HUM E78 - Performing Race and Heritage

Course Description

Blacks and Jews united against racism is often “downplayed by Blacks and romanticized by Jews” (Professor Cornel West), and theater continues to be created about that cultural intersection. Explore that ongoing narrative, the history behind the works, the context of the plays, the particularity of the playwrights, and their artistic sensibility. Plays include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window by Lorraine Hansbury, I’m Not Rappaport by Herb Gardner, The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez, The Green Book by Calvin A. Ramsey, The Scottsboro Boys by John Kander and Fred Ebb, and Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deveare Smith. Taught by David Y. Chack, longtime Oakton Emeritus instructor and professor at The Theatre School, DePaul University.