Ira Aldridge on the StageAn Anthology

• Provides scholarly editions of hard-to-access plays, including Edward Young’s The Revenge; Isaac Bickerstaff’s The Padlock; Thomas Morton’s The Slave; W.H. Murray’s Obi; Or, Three-Fingered Jack; Thomas Dartmouth Rice’s The Virginia Mummy; and Thomas Archer’s The Black Doctor
• Considers how Aldridge’s performances participated in and were shaped by debates about slavery, abolition, and race
• Provides an accessible account of how plays developed over time through introductions, notes and appendices

How does theatre history change when viewed through the life of Ira Aldridge, the first Black star of the British stage? Collating an anthology of plays in which Aldridge frequently performed, this volume proposes Aldridge’s career intervened in British and US debates about slavery and racial equality while reshaping the conventions of British theatre. Aldridge’s repertoire offers readers a way to engage with a long history of racial representation; the anthology ranges from 1721 to 1846 and includes a variety of genres, namely a tragedy, a proto-minstrel burletta, melodramas, and a minstrel play. As Aldridge was limited to a narrow range of roles, his career is uniquely accessible for study. At the same time, the introduction stresses how Aldridge pushed against the boundaries a white culture industry imposed, even as he drastically re-envisioned longstanding portions of the repertoire.