Playwright, Librarian, Community Builder
Regina Anderson Andrews was born in 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 21 years old she moved to New York City to apply for a librarian position at the New York Public Library. From there, her career really began to take off.
Regina was at the nexus of the Harlem Renaissance, and she helped bring together artists through both her time at The Harlem Experimental Theatre and the New York Public Library. Building spaces for Black community throughout one of the most rich artistic periods in the United States.
Her plays deserve recognition in the modern repertoire. With this recognition I believe we will all be able to appreciate the contributions that she made to Black art, not just the men that existed at the same time as her.
Credits/Bibliography
Music by Tri-Tachyon - https://soundcloud.com/tri-tachyon/albums
Macki, Adrienne C. “(Re)constructing Community and Identity: Harlem Experimental Theatre and Social Protest.”
Whitmire, Ethelene. Regina Anderson Andrews, Harlem Renaissance Librarian, University of Illinois Press, 2014.
The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, vol. 20, no. 2, 2008, pp. 107-140.
Wilson, Katherine. “Theatre Near Us: Librarians, Culture, and Space in the Harlem Renaissance.” Unmaking Race, Remaking Soul: Transformative Aesthetics and the Practice of Freedom, edited by Christina Davis Acampora and Angela L. Cotton, State University of New York Press, 2007, pp. 231-245.
Transcript
Under Study-ied Theatre History Ep. 1- Regina Anderson Andrews
(Intro music)
Dara: Hello, welcome to. Under studied theater history with your hosts Dara-
Colleen: and Colleen.
Dara: Woohoo. My name is Dara and I'm the one that did all the research and Colleen, what is your role today?
Colleen: I am a vast pool of nothing ready to be filled with the water of knowledge.
Dara: That's great. I love that so much. So under studied theater history. Is a podcast that I'm making to, uh, focus on some unstudied or under studied-
Colleen: badum tsss
Dara: Uh, play specifically female playwrights throughout history. So the first person that I got to talk about today is Regina Anderson Andrews. And do you know who she is?
Colleen: I have no clue. (laughs)
Dara: Yeah so she was a founding member and then the executive director of the Harlem Experimental Theater, which was a community [00:01:00] based theater during the Harlem Renaissance. You know what the Harlem Harlem Renaissance is.
Colleen: Yeah.
Dara: Yeah. So the famous man that she's connected to is WEB DuBois because she was a member of his players, troop, the K.R.I.W.G.A (correction: KRIGWA) players or KRIGWA players. And so she was like an actress in that for a couple of years. And it's, um, that the KRIGWA players only lasted for about, I think it's a year or two, much shorter than the Harlem experimental theater, which was lasted for about five years.
Uh, Harlem Renaissance happened directly before, during and slightly after the Great Depression. So the Harlem, the reason you might have heard of the Harlem Experimental Theater is it was a part of the Federal Theatre Project in the Great Depression.
Colleen: Oh,
Dara: So it was-
Colleen: Federally funded theater. What a concept.
Dara: Yes. So it was the part [00:02:00] of the black theater, uh, section of the Federal Theatre Project .
Colleen: Oh, they had subsections of it?
Dara: They did cause it was the thirties.
Colleen: Wow. (laughs)
Dara: So that class that you were talking about, American Theater Makers. I also took it taught by the lovely Trisha Rodley at the University.
Colleen: Yeah.
Dara: That class heavily focuses on Todd London's book
and, um, um-
Colleen: It talks a lot about men in that book. (laughs)
Dara: Yeah. So that book is primarily impact statements or statements directly from... the founding members of many prolific American theater groups. And so I actually thumbed back through it and doing research for this. And there is a statement from WEB DuBois about the KRIGWA players, but there is nothing about the Harlem Experimental Theater, in that book.
Colleen: Wow.
Dara: Yeah. And so even when the Harlem Experimental Theatre is talked about, uh, many sources incorrectly [00:03:00] accredit it to WEB DuBois because of Regina Anderson Andrew's connection to him. Cause they were like, they worked together a lot.
Colleen: Yeah. And like didn't hi... Like, I assume that his like players group contributed to. The, like the people who were acting in the Harlem Experimental Theatre.
Dara: The reason the Harlem experimental kind of came together was because his players group dissolved.
Colleen: Why are we talking about him? Tell me more about that lady.
Dara: Ok, so she was a very prolific librarian and one of the reasons that the Harlem Experimental Theatre was so successful in what it did is because it spoke to again, sorry, WEB DuBois's manifesto of theater "By Us, For Us, Near Us".
Colleen: Mm. Mmhm.
Dara: And so this is why it connects to her being a librarian for many, many years, both the KRIGWA players and, uh, the Harlem Experimental Theatre performed in the basement of the 135th street branch of the New York Public library. [00:04:00]
Colleen: Oooh
Dara: And guess who garnered that deal? Now-
Colleen: Regina Anderson Andrews. (singing )
Dara: Yes, and so Regina-
Colleen: It's all coming together.
Dara: Regina wasn't a, uh, like upper division librarian yet, because by the end of her career, she was a branch head.
Colleen: Wow.
Dara: But yeah. So she didn't actually like facilitate the deal, but she brought it up to her higher ups and they like approved it. So this, this library branch fulfilled "Near Us" portion of "By Us, For Us, Near Us".
Colleen: Oh yay
Dara: And the most important part about the "Near Us" piece is even during the Great Depression admission to the theater was like a nickel, or free.
Colleen: Wow.
Dara: So most of the time-
Colleen: Ugh, I wish theater was a nickel still.
Dara: I know, I know. But so most of the time the admission to the theater was free providing a space, not only for theatrical performance, but community.
