JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Published by the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY, supported by American Theater Drama Society. Back to Top Untitled Copy of Untitled Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume 30 Visit Journal Homepage Issue 1 May Irwin Franklin J. Lasik BOOK REVIEW American Musical Theater Eric M. Glover BOOK REVIEW Musical Theatre Books Curtis Russell BOOK REVIEW New York's Yiddish Theater Derek R. Munson BOOK REVIEW Chinese Looks Christine Mok BOOK REVIEW Reclaiming Four Child Actors through Seven Plays in US Theatre, 1794-1800 Jeanne Klein ARTICLE The Illusion of Work: The Con Artist Plays of the Federal Theatre Project Paul Gagliardi ARTICLE On Bow and Exit Music Derek Miller ARTICLE Legitimate: Jerry Douglas's Tubstrip and the Erotic Theatre of Gay Liberation Jordan Schildcrout ARTICLE Issue 2 Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Sharyn Emery BOOK REVIEW Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Eero Laine BOOK REVIEW Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Erin Rachel Kaplan BOOK REVIEW Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director Richard Jones BOOK REVIEW The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Kevin T. Browne BOOK REVIEW Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Kristin Moriah BOOK REVIEW Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Johan Callens, Guest Editor EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Claire Swyzen ARTICLE Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Christophe Collard ARTICLE Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances Ira S. Murfin ARTICLE #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Ellen Gillooly-Kress ARTICLE Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative articles and reviews on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Please refer to our Style Guide for submission information and general formatting guidelines. Send all general queries to the editors at jadtjournal@gmail.com . Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage

Watch Theater of War by Oleh Halaidych at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. Since the first hours of the full-scale Russian aggression, the collective of theatrical workers in Ukraine faces a new reality of war and turns the theater into a shelter for refugees and a center of humanitarian help. Actors, directors, and art managers get new social roles. Amidst the crisis, they live their young lives and find a place for art, joy, and mutual support.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Theater of War At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Oleh Halaidych Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Saturday May 17th at 11am (as part of the Short Film Program) and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country Ukraine Language Ukrainian Running Time 40 minutes Year of Release 2025 About The Film Since the first hours of the full-scale Russian aggression, the collective of theatrical workers in Ukraine faces a new reality of war and turns the theater into a shelter for refugees and a center of humanitarian help. Actors, directors, and art managers get new social roles. Amidst the crisis, they live their young lives and find a place for art, joy, and mutual support. About The Artist(s) OLEH HALAIDYCH Documentary filmmaker and neuroscientist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Graduated from the Sergiy Bukovsky documentary film program (Kyiv, 2021) and the cinematography workshop at the Kharkiv Academy of Visual Arts (Kharkiv, 2019). Holds MS in Applied Physics and Mathematics (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 2008-2014) and Ph.D. in biophysics (Leiden University, 2014-2018). OLHA TUHARINOVA Documentary film director and producer based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Holds an MA in architecture (Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Kyiv, 2018). She entered the world of documentary cinema in 2017 as a programmer for the International Festival of Film and Urbanism “86”. Directed and produced the documentary web series “Her Place” (2020), dedicated to female representatives of professions previously prohibited for women in Ukraine. She is pursuing a DOC NOMADS Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degree. Get in touch with the artist(s) halaidych.oleh@gmail.com / olhatuha@gmail.com / LLC KSHTALT PRODUCTIONS and follow them on social media halaidych.oleh@gmail.com , https://vimeo.com/olehhalaidych, olhatuha@gmail.com , https://vimeo.com/olhatuha, Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse

European Stages, created in 2013 by merging Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance, serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. It explores the evolution of both Western and Eastern European theatrical scenes, offering insightful analyses, artist interviews, and comprehensive coverage of major festivals. Back to Top Untitled Keep Reading < Back European Stages Volume 18, Fall, 2024 Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Dan Venning Report from London (December 2022) Philippa Wehle Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 Ivan Medenica “Regietheater:” two cases Anton Pujol The Grec Festival 2023 Kalina Stefanova The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Marvin Carlson Report from Germany Ion M. Tomuș Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete European Stages European Stages, created in 2013 by merging Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance, serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. It explores the evolution of both Western and Eastern European theatrical scenes, offering insightful analyses, artist interviews, and comprehensive coverage of major festivals. ISSN Number: 1050-199 Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Visit Journal Homepage

Watch Maria Klassenberg by Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. The film created by the Academy Award nominees: Magda Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński is a biographical mockumentary about Maria Klassenberg, a forgotten pioneer of performance art. All of her life the artist has created and presented her works in her apartment in Warsaw. The action of the film takes place at the opening of an exhibition, where the artist’s radical works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s, that up to that point had been seen by the family and friends only, are presented to the wider audience for the first time. The moment Maria Klassenberg’s works finally are discovered by the art world is at the same time the culmination of her personal conflict with her daughter - Aneta Klassenberg, the curator of the exhibition. For Aneta, Maria’s exhibition is a compensation for the lost childhood and the only way to rebuild a close relationship with her mother. The unsettled past shared by the mother and daughter becomes the artist’s final work. Maria Klassenberg has never existed, which doesn’t mean she’s not real. She represents all female artists who haven’t had a chance to make their mark on the art market controlled by men. Her biography and artistic portfolio has been created by a group of Polish theatre and visual art artists: the concept and the very character of Maria Klassenberg has been created by Katarzyna Kalwat (theatre director), with the help form Anda Rottenberg (a curator and one of the protagonists of the film) and Joanna Zielińska, and the archive of the artist’s works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s has been developed by Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga. The film features fragments of famous performances from the 20th century, that resonate with Klassenberg’s works. On the one hand this documentary is an artistic recording of the performance-exhibition directed by Katarzyna Kalwat but on the other hand it’s a provocation attempt: how will the modern world of art, which declares gender equity, react to a fictitious female artist who combines in her works feministic motifs found in the 20th century art? Feature Image Credits: Aneta Grzeszykowska, From the Maria Klassenberg archives, 1970-1980, 2019. Cooperation: Jan Smaga. Performers: Anna Rutkowska, Wojciech Żera The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Maria Klassenberg At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Theater, Documentary, Film, Performance Art This film will be screened in-person on May 16th and also be available to watch online May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country Poland Language Polish, English Running Time 62 minutes Year of Release 2024 The film created by the Academy Award nominees: Magda Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński is a biographical mockumentary about Maria Klassenberg, a forgotten pioneer of performance art. All of her life the artist has created and presented her works in her apartment in Warsaw. The action of the film takes place at the opening of an exhibition, where the artist’s radical works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s, that up to that point had been seen by the family and friends only, are presented to the wider audience for the first time. The moment Maria Klassenberg’s works finally are discovered by the art world is at the same time the culmination of her personal conflict with her daughter - Aneta Klassenberg, the curator of the exhibition. For Aneta, Maria’s exhibition is a compensation for the lost childhood and the only way to rebuild a close relationship with her mother. The unsettled past shared by the mother and daughter becomes the artist’s final work. Maria Klassenberg has never existed, which doesn’t mean she’s not real. She represents all female artists who haven’t had a chance to make their mark on the art market controlled by men. Her biography and artistic portfolio has been created by a group of Polish theatre and visual art artists: the concept and the very character of Maria Klassenberg has been created by Katarzyna Kalwat (theatre director), with the help form Anda Rottenberg (a curator and one of the protagonists of the film) and Joanna Zielińska, and the archive of the artist’s works from the ‘70s and the ‘80s has been developed by Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga. The film features fragments of famous performances from the 20th century, that resonate with Klassenberg’s works. On the one hand this documentary is an artistic recording of the performance-exhibition directed by Katarzyna Kalwat but on the other hand it’s a provocation attempt: how will the modern world of art, which declares gender equity, react to a fictitious female artist who combines in her works feministic motifs found in the 20th century art? Feature Image Credits: Aneta Grzeszykowska, From the Maria Klassenberg archives, 1970-1980, 2019. Cooperation: Jan Smaga. Performers: Anna Rutkowska, Wojciech Żera directors: Magda Hueckel & Tomasz Śliwiński camera: Tomasz Śliwiński, Magda Hueckel, Robert Gajzler, Bartosz Zawadka editing: Tomasz Śliwiński scenography, costumes, lighting: Anna Tomczyńska music: Wojtek Blecharz sound design: Mateusz Adamczyk sound on the set: Mateusz Adamczyk, Kuba Kozłowski graphic design: Magda Hueckel color correction: Lunapark MARIA KLASSENBERG | AN EXHIBITION direction and concept of the art performance: Katarzyna Kalwat text and dramaturgy: Beniamin Bukowski cast: Natalia Kalita, Urszula Kiebzak special appearance by: Anda Rottenberg performers: Tomasz Tyndyk, Justyna Wasilewska consecutive interpreting into English language: Artur Zapałowski production managers: Maria Herbich, Magda Igielska production cooperation: Karolina Pająk producers: Małgorzata Cichulska, Magda Igielska, Agata Kołacz, Roman Pawłowski production: TR Warszawa, 2022 director: Natalia Dzieduszycka artistic director: Grzegorz Jarzyna organizer: Capital City of Warsaw The project is produced with the support of The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation PRODUCTION OF THE EXHIBITION AND THE PERFORMANCES “Maria Klassenberg. An Exhibition.” direction and concept: Katarzyna Kalwat text and dramaturgy: Beniamin Bukowski set design, costumes and lighting: Anna Tomczyńska music: Wojtek Blecharz cooperation: Anna Grzelewska, Joanna Zielińska venue: Raster Gallery in Warsaw date: 14.11.2020 “Mirror – reconstruction of an undocumented performance by Maria Klassenberg” direction and concept: Katarzyna Kalwat text and dramaturgy: Beniamin Bukowski set design, costumes and lighting: Anna Tomczyńska performers: Justyna Wasilewska, Tomasz Tyndyk In the film, fragments of the following works were used: “Maria Klassenberg’s Archive, 1970-1980 (MIRRORING / DRAWING CLASSES / NO / CONSUME / TRANSFER / CHEW / JAM SESSION / NO BODY)” concept, script, development: Aneta Grzeszykowska performers (archive): Anna Rutkowska, Wojciech Żera cooperation: Jan Smaga TR Warszawa would like to thank Joanka Zielińska for the artistic collaboration on te development of the project About The Artist(s) MAGDA HUECKEL: A visual artist, set designer, scriptwriter, creator of documentaries, and theatre photographer. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting and Graphic Design of the Fine Arts Academy in Gdańsk. Her works have been presented at over 40 individual and over 60 group exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including Tate Britain in London, Circulation in Paris, Unseen Amsterdam, Vienna Art Fair). Her works can be found in the National Museum in Wrocław and in numerous private collections. Hueckel is the author of “Anima. Pictures from Africa 2005–2013” and “HUECKEL/THEATRE” (nominations for the 2014 and 2016 Photographic Publication of the Year Awards). She has documented a few hundred theatre performances. Hueckel was awarded scholarships by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the City of Sopot and she’s a laureate of the Sopot Muse for Young Artists award. From 2002 until 2004 she was a part of the photographic duo known as hueckelserafin, together with Agta Serafin. She is the Chairwoman and co-founder of the CCHS Foundation of Poland “Lift the Curse”, which was awarded EURORDIS Black Pearl Award 2020. Hueckel is the curator and producer of the “Ondinata. Songs for Ondine” project. TOMASZ ŚLIWIŃSKI: a director and scriptwriter. Graduate of the Directing Department at the Warsaw Film School and Feature Development Lab Programme at the Wajda School. His short movie “Our Curse” (2013) has won many prizes at film festivals all over the world and was nominated for the IDA Award granted by the International Documentary Association. He is a laureate of the “Young Poland” Scholarship Programme (2015) awarded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and a scholarship awarded by the City of Warsaw (2019). Śliwiński is a member of the Documentary Directors Guild of Poland and the Vice President of CCHS Foundation of Poland “Lift the Curse”. He is the co-curator and producer of a music project “Ondinata. Songs for Ondine”. Magdalena Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński often collaborate on the production of films and artistic projects - Magda Hueckel writes the scripts and is the art director, and Tomasz Śliwiński is the director. Their documentary “Our Curse” was nominated for the Academy Award and won a few dozen awards at international festivals. Hueckel and Śliwiński created together a short film “Ondine” (2019) and short film series titled “Plague Chronicles” (2020). The series won the main prize at the DIG IT contest for the best theatrical activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their last production was “Stary” - the documentary about the National Stary Theatre in Cracow. KATARZYNA KALWAT: A director, graduate of Psychology Faculty at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and the Directing Department at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, holder of scholarships granted by the French Government. Her works often originate from archive explorations and focus on researching the mechanisms of memory and postmemory. She directed a performance titled “Holzwege” (produced by TR Warszawa, 2016), which won the Grand Prix at the 22nd National Competition for Staging Contemporary Polish Plays, and “Reykjavik ’74” (The Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Toruń, 2017), which won the Second Prize at the 19th National Festival of Directing Art “Interpretations” in Katowice. The director is interested in processual forms, works that combine various fields of art, and researching the common ground between performance art and theatre. Katarzyna Kalwat has directed many theatre performances including, among others: “Landschaft. Anatomy Lesson” based on Waronika Murek’s text (The Julius Słowacki Theatre in Cracow, 2017), “Grotowski non fiction” created in cooperation with the visual artist Zbigniew Libera (Contemporary Theatre in Wroclaw and the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole, 2019), an opera composed by Wojtek Blecharz, titled “Rechnitz. The Exterminating Angel” based on a drama by the Nobel Prize winner - Elfriede Jelinek (TR Warszawa, 2019), “Staff Only” project created in cooperation with foreign artists living in Poland (coproduced by Biennale Warszawa and TR Warszawa), “Return to Reims” inspired by Didier Eribon’s book and based on Beniamin Bukowski’s script (Nowy Teatr in Warsaw/Teatr Łaźnia Nowa in Cracow, 2020), and “Maria Klassenberg” (TR Warszawa in cooperation with Galeria Raster, 2020). Kalwat is a laureate of “O!Lśnienia 2021” Cultural Award granted by Onet and the City of Cracow. One of her latest performances is titled “Art of Living” and is inspired by Georges Perec’s “Life: A User’s Manual” (The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Cracow, 2022). ANETA GRZESZYKOWSKA: Born 1974, visual artist. She uses photography and video, focusing on their performative aspect. The leitmotif of her work is the analysis of the processes of self-creation, one of the key themes of art and a fundamental issue for the condition of today’s post-media society. Aneta Grzeszykowska examines the possibility of escaping from identity-shaping cultural and artistic stereotypes. She deconstructs her own image and manipulates it, eventually reaching for its sculptural substitutes. She thus comes closer to the conclusion that self-creation is merely another way of struggling against the mortal nature of the body. Aneta Grzeszykowska has participated in a number of important international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale (2022), the Berlin Biennale (2006) and La Triennale in Paris (2012). She has exhibited, among others, at the New Museum and Sculpture Center in New York, Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Her solo exhibition at Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw earned her the renowned Polityka’s Passport award (2014). Her works are held in prestigious museum collections, including: Center Pompidou in Paris, Salomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Museum of Art in Łódź. She is affiliated with Galeria Raster in Warsaw and Lyles & King in New York. She runs the Performative Photography studio at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Get in touch with the artist(s) and follow them on social media TR Warszawa international@trwarszawa.pl instagram.com/trwarszawa facebook.com/trwarszawa www.trwarszawa.pl Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński hueckel.com.pl instagram.com/magdalena_hueckel instagram.com/tomeon Katarzyna Kalwat instagram.com/katarzyna2193 Aneta Grzeszykowska instagram.com/anetagrzeszykowska https://secondaryarchive.org/artists/aneta-grzeszykowska/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

