Professor Margaret Laurena Kemp, chair, theatre and dance, has created a unique course which develops performance that uses black literature as its foundation. Offered by the Department of African American and African Studies, The Page, the Lens, the Stage: Making Performance (AAS 152) will be offered in spring quarter 2025. 

This course explores the dramatic possibilities of canonical black literature and visual art by means of critical reading, critical writing, and critical performance. Students will examine Jaqueline Woodson’s  Brown Girl Dreaming, a verse memoir, and LaToya Ruby Frazier’s, Flint Is Family in Three Acts, an environmental injustice, photo essay.

Students will research the historical context of the work paying attention to their personal connection to work. They will also examine the criticism and theory that have shaped the artists (Woodson and Frazier) and the reception to their work. The students will then attempt to transform their findings and texts into a live performance. Their work culminates in a public performance of the pieces they have conceived.

The goal of this course is to create and develop a performance that will be offered in fall 2025 at the Jan Shem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.