Towards A Queer Black Feminist Theatre Aesthetic:

¿Black women playwrights in particular have ensured its [Black culture¿s] survival through creating performance pieces that reflexively evaluate their life experiences¿ (Sunni-Ali). This book is an analysis of three, queer, black female playwrights and their plays ¿ Mary Powell Burrill, "They That Sit in Darkness"; Angelina Weld Grimké, "Rachel" and Alice Dunbar Nelson, "Mine Eyes Have Seen" - from the early twentieth century who did just that. I am interested in the reflexive analysis of black life in America that their plays offered their audiences. I am interested in how these plays reached black audiences - their manner of disbursement and performance ¿ in magazine publications such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People¿s "The Crisis" and Margaret Sanger¿s "The Birth Control Review". I am interested in how the form they created can be a model for creating and identifying a contemporary queer black feminist theater aesthetic.