Post-Show Discussion Activity

Use these questions to reflect, discuss, or journal about your experience and reactions to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Explore any of the questions that interest you.

If engaging in this activity independently, consider taking notes or writing your reflections down. If engaging in this activity with a class or group, decide if you would like to answer every question in order, skip around, or select certain questions to spend time on.

Discussion Questions

1. Is Ma Rainey a feminist character? Why or why not?
2. Power plays a big role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Who really has the power at each point in the play, and how do they get it? What “power plays” are made throughout the story, and which are successful?
3. Ma believes that only Black people understand the blues. Is this true? Why or why not? 
4. Some stories told by characters like Levee, Slow Drag, and Toledo do not drive forward the plot of the play. What role do these stories play in the show? 
5. As Cutler and Levee fight about religion, Levee says that God is the white man’s God, and God never cared about a Black man. How do these views of religion reveal these two characters’ perspectives on life? 
6. Music is used as a way to encapsulate the culture and a time period in the play. When in your life has music soundtracked a critical period or experience? What kind of songs spoke to that time for you? 
7. How does Levee’s family—the brutalization of his mother and his father’s revenge and subsequent murder—inform his perspective and behaviors?

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• This activity aligns with the following standards:
  • Illinois Arts Learning Standards 
    • Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
    • Anchor Standard 8: Construct meaningful interpretations of artistic work.
    • Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
  • Common Core State Standards 
    • CCSS.ELA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
    • CCSS.ELA.RL.3  Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Posted on November 5, 2025 in Learning Guides, Productions