Transnational Feminism in 21st Century Black American Drama and Performance

Abstract

“Transnational Feminism in 21st Century Black American Drama and Performance” explores twenty-first century works from playwrights who I group together loosely under the current transnational moment of playwriting. I include works from Tarell Alvin McCraney, Danai Gurira, Nikkole Salter, Lynn Nottage, Robert O’Hara, and Katori Hall. My primary aims are to extend due scholarly attention to these playwrights, several of whom have not yet received appropriate focus, and in so doing, begin the work of periodizing these twenty-first century playwrights, whose work I argue is united by a heading I will redefine and expand in these pages: African diasporic performance. With a multidisciplinary approach unified through transnational feminisms, I find that these works reveal the global through its impact on the local and—when set outside the United States—reveal the global through careful storytelling that avoids monoliths and calls out global forces and audiences’ implicit and explicit role in oppressions. My study centers materialist readings through a transnational feminist lens and takes interest in extending the ongoing feminist effort to reclaim realism as a politically-impactful theatrical form. Ultimately, I argue that these playwrights’ work should be more widely produced and celebrated for its ability to make visible global networks that demonstrate sometimes surprising, but often obscured opportunities for strategic coalition.