MORGAN BASSICHIS, FREEDOME BRADLEY-BALLENTINE, ENVER CHAKARTASH, WILL DAVIS, CALEB HAMMONS, JILL RAFSON, TINA SATTER + TYLER THOMAS presents The School of New York: New Leaders and the Artists They Serve in Dialogue at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 The School of New York: New Leaders and the Artists They Serve in Dialogue MORGAN BASSICHIS, FREEDOME BRADLEY-BALLENTINE, ENVER CHAKARTASH, WILL DAVIS, CALEB HAMMONS, JILL RAFSON, TINA SATTER + TYLER THOMAS 5pm-6:30 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP All over New York, long-lived performance venues are in transition, and we're welcoming the biggest "class" of new artistic directors and associate artistic directors in memory. These leaders take their positions in a fraught moment for the field — they are also taking power with fresh ideas. Join us for a structured, two-part panel discussion, in which we'll hear first from a group of four "freshman" New York artistic leaders, who will share their ideas and solutions for the quandaries currently facing our field; then we'll hear from a respondent group of veteran artists, experts in New York performance, who will reflect on these innovations, explore their ramifications, and possibly offer their own. Can we talk about the theatrical "crisis" in a new, solution-oriented way? Can we marry idealism and pragmatism? Can institutions and the artists they serve arrive at solutions together? Helen Shaw from the New Yorker moderates a talk with Morgan Bassichis, Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, Enver Chakartash, Will Davis, Caleb Hammons, Jill Rafson, Tina Satter, and Tyler Thomas. This event will be livestreamed via Howlround Theatre Commons . LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Will Davis is a director and choreographer. His work has been seen off-broadway at Signature Theater, City Center, Roundabout Theatre, MTC, MCC, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, and Soho Rep. Regionally, his work has been seen at La Jolla Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Shakespeare Theater Company, Long Wharf Theatre and ATC in Chicago where Davis previously served as Artistic Director. He received a Helen Hayes award for best direction for his work on Colossal at the Olney Theatre Center. He was nominated for a Lucille Lortel award for his direction of Men on Boats at Playwrights Horizons. Davis is the Artistic Director of Rattlestick Theater. Caleb Hammons (they/he) is a Tony and Obie Award-winning creative producer and curator of live performance. They are entering their second year as one of the three directors of Soho Rep, NYC’s premiere experimental Off-Broadway theater. Prior to returning to Soho Rep, Caleb spent ten years as Director of Artistic Planning and Producing at the Fisher Center at Bard, was the Producer at Soho Rep for two seasons, and was the Producing Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company for four years. He is the co-organizer of the CATCH performance series, wore many hats for 13P, curated the Prelude Festival, and has generally floated around the downtown performance scene in various capacities. Jill Rafson took on the role of Producing Artistic Director at Classic Stage Company in June 2022. Previously, she worked with Roundabout Theatre Company since 2005, most recently serving as Associate Artistic Director as well as Artistic Producer for Roundabout Underground, an acclaimed program supporting productions from early-career playwrights. She has developed dozens of new plays and musicals for Roundabout, with highlights including Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning The Humans ; Steven Levenson’s If I Forget ; Joshua Harmon’s hit Bad Jews ; Adam Gwon’s musicals Ordinary Days and Scotland, PA ; Ming Peiffer’s Drama Desk-nominated Usual Girls ; and Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning English . Jill has been a dramaturg for several commercial musical projects and at institutions including the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, The Flea, The Playwrights’ Center, Fault Line Theater, and more. Jill received her BA from Johns Hopkins University and a Graduate Certificate in Fundraising Management from Boston University. Tina Satter is a writer and director for theater and film. Her debut feature REALITY was adapted from her play Is This A Room which opened at The Kitchen in 2019 and premiered on Broadway in fall 2021. With her theater company Half Straddle, Tina has written and directed 10 critically acclaimed plays including House of Dance , Ghost Rings , and SEAGULL (Thinking of you) and a number of shorter performances and video works. She has been a guest director at The Schaubühne and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Doris Duke Artist Award among other honors. Helen Shaw is the theatre critic for the New Yorker. Before joining the magazine in 2022, she was the theatre critic for New York magazine (and its online site, Vulture) and wrote at 4Columns, Time Out New York, the Village Voice, and others. Tyler Thomas is a New York-based theater director and Susan Stroman Directing Award recipient. Most recently, she directed new work at the Vineyard Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Geva Theatre. Tyler is a former 2050 Fellow with New York Theater Workshop, member of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, and has been a Visiting Artist at the Athens Conservatoire (Greece), UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, and NYU Tisch. She is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the national arts and health initiative, Arts for EveryBody, inspired by the Federal Theatre Project. Tisch: BFA in Drama, MA in Arts Politics. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

Sean F. Edgecomb Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 36 2 Visit Journal Homepage MáM Sean F. Edgecomb By Published on June 1, 2024 Download Article as PDF The company of MáM in performance at Fairfield University (Photo: David Gray) MáM By Teac Damsa Choreographed and Directed by Michael Keegan-Dolan The Quick Center for the Performing Arts Fairfield University Fairfield, Connecticut November 17, 2023 Reviewed by Sean F. Edgecomb In November 2023, Michael Keegan-Dolan and his contemporary dance troupe, Teac Damsa (established in 2016), completed a residence at Fairfield University’s Quick Center, culminating in the American premiere of MáM. An Irish word that may be best understood as a mountain pass that simultaneously separates and connects the villages of Ireland’s craggy west, MáM (rhymes with yam) , was an explosive, choreographic exploration of queerness as the in-between: between villages, between the Continent, Ireland and the United States, between innocence and experience, and perhaps most dramatically, between life and death. In fact, the company website describes MáM as “a meeting place between soloist and ensemble, classical and traditional, the local and universal.” This notion of the in-between was further highlighted by the selected font for the show title, two uppercase M ’s representing mountains surrounding the lowercase “a” with the fada, standing symbolically for the geographic pass. Keegan-Dolan rose to fame as director of Fabulous Beasts Dance Theatre (1997-2015), where he developed an eclectic, signature style that combines ballet and contemporary, improvisational dance from a variety of global traditions. Keegan-Dolan’s work often explores humanity through a folkloric lens, navigating the sometimes humorous, sometimes terrifying, and often magical and historically rooted identity of Ireland, between Irish people and the Irish diaspora, though disseminated with an intercultural intent. In fact, I first encountered a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring re-envisioned by Fabulous Beasts in Brisbane, Australia in 2013, and I was blown away by Keegan-Dolan’s distinct and vibrant aesthetic (sexually convulsing dancers sporting hare masks and a flurry of cross-dressing). In 2019, I attended Teac Damsa’s adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ( Loch na hEala ) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). This production liberally transformed the nineteenth century ballet into a sleek, contemporary takedown of child abuse in Ireland’s Roman Catholic diocese mixed with the Irish myth, “The Children of Lir,” which sees children doomed to transform into swans between sunrise and sunset. Keegan-Dolan’s commitment to exploring the in-between of these canonical works, contemporary adaptations, and forms and genres only heightened my reading of this work as queer. Already a fan of Keegan-Dolan, you can imagine my delight when I learned that Teac Damsa would present the American premiere of MáM at Fairfield University, where I joined the faculty just a month earlier. As part of Fairfield’s Quick Center Artist-in-Residence program, Keegan-Dolan generously agreed to engage with our undergraduate students, including my Performance Histories class. To say that Keegan-Dolan is charismatic is a wild understatement, and admittedly I was less than measured in hiding my deep admiration for his vision. When I mentioned my queer interpretation of his work, Keegan-Dolan was delighted. While admittedly he is not gay, and is partnered with company dancer Rachel Poirier, he related that his experience growing up as a dancer had always rendered him as queer, caught between the masculine expectations embedded in Irish class culture and his desire to become a performing artist. He reflected that it was this nuanced feeling of ambivalence that led to his visionary work as a director/choreographer. MáM reads as queer from its opening tableau: a young girl in a white dress (Mille Lang), lays on a worn, wooden table in an incense filled auditorium, as a goat-masked performer (Cormac Begley), pumps the bellows of a bass concertina, without sound. The instrument inhales and exhales, as the girl rises. As the goat-headed performer (a fertility symbol in Pagan Ireland) removes his mask and transforms into human form, one side of a curtain rod falls (brilliantly designed by Sabine Dargent), and the large black curtain that has backed the performers is dramatically pulled by gravity into a heap at the stage right corner of the proscenium—physically embodying the notion of queer as off-kilter. From behind the heavy drape a cast of twelve dancers are revealed, dressed in black, layered costumes (envisioned by Hyemi Shin) reminiscent of James Joyce’s characters attending a funeral, but in papery, black, faceless masks that intend to haunt if not terrify. As the performance unfolds, first to Gaelic rhythms and eventually the addition of more global sounds (provided by s t a r g a z e, an orchestral collective made up of musicians from around the world whose branded title also plays with the space between letters), another curtain slides off a second pole to reveal the band. Downstage, the dancers blend a variety of styles and movements, embodying moments of love and hate, kinship and tribalism, grief, insanity, profound sadness, silliness, and joy. Over the course of an hour, the dancers slowly lose their masks and then black clothing, revealing mostly white undergarments that cling to the lithe bodies, transparent with sweat. The show’s queerness is grounded in its multivalent and often amorphous story-telling, meandering like a path through the wilds of the Western Irish countryside where Keegan-Dolan lives and Teac Damsa works. This metamorphic structure allows the audience to build different and even simultaneous understandings of the narrative that bridges the transient space between the performers and the audience. Throughout this choreographed choose-your-own adventure, the young girl remains at the center, mostly as observer and occasionally as participant. At the conclusion of the performance, the notion of queer in-betweenness is both dramaturgically and physically actualized. As the orchestra and dancers reach a symbiotic and harmonious climax and the stage fills with smoke, a third curtain drops (the number three is a sacred symbol relevant to both Irish paganism and Christianity), revealing a wall of light and huge fans. As the young girl is lifted into a silhouette of blinding light, the fans engage with great force pushing the smoke into the auditorium, creating a jaw-dropping illusion to make the audience feel as if they are passing through MáM , the between space of the symbolic mountain pass. As with many queer works, the impact of MáM is driven by affective and individual audience interpretations of a narrative that remains intentionally ambiguous. Is the young girl dead as we follow her journey through Purgatory and eventually her entrance into the afterlife? Is she the Angel of Death? Is she the embodied zeitgeist of a particular people, place and space? Is this a story of salvation, resurrection, or the existential? All these interpretations and more circle through and beyond the performance as Keegan-Dolan’s queer staging that delivers limitless possibility, celebrating the nuanced space of the in-between rather relying on the certain. Singular and/or monolithic understandings of culture, whether local, regional, or national often lead to an impasse, where different ideas are feared and even villainized as the Other. In MáM , Keegan-Dolan and Teac Damsa present a transient performance, grounded in Irish folk culture, that invites the audience to consider how our humanity surpasses the notion of boundaries—whether geographic, political, or identity-driven—where the queer in-between space is presented not only as a site for passage, but also a site of intersection, potentiality, and empathy. Images: The company of MáM in performance at Fairfield University. (Photo: David Gray) This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Sean F. Edgecomb (PhD) is Associate Professor and Director of the Arts Institute at Fairfield University. His work intersects cultural studies, theatre history and queer theory including, The Taylor Mac Book: Ritual, Realness and Radical Performance which was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2023. In addition to his scholarly work, he also paints under the pseudonym, Peter Kunt, and curates the Gallery for Ghosts, in a 17th century attic in rural Connecticut. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Editorial Introduction America Happened to Me: Immigration, Acculturation, and Crafting Empathy in Rags Burning it Down: Theatre Fires, Collective Trauma Memory, and the TikTok Ban “A Caribbean Soul in Exile”: Post-Colonial Experiences of a Jamaican Actor Archiving a Life in Theatre: The Legacy of Michael Feingold Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspapers in New York Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating, and Creating Beyond the Theatre Another Day's Begun: Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the 21st Century Appropriate Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month MáM Scene Partners Oh, Mary! Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Back to Top Untitled Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages Volume 18 Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Practicing Place: Site-Specific Performance and the Reinscription of Memory in Palestine Marina Johnson Resisting the Unleashed Evils of the US- Invasion of Iraq in Amir Al-Azraki’s The Widow (2017) Thamir Az-Zubaidy Dina Mousawi’s RETURN: a Compelling site of representing Women’s Status of Agency Under Occupation Hind Sabah Bilal Renewed Awareness Toward Salvation: The Journey of The Story of Zahra from Page to Stage Raeda Ghazaleh Site-Specific Performance and Theatrical Memorialization of the Nakba Hala Khamis Nassar Performance Review: WAILING SONGS OF THE PAST, MIGHT THEY GROW OUR RESILIENCE. By Maya al-Khaldi. Dia Barghouti Performance Review: DUMMY IN DIASPORA. By Esho Rasho. Suzi Elnaggar Performance Review: ENGLISH. Written by Sanaz Toossi Peyman Shams Performance Review: THE CAVE. By Sadieh Rifai Sami Ismat Performance Review: IRAQ, BUT FUNNY by Atra Asdou Suzi Elnaggar Performance Review: COSMOS/AWALEM by Ashtar Muallem and Emile Saba. Malek Najjar Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage

JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Published by the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY, supported by American Theater Drama Society. Back to Top Untitled Copy of Untitled Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume 35 Visit Journal Homepage Issue 1 “An Art for Which There Is as Yet No Name.” Mobile Color, Artistic Composites, Temporal Objects Bennet Schaber ARTICLE The Anti-Victorianism of Victorian Revivals Laurence Senelick ARTICLE Tricks, Capers, and Highway Robbery: Philadelphia Self-Enactment upon the Early Jacksonian Stage Raymond Saraceni ARTICLE “The Spirit of the Thing is All”: The Federal Theatre’s Staging of Medieval Drama in the Los Angeles Religious Community Russell Stone ARTICLE The Queer Nuyorican: Racialized Sexualities and Aesthetics in Loisaida, by Karen Jaime. New York City, NY: New York University Press, 2021; 275pp. $28.00 paper. Cailyn Sales BOOK REVIEW Rise Up! Broadway and American Society from Angels in America to Hamilton. Chris Jones. London: Methuen Drama, 2019. Pp. 215. Casey L. Berner BOOK REVIEW Dancing the World Smaller: Staging Globalism in Mid-Century America. Rebekah J. Kowal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020; Pp. 295. Dahye Lee BOOK REVIEW Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife. Kareem Khubchandani. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020. Rahul K Gairola BOOK REVIEW The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical; Reframing the Musical: Race, Culture and Identity Sarah Courtis BOOK REVIEW Issue 2 Chevruta Partnership and the Playwright/Dramaturg Relationship Becca Levy and Jared Rubin Sprowls ARTICLE The Heart/Roots Project and a Pandemic Pivot Beth Wynstra, Mary Pinard ARTICLE From Safe to Brave—Developing A Model for Interrogating Race, Racism and the Black Lives Matter Movement Using Devised Theater Dr. Kimmika L.H. Williams Witherspoon ARTICLE The Front Porch Plays: Socially-Distanced, Covid-Safe, Micro-Theatre Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder ARTICLE Making Up for Lost Time: New Play Development in Academia Post COVID 19 Jackie Rosenfeld and Cade M.Sikora ARTICLE Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area Jared Strange ARTICLE México (Expropriated): Reappropriation and Rechoreography of Ballet Folklórico Jessica L. Peña Torres ARTICLE Effing Robots Online: The Digital Dramaturgy of Translating In-Person Theatre to Online Streaming L. Nicol Cabe ARTICLE Emergent Strategy Abolitionist Pedagogy in Pandemic Time Marissa Nicosia & Jack Isaac ARTICLE How to Make a Site-Specific Theatrical Homage to a Film Icon Without Drowning in Your Ocean of Consciousness; or, The Saga of Red Lodge, Montana Michael Osinski ARTICLE Playing Global (re)Entry: Migration, Surveillance, and Digital Artmaking Mohamadreza Babaee ARTICLE Reviving Feminist Archives: An Interview with Leigh Fondakowski Caitlin A.Kane INTERVIEW Sarah Gancher and Jared Mezzocchi : How Collaboration is Dramaturgy Between Playwright and Multimedia Creator Drew Barker INTERVIEW (Re)Generation: Creating Situational Urban Theatre During COVID and Beyond MK Lawson, Jessica Bashline INTERVIEW Starting with the Space: An Interview with Patrick Gabridge Talya Kingston INTERVIEW Pandemic Performance: Resilience, Liveness, and Protest in Quarantine Times: Edited by Kendra Capece, Patrick Scorese. New York: Routledge, 2023; Pp. 188 Ansley Valentine BOOK REVIEW The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945: Edited by Julia Listengarten and Stephen Di Benedetto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; Pp. 273. Clay Sanderson BOOK REVIEW Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past. Ariel Nereson. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 290. Jada M. Campbell BOOK REVIEW Borderlands Children’s Theatre: Historical Developments and Emergence of Chicana/o/Mexican-American Youth Theatre. Cecilia Josephine Aragόn. New York: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 158. Jeanne Klein BOOK REVIEW Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age. Duška Radosavljević. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 224. M. Landon BOOK REVIEW Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances. Jill Stevenson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 243. Rob Silverman Ascher BOOK REVIEW Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative articles and reviews on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Please refer to our Style Guide for submission information and general formatting guidelines. Send all general queries to the editors at jadtjournal@gmail.com . Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage

