Continuum 2.1 Managing Editor’s Notes
As this issue goes to press, Black Theatre Network is preparing for its annual conference and its participation in the National Black Theatre Festival. The shadow of grief for the victims of the massacre in Charleston hangs over us. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the nine beloved souls that were so shockingly taken from our midst. As theatre and performance artists and scholars we will take up our various tools and craft our responses. We will run toward the trauma, rather than run away from it and make people see and hear and feel and respond. That is one reason why we must have theatre.
The essays in this issue do not address the Charleston massacre, but they do address issues of history, the memory of trauma, of loss, of spirit and spiritual longing, and how the theatre addresses them, illustrating some of the many possibilities the theatre offers. As always, we are grateful to the many hands who labored to put this issue together to bring it to you, particularly our lead editor for this issue, Beth Turner, and the ever essential Hely Perez.
We need your help in getting the word out about Continuum. Please share our web address on your social media along with our calls for papers. Make a special effort to share with interested friends outside to the United States as well as those within our borders. Answer our calls for papers, book and performance reviews, and production photographs. You are what we are made of.
The Black Theatre Network Conference takes place on the cusp of the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina: one glorious week of wall-to-wall Black theatre and talk about Black theatre. Our editors will be there, soaking in as much as we can, and we will try to bring some of its riches to our pages for all to share. But that is in the future. We hope you enjoy this issue.
