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Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the " dandified coon". By the middle of the century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right. In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s,Clark, Alexis.How the History of Blackface Is Rooted in Racism. ''History''. A&E Television Networks, LLC. 2019. and was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century, though the practice ...
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Minstrel Show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people wearing blackface make-up for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows caricatured black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.The Coon Character
, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
John Kenrick

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Blackface In Contemporary Art
Blackface in contemporary art covers issues from stage make-up used to make non-black performers appear black (the traditional meaning of blackface), to non-black creators using black personas. Blackface is generally considered an anachronistically racist performance practice, despite or because of which it has been widely used in contemporary art. Contemporary art in this context is understood as art produced from the second half of the 20th century until today. In recent years some black artists and artists of color have engaged in blackface as a form of deconstruction and critique. Physical blackface * Lynn Hershman Leeson's 1966 "Self Portrait as Another Person" consists of a wax mold of the artist's face in blackface, flattened and distorted, paired with motion-activated recordings of her voice. The label stated "As a political gesture, Hershman Leeson partly painted the masks black to express her solidarity with the civil rights movement." "Self Portrait As Another Person" ...
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Zwarte Piet
Zwarte Piet (; lb, Schwaarze Péiter, fy, Swarte Pyt), also known in English by the translated name Black Pete, is the companion of Saint Nicholas ( nl, Sinterklaas, fy, Sinteklaas, lb, Kleeschen) in the folklore of the Low Countries. The earliest known illustration of the character comes from an 1850 book by Amsterdam schoolteacher Jan Schenkman in which he was depicted as a black Moor from Spain. Those portraying the traditional version of Zwarte Piet usually put on blackface and colourful Renaissance attire in addition to curly wigs and bright red lipstick. The character has been increasingly controversial since the early 2010s and decreasingly prevalent at municipal holiday celebrations in the years that have followed. As of 2021, a revised version, dubbed Sooty Piet ( nl, Roetveegpiet), has become more common than the traditional variant at public events, in addition to in television specials, films, social media, and advertising. Sooty Piet features the natural skin ...
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The Padlock
''The Padlock'' is a two-act 'afterpiece' opera by Charles Dibdin. The text was by Isaac Bickerstaffe. It debuted in 1768 at the Drury Lane Theatre in London as a companion piece to '' The Earl of Warwick''. It partnered other plays before a run of six performances in tandem with ''The Fatal Discovery'' by John Home. "The Padlock" was a success, largely due to Dibdin's portrayal of Mungo, a blackface caricature of a black servant from the West Indies. The company took the production to the United States the next year, where a portrayal by Lewis Hallam, Jr. as Mungo met with even greater accolades. The libretto was first published in London around 1768 and in Dublin in 1775. The play remained in regular circulation in the U.S. as late as 1843. It was revived by the Old Vic Company in London and on tour in the UK in 1979 in a new orchestration by Don Fraser and played in a double-bill with Garrick's ''Miss In Her Teens''. The role of Mungo was, again, played by a white actor. Opera ...
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John Strausbaugh
John Strausbaugh (born 1951, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American author, cultural commentator, and host of ''The New York Times'' ''Weekend Explorer'' video podcast series on New York City. Among other topics, he is an authority on the history of New York City. His 2016 book, ''City of Sedition: The History of New York City During the Civil War'', chronicles the localized conflicts between New York constituent groups and how their respective actions helped or hampered Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln's war effort. His most recent book, ''Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers during World War II'', was issued by Grand Central Publishing in December 2018. Strausbaugh's 2013 book ''The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village'' (Ecco) explains the tumultuous events that made New York's Greenwich Village the cultural engine of America. The book is described by Kurt Andersen as "the definitive history of America's ...
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Brooks McNamara
Brooks Barry McNamara (1937–2009) was an American theater historian, professor, and contributing editor of ''The Drama Review''. Life McNamara was born in Peoria, Illinois. Upon graduation from Knox College, he pursued a Master of Arts degree at the University of Iowa. Following military service, McNamara earned his PhD in theater arts at Tulane University where Richard Schechner was a professor and editor of the ''Tulane Drama Review'' (TDR). After earning his PhD, McNamara taught theater history in the Drama Department at the University of Delaware, between 1966 and 1968. At Tulane, Schechner had crystallized a set of principles to describe environmental theater. McNamara illustrated many of them in his set design for his Delaware academic colleague, William Bruehl's production of '' Faustus''. Meanwhile, Schechner and TDR, renamed "The Drama Review," relocated in 1967 to NYU where he became a Professor in the Graduate Drama Department. In the fall of 1968, McNamara also be ...
