Interrogating America through Theatre and Performance

Interrogating America through Theatre and Performance
Author: Iris Smith Fischer
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2016-04-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0230100783

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.

Memory in Play

Memory in Play
Author: A. Favorini
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2008-12-08
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0230617166

This innovative study examines the role of memory in the history of theatre and drama. Favorini analyzes issues of memory in self-construction, collective memory, the clash of memory and history and even explores what the work of cognitive scientists can teach us about brain function and our response to drama.

Theatre Theory and Performance

Theatre Theory and Performance
Author: Siddhartha Biswas
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2017-08-21
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1527502600

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.

The Oxford Handbook of American Drama

The Oxford Handbook of American Drama
Author: Jeffrey H. Richards
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2014-02
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0199731497

This volume explores the history of American drama from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. It describes origins of early republican drama and its evolution during the pre-war and post-war periods. It traces the emergence of different types of American drama including protest plays, reform drama, political drama, experimental drama, urban plays, feminist drama and realist plays. This volume also analyzes the works of some of the most notable American playwrights including Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller and those written by women dramatists.

Performing Dream Homes

Performing Dream Homes
Author: Emily Klein
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 3030015815

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.

A Sustainable Theatre

A Sustainable Theatre
Author: B. Witham
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2013-06-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137121858

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.'

Theatre, Youth, and Culture

Theatre, Youth, and Culture
Author: Manon van de Water
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-12-23
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1137056657

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.

Staging Stigma

Staging Stigma
Author: M. Chemers
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2016-04-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 023061681X

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.

The Education of a Circus Clown

The Education of a Circus Clown
Author: David Carlyon
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2016-01-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 113754743X

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.