Jonathan Shandell is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Arcadia University. This interview is based on his new book, Readying the Revolution: African American Theater and Performance from Post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement (University of Michigan Press, 2025).
JF: What led you to write Readying the Revolution?
JS: This project (focused on the late-1940s to the early-1960s) is a natural sequel to my previous book The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era, which was focused on the history of an important theater company most active in the early- to mid-1940s. The research allowed me to extend many of the same lines of historical and critical inquiry that I followed in that earlier project.
JF: In 2 sentences, what is the argument of Readying the Revolution?
JS: Essentially, the book’s argument is that African American artists navigating the post-World War II/pre-Black Arts period were more radical politically than commonly understood to be. The Black Arts revolution that exploded in the mid-1960s owes more than we often recognize to an era of predecessors whose radicalism does not enjoy the recognition it deserves.
JF: Why do we need to read Readying the Revolution?
JS: It can be tempting to rely on over-simplified narratives about our cultural past. The popular binaries of integrationism vs. Black Nationalism, Civil Rights vs. Black Power, assimilation vs. revolution can be useful in framing our thinking about mid-20th Century racial politics and culture. But they also flatten our understanding of a varied, dynamic period of cultural and political experimentation. We need to know more about how Black artists were complicating these binaries and deploying a range of strategies to advance Black liberation, within the restrictions of their historical moment.
JF: Why and when did you become an American historian?
JS: My interest in African American theater and performance history was sparked in graduate school, in working with the professor who became my mentor, Dr. David Krasner. As I advanced toward my doctorate and beyond, an incredible, supportive community of scholars of Black theater and performance has inspired me to continue, embraced me and my writing, and assured me of the value of my research. That network of peers has been vital for me, and I am incredibly grateful.
JF: What is your next project?
JS: I am hoping to compile and edit a new anthology of plays from the 19th Century to the present as an accessible textbook for undergraduate survey courses in African American drama. No such anthology has been published in decades, and my hope is that producing an updated collection that is widely available and affordable for students will encourage university programs to offer such a course more regularly.
JF: Thanks, Jonathan!
