Interrogating America through Theatre and Performance PDF Download

Author: Iris Smith Fischer
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230100783
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This collection of essays dissects American plays, movies and other performance types that examine America and its history and culture. From Amerindian stage performances to AIDS and post-9/11 America, it displays the various and important ways theatre and performance studies have examined and conversed with American culture and history.

Author: William W. Demastes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
An examination of American history and culture through the lens of theatre and performance.

Author: Anne Fletcher
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 080938681X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Rediscovering Mordecai Gorelik explores the life and work of the pioneering scene designer whose career spanned decades in American theatre. Anne Fletcher’s insightful volume draws intriguing parallels and contrasts between Gorelik’s productions and the theatrical movements of the twentieth century, exposing the indelible mark he left on the stage. Through in-depth analysis of his letters, diaries, designs, and theoretical works, Fletcher examines the ways in which Gorelik’s productions can be used as a mirror to reflect the shifting dramatic landscapes of his times. Fletcher places Gorelik against the colorful historical backdrops that surrounded him—including the avant-garde movement of the 1920s, World War II, the Cold War, and absurdism—using the designer’s career as a window into the theatre during these eras. Within these cultural contexts, Gorelik sought to blaze his own unconventional path through the realms of theatre and theory. Fletcher traces Gorelik’s tenures with such companies as the Provincetown Players, the Theatre Guild, and the Theatre Union, as well as his relationships with icons such as Bertolt Brecht, revealing how his interactions with others influenced his progressive designs and thus set the stage for major dramatic innovations. In particular, Fletcher explores Gorelik’s use of scenic metaphor: the employment of stage design techniques to subtly enhance the tone or mood of a production. Fletcher also details the designer’s written contributions to criticism and theory, including the influential volume New Theatres for Old, as well as other articles and publications. In addition to thorough examinations of several of Gorelik’s most famous projects, Rediscovering Mordecai Gorelik contains explications of productions by such legends as John Howard Lawson, Clifford Odets, and Arthur Miller. Also included are numerous full-color and black-and-white illustrations of Gorelik’s work, most of which have never been available to the public until now. More than simply a portrait of one man, this indispensable volume is a cultural history of American theatre as seen through the career of a visionary designer and theoretician.

Author: Siddhartha Biswas
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527502600
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
Over the last few centuries, the world as we know it has seen remarkable change and the arts – including theatre – have faced new challenges. Theatre is now no longer a simple point of entertainment laced with instruction or dissent, but is perceived as a more collaborative idea that looks at ever-changing paradigms. All over the world, theatre now is a dynamic process that simultaneously retains tradition and delves into extreme experimentations. This book represents a starting point for a much-needed critical interrogation. It looks at the constant features of European theatre and brings in some Indian elements, positing both in their respective locations, as well as looking at the symbiosis that has been functioning for some time.

Author: Emily Klein
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030015815
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This anthology explores how theatre and performance use home as the prism through which we reconcile shifts in national, cultural, and personal identity. Whether examining parlor dramas and kitchen sink realism, site-specific theatre, travelling tent shows, domestic labor, border performances, fences, or front yards, these essays demonstrate how dreams of home are enmeshed with notions of neighborhood, community, politics, and memory. Recognizing the family home as a symbolic space that extends far beyond its walls, the nine contributors to this collection study diverse English-language performances from the US, Ireland, and Canada. These scholars of theatre history, dramaturgy, performance, cultural studies, feminist and gender studies, and critical race studies also consider the value of home at a time increasingly defined by crises of homelessness — a moment when major cities face affordable housing shortages, when debates about homeland and citizenship have dominated international elections, and when conflicts and natural disasters have displaced millions. Global struggles over immigration, sanctuary, refugee status and migrant labor make the stakes of home and homelessness ever more urgent and visible, as this timely collection reveals.

Author: B. Witham
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137121858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Begun as an audacious experiment, for thirty years the Hedgerow Theatre prospered as America's most successful repertory company. While known for its famous alumnae (Ann Harding and Richard Basehart), Hedgerow's legacy is a living library of over 200 productions created by Jasper Deeter's idealistic and determined pursuit of 'truth and beauty.'

Author: Manon van de Water
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137056657
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
There is a complex relationship between performance, youth, and the shifting material circumstances (social, cultural, economic, ideological, and political) under which theatre for children and youth is generated and perceived. This book explores different aspect of theatre for young audiences using examples from theatrical events globally.

Author: M. Chemers
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023061681X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Staging Stigma is a captivating excursion into the bizarre world of the American freak show. Chemers critically examines several key moments of a performance tradition in which the truth is often stranger than the fiction. Grounded in meticulous historical research and cultural criticism, Chemers analysis reveals untold stories of freaks that will change the way we understand both performance and disability in America. This book is a must-have for serious students of freakery or anyone who is curious about the hidden side of American theatrical history.

Author: David Carlyon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 113754743X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
2017 Freedley Award Finalist, Theatre Library Association 2016 Best Circus Book of the Year, Stuart Thayer Prize, Circus Historical Society The 1960s American hippie-clown boom fostered many creative impulses, including neo-vaudeville and Ringling's Clown College. However, the origin of that impulse, clowning with a circus, has largely gone unexamined. David Carlyon, through an autoethnographic examination of his own experiences in clowning, offers a close reading of the education of a professional circus clown, woven through an eye-opening, sometimes funny, occasionally poignant look at circus life. Layering critical reflections of personal experience with connections to wider scholarship, Carlyon focuses on the work of clowning while interrogating what clowns actually do, rather than using them as stand-ins for conceptual ideas or as sentimental figures.

Author: S. Liu
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137306114
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
In Shanghai in the early twentieth century, a hybrid theatrical form, wenmingxi, emerged that was based on Western spoken theatre, classical Chinese theatre, and a Japanese hybrid form known as shinpa. This book places it in the context of its hybridized literary and performance elements, giving it a definitive place in modern Chinese theatre.