Looking for your next podcast listen? Check out our podcast episode on Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners. Keep reading to find out more!
Mojisola Adebayo is a playwright, performer, director, producer, workshop facilitator and lecturer, and Lynette Goddard is Professor of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Together, they are the anthology editors of Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners: An Anthology of Afriquia Theatre, a bold play collection representing LGBTIQ+ experiences from Black British perspectives.
This anthology contains seven radical plays by Black writers that change the face of theatre in Britain. The collection captures the historical scope and range of Black British LGBTIQ+ theatre from the 1980s to 2021. With an international reach connecting Africa, the Caribbean and their diasporas, these plays address themes including same-sex love, sex, homophobia, apartheid, migration and space travel.
Journey through the development of Black queer theatre in Britain, from monologue to musicals, realist drama to club-performance, and a wide range of forms.
Each play is preceded by an intergenerational ‘in-conversation’ piece between two Black British LGBTIQ+ artists and writers who talk about their own work in relation to the play, looking back at the history and far into the future. Through a helpful critical introduction, the collection provides important socio-political and historical context, highlighting and illuminating key themes in the plays.
In part one, we discuss the process behind selecting plays for this collection, its historical context, and the role of theatre publishing in allowing people to access plays, particularly plays from marginalised groups. Then we look at the ways in which the theatre landscape has changed in the past few decades and the progress that is still yet to be made.
In part two, we navigate issues of accessibility in theatre and how that impacts playwrights, audiences, and this collection itself. To combat this accessibility issue, we delve deeper into how practitioners and theatre-goers can benefit from reading this collection, particularly the intergenerational ‘in-conversation’ pieces. Finally, the editors give us a glimpse behind the scenes to see how the collection evolved over time as well as their own work in the theatre space.
Grab your favourite blanket and a cup of tea. Take a listen!
Listen to Part 1 │ Listen to Part 2
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Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners: An Anthology of Afriquia Theatre edited by Mojisola Adebayo and Lynette Goddard is now available at Bloomsbury.com