Playwrights Ade Solanke and May Sumbwanyambe in Conversation: Putting Black Historical Experience Centre Stage
University of St Andrews
Thursday 26 October, 1-2pm
Join two major playwrights for a discussion of dramatizing Black experience in eighteenth-century Britain.
Adeola Solanke’s play, Phillis in London, dramatizes the experiences of Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American to publish a book of poetry in English, as she was feted by literary and political elite when she came to oversee its printing in London in 1773. May Sumbwanyambe’s play Enough of Him recreated the personal and emotional lives of Joseph Knight, Annie Thomson, and John and Margaret Wedderburn in the run-up to the legal case that ruled that slavery was not recognised and could not be enforced in Scotland.
Listen to these playwrights discuss the challenges and opportunities afforded by their subjects, and join the conversation in a Q&A session.
