Acting American in the Age of Abolition: Transatlantic Black American Celebrity and the Rise of Yankee Theatre, 1787--1827
Roark, Kathleena Lucille
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86498
Description
Title
Acting American in the Age of Abolition: Transatlantic Black American Celebrity and the Rise of Yankee Theatre, 1787--1827
Author(s)
Roark, Kathleena Lucille
Issue Date
2007
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kim Lee, Esther
Department of Study
Theatre
Discipline
Theatre
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Black Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
This dissertation complicates the accepted theory that the vogue for Yankee Theatre in the nineteenth-century developed primarily in response to negative English stereotypes and stage representations of the Yankee character. I argue that the swift rise of the English abolitionist movement in conjunction with the successful career of the black American actor Ira Aldridge in England were essential catalysts to the rise of Yankee Theatre, which began a new era in American professional theatre that for the first time promoted American-born actors in American-written plays. Aldridge's influence on nineteenth-century American theatre history has been unexplored, as he never returned to the United States after 1825, however I argue his career in England was a key factor in these radical changes in American theatre in the 1820s-30s.
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