Ed Bullins (born July 2, 1935 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an African-American playwright.One of the best known playwrights to come from the Black Arts Movement. He was also the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers (a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization from 1966 until 1982).He has won numerous awards, including the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and several Obie Awards

1. A tragifantasy

2. Ed Bullins Profile
 Ed Bullins (born July 2, 1935 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an
African-American playwright.
 One of the best known playwrights to
come from the Black Arts Movement.
 He was also the Minister of Culture
for the Black Panthers (a
revolutionary black nationalist and
socialist organization from 1966
until 1982).
 He has won numerous awards,
including the New York Drama
Critics' Circle Award and several Obie
Awards
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by The Village Voice newspaper to
theatre artists and groups in New York City. the Obie Awards cover Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions.

3. Ed Bullins Profile
 His parents were Bertha Marie Queen
and Edward Bullins. He was raised
primarily by his mother.
 As a child he attended
predominantly white schools and
became involved with gangs.
 He attended Franklin High School,
where he was stabbed in a gang-
related incident.
 Shortly thereafter, he quit high
school and joined the navy. During
this period he won a boxing
championship and started reading.
 He returned to Philadelphia and
enrolled in night school.

4. Ed Bullins Profile
 He went to Los Angeles leaving
behind a wife and children.
 After receiving his G.E.D., he
enrolled in Los Angeles City
College and he began writing
short stories for the Citadel, a
magazine he created.
 In 1964, he went to San
Francisco and joined the creative
writing program at San Francisco
State College.
 His first play was How do You
Do, immediately followed
by Clara's Ole Man and Dialect
Determinism.
G.E.D.: The Test are a group of five subject tests which, when passed, certify that the test taker
has American or Canadian high school-level academic skills.

5.  After seeing Amiri Baraka's play Dutchman,
Bullins felt that Baraka's artistic purpose
was similar to his own.
 As a result, he joined Baraka at "Black
House", BAM's cultural center, which
included Sonia Sanchez, Huey Newton,
poet Marvin X, and others.
 The Black House strongly believed in the
concept of "Protest Theatre".
 The Black Panthers used Black House as
their base in San Francisco, which briefly
allowed Bullins to be their Minister of
Culture.
 Eventually, Black House found itself split
into two factions. One group considered
art to be a weapon and advocated joining
with whites to achieve political ends.
 The other group saw art as a form of
cultural nationalism and didn't want to
work with whites. Bullins was a part of the
latter group.
From left to right: Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African-American political and
urban activist. Sonia Sanchez (born Wilsonia Benita Driver, September 9, 1934) is an African-American poet most often
associated with the Black Arts Movement.

6.  The Lafayette Theatre, also known as
"the House Beautiful," was an
entertainment venue.
 plays from white theater repertory
and in the classics.
 The theater seated 2,000 and
presented such Broadway hits
as Madame X and Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
 From 1916-1919, drew large
audiences of both blacks and whites
with his sophisticated productions
and groundbreaking work with black
actors.
 The Lafayette Theatre reached the
height of its fame with the
"Voodoo Macbeth", a production
of Shakespeare's Macbeth. This
production came to be known as the
"Voodoo Macbeth" because of the
various African elements employed in
it
 Robert Macbeth read Bullins' plays
and asked him to join the New
Lafayette Players, a newly formed
theatrical group located in Harlem.
 The first plays they performed were a
trilogy called The Electronic Nigger
and Others(later changed to Ed
Bullins Plays for what the playwright
acknowledged were "financial
reasons“
 The three plays earned Bullins
a Drama Desk Award for 1968.
Bullins stayed with the Lafayette
Players until 1972 when they had to
fold due to a lack of funds.
 During his stay ten of his plays were
produced by the Players including In
the Wine Time and Goin A Buffalo.

7.  In 1973 he was an in-residence playwright for
the American Place Theatre.
 From 1975-1983, he was on staff at the New York
Shakespeare Festival at the Public Theater Writers'
Unit.
 During that time Bullins wrote two children's
plays I am Lucy Terry and The Mystery of Phillis
Wheatley.
 He returned to school and received a bachelor's
degree in English and Playwriting from Antioch
University in San Francisco.
 In 1995, he became a professor at Northeastern
University, where is currently a distinguished
Artist-in-Residence.
 He also tried his hand at short stories and novels,
including The Hungered One and The Reluctant
Rapist. The latter features a sort of twin or alter
ego of Bullins named Steve Benson, who is
featured in many of Bullins' works
 Many critics saw his early works in a favorable
light, but many thought they were too violent and
depicted African-Americans in a negative way.
 One issue was whether or not black writers should
challenge revolutionary activity without providing
alternative directions and resolutions.
 Several black critics rallied to defend Bullins and
attacked white critics for using "white" notions of
good drama to evaluate black art.
 He received an Obie Award for distinguished
playwriting for The Taking of Miss Janie, which
also received a New York Drama Critics Circle
Award and twice received the Black Arts Alliance
Award (for The Fabulous Miss Marie and In the
New England Winter).
 Bullins won the Guggenheim Fellowship for
playwriting.
 In 1975, he won the Drama Desk-Vernon Rice
Award, an Obie forThe Taking of Miss Janie.
 Four Rockefeller Foundation playwriting grants,
and two National Endowment for the
Arts playwriting grants.
 He received the 2012 Theatre Communications
Group Visionary Leadership Award.
The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan The first full
production was The Old Glory, a trilogy of three one-acts by the poet Robert Lowell, produced in November 1964. The
play would go on to win five Obie Awards the following year, including "Best American Play."