Gabrielle Randle Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 3 Visit Journal Homepage In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. Gabrielle Randle By Published on May 13, 2019 Download Article as PDF In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. A crucial contribution to the historiography of the Black Arts Movement, La Donna L. Forsgren’s In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement makes the original argument that black women dramatists played an invaluable role in the movement (1965-76). Forsgren employs a black feminist historiography with a ferocity that is both innovative and rigorous in an effort to revive a history that has been overlooked, misconstrued, and at worst erased. Each of the four chapters focuses on a single dramatist: Barbara Ann Teer, Martie Evans-Charles, Sonia Sanchez, and J.e. Franklin. In Search of Our Warrior Mothers is primarily a recuperative undertaking. As such, Forsgren’s methodology “foregrounds the sociopolitical factors that have led to the marginalization of black women’s culture and literary tradition” (3). In an effort to shed light on how and why black women dramatists were systematically excluded from the archives of the movement, Forsgren conducted oral histories to supplement the scant archives of her subjects. Her argument is made as much in the absences and gaps in memory and material as it is in the presence of tangible artifacts. In the first chapter, Forsgren claims Barbara Ann Teer as an unrecognized theorist of the Black Arts Movement. Forsgren focuses on Teer’s ritual performance theories, critical essays, ritualistic revival performance techniques, and the early work of the National Black Theatre (NBT), which Teer founded in 1968. In a departure from a typical literature review, Forsgren models a critique of historical and critical erasure that she continues in each subsequent chapter. In addition to highlighting existing literature on Barbara Ann Teer (there is one book-length biography on her life and work), Forsgren illuminates epistemological gaps. Forsgren suggests that Teer’s work is undervalued and as a result unpublished and in turn undervalued—a self-contained system of historical erasure. For the most part, the chapter is concerned with historicizing Teer as a theorist of the Black Arts Movement and concretizing her legacy as a pioneer in black theatre. Forsgren finds Teer’s theoretical origins in her theory of acting, “Five Cycles of Evolution.” Since Teer died in 2006, Forsgren conducted interviews with Barbara “Sade” Lythcott, Teer’s daughter and the current president of the NBT. Lythcott’s contextualization of her mother’s work serves to historicize Teer’s lasting impact on black performance beyond the Black Arts Movement. In chapter two, “‘We Black Women’: Martie Evans-Charles and the Spirits of Black Womanhood,” Forsgren argues that Evans-Charles and her deep commitment to portraying black women as “emblems of black history and culture” (37) were crucial to the success of the historic New Layette Theatre. Unlike Teer, whose work was not widely circulated, Evans-Charles was popular with critics and audiences of her time but largely forgotten after the Black Arts Movement. Forsgren is particularly interested in the subjecthood of black women in Evans-Charles’s dramas including Where We At , Black Cycle , Job Security , Jamimma , Asante , and Friends . Forsgren, in a methodological move that is both an orientation toward historical events and an ethical imperative, relies on Evans-Charles’s own critical writings, unpublished program notes, archival interviews, and interviews with her daughter and peers to rewrite Evans-Charles back into her rightful place in the narrative of the Black Arts Movement. If In Search of Our Warrior Mothers is a text about recovery, recuperation, and reclamation, then Sonia Sanchez, who is one of the few women often associated with the Black Arts Movement, is an unlikely candidate of study for the next chapter. Sanchez’s prolific work as a poet is typically connected to the movement, but as Forsgren expertly lays out, Sanchez’s plays also deserve to be revisited and explored. In this chapter, the author finds an easy stride. Perhaps because Forsgren was able to spend much time with Sanchez—and with her relatively complete archive of work—this chapter feels more like a traditional theatre history project. Though the extensive and exhaustive close readings of Sanchez’s plays are an impressive contribution to the field, there is less urgency in the underlying argument here. Forsgren is shoring up a place in history for an already iconic figure. In contrast, for Teer, Evans-Charles, and Franklin, I had the sense as a reader that she was fighting on their behalf against the forces of oblivion. Forsgren concludes the body text with perhaps her most important and timely intervention: chapter four, “‘Bring Your Wounded Hearts’: J.e. Franklin and the Art of Liberation,” explores the life and continuing work of the most prolific and successful black woman dramatist of the Black Arts Movement and also its most overlooked and understudied. Franklin’s place in the history of American theatre is invaluable, and Forsgren’s contribution succeeds on two levels. First, as the author attempts with all four subjects, she claims Franklin as part of an intellectual tradition. Departing from the other three chapters, Forsgren draws a direct line from Franklin to the origins of black feminist drama by highlighting the feminist stance in much of Franklin’s Black Power-oriented work. In doing so, she begins to map a genealogy of thought and influence that moves beyond the Black Arts Movement. Second, Forsgren highlights the divergences from the politics of the Black Arts Movement that previously ensured Franklin’s erasure from “neat” histories of an apparently monolithic movement. While black male playwrights of the movement often focused on ideas of “Revolution,” Forsgren argues that Franklin’s work centers “black women’s experiential knowledge and use[s] catharsis to foster liberation and community” (108). In Search of Our Warrior Mothers is a vital addition to the field of American theatre history. The loss of Ntozake Shange last year reminds us that the toll of life for our warrior mothers is taxing and that we must honor their legacies by gleaning their indispensable knowledge while we can. With that in mind, Forsgren’s methodological commitment to oral history and archival accountability feels bigger than a historiographical impulse; it feels like a war cry. References Footnotes About The Author(s) GABRIELLE RANDLE Northwestern University Editorial Board for Special Issue: David Bisaha Meredith Conti Leah Lowe Inga Meier Robert Vorlicky Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction: Embodied Arts Collective Choreography for Weathering Black Experience: Janelle Monáe and The Memphis "Tightrope" Dance Unruly Reproductions: The Embodied Art of Mimicry in Vaudeville "Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, and Broadway Bodies Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance. Stephanie Nohelani Teves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018; Pp. 220. Ellen Stewart Presents: Fifty Years of La MaMa Experimental Theatre. Cindy Rosenthal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017; Pp. 198. In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical. Kevin Winkler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018; Pp. 368. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018; Pp. 399. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Watch Living Objects in Black by Jacqueline Wade at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. Living Objects in Black Written and Directed by Jacqueline Wade "Living Objects in Black" is a moving spiritual documentary film about various Black puppeteers/fabricators and Black puppets who took part in the historical Living Objects: African American Puppetry exhibit at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at UCONN. Watch some of the puppets come to life in this fascinating magical film that explores puppetry through a Black lens. If you are interested in screening this film, please contact Jacqueline Wade at jwade1091@gmail.com and call 917-856-1844. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Living Objects in Black At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Jacqueline Wade Documentary, Performance Art, Puppetry This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country United States Language English Running Time 60 minutes Year of Release 2024 Living Objects in Black Written and Directed by Jacqueline Wade "Living Objects in Black" is a moving spiritual documentary film about various Black puppeteers/fabricators and Black puppets who took part in the historical Living Objects: African American Puppetry exhibit at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at UCONN. Watch some of the puppets come to life in this fascinating magical film that explores puppetry through a Black lens. If you are interested in screening this film, please contact Jacqueline Wade at jwade1091@gmail.com and call 917-856-1844. Written and Directed by Jacqueline Wade and various subjects. Nehprii Amenii, Brad Brewer, Ashley Bryan, Edna Bland, Garland Farwell, Susan Fulcher, Cedwan Hooks, Akbar Imhotep, Dirk Joseph, Tarish Pipkins, Papel Machete, and Yolanda Sampson. Co-curated by Dr. Paulette Richard About The Artist(s) Jacqueline Wade, holds an MFA Degree from the City College of New York in Film. She holds a second MFA for Integrated Media Arts Program at Hunter. She worked as an adjunct professor at Hunter City University of New York in the Media and Film Department. Jacqueline’ goal is to create works of art dealing with social justice issues and history. She combines theater with documentary-film, animation and puppetry. Jacqueline has performed at regional theaters throughout the country, including Wilma Theater, LaMaMa E.T.C., Classical Theater of Harlem and Bread and Puppet. She has also written over 20 plays, Jacqueline was a recipient of the Walt Disney Pride Rock Grant. She received a Ralph Chesse Scholarship to attend the National Puppetry Conference. Jacqueline’s puppet film “Osage”, was part of DOC NYC Festival in November 2021. She recently created a 20ft Mother Earth Puppet and her 18 foot Giant puppet Mumia Abu-Jamal. Jacqueline was awarded in 2022 from New York Women in Film & Television 2022 Scholarship for exceptional work at Hunter in film. 2022-2023 Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival-Puppet- Lab where Jacqueline created, “Consuewella:Triptych in MOVE”. Consuwella Triptych in MOVE was accepted in the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival 2024. Jacqueline was awarded the Creative Puppetry in the Classroom Grant from the Jane Henson Foundation. Get in touch with the artist(s) jwade1091@gmail.com and follow them on social media jacquelinewadesprojects.com Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

Watch Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars by Howard Brookner at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2026. Robert Wilson and the CIVIL warS would have been the great theater artist's magnum opus: a twelve-hour historical opera in six distinct parts, each rehearsed in a different country — Germany, France, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States — for a unified performance at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The work, formally titled The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, encompassed the American Civil War, the life and death of Frederick the Great, and the unification of Italy, drawing on imagery from L. Frank Baum, Jules Verne, and Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, with music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, and Gavin Bryars. Filmmaker Howard Brookner — a close friend of Wilson's — followed the director across six countries as he worked to bring this impossibly ambitious project to completion, documenting the dizzying complexity of coordinating multiple international theater companies, the relentless funding difficulties, the strikes by Italian theater unions, and the sheer physical and logistical exhaustion of the undertaking. The film traces not only the practical mechanics of creating an epic on this scale but also the history of Wilson's visual and theatrical approach more broadly, examining how his precisely painted stage images — drawing more from the traditions of visual art than from orthodox literary theater — are created and how they communicate meaning without relying on conventional language or psychology. The project ultimately collapsed: funding fell through, and the complete work was never performed. Brookner's film remains the definitive portrait of one of the great unrealized artistic visions of the 20th century. The original film materials were long unseen after being damaged in Hurricane Sandy in 2012; a twelve-year restoration by Aaron Brookner (Howard's nephew) premiered at the New York Film Festival in September 2025. A Janus Films release, restored in 2025 by Pinball London, Janus Films, and The Criterion Collection. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars Howard Brookner At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2026 Screening Information This film will be screened on May 30 at 8:30 PM, and June 5 at 8:45 PM, at Anthology Film Archives RSVP Please note that these screenings are ticketed and require prior registration at the Anthology Film Archives website. Country United States Language English Running Time 90 minutes Year of Release 1987 About The Film Robert Wilson and the CIVIL warS would have been the great theater artist's magnum opus: a twelve-hour historical opera in six distinct parts, each rehearsed in a different country — Germany, France, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States — for a unified performance at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The work, formally titled The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, encompassed the American Civil War, the life and death of Frederick the Great, and the unification of Italy, drawing on imagery from L. Frank Baum, Jules Verne, and Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, with music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, and Gavin Bryars. Filmmaker Howard Brookner — a close friend of Wilson's — followed the director across six countries as he worked to bring this impossibly ambitious project to completion, documenting the dizzying complexity of coordinating multiple international theater companies, the relentless funding difficulties, the strikes by Italian theater unions, and the sheer physical and logistical exhaustion of the undertaking. The film traces not only the practical mechanics of creating an epic on this scale but also the history of Wilson's visual and theatrical approach more broadly, examining how his precisely painted stage images — drawing more from the traditions of visual art than from orthodox literary theater — are created and how they communicate meaning without relying on conventional language or psychology. The project ultimately collapsed: funding fell through, and the complete work was never performed. Brookner's film remains the definitive portrait of one of the great unrealized artistic visions of the 20th century. The original film materials were long unseen after being damaged in Hurricane Sandy in 2012; a twelve-year restoration by Aaron Brookner (Howard's nephew) premiered at the New York Film Festival in September 2025. A Janus Films release, restored in 2025 by Pinball London, Janus Films, and The Criterion Collection. Director: Howard Brookner Restoration supervised by Aaron Brookner, Paula Vaccaro, and Carlos Morales/EPost A Janus Films release Restored by Pinball London – Janus Films – The Criterion Collection About The Artist(s) Howard Brookner (April 30, 1954 – April 27, 1989) was an American filmmaker whose short career produced three distinctive and celebrated documentary and narrative features. Born in New York City and raised in Great Neck, Long Island, he studied at Phillips Exeter Academy before earning a B.A. in political science from Columbia University and an M.A. in art history and film from New York University. At NYU, Brookner began his debut film as his senior thesis, assembling a crew that included classmates Tom DiCillo (camera) and Jim Jarmusch (sound). The resulting feature, Burroughs (1983), offered an unprecedented intimate portrait of writer William S. Burroughs and premiered at the New York Film Festival, later airing on BBC Arena. The film established Brookner as a documentarian with a gift for gaining genuine access to complex artistic figures. His second major documentary, Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, followed the avant-garde theater director across six countries as Wilson struggled to mount his unrealized magnum opus for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Shot on 16mm in Minneapolis, Rome, Rotterdam, Cologne, Tokyo, and Marseille, the film features interviews with Philip Glass, Heiner Müller, Lucinda Childs, David Byrne, and others. It screened at avant-garde and cinema festivals and aired on public television in the US, on the BBC in the UK, and on ZDF in Germany. Several of the film's original elements were lost to Hurricane Sandy in 2012; a painstaking restoration, led by Brookner's nephew Aaron Brookner over twelve years, was unveiled at the New York Film Festival in September 2025. Brookner's final film, Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989), was a narrative feature he co-wrote and directed. He died on April 27, 1989, three days before his 35th birthday, of AIDS-related complications. His archive, discovered across multiple locations in the US and Europe in 2012, formed the basis for his nephew Aaron Brookner's documentary tribute Uncle Howard (2016), executive produced by Jim Jarmusch. Get in touch with the artist(s) and follow them on social media Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2026 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here

