Es-pranza Humphrey, "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen" (Poster House Museum, 2026)

Es-pranza Humphrey, "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen" (Poster House Museum, 2026)

From New Books in Museum Studies by New Books Network

May 12, 2026 · 55 min

About this episode

Es-pranza Humphrey discusses the significance of advertising posters in representing Black American theatrical performances from the 1870s to the 1940s.

Starting in the 1880s, Black performers, and those invested in telling stories centering Black people, attempted to counter the dehumanizing and harmful stereotypes used to portray Black characters. Shows began touting “All Colored Revues” to indicate that a cast was made up of actual Black performers rather than white people in blackface, and that these spectacles aimed to build stories around the perception of Black experiences. Although these performances were sometimes flawed, and even overly prejudiced, they represented a significant form of Black American cultural development and expression. Since theatrical performances were rarely recorded, and many of the movies that featured all Black casts are now considered “lost films,” films for which no copy is known to survive, advertising posters often provide the only remaining evidence of the most important productions featuring Black performers between the 1870s and 1940s. These posters, and the historic innovations of playwrights, composers, directors, producers, and the Black performers behind them, are the subjects of the exhibition, Act Black: Posters From Black American Stage and Screen, curated by our guest for this…

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