Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950

"Fine reading and a superb resource." --
Ms.

"Highly recommended." -- Library
Journal

"Perkins has chosen the plays well, and her issue-oriented
introduction places the women and their works in a literary and historical context."
-- Choice

"As well as being centered on the black experience, the
plays in Black Female Playwrights are centered on the female experience." -- Voice
Literary Supplement

"Perkins' anthology is valuable for a
number of reasons... Perkins' book (which includes a bibliography of plays and
pageants by black women before 1950 as well as a selected bibliography of critical
works) is a major help in providing access to [the world of black drama]." --
Theatre Journal

The need to acknowledge these works was the
impetus behind this volume. Perkins has selected nineteen plays from seven writers
who were among the major dramatizers of the black experience during this early
period. As forerunners to the activist black theater of the 1950s and 1960s, these
plays represent a critical stage in the development of black drama in the United
States.