The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) is an annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance. The festival presents experimental, emerging, and established theatre artists and filmmakers from around the world to audiences and industry professionals. Prelude Festival Now in its 23rd year, the PRELUDE Festival returns with a new lineup of works-in-progress and critical conversations, organized by the artistic team: Alessandra Gómez-Misserian, Olivia Mermagen, and Dylan Sherman. This year's edition marks an exciting expansion for the festival, welcoming two new partners in Brooklyn: Coffey Street Studio in Red Hook and the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, both of which have a longstanding history of supporting artists through their programming. This expansion reflects a broader focus on celebrating the work happening across the borough—this year, PRELUDE moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn. It steps outside the theaters in midtown and into a hotel loft inside a former barrel factory, a converted 19th-century warehouse, and private apartments. This year's artistic cohort spans solo performance, ensemble work, contemporary dance, clown, theater, performance art, and music, and multidisciplinary work. Artists were invited to present whatever best serves their practice and the work at this particular moment. For some, that meant playing with the strangeness of these alternative spaces and making something new in response; for others, it meant presenting a full piece or sharing an excerpt of work still to come. The year’s festival in service of what each artist’s work needs at this moment. As a featured program of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, PRELUDE presents a unique snapshot of the contemporary New York experimental theater. By merging the critical with the creative ,PRELUDE provides a space for artists to share and discover emerging practices in form, craft, and technology. Since 2003, The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has presented the PRELUDE Festival at GC CUNY. Wednesday October 7th at Wythe Hotel and Private Home Google Maps (free and open to all, first-come first-served) Bob Wilson's Life & Death of Marina Abramovic Giada Colagrande Button Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera Mark Obenhaus Button Ewa – The Last Lesson Andrea Mura / Federico Savonitto Button Firebird Irina Patkanian / Marion Schoevaert Button Thursday October 8th at CUNY and Private Home Google Maps (free and open to all, first-come first-served) Bob Wilson's Life & Death of Marina Abramovic Giada Colagrande Button Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera Mark Obenhaus Button Ewa – The Last Lesson Andrea Mura / Federico Savonitto Button Firebird Irina Patkanian / Marion Schoevaert Button Friday October 9th at CUNY Google Maps (free and open to all, first-come first-served) Bob Wilson's Life & Death of Marina Abramovic Giada Colagrande Button Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera Mark Obenhaus Button Ewa – The Last Lesson Andrea Mura / Federico Savonitto Button Firebird Irina Patkanian / Marion Schoevaert Button About The Festival The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) is an annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance. The 2026 festival is co-curated by Frank Hentschker and Tomek Smolarski. The festival presents experimental, emerging, and established theatre artists and filmmakers from around the world to audiences and industry professionals. From its inaugural edition in 2015 to its present-day hybrid avatar, The Segal Film Festival for Theatre and Performance (FTP) has served as a platform for recorded works that span the length and breadth of the performing arts. Festival Founder and Executive Director of the Martin E. Segal Theater Center, Frank Hentschker shares his inspiration for creating the festival: “Film and digital media are an integral part of theatre and performance. I am surprised that there is not a film festival out there right now focusing on theatre and performance. I thought ‘why not create one’?” In the time before Corona, the Segal Film Festival had evolved into the premier US event for new film and video work focusing on theatre and performance. Its mission was to invite experimental and established theatre makers to present work created for the screen – not filmed archival recordings – to audiences and industry professionals from around the world. Now, after a year and a half of digital and hybrid theatre offerings, the festival must take on a new meaning. The festival has held on to its mission of being a free and open-to-all event accessible to everyone. The 7th edition of the festival was held digitally in March 2022, and featured 80 films from 30 countries. For queries, feedback and any more information get in touch with us at segalfilmfestival@gmail.com Meet The Team Alessandra Gómez-Misserian Curatorial Director Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others. Dylan Sherman Assistant Curator Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others. Johnny Gasper Technical Director Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others. Frank Hentschker Co-Curator Frank Hentschker, who holds a Ph.D. in theatre from the now legendary Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany, came to the Graduate Center in 2001 as program director for the Graduate Center’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and was appointed to the central doctoral faculty in theatre in 2009. Currently executive director and director of programs at the Segal Center, Hentschker has transformed the center into the nation’s leading forum for public programming in international and U.S. theatre and theatre studies; each year, he curates and produces more than forty events—staged readings, lecture-demonstrations, symposia, works-in-progress, and conversations with theatre scholars, theatrical luminaries, and emerging voices in the international, American, and New York theatre scenes. Among the vital events and series he founded at the Segal Center are the World Theatre Performance series; the annual fall PRELUDE festival, which features more than twenty New York–based theatre companies and playwrights; and the PEN World Voices Playwrights Series. Hentschker also led CUNY’s nineteen performing arts centers in founding the CUNY–Performing Arts Consortium (C–PAC), producing the consortium’s first joint festival in 2009. Hentschker edited the MESTC publications Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake, Seven Works for the Theatre (2009) and New Plays from Spain (2013), and he served as president of the board of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art from 2005 to 2009. Before coming to the Graduate Center, Hentschker founded and directed DISCURS, the largest European student theatre festival existing today; he acted as Hamlet in Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine, directed by the playwright; performed in the Robert Wilson play The Forest (music by David Byrne); and worked as an assistant for Robert Wilson for many years. Olivia Mermagen Artistic Producing Director Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others. Charlie Sas Prelude Coordinator Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others. Henry Alper Front Of House Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others. with special thanks to ........

Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Back to Top Untitled Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages Volume 15 Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Five Arab American Plays Everyone Should Read Roaa Ali Interview with Nasser Rahmaninejad by Babak Rahimi Babak Rahimi MIDNIGHT IN CAIRO: THE DIVAS OF EGYPT'S ROARING '20S. By Raphael Cormack (REVIEW) Suzi Elnaggar Arab American Drama: Five Books that Inspired My Journey Malek Najjar Carving a Path: Desiring-Production in Displaced Syrian Theatre Bart Pitchford Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage

By Attila Szabó, Frank Hentschker | Hungarian language anthology of five contemporary American theater plays. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, visit the TCG Bookstore or Amazon.com. You can also get in touch with us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu Szertelen Színdarabok New Yorkból (Riff Raff Plays from New York) Attila Szabó, Frank Hentschker Download PDF Hungarian politicians cut funding in 2013 for international theatre productions and festivals in Budapest, quoting: “We don’t need these riffraff plays from New York.” As a reaction, the Segal Center published a Hungarian language anthology of five contemporary American theater plays edited by Frank Hentschker and Attila Szabó, translated to Hungarian by Attila Szabó and Noémi Kecskés. The anthology includes: Neighbors by Branden Jackobs-Jenkins, Detroit by Lisa D'Amour, Intermeddlers by Sarah Stites based on Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, The Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven by Young Jean Lee and Seven American Deaths and Disasters by Kenneth Goldsmith. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Encounter Artichoke Dance Company's work WATER RISES in Brooklyn, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with Newtown Creek Alliance and NOoSPHERE Arts. Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival WATER RISES Artichoke Dance Company Dance Saturday, June 8, 2024 @ 3pm Newtown Creek Nature Walk, Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn Meet at the southeast entrance to the Newtown Creek Nature Walk, across the street from 540 Kingsland Avenue Newtown Creek Alliance and NOoSPHERE Arts Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center in collaboration with Presented by Mov!ng Culture Projects and The Segal Center View Location Details RSVP To Event Reflect on the nature of water and its importance as a life sustaining entity, while traversing through the Walk’s varied landscape in this dynamic performance journey through the Newtown Creek Nature Walk Artichoke Dance Company ENTERTAIN - our performances get people interested ENGAGE - our workshops get people informed EMPOWER - our events get people involved Artichoke Dance Company is known for innovative and engaging performances paired with environmental activism, education, community building and civic engagement. Previous large scale projects have addressed plastic pollution mitigation on Coney Island, single use plastic bags in New York, river revitalization in Los Angeles, and water use and rights in the desert southwest. Founded in 1995 Artichoke Dance has held twenty New York seasons and toured nationally and internationally. Artichoke was chosen as a metaphor for the layers and textures embedded into the company and our work, at the center of which is a sweet heart. We invite audiences and participants to join us in a journey of discovering and interacting with the variety of layers, and to revel in the magnificent flower an artichoke can become. Visit Artist Website Location Meet at the southeast entrance to the Newtown Creek Nature Walk, across the street from 540 Kingsland Avenue Newtown Creek Alliance and NOoSPHERE Arts NOoSPHERE Arts is a 501c3 organization and cultural center led by a team of international creatives whose backgrounds blend the arts and sciences. Its freewheeling, multidisciplinary approach engages diverse audiences and builds community through a range of vibrant public events in its indoor-outdoor home in New York City's Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Mission: NOoSPHERE Arts produces and presents experimental arts programming at the nexus of art and eco-awareness. It is a welcoming platform where migrant artists connect with locals. Uniting music, dance, visual arts, theater, film, poetry & prose, our collaborative productions harness the power of art to drive action towards green living, fair play, and oneness. Vision: NOoSPHERE Arts encourages dialogue, openness to experimentation, and inclusivity. We aim to elevate the voices of historically marginalized populations. We are driven by the desire to ignite a shift in perspective from the parts to the whole. We see life as a cooperative dance in which creativity and the constant emergence of novelty are the driving forces. Our goal is to instill belief in personal agency and hope through collective action: with shared efforts towards sustainability, diversity, and equity, we can create a more united and joyful world. The Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based organization dedicated to restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek. https://www.noosphere-arts.nyc/ =========================================================================== The Newtown Creek Alliance works to restore the Creek by securing mitigation and remediation of known environmental hazards – both in the neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek and in Newtown Creek itself – reporting ongoing sources of pollution, and preventing new pollution. To restore the ecological functions of the waterway, the Newtown Creek Alliance supports investments in green infrastructure, bioremediation, and habitat restoration. The Newtown Creek Alliance endeavors to reveal the Creek by conducting tours by foot, bike, bus, and boat that educate the public about the history of the waterway and current activity. We also work to nurture and expand open spaces along Newtown Creek to enable public access to a waterway which has few public access points and we partner with educational institutions to teach Newtown Creek-based curricula. The Newtown Creek Alliance helps revitalize watershed communities by playing a leadership role in area-wide brownfield redevelopment planning, creating programs that improve the environmental profile of industrial businesses, and engaging in workforce development to create local green jobs. Our work supports environmental, economic, and human health. Visit Partner Website

Watch Women of Theatre, New York by Juney Smith at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. The extraordinary story of the beginning of the artistic life, artistic journey and careers of theatre artists that were a part of the foundation of Black Theatre in New York City. Their acting, directing and writing helped build, repute and sustain The Negro Ensemble Company, New Federal Theatre and The Billie Holiday Theatre to name a few of the Black Theatres that began in the 1960's and exist now in the 21st Century. These theaters along with other Black Theatres in New York City helped develop the majority of today's Black movie and television stars. Women of Theatre, New York powerfully speaks. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Women of Theatre, New York At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Juney Smith Documentary Online / In-Person This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country United States Language English Running Time 106 minutes Year of Release 2023 The extraordinary story of the beginning of the artistic life, artistic journey and careers of theatre artists that were a part of the foundation of Black Theatre in New York City. Their acting, directing and writing helped build, repute and sustain The Negro Ensemble Company, New Federal Theatre and The Billie Holiday Theatre to name a few of the Black Theatres that began in the 1960's and exist now in the 21st Century. These theaters along with other Black Theatres in New York City helped develop the majority of today's Black movie and television stars. Women of Theatre, New York powerfully speaks. Executive Producer Glynn Turman, Written and Directed by Juney Smith Starring Elizabeth Van Dyke, Petronia Pale, Joyce Sylvester, Elain Graham, Kim Weston Moran, Terria Joseph, Perri Gaffney, Linda Armstrong, Peggy Alston About The Artist(s) JUNEY SMITH BIO Juney Smith is a native New Yorker and graduate of LIU Brooklyn. He is a veteran actor, director, writer and producer of stage, screen and television. As an actor on stage he acted in classic plays and portrayed the roles of Walter Lee in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun”, Oscar Madison in Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” and Solly Two Kings in August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean”. Mr. Smith’s most recent television credits include, “FBI”, “Law &Order SVU”, “Blue Bloods”, “The Breaks” and as far back as, ER, “Mash”, “Growing Pains”, “Hill Street Blues” “Highway to Heaven”, ”Matlock”, “and beginning with “The White Shadow”. On film, he Co-Starred as “Sgt. Phil McPherson” opposite Robin Williams and Forest Whitaker in the comedy classic “Good Morning Vietnam” Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as” Det. Tom Wyler” in the action classic “Lethal Weapon 2”, as “Chief” in “Friends and Romans” and as Nestor in the upcoming A24 production “A Different Man” opposite Sebastian Stan. The former Artistic Director of 4 theatre companies from 1979 to 1998 “The Renaissance Drama Company and Mattie Theatre Company, New York and “Rainbow Connection Drama Company and Rebirth Drama Company in Los Angeles where he directed over 100 plays including; “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf”, “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men” “Livin Fat” and “Twelve Angry Men” In 1988 he wrote the stage play “The Nation” (A story of the Nation of Islam). After completing an intensive film making program at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Mr. Smith transformed the stage play into his first feature film in 1992 “The Nation” In 1999 along with partners formed the movie production company “Drummond and Smith Entertainment Inc. and later renamed Rainbow Media Group, Inc. He has written, directed, and produced 37 feature films (22 Narrative films and 15 Documentaries films) where all the films are distributed on Blu Ray and DVD in the major retail stores online at Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Amazon and Streaming markets such as, Peacock, Prime Video, Tubi, Vudu and Hoopla worldwide. In 2018 he partnered with legendary actor Glynn Turman and his company Backyard Ventures, Inc in pursuit of producing documentary films about Black Performing Artists and Black Performing Arts Institutions. Log on to: juneysmithfilms.com to see the library and viewing information. Get in touch with the artist(s) juneysmith466@gmail.com and follow them on social media juneysmithfilms.com Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