8.  The play was written in 1966 within the context of
Buffalo's Second Great Migration, a movement that gives
richer meaning to the characters' struggles.
 Buffalo, New York, a city with a reputation for failed
dreams, bears a cultural heritage that has shaped the
thinking and representations of generations of African
Americans.
 “Despite the optimism felt by those coming to the city,
Buffalo was to be no panacea for African Americans
seeking to leave their troubles behind. In his study of
African Americans in Buffalo since 1940, Henry Louis
Taylor Jr. found that black citizens have borne the highest
unemployment rate, held the least-desirable jobs, and
received the lowest wages in the city” (V. Anderson, 2010)

9.  Like other African Americans around the country during the
Second Great Migration, thecharacters in Goin' a Buffalo dream of
starting over, albeit dealing drugs, in a new town:
 “Curt: [lights cigarette and inhales fiercely. Drops head. Two beat
pause. In strained voice,holding smoke back] We're makin' it to
Buffalo, man. You hip to Buffalo?
 Art: No, I don't think so ... Curt [takes another drag] It's a good
little hustlin' town, I hear....
 “Although Bullins may be suggesting that his characters—indeed,
the entire wave of migrating African Americans—were deceiving
themselves by dreaming of a better life in Buffalo, rich and
complex tension is found in the positive historical formation of
community with strangers from disparate places, an experience
at the root of African American history” (V Anderson, 2010).

10.  Pandora: [receiving cigarette from Curt] It's
supposed to be a good link town. A different
scene entirely...
 Mama: Any place is better than L.A. but I heard
that Buffalo is really boss.
 Pandora: It sho is, baby”.
 By sucking on cigarettes, the characters
demonstrate how Bullins employs theatrical
signification to suggest their literal and figurative
suffocation in smog-drenched Los Angeles.
Buffalo represents a breath of fresh air.

11.  Ed Bullins’ Goin’ a Buffalo could fit under the
Greek rubric, but never mind about that. The
play’s the thing. The ancient and archetypal
nature of its characters’ struggles soon becomes
visible beneath the surface detail and period
setting.
 The particularity of these sordid lives in post-
Watts riot Los Angeles matters — but we could
find similar lives today in east Durham, or
southeast Raleigh, or even in certain corners of
northside Chape.

12. The Watts riots (or Watts rebellion) was a race riot that took place in the Watts neighborhood of
Los Angeles, California, from August 11 to 17, 1965. The six days of racially-fueled violence and
unrest resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests, and over $40 million in property
damage. It was the most severe riot in the city's history until the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and is
considered by many to be a key turning point in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

13.  Read or seen outside of its historical context, Ed
Bullins's Goin' a Buffalo may appear to be an
existential drama in which a group of hustlers
and prostitutes yearn to leave one
disenfranchised city to seek impossible success
in another.
 Small-time scammers; casual murderers; unpaid
musicians, cheating club owners, and brutal
bouncers; dealers, junkies, pimps, strippers, and
streetwalkers — some things are universal.
 In the play, Characters represent types; but we
care less for their symbolism, than for their
suffering, struggling, scheming humanity.

14.  Bullins gives his black characters a lot more to work with, and the strong cast makes us
sympathetic to their flaws. They just want to escape their roach-hole lives and their
criminal records and get as far away as possible, and plan to finance it with one last big
deal in L.A. before hitting the road.
 Curt: 29 years old, the slick confidence man,
trying to run a fresh new game. Also, pimp
of his wife, Pandora.
 Rich: 28 years old, close friend of Curt. The
only character who trusts no one. He ain’t
going to no Buffalo. But Rich has no dreams,
either; just a determination to survive.

15.  Pandora: 22 years old. Curt’s wife, a fancy lady.
She keeps house’s needs on her own mostly by
prostitution. She often complains about Curt’s
ignorence and carelessness on house needs and
payments.
 Art: 23 years old. Curt’s friend Art, though,
knows much more about the world. Art and Curt
met in jail, where Art saved Curt’s life in a brawl,
and earned instant trust. Without giving away the
twists of the plot, it is to say that the sad
message of the play is that there is nothing more
dangerous than trust.

