For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy
Buying pre-order items
Ebooks and Audiobook
You will receive an email with a download link for the ebook or audiobook on the publication date.
Payment
You will not be charged for pre-ordered books until they are available to be shipped. Pre-ordered ebooks will not be charged for until they are available for download.
Amending or cancelling your order
For orders that have not been shipped you can usually make changes to pre-orders up to 72 hours before the publishing date.
Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available
- Delivery and returns info
-
Free CA delivery on orders $40 or over
Description
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy offers up the variegated experiences of young Black men in non-Black spaces.
It works through a masterful weaving of poetry, music and movement, inviting audiences and readers to witness and empathize with the inner lives of every hue of young Black man.
Originally inspired by Ntozake Shange's 1974 poem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf, the play masterfully blends realism with poetic and imaginative elements, and visual with aural spectacle evident in the songs, dance sequences, poetry and dialogue, to create an original and richly textured piece of total theatre.
It was first performed at the New Diorama, London, and was revived in the West End three times subsequently.
The play is published here as a Student Edition alongside commentary and notes by Izuu Nwankwo, who interrogates the play's themes around Black masculinity, identity, community and survival; its use of theatrical form; space and setting; its six main characters; its multi-sensorial texture; and its deliberate absence of stage directions and the implications for performance. It also includes an original interview with Ryan Calais Cameron.
Table of Contents
Contexts (Ntozake Shange; George Floyd; Black Lives Matter)
Setting (audience as therapist; forum for open discussion; multiplicity of spatial and physical spaces)
Characters (individual character exposition through stage action, dialogue and interactions)
Tone (episodic nature of the plot; nonlinear structure of the play)
Themes (Black masculinity; identity & survival; community & solidarity; Blackness, heteronormativity and sexuality; Blackness and Western conflation of Black identities; emotional vulnerability)
Dramatic devices (types of play; choreopoem format; role play; narration)
Play in performance (innovation; production history; interview with the playwright)
PLAY TEXT
Notes
Product details
| Published | Jun 10 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Paperback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 144 |
| ISBN | 9781350515246 |
| Imprint | Methuen Drama |
| Dimensions | 198 x 129 mm |
| Series | Student Editions |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |

























