Theatre of Black Women
This chapter tells the story of Britain’s first black women’s theatre company, Theatre of Black Women (TBW). It follows founding members Bernardine Evaristo and Patricia Hilaire from their teenage participation in drama groups through their studies at Ros
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In the 1970s and early 1980s, as the children of the Windrush generation came of age, Britain experienced an electric convergence of anti-racist and anti-sexist activism. By the mid-1980s there were around fifty different organisations dedicated to black and/or Asian women in Britain (Anon 1985). These grassroots collectives shared knowledge and resources, campaigned on relevant issues, and nurtured community. Some of the most active included Brixton Black Women’s Group (1973–c.1989) and OWAAD, the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (1978–1982). Theatre of Black Women (TBW) were among the first to translate this political energy into a creative practice. The company was formed in 1982 by three women—Bernardine Evaristo, Patricia Hilaire, and Paulette Randall—and remained active until 1988. (Patricia Hilaire changed her last name to ‘St. Hilaire’ in 1990, honouring the formulation used by her grandfather; both versions appear in this chapter, reflecting the usage applicable at the time.) Various chroniclers of British theatre history acknowledge TBW’s significance (Goddard 2007, pp. 26, 42; Godiwala 2006, p. 76; Griffin 2003, p. 238; McMillan and SuAndi 2002, p. 119), but since the company’s playtexts have not been published and their manuscripts are not yet publicly available, scholarship on their work has inevitably been limited. For instance, despite emphatically lauding TBW as the ‘most important’ of various black women’s theatre groups in his expansive study of black and Asian theatre in Britain, Colin Chambers could go no further with his commentary (Chambers 2011, p. 178). This © The Author(s) 2020 N. Abram, Black British Women’s Theatre, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51459-4_2
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chapter reanimates the critical conversation. Drawing on Evaristo and St. Hilaire’s personal papers, generously shared by the artists themselves, and further informed by an illuminating interview (Abram 2011), it fills out existing accounts of early black British women’s theatre and offers the first sustained analysis of Theatre of Black Women’s self-authored plays.1 Further contextualising conversations with some of the artists’ peers affirm the significance of this pioneering company, and register the profound interconnectedness of black women’s creativity in 1980s Britain.
History, Activities, Archives Bernardine Evaristo and Patricia St. Hilaire both trace their involvement in theatre back to the extra-curricular activities they participated in as teenagers. They fondly recall how those groups encouraged participants to express themselves, building confidence as well as providing welcome respite from personal struggles. Evaristo—who is of English and Nigerian parentage—was involved in Greenwich Young People’s Theatre in Woolwich, London, from the age of twelve to sixteen (Bernard 2017). Hilaire attended a group at Hoxton Hall in Hackney, London, where she met and was mentored by actor and director David Sulkin. Sulkin’s support proved vital, and was to endure: not only did he prompt Hilaire
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