Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a 1982 play – one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson – that chronicles the 20th-century African-American experience. The play is set in Chicago in the 1920s, and deals with issues of race, art, religion and the historic exploitation of black recording artists. Its Broadway debut at the Cort Theatre in 1984 won a New York Drama Critics’ Circle award and garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.
About Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in brief
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a 1982 play – one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson – that chronicles the 20th-century African-American experience. The play is set in Chicago in the 1920s, and deals with issues of race, art, religion and the historic exploitation of black recording artists by white producers. Its Broadway debut at the Cort Theatre in 1984 won a New York Drama Critics’ Circle award and garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. It was first performed in the UK at the Royal National Theatre in London in 1989 in a production by Howard Davies starring Clarke Peters and Hugh Quarshie as Toledo and Levee.
A Broadway revival opened on February 6, 2003, at the Royale Theatre, featuring Charles S. Dutton as LeveE and Whoopi Goldberg as Ma. Subsequent UK revivals have taken place in Liverpool at the Playhouse starring Melanie La Barrie as Ma and Cornelius Macarthy asLevee and the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre in aproduction starring Antonio Farg
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This page is based on the article Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 20, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
