Bringing Phillis to Life (MHS)

Phillis in London, a new play written by Ade Solanke, dramatizes and re-imagines Phillis Wheatley’s experience of being an enslaved African woman writer abroad in London in 1773. She was “celebrated” by the elite of the British empire, despite visiting at the height of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Phillis Wheatley, who published the first book by an African-American woman, has recently been the subject of plays and artistic renderings. Ade will read an excerpt from the new play and consider, in conversation with scholars David Waldstreicher and Tara Bynam, the legacy of Wheatley and how artists have chosen to portray the writer.