New Directions, Histories, and Adaptations in Black Theatre and Performance

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Yvonne Brewster (1938-2025) transformed the British stage with the co-founding of Talawa Theatre and groundbreaking adaptations of classic, canonical and epic plays. From the 1970s onwards, Brewster’s work was exemplary of the potential to overcome the challenges faced by Black theatre in the UK and elsewhere. To celebrate Yvonne Brewster’s work and influence on Black British and Caribbean theatre-making, we will hold a one-day symposium on ‘New Directions, Histories, and Adaptations in Black Theatre and Performance’.

Focusing on Yvonne’s legacy, we aim to examine how Black theatres continue to increase visibility in an increasingly aggressive political environment. Contributions should offer a comparative perspective encompassing examples from African and diasporic African theatre and performance, that includes discussions of how twentieth-century developments have influenced current theatres and performances, and/or examples from the new millennium.

The conference will be in person, with a hybrid component, and is free to attend.

Organizers: Tiziana Morosetti (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Lynette Goddard (Royal Holloway, University of London)

The Symposium is organized by the Centre for Comparative Literture at Goldsmiths, University of London, in collaboration with the and
the , School of Advanced Study, University of London.

For any questions, please contact the symposium conveners at [email protected] and [email protected]. Please include the words “New Directions, Histories, and Adaptations…’ in the subject line.

For more information and updates on the programme, the speakers and their abstracts, please visit the conference webpage

Programme

9.00-9.30 – Registration

9.30-10.00 – Welcome address (T. Morosetti and L. Goddard)

10.00-11.00 – Keynote Lecture

Oladipo Agboluaje: ‘Who Is Your Audience? Adapting Plays for the UK Stage’

11.00-11.30: Coffee break

11.30-13.00 – Panel 1: Yvonne Brewster: Work and Legacy

Gemma Edwards (Birmingham City, UK): ‘The Black Jacobins: Staging History from Below on a Blue-Sky Budget’

Tom Six (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, UK): ‘In and Against the Imperial State: Talawa at the Cochrane’

Dolores Beasley (Guildhall School of Music and Drama, UK): ‘The Ground on Which He Stood: A Look Back at August Wilson’s Advocacy for Black Theatre’

13.00-14.30: Lunch (own arrangements)

14.00-15.30 – Panel 2: Black Stages in Dialogue

Emmanuella Bulus (Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria): ‘Textile as Text: Nigerian Costume Design and the Black Reconceptualization of the Canon’

Macs Smith (UCL, UK): ‘Barber Shop Chronicles: From Africa to London, and London to Europe’

Wọlé Olúgúnlẹ̀ (Louisiana State University, US): ‘Decolonial Conversations Across the Atlantic and the Americas: Performing Self-Knowledge in the Plays of Fẹ́mi Ọ̀ṣọ́fisàn and Aimé Césaire’ [ONLINE]

15.30-15.45 Short break

15.45-17.15 – Panel 3: Between Stage and Screen (and into the future)

Vida Long (Oxford, UK): ‘Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti / The Maori Merchant of Venice: Te reo Māori adaptations of Shakespearian Theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand’

Elisabet Massana (University of Barcelona, Spain): ‘Afrodiasporic Aesthetics from Stage to Screen: Archiving Black Lives and Black Radical Thought in debbie tucker green’s ear for eye’ [ONLINE]

Hannah Fagan (Oxford), ‘Waiting for The Afronauts’

17.15 – Wine reception and conversation with Shereener Browne (Orísun Productions)

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Host or Publisher Centre for Comparative Literature