Radical Acts: Collected Political Plays

Author: Martin Duberman Publisher: The New Press (2008) Best known for his acclaimed biographies of Paul Robeson and Lincoln Kirstein and his provocative books about the gay rights movement, Martin Duberman has also had a long-standing involvement with the theater that began early in his career, when his drama criticism appeared in the Partisan Review and Harper's. This volume includes four plays: In White America, about the black struggle for freedom and human rights, which became a smash hit and was named the 1963 Best Off-Broadway production of the year; Mother Earth, which brings to vivid life Emma Goldman, one of the twentieth century's most famous revolutionaries; Posing Naked, the heartbreaking story of Smith College professor Newton Arvin, the most prominent (closeted) gay literary critic of his day; and Visions of Kerouac, which captures the beat era—from Kerouac's ambition-filled early years, crisscrossing the country with pals like Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, to