Biography

Everett Leroi Jones, poet, playwright, activist, and educator, was born on October 7, 1934, in Newark, New Jersey to Coyt Leverrette Jones and Anna Lois Jones. He attended primary and secondary schools in Newark and in 1954 he earned a B.A. in English from Howard University.

Jones’s early writings often reflected issues of racial and national identity. His first book of poetry, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note appeared in 1961. In 1963, he published other progressive books like the Blues People: Negro Music in White America and The Moderns: An Anthology of New Writing in America. As the civil rights movement intensified, Jones’s work as a playwright began to reflect his growing distrust of white America. Following the moderate success of his plays The Slave (1964) and The Toilet (1964), his reputation as a playwright reached a new level with his 1964 off Broadway play Dutchman. The highly acclaimed, but controversial production won an Obie Award for “best off-Broadway play” and became a film.

During the late 1960s Jones converted to Islam, changing his name to Amiri Baraka.

Baraka’s numerous literary honors and awards include the Guggenheim Foundation, the Langston Hughes Award from the City College of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Amiri Baraka died in Newark, New Jersey on January 9, 2014. He was 79. (Full Bio)

Plays

DANTE (1961)

Set in a US army camp in 1947, a valueless inhuman melee reflects the morass of inner conflict, when the self behaves with lack of good counsel. Adapted from his novel The System of Dante's Hell. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 6 (6m)

Characters: N/A

Publication: N/A

The Slave (1964)

An examination of tension between blacks and whites in contemporary America, The Slave is the story of a visit by African American Walker Vessles to the home of Grace, his white ex-wife, and Easley, her white husband. Baraka points up the black man’s low status in American society but also stresses that he is victimized and enslaved by his own hatred and is thus unable to effect social change. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 3 (1f, 2m)

Characters: Walker Vessles, Grace, Bradford Easley

Publication Info: Dutchman and The Slave: two plays. William Morrow and Company, 1964. (Link)

The Baptism (1964)

The play begins with a minister’s attempts to encourage a homosexual to change his ways. A boy comes to the church to be baptized, but his sins become a heated topic of discussion, launching angry accusations and a violent end. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 11 (7f, 4m)

Characters: Boy, Minister, Homosexual, Old Woman, Messenger, Women

Publication: The Baptism and The Toilet. Grove Press, 1967. (Link)

The Toilet (1964)

The Toilet examines the interaction of the black and white cultures in America. The contrasts and tensions between these cultures create a net in which Ray Foots, a young black man, is caught. During the action of the play representative characters from the two cultures claim his allegiance and seek to determine his identity. The Toilet shows the difficulty that a black individual encounters in forging a self-identity while living amidst antithetical cultural forces. (Source)*

Cast Requirement: 11 (11m)

Characters: Ora, Willie Love, Hines, Johnny Boy Holmes, Perry, George Davis, Skippy, Knowles, Donald Farrell, Ray Foots, Karolis

Publication: The Baptism and The Toilet. Grove Press, 1967. (Link)

Dutchman (1964)

Dutchman is an emotionally charged and highly symbolic version of the Adam and Eve story, wherein a naive bourgeois Black man is murdered by an insane and calculating white seductress, who is coldly preparing for her next victim as the curtain comes down. The emotionally taut, intellectual verbal fencing between Clay and Lula spirals irrevocably to the symbolic act of violence that will apparently repeat itself over and over again. Jones/Baraka's play is one of mythical proportions, a ritual drama that has a sociological purpose: to galvanize his audience into revolutionary action. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 2 (1f, 1m)

Characters: Clay, Lula, Riders of Coach, Young Negro, Conductor

Publication: Dutchman and The Slave: two plays. William Morrow and Company, 1964. (Link)

Experimental Death Unit #1 (1965)

A one-act play in which two black militants murder two white homosexuals and a black friend of theirs who is a prostitute. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 6 (1f, 5m)

