Celebrate Black History Month in your theatre class by exploring the history of Black plays and works on Broadway, from the late 1800's until today.

Celebrating Black History Month - Broadway Milestones You Need to Know   
Learn about Broadway milestones as a part of Black history.

Top BIPOC Plays You Can't Miss
Jose Solis on dramatics.org

Lesson Plan Idea:

Celebrate Diversity 365 Days a Year

Lesson Prompt:  "Imagine going to a classroom and only reading inspiring things about the people who look like you only one month in a year — and the shortest month at that." - Ernest Owens, The Morning Call, Feb 03, 2019 at 12:00 pm

After reading and discussing the quote above, challenge your students to research famous acting theorists and contributors from BIPOC cultures and build a classroom gallery wall. Every acting class features famous contributors to theatre making, whose faces and names appear on your bookshelves and classroom walls, how can yours celebrate diversity 365 days a year? 

See a beautiful example on the Black Acting Methods website.

National Theatre Standards Alignment: 

TH:Cn11.I.a. Research how other theatre artists apply creative processes to tell stories in a devised or scripted drama/theatre work, using theatre research methods

Click on the image and scroll down to celebrate great performances and legendary black actors  by watching James Earl Jones in this Shakespeare in the Park production of King Lear by The Public Theatre, streaming from the website "Allarts.org"  

Lesson Plan Idea: Combine a watch party with the Click to Teach lesson in Theatre Criticism to turn this into a unit. 

Looking for plays or other resources to add to your curriculum?  Here are some links to help you get started:

Open Source Scripts Toward an Anti-racist Tomorrow by Idris Goodwin.
Free for production as long as no admittance fee is charged.

The BIPOC Playwrights Project
UC Berkeley site makes a wonderful resource for theatre educators looking for more diverse materials.  The site includes playwright profiles with a list of representative plays.  This work in progress is frequently updated.

Black Acting Methods
Black Acting Methods studio features online courses, books and resources offered so that actors of all heritages can learn about acting processes and methodologies rooted in Black American culture and tradition. 

The Alternate Canon
Amazing curated crowd sourced list of plays from diverse cultures. 

Native Theatres and Theatre Makers
American Theatre offers this list of native run theatres, theatre makers and their works.

Asian American Theatre Revue
31 Asian American theatre works in one concise list.

50 Playwrights Project
Supports Latin-X theatre with a rich site including lists of plays, playwright interviews and more.

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