Abstract
"The Expressive Art of Tarell Alvin McCraney is the first book to dedicate rigorous critical attention to the work of one of the most significant writers and theater-makers of the twenty-first century, Tarell Alvin McCraney. Featuring essays, interviews, and commentaries by scholars and artists who span generations, geographies, and areas of interests, and who bring fresh and diverse perspectives to their observations and analyses, the volume examines the vastness of McCraney's theatrical imagination, the singularity of his writerly voice, the incisiveness of his cultural insights and critiques, the creativity he displays through stylistic and formal qualities, and the unorthodoxies of his personal and professional trajectories. Contributors consider McCraney's innovations as a playwright, adapter, director, performer, teacher, and collaborator. In so doing, they expand and enrich the conversations on his much-celebrated and deeply resonant body of work, which includes the plays Choir Boy, Head of Passes, The Breach, Wig Out!, and the critically acclaimed trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays: In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, and, Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet, as well as the Oscar Award-winning film Moonlight"-- Publisher
Introduction. Ogun Size Enters; or, An Introduction / Isaiah Matthew Wooden -- Tarell Alvin McCraney: A Career Chronology / Sharrell D. Luckett -- Juxtaposing Creoles: Miami in the Plays of Tarell Alvin McCraney / Donette Francis -- Theodicy and Hope: Tarell Alvin McCraney's Scrutiny of Religiosity / Patrick Maley -- The Distant Present of Tarell Alvin McCraney / David Román -- "My Grandmother Wore a Wig": On Tarell Alvin McCraney's Mapping of Queer Origins in Wig Out! / Bryant Keith Alexander -- The Breach: A Rupture in the National Narrative of Katrina / Katherine Nigh -- "Certainly No Clamor for a Kiss": When Black Men Touch / I. Augustus Durham -- Scenes of Vulnerability: Desire, Historical Secrecy, and Black Queer Experience in Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet / Gershun Avilez -- Hip Hop Nommo: Orishas for the Millennium Generation / Freda Scott Giles -- Black Movements and Tarell Alvin McCraney's In the Red and Brown Water / Soyica Diggs Colbert -- The Brother/Sister Plays and the Black Real / Omi Osun, Joni L. Jones -- One Size Does Not Fit All: Voicing Black Masculinities in a Pursuit of "Freedoms" / Jeffrey Q. Mccune, Jr. -- Backstage Pass: An Artist Roundtable on the Work of Tarell Alvin McCraney / Curated and introduced by Sharrell D. Luckett, featuring Tea Alagić, Jabari Ali, Alana Arenas, Michael Boyd, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Teo Castellanos, Trip Cullman, Oskar Eustis, Shirley Jo Finney, Tina Landau, Carlos Murillo, and Robert O'Hara -- Afterword. Tarell Alvin McCraney, in His Own Words / Interview with Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden.