Trouble in Mind

by Alice Childress, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Afterword)

Overview

“A masterpiece . . . Trouble in Mind still contains astonishing power; it could have been written yesterday.” —Vulture

Ahead of its time, Trouble in Mind, written in 1955, follows the rehearsal process of an anti-lynching play preparing for its Broadway debut. When Wiletta, a Black actress and veteran of the stage, challenges the play’s stereotypical portrayal of the Black characters, unsettling biases come to the forefront and reveal the ways so-called progressive art can be used to uphold racist attitudes. Scheduled to open on Broadway in 1957, Childress objected to the requested changes in the script that would “sanitize” the play for mainstream audiences, and the production was canceled as a result. Childress’s final script is published here with an essay by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, editor of TCG Illuminations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636700151
Publisher:	Theatre Communications Group
Publication date:	06/21/2022
Series:	Illuminations
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Alice Childress was a playwright, actress, and novelist. She was the first Black woman to have a play professionally produced in New York City. Childress’s works include the plays Wedding Band and Wine in the Wilderness, and the young-adult novel A Hero Ain’t Nothing but a Sandwich.

Editorial Reviews

An original play, full of vitality… Miss Childress has some witty and penetrating things to say about the dearth of roles for Negro actors in the contemporary theater, the cut-throat competition for these parts and the fact that Negro actors often find themselves playing stereotyped roles in which they cannot bring themselves to believe.” —New York Times, 1955

“Sixty-six years late and still on time, the play most of the moment is only now getting the mainstream attention that it deserves. Alice Childress’s 1955 Trouble in Mind, a play about power and race in the theater, is a satire and tragedy that deserves to be a classic.” —New York Times, 2021

“In Trouble in Mind, Childress fearlessly unmasks the theater’s deeply rooted racism. Something that the playwright struggled with in the ’50s still chimes loudly in the present day. In the aftermath of the country’s racial reckoning and amid the ongoing call for Black lives to matter, a predominantly white-run American theater industry has finally held a mirror up to itself. What the Great White Way is only fully recognizing now, Childress long ago detailed in Trouble in Mind.” —Variety

From the Publisher

Painfully relevant… One is gradually struck by how bracingly prophetic the late playwright’s script turns out to be.

Variety

An original play, full of vitality… Miss Childress has some witty and penetrating things to say about the dearth of roles for Negro actors in the contemporary theater, the cut-throat competition for these parts and the fact that Negro actors often find themselves playing stereotyped roles in which they cannot bring themselves to believe.

1955 New York Times

Fascinating… A frank look at mid-1950s social attitudes, and also a commentary on the discomfort between Blacks and whites that remains relevant today… A rich, unsettling play that lives up to its title, Trouble in Mind lingers in one’s memory long after its conclusion.

2014 New York Times

"With scathing wit and bold candor, Trouble in Mind stakes out territory where few playwrights, today or more than 50 years ago, have dared to tread."

Seattle Times

Fresh and bold, Trouble in Mind, which premiered in 1955, feels bang up-to-date in its scrutiny of the ways in which people who blithely assert their liberal credentials are capable of racism.

Evening Standard

A rich, unsettling play that lives up to its title, Trouble in Mind lingers in one’s memory long after its conclusion.

New York Times