The Archive

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561 works of pan-African thought. 24 matching current filters.

Death and the King's Horseman
1975
Wole Soyinka

A play based on events in Oyo, Nigeria in 1946, exploring the clash between Yoruba tradition and British colonial interference when the king dies and his horseman is expected to commit ritual suicide.

West AfricaDrama
Dream on Monkey Mountain
1967
Derek Walcott

Play about Makak, a charcoal burner who dreams of becoming an African king, exploring colonialism and identity.

CaribbeanDrama
A Raisin in the Sun
1959
Lorraine Hansberry

The Younger family in Chicago's South Side dreams of moving to white neighborhood with insurance money.

DiasporaDrama
Dutchman
1964
Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

One-act play about violent confrontation between Black intellectual and white woman on subway.

DiasporaDrama
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
1984
August Wilson

Play set in 1927 Chicago recording studio exploring tensions between blues musicians and white management.

DiasporaDrama
Fences
1985
August Wilson

Play about Troy Maxson, former Negro League player, and his strained family relationships in 1950s Pittsburgh.

DiasporaDrama
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
1986
August Wilson

Play set in 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house where former slave searches for his wife.

DiasporaDrama
The Piano Lesson
1987
August Wilson

Play about siblings fighting over family piano carved with their ancestry during slavery.

DiasporaDrama
Two Trains Running
1990
August Wilson

Play set in 1969 Pittsburgh diner during Black Power era, examining community and change.

DiasporaDrama
Seven Guitars
1995
August Wilson

Play about blues guitarist Floyd Barton's final days in 1948 Pittsburgh.

DiasporaDrama
King Hedley II
1999
August Wilson

Play about ex-con trying to rebuild life in 1985 Pittsburgh Hill District.

DiasporaDrama
Gem of the Ocean
2003
August Wilson

Play set in 1904 about 285-year-old Aunt Ester and her spiritual cleansing of troubled man.

DiasporaDrama
Radio Golf
2005
August Wilson

Final play of Cycle about Black mayoral candidate and gentrification in 1990s Pittsburgh.

DiasporaDrama
Jitney
1982
August Wilson

Play about unlicensed cab drivers in 1970s Pittsburgh facing urban renewal displacement.

DiasporaDrama
A Tempest
1969
Aimé Césaire

Adaptation of Shakespeare's Tempest from Caliban's perspective as colonized subject.

CaribbeanDrama
Kinjeketile
1969
Ebrahim Hussein

A historical play about Kinjeketile Ngwale, the spirit medium who led the Maji Maji uprising against German colonial rule in Tanzania (1905-07), blending oral forms with modern drama to examine resistance, leadership, and sacrifice.

East AfricaDrama
My Children! My Africa!
1989
Athol Fugard

A Karoo schoolteacher, a white schoolgirl, and a Black student are caught in late-apartheid violence. The play stages the impossible dilemma of a teacher who believes in non-violent change when the streets demand revolution.

Southern AfricaDrama
Ozidi: A Play
1966
J.P. Clark-Bekederemo

Based on the Ijo oral saga of Ozidi, a posthumous hero raised to avenge his father's murder, this play stages the seven-night ritual performance in literary form, combining violence, prophecy, and spectacle.

West AfricaDrama
The Dilemma of a Ghost
1964
Ama Ata Aidoo

Ghana's first published play by an African woman. An African American woman marries a Ghanaian and returns with him to Africa, where she is caught between two worlds, belonging fully to neither.

West AfricaDrama
Anowa
1970
Ama Ata Aidoo

Based on a Ghanaian legend, the play follows Anowa who defies her parents to marry the man she loves, only to watch him become a slave trader. A bold critique of complicity in the slave trade.

West AfricaDrama
Sizwe Banzi Is Dead
1972
Athol Fugard

Jointly devised with actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona. A Black South African man takes on a dead man's passbook to work legally — an indictment of the apartheid pass laws through sharp comedy and tragedy.

Southern AfricaDrama
The Island
1973
Athol Fugard

Two prisoners on Robben Island rehearse Antigone for a prison concert. The performance becomes an act of defiance. Based on real events; Winston Ntshona and John Kani co-devised and originally performed it.

Southern AfricaDrama
Blood Knot
1961
Athol Fugard

Two brothers in a shack outside Port Elizabeth — one dark-skinned, one light enough to pass for white — enact apartheid's cruelties on each other. Fugard's breakthrough work.

Southern AfricaDrama
Gathering Evidence
1985
Caryl Phillips

Three plays by Caryl Phillips exploring Black British experience — Strange Fruit (a family's conflict over racial identity), Where There is Darkness, and The Shelter.

DiasporaDrama