The Amen Corner

The Amen Corner is James Baldwin’s ode to the Black Church. The play (not to be confused with Amen Corner, the musical adaptation of the play) tells the simple story of Sister Margaret Alexander, who for years has inspired her congregation with a mixture of personal charisma and ferocious piety. But when Margaret’s estranged husband returns, she is in danger of losing her standing in the church and the son she has tried to keep on the godly path. For his first work for the theater James Baldwin brought the fervor and majestic rhetoric of the storefront churches of his childhood along with an unwavering awareness of the price those churches exacted from their worshipers.

“A scalding, uplifting, sorrowful and exultant masterpiece of the modern American theater” — Vintage International