on the fritz. What at first appears to be a family comedy takes a sharp, sly turn into a startling examination of deep-seated paradigms about race in America.
17. Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks: A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity is Suzan-Lori Parks latest riff on the way we are defined by history. The play tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment. Haunted by the past, the brothers are forced to confront the shattering reality of their future.
18. The Mountaintop by Katori Hall: The night before his assassination, King retires to room 306 in the now-famous Lorraine Motel after giving an acclaimed speech to a massive church congregation. When a mysterious young maid visits him to deliver a cup of coffee, King is forced to confront his past and the future of his people. Portraying rhetoric, hope and ideals of social change, The Mountaintop also explores being human in the face of inevitable death. The play is a dramatic feat of daring originality, historical narration and triumphant compassion.
19. Dutchman by Amiri Baraka: Centered squarely on the Negro-white conflict, both Dutchman and The Slave are literally shocking plays - in ideas, in language, in honest anger. They illuminate as with a flash of lightning a deadly serious problem - and they bring an eloquent and exceptionally powerful voice to the American theatre.
20. Detroit '67 by Dominique Morisseau: A striking new ensemble drama based on the Jena Six; six Black students who were initially charged with attempted murder for a school fight after being provoked with nooses hanging from a tree on campus. This bold new play by Dominique Morisseau examines the miscarriage of justice, racial double standards, and the crises in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the shattering state of Black family life.
21. Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage: Knocked-up and seriously broke, a successful publicist is plunged into a topsy-turvy world of welfare mothers and drug addicts, and forced to confront the family she left behind. Fabulation is a darkly comic rags-to-riches-to-rags tale of falling down and reaching up to find the goodness within.
22. Venus by Suzan-Lori Parks: Suzan-Lori Parks continues her examination of black people in history and stage through the life of the so-called "Hottentot Venus," an African woman displayed semi-nude throughout Europe due to her extraordinary physiognomy; in particular, her enormous buttocks. She was befriended, bought and bedded by a doctor who advanced his scientific career through his anatomical measurements of her after her premature death.
23. Day Of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward: Day of Absence is a satire about an imaginary Southern town where all the black people have suddenly disappeared. The only ones left are sick and lying in hospital beds, refusing to get well. Infants are crying because they are being tended to by strange parents. The Mayor pleads for the President, Governor, and the NAACP to send him “a jackpot of jigaboos.” On a nationwide radio network he calls on the blacks, wherever they are, to come back. He shows them the cloths with which they wash cars and the brushes with which they shine shoes as sentimental reminders of the goodies that await them. In the end the blacks begin to reappear, as mysteriously as they had vanished, and the white community, sobered by what has transpired, breathes a sigh of relief at the return of the rather uneasy status quo. What will happen next is left unsaid, but the suggestion is strong that things will never quite be the same again.
24. Zooman and the Sign by Charles Fuller: A penetrating study of character and the destructive cycle which so often characterizes life in a big city black ghetto.
25. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange: Set in suburban New Jersey in the early 1980's, this potent drama is about a reunion of former college classmates, now in their thirties, at the funeral of a friend who killed herself. These women are prosperous, professional Black women who have gone through the sixties and come out on top of the eighties. At the wake, they confront the truth about their own lives and about the suicide which has again brought them together.

Legacy and Influence

African-American dramatists have contributed both to the canon of black theatre, and to American literature as a whole.

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Here are some more playwrights you should know:

• Amiri Baraka
• Lorraine Hansberry
• Langston Hughes
• Adrienne Kennedy
• Leslie Lee
• Suzan-Lori Parks
• Ntozake Shange
• Samm-Art Williams
• August Wilson
• George C. Wolfe
• James Baldwin
• Jocelyn Bioh
• Alice Childress
• Jackie Sibblies Drury
• Marcus Gardley
• Lynn Nottage
• Anna Deavere Smith

Black theater continues to evolve, pushing boundaries and offering new perspectives on the African American experience.

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