ABSTRACT
Walker, A. (1984) In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, London: Women's Press.
women theatre collectives Britain's first black women's theatre company, Theatre o f Black Women, was founded in 1982 by Patricia Hilaire, Paulette Randall and Bernardine Evaristo. The three women met at drama school and their experience of devising their first play together, Coping, directed by Yvonne Brewster, inspired them to form a company to address the lack of plays and roles by and for black women. In 1982 they presented a triple-bill of one-woman shows that they had written, which explored the experience of being young, black and female in Britain. In 1983 Evaristo and Hilaire staged the two-hander Silhouette in which a slave woman performs a duet with a modern black woman in an exploration of black identity and oppression. Not only did Silhouette treat the under-represented issue of mixed-race identity, but it also engaged in an exploration of what f e m i n i s m (identified with white women's experiences) might mean for black women. The group later began to work with playwrights and in 1986 performed Jackie Kay's Chiaroscuro. Despite the company's success, Theatre of Black Women were forced to disband in 1988 when their annual funding from the Greater London Arts Council was not renewed.
