Dr. Jonathan Shandell, associate professor of Theater Arts at Arcadia University, appeared June 3 on the podcast “Adventures in Theater History: Philadelphia.” On this episode of the podcast, Philadelphia theater historian Peter Schmitz leads a conversation inspired by Dr. Shandell’s article, “Caricatured, Marginalized, and Erased: African American Artists and Philadelphia’s Negro Unit of the FTP, 1936–1939,” recently published in the journal Theatre History Studies. 

Also part of the conversation was theater director and puppeteer, and Philadelphia native, Jerrell Henderson. The discussion focused on African American theater history in Philadelphia but also touched on a more wide-ranging analysis of African American culture throughout the nation’s history. 

Dr. Shandell’s scholarship focuses on issues of race and integration on the American stage of the mid-20th century. He is the author of The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era (University of Iowa Press, 2019) and co-editor of the anthology Experiments in Democracy: Interracial and Cross-Cultural Exchange in American Theatre, 1912-1945 (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016).