Rachel E. Bauer and Kristen M. Kalz Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 32 2 Visit Journal Homepage Exploring the History and Implications of Toxicity through St. Louis: Performance Artist Allana Ross and the “Toxic Mound Tours” Rachel E. Bauer and Kristen M. Kalz By Published on May 21, 2020 Download Article as PDF On a chilly day in early April 2018, a group of sixteen people and one lovable dog met at a coffee house in St Louis, Missouri, in anticipation of the “Toxic Mound Tour.” Online, the tour was advertised as a performance art piece and an “educational field trip” to “see the realities of the landfill and other contaminated places west of the city.” [1] When our tour guide, performance artist Allana Ross, arrived, she was easy to spot in her khaki colored park ranger clothing, even without the “Toxic Mound Tours” sign she held. As we gathered around, she quickly introduced herself, then introduced her assistant and their dog, both of whom were outfitted in matching green jackets for the occasion. Before the tour began, the performer passed out tour brochures and white face masks to the group gathered around her. Most of us in the audience looked at each other with slightly worried expressions before she admitted that we did not need to wear masks for our safety, as our stay in each of the five locations would be brief. Even still, they served as a constant reminder of where we were going and the gravity of the area’s toxic legacy. As the contaminated areas we planned to visit were spread out across the greater St. Louis area, we were encouraged to introduce ourselves to one another and carpool. And just like that, we traveled to the first destination on our toxic tour. In her book, Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States , Jan Cohen-Cruz states, “A community-based production is usually a response to a collectively significant issue or circumstance. It is a collaboration between an artist or ensemble and a ‘community’.” [2] The source is not the artist, but the community that surrounds the artist. [3] For Ross, community is defined in two ways: the people and the environment. In part, the community is defined by the suburban areas south and west of St. Louis and the residents who lived or live in/around the areas affected by contamination. Ross’s community-based work is “less about homogeneous communities and more about different participants exploring a common concern together,” [4] the common concern being the past, current, and future impacts of the toxic sites on the people who reside nearby. However, Ross’s performance not only elevated the significance of place/environment but also stressed the importance of being in each space—to explore it and experience it—as central to her approach. In her artist statement, she writes: I am questioning our relationship to nature itself—the culture of nature that we teach to each other through museum diorama, through titillating landscape calendars and all-expense-paid eco-adventures. A public tour of the mounds is a method of activating the viewer outside of the gallery setting as a participant in the re-invention of the culture of nature. [5] Ross grounded her performance in place, reaffirming Cohen-Cruz’s definition of community-based performance as “a local act in two senses: a social doing in one’s particular corner of the world and an artistic framing of that doing for others to appreciate.” [6] Ross privileged the environment itself and the lasting effect(s) that humans have had on the ecosystem(s) of the area. Her piece worked within the realm of environmental activism, which brought attention to the human consumption of nature and its subsequent contamination. [7] Additionally, she questioned notions of the “individual” in communities, as the environment affected people in different ways. Seemingly separate individuals become connected through location and the sense of belonging in a community. To explore toxic places, we are asked to think about the surrounding community and to consider what it must be like living there. In this essay, we explore how Ross’s performance uses place and environment, as well as a historical understanding of the sites, to illuminate the lasting impacts of environmental contamination and the very real effects it has had on local communities through the five sites on her Toxic Mound Tour. Since the 1960s, performance scholars including Richard Schechner, Una Chaudhuri, Elinor Fuchs, Wendy Arons, Stephen Bottoms, Ric Knowles, and Theresa May, among others, have theorized the practice of performance known as environmental theatre and site-specific performance, as one rooted in the place, and perhaps even the community, in which the performance occurs. [8] Tim Cresswell describes place as: constituted through reiterative social practice—place is made and remade on a daily basis. Place provides a template for practice—an unstable stage for performance. Thinking of place as performed and practiced can help us think of place in radically open and non-essentialized ways where place is constantly struggled over and remained in practical ways. [9] Furthermore, as Nick Kaye writes, site-specific art is the “exchange between the work of art and the places in which its meanings are defined.” [10] “Key to this,” as Baz Kershaw states, “becomes understanding how performance is an integral part of global ecology and eco-systems.” [11] Looking at the scholarship of Nicola Shaughnessy and Laura Levin as lenses through which to examine toxic tours allows us to further contextualize the importance of each tour site as both the set and setting. Shaughnessy looks at the possibility of “place as an event” through which the “[s]ite and place are also integral to visual and live arts practices which have moved beyond the quiet curbs of gallery spaces, to question who art is for, where it can be staged and to explore the experience of spectatorship.” [12] Ross’s attempt to “[activate] the viewer outside of the gallery setting” [13] is thus attempting to “contribute to the process of making space meaningful through practices which explore (and challenge) how we experience the environment we inhabit.” [14] Ross’s work can be also interpreted through Laura Levin’s concepts of “environmental unconsciousness” and her discussions of camouflage. Levin’s discussion of place-based, environmental performance engages with the idea that environment becomes a part of the performance that cannot be overlooked: “recognizing the independence of the non-human is not simply a philosophical project but also a political one … This framing of site-specificity provides access to … ‘environmental unconscious,’ rendering perceptible those aspects of environment that we habitually engage but routinely overlook.” [15] As such, Ross’s tour invited us into these spaces that are overlooked, whether because they have been remediated into consumable spaces or because they were so unassuming that no one realizes their significance. In recent years, there has been greater public interest in ecoadventure and ecotourism, which seek to counteract or eliminate the wastefulness of traveling by combining experiences with environmentally friendly and/or sustainable practices. [16] From a performance perspective, Scott Magelssen’s scholarship highlights recent trends in the tourism industry that “[implement] attractions that privilege explicitly performative participation by immersing tourists in living, fictive scenarios.” [17] This move towards more “authentic” experiences of tourism includes participants taking on a character and getting into the action, a move away from the passive tourism experiences that ask visitors to see and observe and then to depart without much interaction with the location. [18] For a group of strangers to take a toxic tour, we had to be willing to confront and interrogate our own ideas of health and safety, and take on, even for a few hours, the environmental risk that others are asked to undertake every day. Here, the place is central, and rather than being given a part to play, people on toxic tours are not in simulated environments; they are asked to navigate action as it comes. Contaminated places are most often found in low income and minority communities, existing away from and outside of the dominant culture, and as such, they have been referred to as sacrifice zones where both people and waste are pushed to the margins and seen as dirty, undesirable, contaminated, and/or not valuable. [19] Phaedra Pezzullo argues toxic tours typically “are noncommercial expeditions into areas that are polluted by toxins,” and are often led by community members, many of which may be sick, in hopes that doing so will raise awareness and lead to social change. [20] By willingly entering places that may be harmful, toxic tours not only challenge traditional notions of tours and/or being a tourist, which is most often associated with travel, beauty, pleasure, but they also blur the lines between “nature” and “culture,” acknowledging the ways in which each influence one another. [21] To take Ross’s toxic tour, then, is to use performance to subvert existing ideas of toxic tours as well as place and location. First, Ross did not take on the persona of someone who was sick, but instead took on the role of an authoritative outsider. She took on the dress and authority of a park ranger or nature guide, a figure generally understood as one tasked with expertise, but also one with knowledge of historical significance of place and the importance of the connection between humans and the land that sustains them. Assuming the role of expert was a particularly meaningful move in part because of our culture’s reliance on experts to help define what is safe/unsafe. Her character acted as our guide not only in traveling to each location, but also in guiding the audience through the experience: where to walk, where to look, the important features worth noting, and the site’s historical background, as it was often difficult to determine the significance of each place without her expert eye. Her character was, in fact, the only “artificial” part of the performance; the audience and the locations we visited were very much real. Second, the tour took us to sites in various stages of remediation; in some cases, the very notion of toxicity and contamination remained contested, as there were widespread disagreements about the safety of the sites, but in other cases a former contaminated site had been transformed into a park for public enjoyment. At each location she interwove local history into her performance, gathered from both official government documents and the stories of residents. Finally, rather than being in marginalized communities and spaces, the tour stops were in predominately white and/or working-class neighborhoods. This is notable because unlike typical cases of environmental uncertainty, these sites have gained greater attention simply because these communities are thought about as safe, clean, and respectable places. Almost all in attendance were from the greater St. Louis area and most lived in communities relatively close to a specific site and attended the tour because they had not actually physically visited the sites. Everyone learned about the tour through an advertisement in a local Facebook group that discusses issues of community, toxicity, health, and safety, so attendees brought with them varying degrees of knowledge. The stops on the tour are public and can be visited independently, but Ross provided the background and historical significance of place which is so often hidden. Additionally, her performance as an expert, which was informative as much as it was paternalistic, provided a feeling of protectiveness, as the group explored these largely unknown to them sites. OUR GUIDE Unlike the audience members who wore basic, contemporary clothing, bundled in coats and scarves for the chilly, rainy day, Ross donned a wide-brimmed hat and an olive-khaki button-up shirt tucked into khaki pants. A wide brown belt and hiking boots completed her ensemble. While not exact in its replica, it was culturally recognizable as a costume reminiscent of those worn by park rangers in a US context. However, Ross called herself an “urban ranger” because it was not the vast wilderness or sprawling desert she guided us through; it was the suburban space around us. Instead of the park insignia or flags that adorn the uniforms of federal park workers, Ross’s “uniform” had only two embroidered patches: a colorful taco in front of a variation of the nuclear atom symbol and a skull with a ranger’s hat similar to the one worn by Ross herself. Given the hazardous and dangerous history that surrounded the sites on the tour ahead, the patches spoke not only to the macabre reality of touring such locations, even if for the purpose of raising environmental awareness, but also to Ross’s personality. As a ranger is tasked with the protection and preservation of lands for public use, Ross tasked herself with raising local awareness “[b]y inviting the audience to consider the history of these sites in a safe space removed from their threats—to peruse a brochure, to grab a postcard, to plan a visit.” [22] In doing so, she asked that we “reconsider [our] consumption of nature,” both in terms of the way these sites were contaminated by human interference and now, as nature had reclaimed, albeit artificially, the land for parks and recreation. [23] As there was considerable distance between sites, Ross created a Spotify playlist for the drive, entitled “Atomic Musical Collection.” The playlist, which played in the background, served as an intermission of sorts where the audience could reflect on the tour as it progressed. [24] Like a true guide, Ross provided a map with the “attractions” clearly marked, and we started an approximately five-hour tour organized in a caravan, all following Ross’s white SUV with a large sign on each side emblazoned with “Toxic Mound Tours” and the signature atomic star that adorned all of her materials. STOPS ALONG THE WAY Like many industrial cities in the U.S., the greater St. Louis area has a long and contested history of sites contaminated from a wide breadth of industrial activities. Four out of the five sites on the tour corresponded to St. Louis’ involvement with WWII and Cold War weapons production. Site #1 : Times Beach, MO The first stop on our tour was Route 66 State Park, formerly Times Beach, MO, a small resort town about thirty miles outside of St. Louis. In the early 1970s, the entire town became contaminated when its twenty-three miles of roads were sprayed with dioxin-contaminated waste oil, and it later became one of the nation’s first Superfund sites. [25] In the early 1980s, Congress passed “The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act” (CERLA), most commonly referred to as the “Superfund,” which created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industry. [26] The money generated by this tax was then used to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites across the nation. In 1982, Times Beach was evacuated and residents were permanently relocated due to the high-level of contamination. Just a few short years later, the city was deemed uninhabitable and disincorporated by the state. As remediation was underway, all houses and buildings in the town were demolished and buried under a large mound at the park. Now, all that is left of this once thriving community is a large grassy mound, the faint outline of streets and roads hardly visible in parts of the park, and the last remaining building which now serves as the park’s visitor’s center. [27] The Superfund program has been met with widespread criticism since its inception from both industries and communities. As a result, in 1995, the tax was not renewed and “significant limits were put on EPA’s [Environmental Protection Agency] ability to perform cleanup work itself, and an increasing percentage of cleanups [were] being performed by PRPs [Potentially Responsible Parties]. EPA focused activity during this period and onward on ensuring that PRPs perform most of the cleanups, thus, saving dwindling public funding for government oversight of private actions.” [28] The former Times Beach town is now Route 66 State Park, and visitors use it as a recreational space for biking, walking, and running, among other activities. Save for a few informative signs at the entrance of the park, the history of this location and community has mostly been erased. Upon arrival, we laughed nervously in the safety of the parking lot, struggling to reconcile the location versus our safety: it did not look harmful. From where we stood, we could see a bathroom building near the park entrance and a wooden sign with site information, including guidelines for dogs on leashes and a map of the “Inner Loop Trail.” Ross gathered us around to give an overview of the site before we officially visited the mound. The mound was to our left as we entered, but Ross had to point it out to the tour. It was an unassuming hill covered in the shoots of early-spring grass, not as we expected. It could be easily ignored by visitors who were unaware that the contents of a town were buried underneath. Our guide instructed the group to walk to the top of the small hill, which turned out to be deceptively long. We gathered there as Ross provided information on how the dioxin-contaminated waste was introduced into the area and the amount of waste that was under our feet. On the far end, Ross pointed out a small fenced-in area with various pipes coming out of the ground, which many of us missed and/or did not know what it was. Ross explained that it was a gas extraction well for the buried waste at the site. Here, Ross’s performance speaks to Levin’s idea of the “environmental unconscious,” which “[renders] perceptible those aspects of environment that we habitually engage but routinely overlook.” [29] It was easy to overlook our environment and the significance of a location like Times Beach, as it was the oldest site and had been nearly completely erased into its new form: a park. The mound that contains the Dixon-contaminated town is just a hill. Thus, Ross’s performance, retelling of the history, and authoritative approach as “urban ranger” reconstructed the town for her audience, so that we engaged with the location as more than its park exterior. She brought our environmental unconsciousness to the fore in order to restore the site, in our imaginations, and challenge our initial perceptions of the space. The site is open to visitors daily from dawn to dusk, and many visitors take advantage of the trails, many of which are parts of the old roadways, the same ones that were once sprayed with dioxin. Many may not recognize that the uninhabitable nature of this area for day-to-day community life resulted in its transformation into a park which poses little risk for temporary visitors. Instead, we were faced with nature as it has been