The Haitian Chronicles—Douglas Turner Ward

Influential and ground-breaking playwright, Douglas Turner Ward (1930-2021), was one of the central, driving forces of the Black Theater movement in the United States. The Haitian Chronicles is Ward's graphic and brutal history of the Haitian Revolution. It is his final work and his first play to be published in several decades. Though much of Ward's earlier work had been short one-act satires, The Haitian Chronicles takes place across three long dramas: The Rise of Toussaint, The Fall of Toussaint and the one-man drama, Dessalines. The plays are an example of Ward's political commitment to satirizing, dramatizing, and revealing the structures of white supremacy throughout the history of so-called "civilization." The Haitian Chronicles is a self-consciously ambitious work of astounding narrative and theatrical scope, featuring over 80 speaking roles and logistically demanding production design. Ward first became immersed in radical politics in Harlem, after moving to New York in 1948