Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

• Genre: Fiction; drama
• Originally Published: 1984
• Reading Level/Interest: Grades 9-12; college/adult
• Structure/Length: 2 acts; approx. 112 pages; approx. 1 hour, 34 minutes running time
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Set in Chicago in 1927, the play reveals the exploitation of Black artists in the time period and shows the divisive and violent impacts of racist culture. Ma Rainey, a popular Black blues singer, is late to the recording studio; while they wait for her, band members Cutler, Slow Drag, and Toledo react to fellow musician Levee’s insistence that the studio owes him a recording of his own music.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racial conflict; racism; exploitation of Black artists; profanity, including use of the n-word; sexual content, including references to homosexuality; mentions of rape; murder

August Wilson, Playwright

• Bio: 1945-2005; born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; dropped out of high school at 15 after being accused of plagiarism; taught himself and read widely in the following years, often noting on coffee shop napkins ideas for poems and characters; inspired by the Black Arts Movement; helped to found Pittsburgh’s Black Horizons Theatre (1968); met with significant success with Jitney and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; known for The American Century Cycle (also called The Pittsburgh Cycle), a group of 10 plays that reveal the Black experience in America from the 1900s to the 1990s; received two Pulitzer Prizes (for The Piano Lesson and Fences)
• Other Works: Jitney (1982); Fences (1987); The Piano Lesson (1990); Gem of the Ocean (2003)
• Awards: Tony Award for Best Play (1985); Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play (1985); New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play (1985)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Cultural and Social Change
• Race and Hierarchy
• Religion

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the social and historical contexts that influence the play’s plot and character development.
• Study paired texts and other brief resources to make connections to the text’s themes of Cultural and Social Change and Race and Hierarchy.
• Write lyrics for an original blues song to gain cultural understanding.
• Analyze and evaluate plot, setting, character, and theme to draw conclusions and make   inferences regarding race, gender, and exploitation.