Inquiries about power and relationships are at the core of this thesis. This research investigates the role of the trope of the narrating Chorus of Black women in American musical theater as written and as performed. Through the Chorus, it elucidates the relationship among race, gender, and narrative power in performance. How can the Chorus possess the most narrative power and foresight with the least amount of individuality and agency? What is the relationship between the audience and the Chorus? How did the Chorus of three Black women become a trope in American musical theater, and what does it reveal about the relationship among gender, race, and narrative power in American culture and society? This research interrogates this trope through a close reading of the musical Little Shop of Horrors (1982) and a practice-based approach to Whitney White’s Macbeth in Stride (2024). Through an analysis of the libretto and directing Macbeth in Stride, this project underscores White’s subversion of the Chorus. Through casting choices, conversations in the rehearsal room with actors, and design decisions that embody themes of the show, this thesis pairs knowledge of the Chorus with theaterpractice.

This essay explores how Black queer identities disrupt, reimagine, and expand Black Futurist visions through sartorial expression. This thesis interrogates fashion as a site of radical possibility, where garments become tools for decolonizing time, space, and embodiment. By centering queer Black narratives often marginalized in Afrofuturist discourse, this project maps a fugitive fashion imaginary: one that refuses to separate Black Futurism with is queer subtexts. Through interdisciplinary methods, from historical and visual analysis to entering the makerspace, this essay reveals how the interplay of theme, fabric, silhouette, and adornment queers futurism itself, offering a blueprint for worlds where Black queer life and representation thrives unbounded through Black Futurism.

Keywords: Black, Diaspora, Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, Black Futurism, Queer, Fashion, Traditionality, Futurity