remade, as Ross said, as all evidence of the contamination was buried, out of sight, in the mound. [30] What was once a place where people lived is now a place for visitors to walk their dogs, gawk at the history of the town if they happened to stop by one of the parks signs, and then leave, almost without a trace. As such, we had to be taught to see the park for both what it once was and what it is today. Site #2 : Coldwater Creek The second stop on the tour was a combination of several sites with ties to Cold War era weapons production. Radioactive material made its way to the St. Louis area during the 1940s when Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, a downtown company, was commissioned to be a part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. [31] The project’s ultimate aim was to create the world’s first atomic weapon, and Mallinckrodt was tasked with purifying uranium. The project was unlike any task undertaken by the State, and to complete the work quickly and away from prying eyes, it had a top-secret security clearance which circumvented typical democratic decision making mechanisms by merely removing the project from public scrutiny. [32] Many of the workers themselves were unaware of the material they were working with and many would later develop cancer and other related diseases. [33] As the project was underway, a great deal of radioactive and/or hazardous materials were used, and much waste was generated. With limited space to store the materials and waste downtown, a property west of the city was used. [34] The property, referred to today as the St. Louis Airport Site (SLAPS), was a twenty-one acre tract of land near the St. Louis Lambert International Airport. [35] The western edge of the property bordered Coldwater Creek, a fifteen-mile creek that snakes through the backyards of various neighborhoods, before emptying into the Missouri River. [36] The site stored “mountains” of radioactive and hazardous waste in open air conditions for almost two decades. [37] As a result, radioactive waste made its way into the creek before it was later sold to a company from Colorado, which dumped whatever materials were deemed not valuable enough to transport into the local West Lake Landfill. [38] Our second tour location was near the airport and the creek. However, on the way, Ross brought us to the building housed by government officials of Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). In 1974, the federal government created FUSRAP, which was tasked “to identify, investigate and clean up or control sites throughout the United States that became contaminated as a result of the Nation’s early atomic energy program during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.” [39] In addition to the creek, landfill, and Weldon Springs location, there are over 100 identified contaminated sites around the St. Louis Area recognized by the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA. [40] While the EPA and Army Corps have remediated many of the sites, there are still some that either still need remediation and/or are contested. Regardless, the EPA maintains that these sites are safe, [41] including the landfill, but many residents believe they are experiencing negative health impacts and have created a Facebook group to share information and contest expert claims of health and safety. It was in this Facebook group that our “toxic tour” was advertised. Once arrived, we parked our caravan of cars along the side of the road, which was lined mostly by warehouse buildings in proximity to the St. Louis Airport. Here, Ross spoke about the significance of FUSRAP in the area and provided details on what became of the creek’s cleanup operation. While there, a Hazelwood police officer approached in a car. The arrival of a law enforcement officer made the audience members nervous; this was an unplanned portion of the tour. Keeping with her character, Ross introduced herself as an urban ranger to the officer, who was curious why a group such as ours was in the area. The officer seemed interested, told us to be safe, and left the scene without causing a disruption to the audience. Here, the location of the FURSAP building is reminiscent of Cresswell’s concept of place, where we can “think of place in radically open and non-essentialized ways where place is constantly struggled over and remained in practical ways.” [42] The location of the FURSAP building is indeed a place made and remade by history and perception. With the creek remediation considered complete, the weathered steel building that houses FUSRAP seemed to blend into the warehouse buildings surrounding it. Our perception was altered, remade, by Ross’s expert navigation of the site, however the building’s history had not been erased as with the previous site, and thus it was easy for our group to see and understand the significance as Ross directed our attention and shared the history of the location. The meaning of the place is, as Cresswell argues, “performed and practiced” [43] through our interaction with the guide outside of the chain-link fence that surrounds it. As such, without being on the tour with us, the Hazelwood officer had a different concept of the place’s significance than those of us who listened intently to Ross’s guidance, even though we were just down the road from the mouth of the infamous Coldwater Creek. However, the presence of authority outside of the FUSRAP location felt significant, as it was a reminder that the place we inhabited during the performance is also a part of the larger ecosystem of the area. Figure 1. FUSRAP site, April 8, 2018, (Photo by author) Soon after this interruption, the audience members were back in their cars, as we traveled—briefly this time—to our next location: Coldwater Creek. Like the FUSRAP location, this site had not been reimagined and fully transformed into a park or something else. This space was not inviting; there were no sidewalks, no facilities, and nowhere to park, and the mouth of the creek was unassuming and littered with garbage. We would not have known it was a location of significance without our guide to inform us of such, but it was easy to imagine it as a contaminated space. As with the FUSRAP building, the meaning of place is “constantly struggled over and remained.” [44] Those living along the creek have a clear perception of place while those simply driving may not upload that same definition of place. However, the performance at this location is pushed further when applying Shaughnessy’s lens of location-based performance. Shaughnessy argues that approaches such as Ross’s tour, “engage in the making of place and spatiality … Thus in site responsive work, where space is made meaningful as place through encounters between performers and spectators/participants, there is a potential to transform our perceptions of the performed environment.” [45] Ross’s interactions with the audience at this site—encouragement to explore accompanied by careful warnings of caution that pointed out debris and her now established convention of beginning with the historical significance of the site—assisted in solidifying the meaningful nature of the site for the group gathered around. Thus, Coldwater Creek was indeed transformed into a place made meaningful through Ross’s responsive performance. Large cement barriers, like those used to direct traffic on highways during construction, guarded the creek, prohibiting us from getting too close. There was a sense of nervousness among participants while approaching the creek. We were all aware of the historical contamination of the area, but did not expect to come into contact with the discarded things of today, like broken glass, scraps of paper, and discarded plastic bags. We peered into the murky water, knowing that it had been decontaminated, but the lasting uneasiness was still there for the audience members. Some climbed over the barriers, but not for long, before coming back over to the side that felt “safe.” Once gathered around, our guide talked about how it looked like a place to avoid, though it borders many people’s backyards and was once a place where children played. Before people knew it was contaminated with radioactive waste, the creek, which was prone to flooding, was thought of as a nuisance when rising water entered basements and yards. Now both former and current residents worry, and in some cases believe, that they were exposed to harmful contaminates which have negatively impacted their health. Under FUSRAP, the creek underwent, and continues to undergo, remediation, but cleanup was not extended beyond the creek into the private properties along the creek’s edge. While seemingly unremarkable, the location exudes a negative atmosphere, so much so that this was the only stop on the tour that audience members whispered to each other and refrained from openly talking at the site. While the town of Times Beach was given renewed purpose after the cleanup project was completed—an opportunity for renewed recreation—the same could not be done for the miles of this creek that remained mistreated and contaminated, at least in this area, hidden from sight unless you know where to look or were/are affected by it. Site #3 : Carrollton The next stop on our tour was the former Carrollton subdivision in Bridgeton, MO. Once one of the largest subdivisions in the area, the community was bought out in the 1990s to make room for a new runway at the airport. [46] However, the airport expansion fell through and the community was demolished anyway. Former residents now question if there were other explanations as to why their homes were destroyed, as it is now known that the subdivision was located between a radioactive creek and a radioactive landfill. Entering the area that used to be Carrollton was surreal. The tree-lined streets of the community were inhabited not long ago, and the remnants of human consumption of the land were everywhere. The roads that moved through the area were complete with turnoffs, driveways, and sidewalks, as if the homes were lifted from the earth without a trace. The area was also littered with trash, mattresses, furniture, and beer cans, showing that people had been there recently and/or used Carrollton as a dumping ground. After driving deep into the once-vibrant community, we parked just on the other side of a steel gate, complete with a sign that read, “Road Closed. No Trespassing. Property of the City of St. Louis.” Once we stepped out of our cars, the evidence of human intervention was even more present. We were careful not to step too near an open, uncovered sewer. Telephone poles and electric wires still stood along the street. Ross led us on foot to a clearing, which once was a yard, where the group took a break to talk and to decompress after the first half of the tour. Here, we gathered around a blanket for snacks of cookies, clementines, and hot tea that she prepared. We spent the time talking with the other audience members and walking around the general area; we were especially struck by the non-native plants clearly planted as landscaping, including a wall of bamboo, yucca plants that decorated the ends of what used to be driveways, and carefully placed evergreens that had outgrown their hedge-like purpose. By this point in the tour, we had developed a level of comfort with Ross and the rest of the audience members present. We had existed in “dangerous” spaces together and embodied a shared experience with each other and with our host, reflecting Shaughnessy’s idea that environmental theatre’s exchange between performer and audience allows for “a transfer of bodily sensations … which affects the participants, creating a felt exchange, an embodied experience.” [47] We had shared the experience up to this point, and that experience lead to trust, not simply assumed authority, in our guide. Figure 2. Picnic at the Carrollton Subdivision site, April 8, 2018, (Photo by author) After a bit, Ross stood up and talked to the group about Carrollton, which included a discussion of some of the rumors as to why the subdivision was evacuated. The space transformed for us, as we imagined the homes that once stood on this land, not too long ago. After all, “in site responsive work … there is a potential to transform our perceptions of the performed environment,” [48] as this too was a location that needed a bit of reconstruction through Ross’s guidance. While the driveways and sidewalks still existed, the outlines of residences that once were, Ross’s expert perspective helped us to reimage a space that was once a bustling community not that long ago. Our perspective shifted from viewing the area as a dumping ground to recognizing the lives that once centered on the suburban streets of the Carrollton subdivision. Unlike the historical distance between ourselves and the residents of Times Beach, it was easy to imagine the homes, the gardens, and the cars in the driveways. Thus, the meaning of this location was much easier to grasp than some of the others. Perhaps most ominous was a solitary light pole, long disconnected from its electric source. Ironically, Ross pointed out a current public park, built directly adjacent, that could be seen from our resting place. No fence or structure divided the park from the property where we sat, save some overgrown bushes. There was nothing to keep us in, or out, or to delineate the danger, real or fabricated, of the area of Carrollton from the recreational space next to it. Site #4 : West Lake Landfill The second to last stop on the tour was by all accounts the most well-known site on the itinerary: the West Lake Landfill. In 2010, the West Lake Landfill became the focus of national attention when it was discovered that a portion of the site was experiencing what experts called a “subsurface smoldering event,” referred to locally as an “underground fire.” [49] To make matters worse, the landfill was already known to contain illegally dumped radioactive waste. In 1973, a local company mixed 8,700 tons of radioactive waste, containing seven tons of uranium, with 3.5 times as much soil, and illegally dumped it into a local, unlined landfill. [50] In the 1990s, the landfill became a Superfund site and was added to the National Priorities List, and anti-nuclear activists had been fighting for the complete remediation of the site since the early 1970s. [51] Today, the landfill contains both radioactive waste and an underground fire. While the EPA maintains that the site is safe, residents believe they have been experiencing a variety of different health problems. [52] While much is known about this site, many residents, even those who live relatively close and those curious, have not physically gone to it. For many of the residents in the surrounding communities, the first indication that something was amiss and that they even lived near a landfill, was the presence of a chemical-like odor in the air. [53] The landfill’s existence likely went unnoticed by residents, in part by design, as landfills and industrial sites are strategically placed away from typical routes and neighborhoods. [54] But in this case, the waste was illegally dumped in a landfill in a densely populated area, and unlike many cases of toxic dumping, [55] the landfill is surrounded by predominantly white, working class neighborhoods. With greater access to resources, residents have in many ways garnered more media attention than other sites of toxicity. We felt great anticipation as we drove our car to a stop along a road that ran parallel to the edge of the landfill. Right away, we were met with a warning: “Posted. No trespassing. Keep out.,” informing us to remain on our side of the chain-link and barbed wire fence that ran the perimeter of the site. There were cameras along the fence offering constant surveillance of the area, which alerted the site’s security that our group of tourists was in the area. As we stood gazing across the expanse of the landfill, a pick-up truck pulled up just on the other side of the fence and while it never stopped, it crept slowly by us; clearly, we were being watched. Unlike Pezzullo’s definition of toxic tours that invite people into these spaces to educate the public, the operators at the landfill wanted us to keep out. [56] Here, we did not struggle with Levin’s environmental unconscious of the more unassuming sites, as the location was current and alive: we actually experienced it firsthand. This was the only point in the trip where we felt wearing the cheap, white masks may actually be necessary. While the smell was not apparent at first, it soon wafted our direction. Group members remarked on the smell and asked if it was safe to breathe the air. Our guide led the audience along the fence, providing the history of the mound we were here to explore. Not many people would go there given its status as an active landfill, even without the smoldering event that has attracted public attention. From a performance perspective, Levin argues: In environmental performance, the perspectivalism of the proscenium stage ostensibly falls away, the action no longer enframed within the confines of a single scenic picture; the staging takes place throughout a found or transformed environment. While the traditional spectator is positioned outside of the stage’s pictorial field, s/he is now placed inside of the theatrical picture. [57] Being there, we were inserted into the location and could grasp what it would be like to live at the border of the landfill, gaining an understanding of the community’s plight. Ross positioned the tour attendees in the frame of the performance by carefully “staging” the place through dictating where to stand and directing the audience’s attention through the added element of past and present knowledge, thus allowing the audience to engage fully in the setting of her performance. We felt safer in this place under her guidance and because of the authority of the character she curated. We were all fascinated by the visceral experience of standing next to the landfill. The mound seemed to breathe as if it was a living organism, given the pipes and mechanisms that allowed for the release of gasses from beneath its surface. It was hard not to be distracted by the seemingly living mound next to us, and we commented to one another that we were almost waiting for it to move. At this the fourth stop on Ross’s tour the impact of human consumption was palpable. This location is still “alive;” it has not yet faced the remediation efforts of the U.S. government and other forces. It was hard to believe that this site exists in the middle of suburbia, with residences on all sides. Figure 3. Allana Ross Overlooking the Landfill Site, April 8, 2018, (Photo by author) Before we left, Ross led the audience back up the road, past our cars, to a higher point in elevation that overlooked the landfill. Here, even though we could not see the landfill in its entirety, Our tour guide pointed out different features at the site to help us more fully grasp the gravity of the situation. Ross talked more specifically about the smoldering event, pointing to an area in the landfill where the “fire” is believed to be. We stood looking over the vast expanse of the mound, the green tarp and grass covered areas, and a seemingly endless system of pipes running in and across