The Great White Way: Critics and the First Black Playwrights on Broadway

Abstract

In the past, success for most American playwrights has meant commercial success on Broadway. Black playwrights in particular have paid a high price for such success. My concern here is not with why black playwrights have been willing to pay that price,' but rather with the accounts kept by their critics, including both daily reviewers and those with time to write more considered opinions. The words those critics chose, the tone they used in pronouncing judgments or merely recording responses, are part of the documentation of the black contribution to the American theatre.