When race matters: Reading race in Richard III and Macbeth

As a young undergraduate theatre major in the mid-1980s, I auditioned for my college’s summer theatre program. Like many of my classmates, I was in love with the theatre and imagined myself in a career (or at least an avocation) as an actor. I searched for a monologue that might be appropriate, but I wanted to choose one that was not a “black” monologue, not one written for a black female actor. In retrospect, I did not choose the best monologue; it was from James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie and was probably unfamiliar to the directors. It also did not really give me much with which to work. It was not my poor choice of monologue, however, that kept me from earning a role in that year’s summer theatre. I was told that there were no parts for black actresses that summer, so they could not cast me. Enraged, I dropped my theatre major in favor of political science and vowed to become a playwright and write good roles for black women.