Underground, Monroe, and the Mamalogues: Three Plays

This book features new plays by Lisa B. Thompson, author of Single Black Female. In these three plays, the black feminist playwright and scholar thoughtfully explores themes such as the black family, motherhood, migration, racial violence, and trauma and its effect on black people from the early twentieth century to the present. The works showcase Thompson’s subversive humor and engagement with black history and culture through the lens of the black middle class.

The thriller Underground explores the challenges of radical black politics among the black middle class in the post-Obama era. Monroe, a period drama about the Great Migration, depicts the impact of a lynching on a family and community in 1940s Louisiana. The Mamalogues, a satirical comedy, focuses on three middle-class black single mothers as they lean in, stress out, and guide precocious black children from diapers to college in a dangerous world. This collection will be compelling to readers interested in African American studies; drama, theater, and performance; feminist and gender studies; popular culture and media studies; and American studies.

LISA B. THOMPSON is an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced across the United States and internationally. Her work has been produced by Crossroads Theatre Company, New Professional Theatre, Brava Theater Center, Theatre Rhinoceros, The Vortex, New African Grove Theatre Company, Black Spectrum Theatre, Austin Playhouse, the Out of Ink Festival, and the National Black Theatre Festival. Thompson is also a professor of African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class.

E. PATRICK JOHNSON is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University.

JOAN MORGAN is a writer, a scholar, a cultural critic, and a feminist.