SASSY MAMAS at The Wittliff celebrate famed Texas playwright
Staff Contributor | February 10, 2023
The Wittliff Collections celebrates the brand-new book in its literary series, Sassy Mamas and Other Plays, with a special exhibition highlighting the acclaimed Houston playwright Celeste Bedford Walker.
One of Texas’s major literary figures, Walker has authored more than forty stage plays that include bawdy comedies, searing historical dramas, a murder mystery and more. She has won numerous national awards and in 2022 she became the first African American writer to win the highest literary honor in Texas, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters.
“Celeste Bedford Walker is a Texas treasure,” says Wittliff Collections Literary Curator Steve Davis. “We are proud that her literary papers are at The Wittliff and we are thrilled to publish this important new collection of her work with our partners at Texas A&M University Press.”
Walker began donating her literary papers to the Wittliff Collections in 2017, including her original manuscripts, vintage playbills, production photos, correspondence, and many more treasures. This new exhibition at The Wittliff showcases several jewels from her archive, offering a window into the rich creative life of this dynamic author.
“The Wittliff Collections represents the foremost authority in Texas and indeed the nation in recognizing and preserving the artistic culture of Texas,” said Walker. “To be included in this Collection puts my efforts in context and secures my place in Texas literature along with so many great writers that I have long admired.”
The newly published collection of Walker’s selected plays includes her hit romantic comedy, Sassy Mamas as well as her classic historical drama, Camp Logan, based on actual events in Houston during World War I. Rounding out the collection is her comedic murder mystery, Reunion at Bartersville, her poignant dramatization of the deadly Tulsa riots of 1921, Greenwood: An American Dream Destroyed, and her inspiring communal historical pageant, Distant Voices.
Sassy Mamas and Other Plays includes an introduction by Dr. Sandra Mayo, a leading authority on African American theatre and a Professor Emeritus at Texas State. Mayo writes: “With authentic dialogue and captivating storytelling filled with humor and pathos, Celeste Bedford Walker's dazzling plays bring to life the rich history and experiences of African Americans in Texas and beyond.”
Walker observes that many of her plays arose from her experiences growing up in Houston. “I do like to write nonstereotypical characters,” she said, “the authentic Black experience as I see it. I want to show Blacks, faithful, loving, humorous, ambitious, striving, happy, sad, as human beings, as we all are."
“As a Black female writer my creative journey for the past fifty years has unwittingly chronicled the history of the Black American experience, and indeed the nation, from the civil rights movement to feminism to changes in the family and political landscapes and back to civil rights again.”
Nationally, Walker has received the August Wilson Playwriting Award, multiple NAACP Image Awards, New York’s AUDELCO Award, and she was a finalist for the international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for outstanding work by a female playwright. The New York Times has described her plays as “vigorous social satire” and “an uproariously good time.” The Washington Post has lauded her as “a textbook example of how to simultaneously entertain and educate an audience.”
In presenting Walker with the Lifetime Achievement Award, Texas Institute of Letters President Sergio Troncoso praised her “expertly crafted plays,” adding, “She is a stellar writer…who has written dozens of plays that open up your heart and soul, that stay with you long after you have left the theater, and that often pursue a sense of social justice with humor as well as gut-wrenching testimony."
Sassy Mamas and Other Plays is published by Texas A&M University Press in its Wittliff Collections Literary Series. Copies are available for purchase at The Wittliff, located on the 7th Floor of the Albert B. Alkek Library, and wherever fine books are sold. The exhibition from Walker’s archive will be on view through the spring semester.
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For more information, contact University Communications:Jayme Blaschke, 512-245-2555 Sandy Pantlik, 512-245-2922 |