the surface. As Ross pointed out, it may be jarring to think of this site as alive, but that is part of the issue: the earth is alive, we just do not always treat it as such. Site #5 : Weldon Springs Most of our group left the tour after the landfill, leaving only about a third of the original participants. Pulling into a largely empty parking lot, save for only one other car, we had the final stop mostly to ourselves. While the West Lake Landfill gave the impression that every inch of the place was being closely observed and managed, the Weldon Springs site had the effect of being a world set apart, desolate, and otherworldly. Unlike the other sites of the day, which largely blended into their local environments and felt mundane, this site was intended to be a spectacle. Rising out of the largely flat terrain sat what can only be described as a mountain, covered in white-grey boulders. This mound is also a burial site of sorts, but in this case, it contains hazardous and radioactive waste. After WWII, the U.S. expanded its nuclear weapons programs. In St. Louis, production was moved to a 220-acre facility thirty miles from downtown. [58] The plant was in operation from 1957-1966, and in that time, it too generated an expansive amount of radioactive and hazardous waste, which was often stored in pits and quarries on the 17,000-acre property. The site was later remediated by the Department of Energy, and like Route 66 State Park, it was deemed uninhabitable but safe for recreational visitors. [59] For our tour group, the mound was immediately visible, rising high out of the earth. Today, the forty-five acre and seventy-five foot high mound is a tourist attraction that contains roughly “1.48 million cubic yards of PCBs, mercury, asbestos, TNT, radioactive uranium and radium, and contaminated sludge and rubble.” [60] The site includes a single story metal building which houses the “Weldon Springs Interpretive Center,” a museum and “exhibition hall preserving the legacy of the site, cleanup activities, and natural environment.” [61] Additionally, the site includes the “Nuclear Waste Adventure Trail,” which consists of a path leading to steps to climb the mound. The mention of nuclear waste is the only major connection to its past. Visitors to the mound are invited to explore, to climb to the peak and oversee their surroundings. Weldon Spring has become a local attraction, and it is now the highest peak in St. Charles County. Unlike the West Lake Landfill from where we had just come, this location invited visitors. Even though it was getting late in the day and the cold was starting to settle in past our coats, we noticed one other person in the park biking along the nature trail that wound its way around the large mound at the park’s center. In this act of bringing environment into the fore, Levin argues that the concept of camouflage of the environment engages “the spatial process by which we engage with and adapt to our material surroundings.” [62] Performance that engages the environment in which it is taking place uses camouflage to “[highlight] the non-human site as itself a performing entity, reminding us that the communication between self and setting is rarely unidirectional.” [63] Here, at Weldon Springs, the mound became the central character of the performance. It was quite a hike up a long staircase built into the side of what seemed like an endless mound of boulders. Just when we thought we were at the top, the path kept going to a central area. Ross encouraged us to walk the strange terrain, and we spent some time traversing the boulders, looking out over the edge, before heading to the highest peak. At the top, there was an area with benches and metal plaques describing the location, the history, and the cleanup of the area. There was also a diagram of the mound and details as to how it was constructed, including its dimensions. Again, this park is located within a highly populated, residential area with a local high school visible in the distance, closer than one would hope. Yet, with expanses of trees on all sides interrupted only briefly by buildings, it felt like the mound was secluded in nature. This unnatural place houses such potential danger, and yet we consumed it, temporarily, by being there. Figure 4. The surface of the Weldon Springs mound, April 8, 2018, (Photo by author) Both Shaughnessy and Levin highlight an important distinction in Ross’s performance: Ross does not engage her audience with a traditionally staged and scripted performance in these chosen spaces. On the tour, she evoked the sites of contamination, but still framed her performance as a tour of these locations, which could change based on the day, time, and audience present in creating her community. Thus, it is important to revisit Magelssen’s discussion of tourism when considering Ross’s performance. He observes that immersive tourism experiences “are tapping into the potential energies offered by inviting the audience to step through the fourth wall.” [64] Magelssen’s exploration of tourism and second-person interpretation [65] explores the ways spectators inherently become a part of the performance for the purpose of partaking in an immersive experience outside of their own lived experience. With Ross, however, we did not become a character in her performance through the means of Magelssen’s second-person interpretation. Rather, we became a part of the community built through performance and empowered by a renewed commitment to the environment/community, as we were not, in fact, complete outsiders to begin with. We said goodbye to our guide, and kept the knowledge of our experience at the forefront of our minds during the almost two-hour drive home. For a little more than five hours, a group of strangers gathered for Ross’s performance as she challenged our perception of these sites as they were consumed, and then reified, after human impact had contaminated the land. Through her tour, Ross asked us to engage with parts of our community that are outside of our everyday experiences, to know “the history of these sites in a safe space removed from their threats,” the unassuming danger that sits silently in the open among the housing developments, quiet streets, schools, and strip malls of suburban St. Louis. [66] Ross encouraged us to confront these lands: I think that it is important to repurpose the land because we depend on it and are connected to it. There is a limited amount of land and we can’t just trash it and abandon it … if we abandon these places we don’t feel the consequences, we don’t see that this is a repetitive pattern of behavior that comes from thinking we are separate from the land…so I think reckoning with the disastrous, contaminated, places that we have created is ultimately more beneficial than abandoning them for short term safety. [67] Part of our tour, then, was to confront the historical legacies of place and to see how some of these properties are now being used. Ross’s performance connected her audience to places within our community but that are still distant to many residents. Her performance brought attention to the issue of contaminated sites in the areas west of the city. Ross still hosts tours, advertised on local St. Louis-area Facebook groups, that focus on the landfill, Coldwater Creek, and current cleanup efforts. While she carried a brochure and notes containing historical facts and details on each location, Ross did not have a set script. Thus, the performance can change based on the community members present for the experience, guided by where they are able to go, how long they want to stay, and even the weather. The impact of the tour is lasting, as the sensory experience encourages participants to hold onto the images, smells, and sounds of each of the five sites, allowing Ross to achieve her goal of bringing awareness to the contamination of land in the place she too calls “home.” References [1] Allana Ross. 2017. “West Lake Landfill Facebook Page.” Facebook , March 26, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/groups/508327822519437/. [2] Jan Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 2. [3] Ibid., 2. [4] Ibid., 3. [5] Allana Ross, “Artist Statement—Allana Ross,” Allana Ross, 2017, https://allanaross.com/Statement-1. [6] Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts , 13. [7] Ibid., 5. [8] Richard Schechner, “6 axioms for environmental theatre.” ( The Drama Review: TDR 1968): 41-64.; Richard Schechner, Environmental Theater . (Hal Leonard Corporation, 1994).; Una Chaudhuri, Staging place: The Geography of Modern Drama . (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997).; Elinor Fuchs and Una Chaudhuri, eds., Land/scape/theater . (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002).; Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May, eds., Readings in Performance and Ecology . (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).; Stephen Bottoms and Matthew Goulish, eds., Small acts of repair: Performance, ecology and Goat Island . (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013).; Ric Knowles, The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning . (Montreal, CA: ECW Press, 1999). [9] Tim Cresswell, Place: An Introduction , 2nd ed. (Chichester, UK: J. Wiley & Sons, 2015), 39. [10] Nick Kaye, Site-Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation . (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 65. [11] Baz Kershaw, Theatre ecology: Environments and performance events . (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 14. [12] Nicola Shaughnessy, Applying Performance: Live Art, Socially Engaged Theatre and Affective Practice. (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 114; 102. [13] Ross, “Artist Statement — Allana Ross.” [14] Shaughnessy, Applying Performance , 113. [15] Laura Levin. Performing Ground: Space, Camouflage, and the Art of Blending In. (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 105-6. [16] David A Fennell and Ross Dowling, Ecotourism Policy and Planning , 3rd ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003), 1; 4. [17] Scott Magelssen. “Tourist Performance in the Twenty-first Century.” In Enacting History , edited by Scott Magelssen and Rhona Justice-Malloy. (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2011), 174.; Scott Magelssen. Living History Museums: Undoing History through Performance . (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007). [18] Magelssen, “Tourist Performance,” 177. [19] Robert Bullard, ed, Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots . (Boston MA: South End Press, 1993).; Steven Lerner, Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure . (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012). [20] Phaedra Pezzullo, Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Pollution, Travel, and Environmental Justice. (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2009), 5. [21] William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England . (New York, NY: Hill & Wang, 2003). [22] Ross, “Artist Statement — Allana Ross.” [23] Ibid. [24] Allana Ross, Interview of Allana Ross of Toxic Mound Tours, interview by author, May 17, 2018. [25] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “TIMES BEACH Site Profile,” EPA’s Superfund Site Information for TIMES BEACH, n.d., https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0701237. [26] OLEM US EPA, “Superfund: CERCLA Overview,” Overviews and Factsheets, US EPA, 9 September 2015, https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-cercla-overview. [27] Jennifer Sieg, “General Information: Down the ‘Mother Road’ Route 66 State Park,” Text, 6 February 2011, https://mostateparks.com/page/54997/general-information. [28] Thomas Voltaggio and John Adams, “Superfund: A Half-Century of Progress” (EPA Alumni Association, 1 March 2016), 6, https://www.epaalumni.org/hcp/superfund.pdf. [29] Levin. Performing Ground , 105-6. [30] Ross, “Artist Statement — Allana Ross.” [31] Fleishman-Hillard, Inc., “Fuel for the Atomic Age: Completion Report on St Louis- Area Uranium Operations, 1942-1967,” 30 September 1967, Environmental Archives, http://environmentalarchives.com/download/1967-09-30-mallinckrodt-fuel-atomic-age-report-st-louis-area-uranium-processing-operations/. [32] Seantel Anais and Kevin Walby, “Secrecy, Publicity, and the Bomb: Nuclear Publics and Objects of the Nevada Test Site, 1951-1992,” Cultural Studies 30, no. 6 (2016): 949–68. [33] Cheryl Wittenauer, “Woman Crusades for Ailing Nuclear Workers, Families,” Los Angeles Times , 29 February 2004, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-feb-29-adna-daughter29-story.html. [34] U.S Atomic Energy Commission, “1959-04-11 – AEC – Manhattan Project – History of the St Louis Airport Site” (U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 11 April 1959), Environmental Archives, http://environmentalarchives.com/download/1959-04-11-aec-manhattan-project-history-of-the-st-louis-airport-site/. [35] Ibid. [36] Ray Hartmann, “The Poisoned Children of Coldwater Creek Finally Get a Break,” St. Louis Magazine , 3 August 2018, https://www.stlmag.com/api/content/3f24000c-975f-11e8-b5a5-12408cbff2b0/. [37] Robert Alvarez, “West Lake Story: An Underground Fire, Radioactive Waste, and Governmental Failure,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11 February 2016, http://thebulletin.org/west-lake-story-underground-fire-radioactive-waste-and-governmental-failure9160.; Keith Schneider, “Mountain of Nuclear Waste Splits St. Louis and Suburbs,” New York Times , 24 March 1990, http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/us/mountain-of-nuclear-waste-splits-st-louis-and-suburbs-888.html?pagewanted=all. [38] James Allen, “1974-05-16-AEC- Investigation of Cotter Corporation Illegal Dumping at Latty Avenue,” 17 May 1974, Environmental Archives, http://environmentalarchives.com/download/1974-05-16-aec-investigation-of-cotter-corporation-illegal-dumping-at-latty-avenue/.; Mary Freivogel, “Confusion Over Dumping of Radioactive Waste in County,” St Louis Post Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), 30 May 1976; Mary Freivogel, “Radioactive Materials Checks Called Faulty,” St Louis Post Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), 1 June 1976. [39] U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, “FUSRAP,” n.d., 1, https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Environmental/FUSRAP/ [40] U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, “St. Louis District > Missions > Centers of Expertise > Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program,” FUSRAP, n.d., https://www.mvs.usace.army.mil/Missions/Centers-of-Expertise/Formerly-Utilized-Sites-Remedial-Action-Program/. [41] Karl Brooks, “EPA Is Working toward a Remedy at West Lake Landfill,” Stltoday.Com , 20 February 2014, http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/epa-is-working-toward-a-remedy-at-west-lake-landfill/article_ff60744d-2c35-5439-b857-111705da97d5.html. [42] Cresswell, Place, 39. [43] Ibid. [44] Ibid. [45] Shaughnessy, Applying Performance , 113. [46] Carolyn Tuft, “Carrollton Was Once a Quiet Subdivision but Now It’s a Noisy Community in Limbo,” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), 7 July 1995. [47] Shaughnessy, Applying Performance , 113. [48] Ibid. [49] Véronique LaCapra, “There’s A Burning Problem at The Bridgeton Landfill – It Stinks but Is It Unsafe?,” St. Louis Public Radio, 29 March 2013, http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/theres-burning-problem-bridgeton-landfill-it-stinks-it-unsafe. [50] Carolyn Bowers, Louis Rose, and Theresa Tighe, “A Miracle with A Price,” St Louis Post Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), 12 February 1989. [51] Inc. Republic Services, “Bridgeton Landfill Timeline,” Website, 2014, http://www.bridgetonlandfill.com/bridgeton-landfill-timeline. [52] Brooks, “EPA Is Working toward a Remedy at West Lake Landfill.”; Veronique LaCapra, “Confused about the Bridgeton and West Lake Landfills? Here’s What You Should Know,” St. Louis Public Radio , 2 March 2014, http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/confused-about-bridgeton-and-west-lake-landfills-heres-what-you-should-know. [53] Jeffrey Tomich, “Hot Spot and Fumes Prompt Concern at Bridgeton Landfill,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), 30 October 2012. [54] Andrew Hurley, “From Factory Town to Metropolitan Junkyard: Postindustrial Transitions on the Urban Periphery,” Environmental History 21, (2016): 3–29. [55] Robert D. