2.1.1.: "The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show", 1981-2001, and undated
Scope and Contents
Contains typed playscripts, stage blueprint, playbills and flyers, play reviews and newspaper articles, correspondence including from The Negro Ensemble Company, original photographs of the real life Tommy Parker, and photographic images for the play.
Dates
- Creation: 1981-2001, and undated
Creator
- From the Collection: Brown, Carlyle (Person)
Access Restrictions
No restrictions.
Extent
From the Collection: 19.18 linear feet (46 legal size boxes)
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Abstract
Inspired by his relative, Tommy Ancrum, Brown's great-great-great uncle (Brown's maternal grandmother's brother,) this play is dealing with the lives of six Black minstrels in a private pullman railroad car before a performance in Hannibal, Missouri, on the 28th of February in the cold winter of 1895. Black men who blacken their faces with burnt cork and play caricatures of themselves; attempting to survice as artists and as men in the post-Civil War, pre-Jim Crow era. Produced Off-Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company at the Master Theater in New York City (1991), this play is the winner of a Penumbra Theatre Company National Black Playwrighting Award, and nominated for six Audelco Awards.
Repository Details
Part of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture Repository
125 Bull Street
Charleston South Carolina 29424 United States
843-953-7608
averyresearchcenter@cofc.edu