In addition to resources on African-American theater at the Schomburg Center, you can also find material on theater and playwrights from continental Africa and the African diaspora. These resources include published and unpublished play scripts, scholarly works, and audio visual recordings.
Play Scripts at NYPL
Black South African Women: an Anthology of Plays by Call Number: Sc E 99-491ISBN: 0415182433Publication Date: 1998
Collected Plays - Wole Soyinka by Call Number: Sc 822-S (Soyinka, W. Collected Plays)ISBN: 0192811363Publication Date: 1973
Contemporary Plays by African WomenCall Number: Sc D 19-594ISBN: 9781350034525Publication Date: 2019
The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers by Call Number: Sc C 11-99ISBN: 9781408131244Publication Date: 2011
Mixed Company: Three Early Jamaican Plays by Call Number: Sc D 12-1670ISBN: 9781849432160Publication Date: 2012
Plays From Black Australia by Call Number: JFD 93-13965
Testifyin': Contemporary African Canadian Drama by Call Number: Sc Ser.-L. T48 v.1 and v.2ISBN: 0887545971Publication Date: 2000
Scholarship on African Diasporan Theater
Black Theater in French: a guide by Call Number: Sc D 80-653
Modern and Contemporary Black British Drama by Call Number: Sc D 15-894ISBN: 9780230303195Publication Date: 2014
New Francophone African and Caribbean Theatres by Call Number: Sc E 11-282ISBN: 9780253355133Publication Date: 2010
Ngugi Wa Thiong'O and Wole Soyinka by Call Number: Sc D 15-269ISBN: 9781847010988Publication Date: 2014
Staging Blackness and Performing Whiteness in Eighteenth-Century German Drama by Call Number: Sc E 16-1322ISBN: 9781409424024Publication Date: 2016
Audio Visual Resources at NYPL
- King Kong. [sound recording] : [all African jazz opera] byCall Number: *LZR 27323
- Sheila's Day [videorecording] byCall Number: NCOV 1253Videotaped by The New York Public Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the Plays and Players Theater, Philadelphia, Pa., June 19, 1993.
- Transcription Feature ServiceThe Transcription Feature Service is a series recordings from the 1960s featuring readings of plays by African dramatists and interviews. The recordings are held in the Moving Image & Recorded Sound Division. The print resource to this collection can be found in the Research & Reference Division with the call number Sc 016.96-T
- Wole Soyinka [videorecording]: Child of the Forest byCall Number: Sc Visual DVD-256
- Eclipsed [videorecording] byCall Number: NCOV 4039Videotaped by The New York Public Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at The Public Theater, New York, N.Y., Nov. 22, 2015.
Archival Collections
- Frank Silvera's Writers Workshop (play scripts)Call Number: Sc MG 64The Frank Silvera's Writers Workshop collection contains manuscript versions of unpublished and published play scripts by dramatists from the African diaspora.
- Negro Ensemble Company Records, 1967-1993Call Number: Sc MG 345The Negro Ensemble Company Records contains unpublished and unpublished play scripts in manuscript form by playwrights from the African diaspora including Wole Soyinka, Steve Carter, and Femi Euba.