Characters: Duff, Loco, Woman, Leader, First Soldier, Second Soldier

Publication: Four Black Revolutionary Plays: Experimental death unit 1; A Black Mass; Great Goodness of Life; Madheart. Edited by Lindsay Barrett. Marion Boyers, 1998. (Link)

Jello (1965)

JELLO is a spoof on the Jack Benny radio and television show. Jack Benny played the central character whose assistant was Eddie “Rochester” Anderson. Baraka’s play focuses on the newly rebellious Rochester. No longer willing to serve as Benny’s jokester black flunky, Rochester has acquired a new militant attitude. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 5 (1f, 4m)

Characters: Jack Benny, Rochester, Dennis, Mary, Don Wilson

Publication: JELLO. Alexander Street Press, 2002. (Link)*

A Black Mass (1969)

In A Black Mass, Baraka presents a mythology that valorizes black people as the source of all creation. The performative action relates to the subjugation of blacks, by the dominant power structure, to the mythological transgressions of the black scientist Jacoub and his creation of a genetically deficient, white “devil” race. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 7 (3f, 4m)

Characters: Nasafi, Tanzil, Jacoub, Eulalie, Olabumi, Tiila, The Beast

Publication: Four Black Revolutionary Plays: Experimental death unit 1; A Black Mass; Great Goodness of Life; Madheart. Edited by Lindsay Barrett. Marion Boyers, 1998. (Link)

Great Goodness of Life: A Coon Show (1967)

Great Goodness of Life represents a Black father’s attempts to redeem himself for allegedly contributing to his son's death. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 9 (1f, 8m)

Characters: Voice of the Judge, Court Royal, Attorney Breck, Hoods 1 & 2, Young Woman, Hoods 3 & 4, Young Victim

Publication: Four Black Revolutionary Plays: Experimental death unit 1; A Black Mass; Great Goodness of Life; Madheart. Edited by Lindsay Barrett. Marion Boyers, 1998. (Link)

Slave Ship (1967)

Slave Ship is a one-act play that takes place during distinct historical experiences in African-American history: aboard a slave ship during the Middle Passage from Africa to America, during a plantation-era uprising, and in the era of the civil rights movement. Baraka’s play utilizes the representation of African-American history as a means of forging a communal African-American identity through the preservation of African cultural roots. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 12+

Characters: 1st Man, 2nd Man, 3rd Man, 1st Woman, 2nd Woman, 3rd Woman, Dancers, Musicians, Children, Voices and Bodies in the Slave Ship, Old Tom Slave, New Tom, Captain, Sailor, Plantation Owner

Publication: The Motion of History, and other plays. Morrow, 1978. (Link)

Madheart: A Morality Play (1967)

A black man and four women renounce their patterns of life which have been conducted under white mores. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 5 (1m, 4f)

Characters: Black Man, Black Woman, Mother, Sister, Devil Lady

Publication: Four Black Revolutionary Plays: Experimental death unit 1; A Black Mass; Great Goodness of Life; Madheart. Edited by Lindsay Barrett. Marion Boyers, 1998. (Link)

Home on the Range (1968)

In Home on the Range a Black criminal breaks into a white family’s home. As he approaches the house, he observes a Mother, Father, Son, and Daughter watching television and speaking to one another in gibberish. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 10+

Characters: The Father, The Mother, The Son, The Daughter, Black Criminal, A Crowd of Black People, Black Man 1, Black Woman 1, Black Man 2, Black Man 3, Black Girl

Publication: Home on the Range. Alexander Street Press, 2001. (Link)*

Board of Education (1968)

Black children organize and demand a better education system for themselves. They rally against the violent white-centered school system.

