The Mamalogues portrays what it's like to parent while Black, unmarried, sand middle class. During a retreat, three single mothers share their angst about racial profiling on the playground, navigating social minefields during soccer season, and their child being the "only one." The satirical comedy follows the agonies and joys of motherhood as these moms lean in, stress out, and guide Black children from diapers to college in a dangerous world.

Genre: Comedy Characters: 2f Scenery: Simple Set

Single Black Female is a two-woman show with rapid-fire comic vignettes that explore the lives of thirty-something African American middle class women as they search for love, clothes and dignity in a world that fails to recognize them amongst a parade of stereotypical images. SBF 1, an English literature professor, and SBF 2, a corporate lawyer, keep each other balanced as they face their fears of rejection, hopes for romance and reminisce about black girlhood wounds. While embodying a variety of characters, the girlfriends discuss the absurdities of interracial dating, the lure of recreational shopping and the merits of college reunions for bolstering one's self-esteem. After reviewing their escapades in past relationships and confessing their own mounting anxieties about commitment and the possibility of motherhood, the pair realize their best chance at love may be found closer than they ever imagined.

Nominated for a 2004 L.A. Weekly Theater Award for Best Comedy

"A socially significant and very entertaining two-woman show that manages to be simultaneously self deprecating and proud." - The New York Times

"Fresh...hugely entertaining theater." - Variety

"Perfectly suited for the post-Sex and the City woman." - Backstage

"Thompson stands her stereotypes on their heads, to apt and funny effect. These right-on feminist sisters want equal rights and equal pay, but they also yearn for steamy romance and Jimmy Choo shoes, not necessarily in that order." - The Los Angeles Times

"A bracing, funny, bittersweet...show that is both bigger than life and wondrously small, with plenty of notes in between." - L.A. Weekly

African American women have increasingly begun to see their plays performed from regional stages to Broadway. Yet many of these artists still struggle to gain attention. In this volume, Sandra Adell draws from the vital wellspring of works created by African American women in the twenty-first century to present ten plays by both prominent and up-and-coming writers. Taken together, the selections portray how these women engage with history as they delve into--and shake up--issues of gender and class to craft compelling stories of African American life. Gliding from gritty urbanism to rural landscapes, these works expand boundaries and boldly disrupt modes of theatrical representation. Selections: Blue Door, by Tanya Barfield; Levee James, by S. M. Shephard-Massat; Hoodoo Love, by Katori Hall; Carnaval, by Nikkole Salter; Single Black Female, by Lisa B. Thompson; Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine, by Lynn Nottage; BlackTop Sky, by Christina Anderson; Voyeurs de Venus, by Lydia Diamond; Fedra, by J. Nicole Brooks; and Uppa Creek: A Modern Anachronistic Parody in the Minstrel Tradition, by Keli Garrett.

In this book, Lisa B. Thompson explores the representation of black middle-class female sexuality by African American women authors in narrative literature, drama, film, and popular culture, showing how these depictions reclaim black female agency and illustrate the difficulties black women confront in asserting sexual agency in the public sphere. Thompson broadens the discourse around black female sexuality by offering an alternate reading of the overly determined racial and sexual script that casts the middle class "black lady" as the bastion of African American propriety. Drawing on the work of black feminist theorists, she examines symptomatic autobiographies, novels, plays, and key episodes in contemporary American popular culture, including works by Anita Hill, Judith Alexa Jackson, P. J. Gibson, Julie Dash, Kasi Lemmons, Jill Nelson, Lorene Cary, and Andrea Lee.