16.  Mama Too Tight: A pitiful, weak character the
author appears to despise. She is also a fancy
woman. She is only one who is a white among
major characters.
 “Art: You named yourself mama too...
 Mama:No! It just happened. I don’t know
how. I just woke up one day with my name
that way... And I like it that way... It’s me!
[turning towards Art] Don’t you think it fits,
honey?
 Art: I think it really does”.

17.  Shaky: 36 years old. Mama Too Tight’s man and
pimp. The heroin dealer. Curt’s mate in an
intended drug business in Buffalo, L.A.
 There are also minor characters: Piano player,
bass player, drummer, bartender, Deeny,
bouncer, customers, showgirl and voice.
 As we said previous slides, these characters well
represent “unpaid black artist” and “cheating club
owner” and “brutal bouncers” potray.

18.  In Goin’a Buffalo, Bullins questions the meaning of
love and loyalty. The characters are essentially alone
and in search of the one person that they can trust.
 “Curt: [to Rich] if it wasn’t for Art here I wouldn’t be
sittin’ here.
 Rich: [bored] Yeah?”
 However, they are often unaware of the consequences
of their actions. Bullins explores the contradictions
between the promise of the American Dream and the
reality of the lives of black Americans. He focuses on
the efforts of street people to transcend the brutally
harsh realities of their existence.

19.  The American Dream is what you would consider a perfect
life. It can be full of happiness, money, love, food, cars,
whatever you desire; everyone has a different opinion.
 Curt states in Act I Scene III to Art: Yeah. We want to make
some money, Art, so we can get out of this hole. We’re
making it to Buffalo, man. You hip to Buffalo?
 Curt believes his success from The American Dream's
standpoint is characterized by his boastful attitude to the
others.
 Curt: [...] You see, I’m a good thief. I take money by my
wits... Ya know, with a pen or by talkin’ some sucker out of
it.

20.  Love and enviousness is also a factor in the American
Dream and was demonstrated by Art’s conversation
with Curt at the street club. Art believes that Curt
does not understand how good of a girl he has and
envies him. Art does have a weakness for lusting over
other men’s girls but does not keep it a secret.
 Art says to Curt: Pandora’s a beautiful girl, Curt.
You’re lucky, man, to have her. I envy you.
 Man's instinctive mind is stained by the filth of evil
instinct enviousness. It is responsible for causing
more sufferings and miseries to characters than any
other issue.

21.  As the play unfolds Curt is portrayed as a man of feeling pain and resentfulness in
the respects of the unemployment. Thus, Bullins also treat position of woman in
black society through mutual relationships, if not a family.
 “Curt: Shut up, bitch... You talk too much!
 Pandora: [rising anger] why shouldn’t I when you bring some squareall little...
[Curt slaps her; she jumps to her feet and spins to claw him but Curt lunges
forward and slaps her again [...].
 Art: Don’t hit her anymore, Curt
 Curt: [Incredulous] What? ... Man, are you payin’ this woman’s bills... Have you got
any papers on her?
 Pandora: [To Curt] Are you payin’ my bills, mathafukker?
 Curt: [Rising to attack Pandora; Art blocks his way] I’ve told you to keep your
mouth....”

22.  In the end of the play, most probably, Art sneaks, informing cops agains
Curt and Shaky breaking the trust of Curt and promises. Art well
represents black male primitivism toward woman:

Pandora: [...] We got to do somethin’! [Crying] We can’t just let it happen
to them... We got to do somethin’ like Curt would do if one of us... Art!
Art! Don’t just stand there! Do..
[ He slaps her viciously, knocking off her glasses, exposing her black
ened eyes]
 Art: [Commanding] Get a hold on yourself, Pandora. You’ve had a bad
experince. Now listen to me. Mama has gone over to her place to pack
and as soon as she gets back we’re all leaving.
 [...]
 Pandora: But... Art... Packed... Where we goin’?
 Art: To buffalo, baby. Where else?

23.  American Dream in Ed Bullins' Goin'a Buffalo. (1969,
December 31). In DirectEssays.com. Retrieved 15:33,
December 23, 2014, from
http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/11229.html
 Anderson, Virginia. "" You Hip to Buffalo?" The Hidden
Heritage of Black Theatre in Western New York." (2010):
102-121.
 "Bullins, Ed (1935- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and
Reclaimed". The Black Past. 2007-10-20. Retrieved2011-
03-02.
 "Ed Bullins: Ed Bullins, University of Michigan Press".
Press.umich.edu. Retrieved 2011-03-02.