The National Black Drama Anthology Applause Books Series Written by Various Authors

Though New York remains the de facto capital of American theater, much of the most daring and interesting work today is done by regional theaters. This is doubly true of plays by African American authors, who, despite a few notable exceptions (August Wilson, George C. Wolfe), suffer under a commercial apartheid that keeps black plays off Broadway. Of necessity, African American theater artists have to create their own venues from the ground up. This wide-ranging anthology edited by the founder of the New Federal Theater celebrates the work of that company's black-owned, black-run peers by presenting work by 11 dramatists. Among the most interesting are Jeff Stetson's moving The Meeting, which imagines a meeting between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and Shauneille Perry's fascinating updating of In Dahomey, the 1903 musical hit that was the first 'all-Black show' on Broadway. - Jack Helbig, Booklist