Cast Requirement: 8+

Characters: Boys, Girls, Man, Woman, Board of Education

Publication: Board of Education. Alexander Street Press, 2003. (Link)*

tHE Death of Malcolm X (1969)

Baraka’s interpretation of Malcolm’s death is governed by the assumption that the U.S. government in partnership with a cabal of powerful whites ordered his assassination. The play could be viewed as a rather straightforward narrative of the logic behind Malcolm’s death. The play combines realism with moments of absurdity, but its principal effect is to hammer home the point that Malcolm was killed on the order of powerful whites who were afraid of the impact of his message on black people. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 13

Characters: Instructor, 4 Negroes, Klansman, Hippy President, Woman, Girl, Malcolm X, Attendant, S, Banker

Publication: The Death of Malcolm X. Alexander Street Press, 2001. (Link)*

Black Power Chant (1970)

A dramatic rallying cry for Black Power.

Cast Requirement: 1

Characters: Black Voice

Publication: Black Power Chant. Alexander Street Press, 2002. (Link)*

Bloodrites (1970)

Subjugation by the white devils is overcome by blacks as they retain their physical and cultural diversity. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 2+ (1f, 1m)

Characters: A Brother, A Woman, Others As Necessary

Publication: Bloodrites. Alexander Street Press, 2001. (Link)*

The Coronation of the Black Queen (1970)

This ceremony is modeled after two traditional black coronation ceremonies, The Akan (or Ashanti) and The Ancient Egyptian. (Source)*

Cast Requirement: 5+

Characters: The Queen Mother, The Educator, The Treasurer, The Custodian of the Stools, The Queen, Attendants, Guards

Publication: The Coronation of the Black Queen. The Black Scholar. Vol. 1, No 8. 1970. (Link)*

Junkies Are Full of (Shh…) (1971)

Black nationalists kill white drug pushers and overdose their black informer in an example to the rest of the community. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 13+

Characters: Confetti, First Italian (Frankie), Second Italian (Sammy), First Jew (Izzy), Second Jew (Irving), Bigtime, BLK Man (Damu), BLK Man (Chuma), Voice, Sam, Young Boy, DooDoo, Woman, Simbas

Publication: Junkies are Full of (Shh…). Alexander Street Press, 2001. (Link)*

Ba-Ra-Ka (1972)

Imamu Amiri Baraka dips his own being into a new definition of genesis. His is at once the story of his own and the black race's birth. Authentic knowledge of the self changes us forever. We can never draw back, and the blood-strength of his poem-play-ritual washes over our “selves,” destroying the useless and redundant parts of the individual's existence. LeRoi Jones is reborn and, with the stern power of the magician, names himself anew and is Ba-Ra-Ka. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 7 (4f, 3m)

Characters: Red Man, Blue Man, Green Man, Women

Publication: Spontaneous Combustion: Eight New American Plays. Edited by Rochelle Owens. Winter House, 1972 (Link)

Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean (1972)

Performed against a background of slide projections featuring scenes from Black man’s American experience, this piece made clear its purpose: to free Black minds from the evils of Euro-Americanism and to build Black solidarity. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 6+

Characters: Uncle Sam, Black Voice, Black Stooge, Boushie, Brother, Women

Publication: Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. Alexander Street Press, 2002. (Link)*

The Motion of History (1975)

The Motion of History is composed of thirty scenes, each of which depicts a certain historical event in which blacks and/or whites are involved in political actions opposing different forms of repression. The events are not chronological. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 15+

