Alice Childress – författare

A talented and experienced Black actress has been cast in Chaos in Belleville an anti-lynching play set to open on Broadway. She's paid her dues throughout the years playing stereotypical supporting roles in second-rate shows and is ready for her star turn. Chaos in Belleville written by a white playwright might not be quite as enlightened a piece as she's been hoping for - but that doesn't mean it won't sell out. And selling out is the question at the heart of Alice Childress's comedy-drama. A cast of multigenerational Black actors rehearse under the purview of a white director and stage manager and as the rehearsal process unfolds theatre conventions and racial politics collide resulting in a surprisingly funny yet deeply piercing look at the entertainment industry.

A new edition of Alice Childress’s classic novel about African American domestic workers, featuring a foreword by Roxane GayFirst published in Paul Robeson’s newspaper, Freedom, and composed of a series of conversations between Mildred, a black domestic, and her friend Marge, Like One of the Family is a wry, incisive portrait of working women in Harlem in the 1950’s. Rippling with satire and humor, Mildred’s outspoken accounts vividly capture her white employers’ complacency and condescension—and their startled reactions to a maid who speaks her mind and refuses to exchange dignity for pay.Upon publication the book sparked a critique of working conditions, laying the groundwork for the contemporary domestic worker movement. Although she was critically praised, Childress’s uncompromising politics and unflinching depictions of racism, classism, and sexism relegated her to the fringe of American literature. Like One of the Family has been long overlooked, but this new edition, featuring a foreword by best-selling author Roxane Gay, will introduce Childress to a new generation.

As the first African American woman to have a play professionally produced in New York City (Gold Through the Trees, in 1952) and the first woman to win an Obie for Best Play (for Trouble in Mind, in 1956), Alice Childress occupies an important but surprisingly under-recognized place in American drama. She herself rejected an emphasis on the pioneering aspects of her career, saying that “it’s almost like it’s an honor rather than a disgrace” and that she should “be the fiftieth and the thousandth by this point”—a remark that suggests the complexity and singularity of vision to be found in her plays. Childress worked as an actress before turning to playwriting in 1949, and she was a political activist all of her life. Spanning the 1940s to the 1960s, the plays collected here are the ones Childress herself believed were her best, and offer a realistic portrait of the racial inequalities and social injustices that characterized these decades. Her plays often feature strong-willed female protagonists whose problems bring into harsh relief the restrictions faced by African American women. This is the first volume devoted exclusively to the work of a major playwright whose impact on the American theater was profound and lasting.