Holy Ground - (Paperback)

About the Book

A new collection of plays and monologues from the biennial festival celebrating and supporting Black American theatre.

Book Synopsis

This new collection brings together plays and monologues from the National Black Theatre Festival, one of the most historic and culturally significant events--not only in the history of Black theater but in American theater. Held every two years in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, this gathering of Black theater companies and artists from around the country and across the globe features an extraordinary array of performances, workshops, films, spoken-word poetry, and more. Established in 1989 by Larry Leon Hamlin and the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, this volume includes three full-length plays produced at the Festival:

Maid's Door by
Cheryl L. Davis

Berta, Berta by
Angelica Chéri

Looking for Leroy by Larry Muhammad

This collection also includes seventeen monologues and scenes selected from each year of the Festival, featuring the artists and playwrights: Jackie Alexander, Ifa Bayeza, Pearl Cleage, Kamilah Forbes, Endesha Ida Mae Holland, Javon Johnson, Rhodessa Jones, and others.

Review Quotes

"Truly the crème of the crop of theatre festivals." --Broadway World

"The National Black Theatre Festival is a one-of-a-kind experience that's not to be missed." --DC Metro Arts

"A compelling drama about a family in turmoil, one that inspires laughter, tears and reflection." --Winston-Salem Journal on Maid's Door

"A riveting, gut-wrenching fable of two lovers trapped in Mississippi's Jim Crow south."

--DC Metro Arts on Berta, Berta

"A joyous and tragic two-handed tale of recovery and loss." --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Berta, Berta

"An intellectual's delight that goes straight to the heart of W.E.B. Du Bois." --DC Metro Arts on Looking for Leroy

"One of the most poignant, captivating, powerful pieces you will get to experience that really captures the grandeur of quality Black theater." --New York Amsterdam News on Looking for Leroy

About the Author

Michael Dinwiddie is a professor at New York University. A dramatist whose works have been produced in New York, regional, and educational theater, he has been playwright-in-residence at Michigan State University and St. Louis University and taught writing courses at the College of New Rochelle, Florida A&M University, SUNY Stony Brook, California State University at San Bernardino, and Universidad de Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He spent a year at Touchstone Pictures as a Walt Disney Fellow and worked as a staff writer on ABC-TV's Hangin' with Mr. Cooper. He was awarded a 1995 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting. Professor Dinwiddie received a 2005 NYU Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of exceptional teaching inside and outside of the classroom setting.