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The Black And White Minstrel Show
''The Black and White Minstrel Show'' was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Running from 1958 to 1978, it was a weekly variety show that presented traditional American minstrel and country songs, as well as show tunes and music hall numbers, lavishly costumed. It was also a successful stage show that ran for ten years from 1962 to 1972 at the Victoria Palace Theatre, London. This was followed by tours of UK seaside resorts, together with Australia and New Zealand. History Minstrel shows had become a long-established feature of British music halls and seaside entertainment since the success of acts such as the Virginia Minstrels in Liverpool in the 1840s and Christy's Minstrels in London in the 1850s. These led directly to many British imitators such as Hamilton's Black and White Minstrels in the 1880s and many others, with Uncle Mac's Minstrels becoming such a popular mainstay in Broadstairs from the 1890s to the 1940s ...
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Dreadnought Hoax
The ''Dreadnought'' hoax was a prank pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the Royal Navy into showing their flagship, the battleship HMS ''Dreadnought'', to a fake delegation of " Abyssinian royals". The hoax drew attention in Britain to the emergence of the Bloomsbury Group, among whom some of Cole's collaborators numbered. The hoax was a repeat of a similar impersonation which Cole and Adrian Stephen had organised while they were students at Cambridge in 1905. Background Hoaxers Horace de Vere Cole was born in Ireland in 1881 to a well-to-do family. He was commissioned into the Yorkshire Hussars and served in the Second Boer War, where he was seriously wounded and invalided out of service. On his return to Britain he became an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge; he studied little, and spent his time entertaining and undertaking hoaxes and pranks. One of Cole's closest friends at Trinity was Adrian Stephen, a keen sportsman and actor. Cole's biogra ...
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Theatrical Makeup
Theatrical makeup is makeup that is used to assist in creating the appearance of the characters that actors portray during a theater production. Background In Greek and Roman theatre, makeup was unnecessary. Actors wore various masks, allowing them to portray another gender, age, or entirely different likeness. Thespis, considered to be the first actor, used white lead and wine to paint his face. In medieval Europe, actors altered their appearances by painting their faces a different color. Performers who portrayed God painted their faces white or gold; actors playing angels painted their faces red. During the Renaissance, actors were creative and resourceful when making-over their faces. They used lamb's wool for false beards and flour as face paint. Advancements in stage lighting technology required stage makeup to evolve beyond one over-all face colour to a multidimensional craft. Originally, theatres used candles and oil lamps; these two sources of light were dim and allowe ...
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Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cyprus, a possession of the Venetian Republic since 1489. The port city of Famagusta finally fell to the Ottomans in 1571 after a protracted siege. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks. He has recently married Desdemona, a beautiful and wealthy Venetian lady much younger than himself, against the wishes of her father. Iago is Othello's malevolent ensign, who maliciously stokes his master's jealousy until the usually stoic Moor kills his beloved wife in a fit of blind rage. Due to its enduring themes of passion, jealousy, and race, ''Othello'' is still topical and popular and is ...
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Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination in the United States, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the United States, disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and the subsequent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship ...
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Vox (website)
''Vox'' () is an American news and opinion website owned by Vox Media. The website was founded in April 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, and Melissa Bell, and is noted for its concept of explanatory journalism. Vox's media presence also includes a YouTube channel, several podcasts, and a show presented on Netflix. ''Vox'' has been described as left-of-center and progressive. History Prior to founding ''Vox'', Ezra Klein worked for ''The Washington Post'' as the head of Wonkblog, a public policy blog. When Klein attempted to launch a new site using funding from the newspaper's editors, his proposal was turned down and Klein subsequently left ''The Washington Post'' for a position with Vox Media, another communications company, in January 2014. ''The New York Times'' David Carr associated Klein's exit for ''Vox'' with other "big-name journalists" leaving newspapers for digital start-ups, such as Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher (of '' Recode'', which was later acquired ...
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