And I think that speaks a lot to what Anders- Anderson Andrews', uh, her lifelong goal working as a librarian as well. [00:05:00] Because she found like created and fostered these like community spaces for black people and black artists. The theater was not her only achievement. Like she was a black librarian in a time when the census like said there was less than a hundred black librarians in the entire US.
Colleen: Yeah. Not even that, but like, oh, being a woman employed in the, wha- you said the thirties?
Dara: She got the job before the depression.
Colleen: So the teens?
Dara: Yeah.
Colleen: I mean, that's just like amazing that she was a woman and like, she ran all of these things and she had a job and she was a black woman. Like, that's just like, that's so many achievements and in itself.
Dara: So interesting-
Colleen: Wow.
Dara: She was mixed. So. Um, she helped. I think that was part of why the Harlem Experimental Theater produced plays by black and white playwrights because WEB DuBois wanted to focus more on black plays entirely, but the established [00:06:00] plays of the time by white, people didn't have roles for black, like quote unquote didn't have roles for black people. Right.
Colleen: Right
Dara: Cause minstrel, minstrelsy was what was happening on Broadway.
Colleen: Right.
Dara: But white actors portraying the black characters in black face.
Colleen: Yeah.
Dara: So-
Colleen: Problematic.
Dara: Yeah. Um, but the, by putting on these white plays, quote-unquote white plays with black actors in the title roles they're kind of sub- subverting that and making a home, making a place for black actors, even if it wasn't like their regulated role in society.
Colleen: Yeah.
Dara: And she facilitated that and she's really cool. And all of her achievements get assigned to WEB DuBois.
Colleen: Yeah. I mean, it's even hard to talk about her without talking about him because their history is so inter mingled and like, it's, you know, you said there was only one book about her. And so it's just like, oh, that's so crazy that she was overlooked and she played such an integral [00:07:00] part in creating- like equitable theater.
Dara: Yeah. And-
Colleen: Or just like available theater.
Dara: Yeah. And she's seen sort of a revival in academia, there's a lot of people now focusing on telling her story or studying her connections to the Harlem Renaissance and like how she sort of fostered this whole community of artists. But that's only recently. And I don't think any of her plays have been performed in many, many years.
Colleen: Are they even published any of them?
Dara: Yeah.
Colleen: Okay.
Dara: They're published. Climbing Jacob's ladder is her most famous one so-
Colleen: A very accomplished lady to say the least.
Dara: Yeah.
Colleen: And an overlooked under studied,
Dara: Good one
Colleen: and producer and-
Dara: Librarian
Colleen: and community foster.
Dara: Yes. So you may be wondering why are we talking about her?
Colleen: Yeah. Why are we talking about her?
Dara: We are talking about her because it [00:08:00] is important to recognize the achievements of women who have been left out of history.
Colleen: Yeah.
Dara: And her plays could see new light today and she could receive new recognition and be appreciated even after her death.
Colleen: Yeah.
Dara: For her contributions to society. And why recognizing the diversity in our history is important because the diversity in our history is not just something in our past, but like something in the present too. So there is this list published every year called the Kilroys. Okay. Hold on. I'm going to just read this off the website.
The co the list includes the results of our annual industry survey of excellent new plays by women trans and non binary playwrights. It is a tool for producers committed to ending the systematic, the systemic. Okay. It is, it is a tool for producers committed to ending the systemic under-representation of women trans and non-binary playwrights in the American theater.
[00:09:00] So it's this collective that publishes a list every year. And they do really amazing work in representing women trans and nonbinary playwrights, which are voices that we need more of in the theater. So, so bad,
So badly, oh my god.
So, so badly. But this is to prove that people, those kinds of people are writing those plays.
But-
Colleen: Yeah and they're overlooked.
Dara: They're just not, they're just not getting produced.
Colleen: Yeah. And like history is happening now. Right? So what we do now and what we recognize now will go down later as history and what we cared about. And so let's have it not be white American man theater anymore.
Dara: Yes
Colleen: Just that,
Dara: Yes.
Colleen: I want more.
Dara: I do too
Colleen: I want it all.
Dara: Yes. And we need more playwrights in general, I think.
Colleen: And producers. I think it's important too, that she was a producer. Um, Because [00:10:00] that's something that's also overlooked. I feel in theater, um, is the role that the producers play in like the quality, not even the quality, but just like in, in-
Dara: Season selection.
Colleen: Yeah. And in theater and like who, whose voice gets heard. And so I dunno, it's important that, that she was a successful producer in addition to being a playwright. And a community builder.
Dara: Yeah. I agree that it is important to recognize her achievements is not only a playwright, but a community builder.
And I hope that her story inspires- her story in addition to the work of the Kilroys inspires a new generation of people. Yeah, that'd be cool. That would be cool.
Thank you so much for listening to this little review of the history of Regina Anderson Andrews. This was only a smidgen of the work that she's done.
If you would like to do for the reading in [00:11:00] the show notes of this episode, I'll be posting my bibliography for the research. That I did to prepare for this. And I highly recommend you check out what you can because so many people, well, some people have written some really great articles about her, about re Regina Anderson Andrews.
And I would like to call out again, Ethylene Whitmire's biography, of Regina Anderson Andrews. Then Catherine Wilson's article about "Theater Near Us: Librarians, Culture and Space in the Harlem Renaissance", which was really excellent to discuss her community work. Oh, and Adrianne Mackey's, uh, Adrianne Mackey's "Reconstructing Community and Identity, Harlem Experimental Theater and Social Protest", which is very interesting as well.
(transition music)
Thank you so much for listening and I hope you learned something today.
Colleen: I certainly did. I definitely think my vast pool is filled a little bit.
Dara: Well, I hope it's not filled all the way [00:12:00] cause we still have more episodes.
Colleen: Yay. There is room to spare.
(outro music)
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