Historical November 1991 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The Missouri Historical Society has commissioned an original play focusing on urban slavery in St. Louis in the 1820s and 1830s.
The contract for writing the script has been awarded to Kay Kuhlmann and Gerald Early, playwrights, who will collaborate on the project.
The historical drama will be presented to middle and high school audiences at the History Museum (Jefferson Memorial Building) in Forest Park in February 1992.
The project is being made possible through the generous support of Adelaide M. and Daniel L. Schlafly.
The story will be told through the eyes of William Wells Brown, who was a slave in St. Louis during this period. Later, after winning his freedom, Brown gained renown for his book, Narrative of William Wells Brown: a Fugitive Slave, and other works, including novels, plays and histories.
He drew on his St. Louis experience to document the evils of slavery. Early is a professor of English and Afro-American studies at Washington University, where he serves as director for the Black Heartland project begun in 1990 to promote scholarly investigation of African-American life and culture.
He specializes in the African-American autobiography, American slavery and African-American popular music.
His publications include Tuxedo Junction, a collection of essays, and an edited volume of the works of Countee Cullen, the Harlem Renaissance poet. Kuhlmann, a Ph.D. candidate in theatre and film at the University of Kansas, has been at the forefront in the new genre of historical dramatizations intended for museum settings. Since 1989, when she was commissioned by the Kansas State Historical Society to write an original play for performance in a restored 1915- era schoolhouse, her historical plays have been performed at the Eisenhower. Hoover and Truman Presidential Libraries, the Missouri Historical Society, and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November 1991.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1991_11.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.
