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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 cover

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy

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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.

Accessibility Information

Additional accessibility information

  • PDF/UA-2, 1.4
  • accessibility@bloomsbury.com

Hazards

The publication contains no hazards

Support for non-visual reading

Has alternative text descriptions for images

Navigation

  • Page list to go to pages from the print source version
  • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
  • All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order

Table of Contents

Chronology

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

Explore Methuen Drama
Published 10 Jun 2027
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Pages 144
ISBN 9781350515253
Imprint Methuen Drama
Series Student Editions
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Ryan Calais Cameron

Ryan Calais Cameron is a writer for theatre and TV…

Volume Editor

Izuu Nwankwo

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