Characters: Actor, Aide, Alonzo, Aminata, Announcer, Bacon, Banker, Barbara, Black, Black Farmer, Black Father, Black Girl, Black Mother, Black Panther, Black Politician, Black Woman, Byard, Cardoza, Carmichael, Chaney, Charles, Curt, Dangerfield, Denmark Vesey, Diallo, Doctor King, Donna, Elijah Muhammed, Ex-Black Militant, Fannie, Farmer, FBI, First Blood, Foreman, Gabriel, Godfrey, Goodman, Governor Berkeley, Grantham, Guard, Gullah Jack, Harriet, Henry, Jack, Jaja Mobutu, Jitu, John, Juanita, Judge, Karenga, Keene, Killer, Klansman, Laurence Ingraham, Leary, Leckett, Lenin, Lenny, Librarian, Lon, Lucious, Luke, Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm X, Martin, Mary, Master, Mavis, Nat, Ned Marion, Old Man, Oliver Brown, Omar, Overseer, Owen, Peter Poyas, Planter, Police #1, Police #2, Police Director, Politician, Preacher, RAP, Red, Red-Haired Girl with Sunglasses, Reese, Reggie, Reginald, Reverend Smalls, Richard Nixon, Richie, Robert Williams, Rose, Roy Wilkins, Sailor, Sam, Schwerner, Sister, Slave, Slave #2, Slave Master #1, Slave Master #2, Slender Man, Soldier, Southerner, Stalin, Student, Student #1, Student #2, Suni, Ted, Trisha, Turner, Walklett, White, White Woman, Will, Woman from Office, Worker 1, Worker 2

Publication: The Motion of History, and Other Plays. Morrow, 1978. (Link)

S-1 (1975)

Red and Lil, a married radical couple, become involved in anti-capitalist rallies and face repudiation from the U.S. government.

Cast Requirement: 21+

Characters: Lawrence “Red” Hall, Lilian “Lil” Hall, Justice Powys, Justice Thurman Marsh, Justice Carter Dougs, Justice Bader, Justice Lloyd, Senator Roosta, Capitalist 1, Capitalist 2, Senator Bay, Ray Lynn, Bus Drivers, Management, 17th Century English Judge, 17th Century White Indentured Servants, Police Chief, Red Squad Functionary, Red Squad Functionary Aide, Jake Johnson, Dolly Moore, Curtis Hart, Brady, Middle-Of-The-Road Legislator, Liberal Legislator, Black Legislator, Conservative Legislator, Speaker of the House, Voices of Alabama Congressmen, Reporter, Police, Karl, Zingha, Little Red, Early Black Slaves, Barnston Rayfield, Vice-President of Bulletin Broadcasting, Attorney Rittenberg, Prosecutor Lotti, Judge, Bailiff, Joe, Sam, Union Bureaucrat, Monroe, Sally, President Ford Voice on Radio, Inmates

Publication: The Motion of History, and Other Plays. Morrow, 1978. (Link)

What Was the Relationship Of the Lone Ranger to the Means of Production (1978)

The play takes place on the shop floor of a large automobile manufacturer, Colonel Motors. The time is now. Workers are busy on the production line when they see a masked man enter the factory and walk toward them. One of the workers laughingly refers to him as the “Lone Ranger.” The masked man begins to address the workers. A press agent for free-market capitalism, the masked man tells the workers that they have entered a new “post-strike, post-revolutionary” era. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 8+

Characters: Donna, Reg, Clark, Tuffy, MM, Felipe, Workers, Police

Publication: What Was the Relationship of the Lone Ranger to the Means of Production. Alexander Street Press, 2001. (Link)*

Boy and Tarzan Appear in A Clearing (1981)

Present day African leaders are corrupt and greedy having learned from white colonists. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 7+

Characters: Tarzan, Boy, Stan, Mary, Ayanna, Mkazi, Jane, Stan’s Aide’s, Workers, Peasants

Publication: Boy & Tarzan Appear In a Clearing. Alexander Street Press, 2002. (Link)*

the MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA (w.e.b. dU BOIS) (2015)

The Most Dangerous Man in America (W.E.B. Du Bois) is a dramatic reflection of one of the most traumatic events in the terrible period of McCarthyism. W.E.B. Du Bois, cofounder of the NAACP, scholar, and political activist known and recognized throughout the world, was indicted in 1951 by the U.S. federal government at the age of 82 as “an agent of a foreign power.” Throughout the play, the focus moves back and forth between the Harlem community and their opinions, and the witnesses’ testimony and the courtroom battles. This was Baraka’s final play. (Source)

Cast Requirement: 17 (4f, 13m)

Characters: N/A

Publication: N/A