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality , 3rd ed. (Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2000).; Melissa Checker, Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2005). [56] Pezzullo, Toxic Tourism, 5. [57] Levin, Performing Ground, 68. [58] Fleishman-Hillard, Inc., “Fuel for the Atomic Age: Completion Report on St Louis- Area Uranium Operations, 1942-1967.” [59] Susan Davis and Puro, Steven, “Patterns of Intergovernmental Relations in Environmental Cleanup at Federal Facilities,” In Publius 29, no. 4 (1999), 33–53. [60] Doug Kirby, Ken Smith, and Mike Wilkins, “Nuclear Waste Adventure Trail, Weldon Spring, Missouri,” Roadside America, 1, accessed 25 October 2019, https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/14614. [61] DOE – Office of Legacy Management, “Weldon Spring Site Interpretive Center and Educational Opportunities,” Energy.gov, August 2019, 1, https://www.lm.doe.gov/Weldon/Interpretive_Center/. [62] Levin, Performing Ground, 97. [63] Ibid. [64] Magelssen. “Tourist Performance,” 174. [65] Ibid., 175. [66] Ross, “Artist Statement — Allana Ross.” [67] Ross, Interview of Allana Ross of Toxic Mound Tours. Footnotes About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography Introduction: Local Acts: Performing Communities, Performing Americas The Architecture of Local Performance: Stages of the Taliesin Fellowship “La conjura de Xinum” and Language Revitalization: Understanding Maya Agency through Theatre Exploring the History and Implications of Toxicity through St. Louis: Performance Artist Allana Ross and the “Toxic Mound Tours” Finding Home in the World Stage: Critical Creative Citizenship and the 13th South Asian Theatre Festival 2018 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Natalie Tenner Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 29 1 Visit Journal Homepage Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. Edited by Nicola Shaugnessy. London: Bloomsbury, 2013; Pp. 300. Natalie Tenner By Published on December 22, 2016 Download Article as PDF Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being . Edited by Nicola Shaugnessy. London: Bloomsbury, 2013; Pp. 300. Although Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being serves as an introductory text, its usefulness is not in the structured and fixed definitions and equations a novice might desire, but instead in the illustration of the disagreements and instability that necessarily come with an interdisciplinary approach. The twelve essays utilize a range of methodologies as well as different writing styles that model the variety of ways cognitive science and affect theory can be applied to performance studies. The book is clearer in its use of cognitive science than in affect theory, in that the authors often explicitly state which aspects of cognitive theory they are employing while the inclusion of affect theory is subtler. This illustrates accurately the disagreements still surrounding how to define and use affect, and how affect, emotion, and feelings differ. The elements of cognitive science appear more consistently throughout the work, although not without some variation, and many of the essays provide examples of applying popular cognitive science approaches such as mirror neurons, conceptual metaphor theory, embodied cognition, and distributed cognition. In the introduction to the first section, “Dances with Science”, Evelyn B. Tribble and John Sutton suggest some of the difficulties of interdisciplinary work but also introduce commonly used aspects of cognitive science in the study of performance. The essays that follow outline different ways of structuring this cross-disciplinary dance. Matthew Reason and his co-authors describe an empirical study to determine a spectator’s response to watching dance. The chapter focuses mostly on the collaboration of artists and neuroscientists, highlighting the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach, but also the challenges. Anna Furse also writes on dance, and though she suggests that empirical analysis is forthcoming, the essay itself focuses on a theoretical concept of historical identity located within the body. She describes her plans to retrace her steps, both figuratively and choreographically, with her partner Esther Linley, in order to determine “what happens in the act of retrieving a forgotten or atrophied learnt embodied action, that also carries with it emotional significance?” (57). In the section’s final chapter, Erin Hood discusses the difficulty of representing pain and understanding it in others. Using the performance piece Sssshh…Succour, in which the solo performer cuts herself in a methodological fashion, Hood introduces a theme that is repeated in later essays in this book, that the presence of the body onstage reminds the spectator that the body is not separate from cognition and affect, but instead they are essentially connected. The next section, introduced by Amy Cook, focuses on embodied cognition in more traditional performances. Cook provides the first extended introduction to affect theory in this section and also introduces metaphor and conceptual blending theory as a way of relating text and cognition. Affect theory is an important concept for the first essay in this section, in which Natalie Bainter considers the many blushing faces in Thomas Heywood’s play, A Woman Killed with Kindness. The blush helps to illustrate that affect is not simply an individual bodily response, but is relational. John Lutterbie suggests in his essay that language is a dynamic system and that gesture, instead of supporting language, helps create and shape it. Language is not, then, created simply in one’s mind, but instead is embodied. Naomi Rokonitz continues to examine this relationship between text and body by considering the dying bodies in Wit and 33 Variations. Though the protagonists in both plays cultivate their minds more than their bodies, it is their bodies that we see fall apart and suffer. Again, the body on stage provides an affective experience that leads to empathy. In the third section, “The Multimodal Actor,” Rhonda Blair provides an overview of cognitive science history and two different approaches to affect theory. These essays consider the embodied cognition of the actor. Neal Utterback considers the relationship between gesture and memory. He provides an example of an empirical study and concludes “Clearly gestures are valuable tools for actors. … Gestures have a profound effect on our ability to memorise text and construct meaning” (155). Martin Welton, like Furse, gives an early overview of a performance as experiment before it has been completed. He also makes use of affect and another recurring idea, James Gibson’s “affordances”, to discuss the relationship between cognition and the feeling of one’s feet on the ground. Gabriele Sofia finishes out this section by describing the benefit performance studies can provide to cognitive scientists. She discusses the “performative body schema” actors must create, based off of their individual body schemas, and relates this to a benefit seen in Parkinson’s disease patients who attended theatre workshops. Sofia suggests that “theatre’s peculiar strength lies in providing another reality that makes it possible to work on the ability of creating relationships” (179). In the final section, Bruce McConachie suggests that actors and spectators, like children in a sandbox, have an active relationship with each other as well as with the environment that affords them opportunities. The essays that follow in this section discuss interactive performance, which relies on the active cooperation of the spectators. The first two articles discuss the solo audience experience of the production Rotating in a Room of Images.Josephine Machon examines her experience based on the cognitive idea of synaesthesia, in which multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously from one trigger. Machon describes her experience of the immersive theatrical performance as (syn)aesthetic, as being both cerebral and corporeal. Adam Alston’s analysis of the same performance looks at it instead through the lens of risk perception, affect, and emotion, and suggests that “[w]hen considered as an affective presence, my relationship to risk was political given the influence it exerted; it controlled as much as spurred on thought and action”(227). The final essay of the collection describes the effects interactive and immersive performance had on autistic children who participated in Imaging Autism. Melissa Trimingham suggests that the children’s opportunities to touch and interact with objects, costumes, and set pieces allow them a momentary participation in a world in which “objects are steeped in meanings” which “seems to pass autistic people by” (232). Nicola Shaughnessy introduces this book by discussing the performance Schrödinger, which provides an entry point into her discussion of “intermediary spaces” (19), which is where the many disciplines in this text come together. As in the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, the essays in this book can “exist in simultaneous multiple states” (2): as studies of science and performance, as examples of cognitive and affective theories, as empirical approaches and personal journeys. The variety of approaches and topics provide multiple entry points for those interested in applying cognitive theories to their work and for those who are looking for solid examples of the relevancy of cognitive and affect theories to performance studies. References Footnotes About The Author(s) NATALIE TENNER University of Mary Washington Editorial Board: Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Managing Editor: Curtis Russell Editorial Assistant: Christine Snyder Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Editorial Comment Historical Subjectivity and the Revolutionary Archetype in Amiri Baraka's The Slave and Luis Valdez's Bandido! Calculated Cacophonies: The Queer Asian American Family and the Nonmusical Musical in Chay Yew's Wonderland August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays. Edited by Sandra G. Shannon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016; Pp. 211. Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness. By Gad Guterman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014; Pp. 236. Kitchen Sink Realisms: Domestic Labor, Dining, and Drama in American Theatre. By Dorothy Chansky. Theatre History and Culture Series. Series editor Heather Nathans. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015; Pp. 620. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being. Edited by Nicola Shaugnessy. London: Bloomsbury, 2013; Pp. 300. Theatre and Cognitive Neuroscience. Edited by Clelia Falletti, Gabriele Sofia, and Victor Iacono. Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues Series. Series editors: John Lutterbie and Nicola Shaugnessy. London UK, New York NY: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016; Pp. 260. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

David Bisaha and Pria Ruth Williams Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 37 2 Visit Journal Homepage Censorship/Public Censure and Performance Today: Special Issue Introduction David Bisaha and Pria Ruth Williams By Published on July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF By David Bisaha and Pria Ruth Williams, Special Issue Editors This special issue turns toward censorship at a time in which both the definitions and mechanisms of censorship are changing in the United States. Theatre historian John Houchin, in Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century , argues that “attempts to censor performance erupt when the dominant culture construes its laws, rituals, and traditions to be in the process of significant change . . . such behavior is indicative of a conservative society, one whose energy is used to maintain its political, moral, and social infrastructure.”(1) In such societies, the impulse to consolidate and enforce values of propriety becomes a powerful, flexible tool of cultural battle. In this issue, we consider censorship in the Americas, with an emphasis on the changing nature of censorship and discourses of censorship and censure experienced by performing artists today. Indeed, in the time between the call for this special issue and its publication, a great deal has changed in the United States. We have seen an authoritarian regime installed in the Executive Branch that is being backed up by a conservative-majority Supreme Court. The ways in which language has been censored by the government is terrifying, impacting the right to bodily autonomy, the ability to speak openly in criticism of the U.S. or Israeli governments, the ability to do science and forecast the weather, the continuation of grants for research and university work, public health, and more. Recent politics demonstrate just how much local, state, and federal governments are now willing and eager to start policing theatre content at multiple levels and with the heavy hammer of authoritarian control. While much of the focus has been on issues of drag performance and gender, these cases are also an obvious testing ground. Based on historical precedent and current actions, it is likely that censorship will continue to expand under the Trump regime. Theatre scholars in the U.S. are going to need to reexamine the ways in which the field has faced censorship in the past and from across the globe to understand the strategies and tactics needed to avoid self-censoring our art and scholarship, and to face the threats of authoritarian power and control. Quickly . However, the connotative and denotative meanings of the term “censorship” are not fixed properties. In a time of increasingly authoritarian power, it is important to interrogate how and why the term is being deployed. In 2006, Janelle Reinelt wrote of censorship in the context of the United States’ “War on Terror”: I have become increasingly uneasy in the wake of an upsurge in the rhetoric of censorship used to describe many actions by different agents, acting for different reasons and under quite different—sometimes extenuating—circumstances. ‘Censorship’ has become a common-sense catchword; since everyone knows what it means, merely to name it is to proclaim it. I worry about these imprecise uses of the term because today in the West we find ourselves increasingly concerned about the erosion of freedoms of expression, considered as rights. Now more than ever I think we must be alert to how we use the term and what, exactly, we mean by it. The performing arts become a flashpoint for issues of censorship once again, as they have many times in the past. For that reason, we theatre and performance scholars must think about this terminology with special care, since historically and presently it appears performatively within our discipline.(2) The “common-sense catchword” quality of the term has only expanded in the nearly two decades since Reinelt’s writing. Claims of censorship apply a specific rhetorical frame to one’s situation. Censorship is predominantly viewed as a negative force to be resisted, though circumstances in which censorship would be acceptable if not widely acclaimed could be imagined. To claim censorship is to position the value of free speech against other cultural values, which might include national security, public morality, decency, ethical treatment and education of children, and social justice. At a time when specific words, ideas, and people’s identities are being legislated against by state and federal forces, thinking about the boundaries of censorship may seem like scholarly hair-splitting. Direct, obvious censorship is an urgent problem, yet it is occurring simultaneously with other claims of censorship, which may be designed to distract from, or to gain, other goals of policy or cultural acclaim. Because the concept of censorship is deployed by many different forces and for many different reasons, unpacking its various definitions and applications is crucial. We must resist harmful censorship, but we further suggest that absolute positions, opposing censorship whenever the concept is invoked, risks rewarding bad-faith applications of the term. Mindful of the ways in which digital media and socially networked culture have changed both our methods of censorship and attempts to resist it, we built the concept of public censure into the call for this special section. Media campaigns exposing and critiquing censorship have long been a tactic of resistance, but public outcry made via the internet has profoundly shaped the US culture in sometimes dangerous and even deadly ways.(3) Internet-powered public censure—calls for boycotts, “cancellation,” doxxing, or other resistance that might lead to violence—may be a new phenomenon. What has changed are the locations and tactics of power, not the core principle that censorship is an exercise of power. Houchin’s “conservative society,” one invested in maintaining old systems of order, has enlisted new forms of censorship in its pursuit of power over culture. One of the elements we noted in building this special issue (section) was that many works defer censorship in time and/or place. This may be because the more easily apprehended versions of censorship are those that are not currently unfolding around us. Indeed, the call for this special issue participated in this definition of the concept by referring to the past. For scholars and critics, “true” censorship retains iconic examples in the past or the not-here, in the censorship of European Renaissance courts, authoritarian book burnings, and Hollywood’s Hays Code, or—as depicted in Paula Vogel’s Indecent (2016)—in the combination of producer-led and justice-backed obscenity trials dating from the early twentieth century. But these are not always the most present or pernicious forms of censorship encountered today. This issue gathers articles and reflections on the varying ways that censorship and censure have been used in theatre. Nic Barilar’s article explores the performance history of Séan O’Casey’s The Drums of Father Ned , which premiered in Lafayette, Indiana the year after it was removed from the 1958 Dublin International Theatre Festival lineup because of religious censorship. Barilar explores the way that the Lafayette Little Theatre’s production engaged in “prosthetic memory” during their 1959 production. The history of censorship provided a timely reason for choosing to produce the play, but as Barilar shows, the memory of censorship also produced confusing political and aesthetic distortions. The theatre company sought to amplify its conservative, anti-communist, “All-American” values while differentiating itself from an old-world Ireland beset by religious traditionalism, sectarian conflict, and socialist politics. Donia Mounsef examines several case studies from the censorship of drama in Canadian theatre. By exploring several moments since the 1970s in which community groups have engaged in calls for the closure or removal of works, Mounsef explores the complexities of “community-based censorship” and argues that “self-inflicted or socially sanctioned suppression…reshapes public discourse with new imperatives.” In addition to full-length articles, we also sought out shorter pieces based on case studies; both shorter pieces included here further explore the boundaries of censorship in theatre and performance. Rowan Jalso offers a brief survey of contemporary censorship in the United States with respect to educational institutions; Patrizia Paolini compares a set of interviews she conducted after experiencing her own censorship during Ms. Paolini’s Phantasmagoria Cabaret , an experimental cabaret performance in London de-programmed due to controversy over depictions of the partially nude body of an older male performer. Finally, we conclude our issue with a roundtable on censorship, featuring three ATDS members joining the editors to discuss recent experiences with censorship on campus and to theorize tactics for engaging with censorship and censure at the university level: in performance, in the classroom, and as administrators and activists. As we continue to navigate our current political turmoil, it may be a good time for us all to reflect on the ways in which censorship derives its power from fear: notably, the fear of future negative action, the loss of liberty or funding or reputation. Thus, censorship makes institutions cautious and individuals afraid to speak—perhaps especially in ways that can be recorded or published. With this issue, we invite you to consider the roles that censorship and public censure play in our lives at this pivotal time in history, and how, as scholars, artists, and teachers, we can help each other navigate and/or mitigate their impact on our work, our lives, and our pedagogy. References John H. Houchin, Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century , Cambridge (2003), 1. Janelle Reinelt, “The Limits of Censorship,” Theatre Research International 32:1 (March 2007), 3; emphasis added. Indeed, it is possible that Mahmoud Khalil’s warrantless arrest by ICE for speaking about the Palestinian genocide was caused, in part, by the social media and internet calls for his arrest by two organizations: Betar US and Canary Mission: Shapiro, Eliza (March 9, 2025). “ICE Arrests Pro-Palestinian Activist at Columbia”. The New York Times . Footnotes About The Author(s) DAVID BISAHA (he/him) is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Binghamton University, SUNY. He currently researches theatre design history and the more recent history of immersive and participatory performance. His book American Scenic Design and Freelance Professionalism was published in 2022 by Southern Illinois University Press. PRIA RUTH WILLIAMS (she/her) is an Instructional Associate Professor at the University of Mississippi and teaches for both the Department of Theatre & Film and the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies. Her research has focused on the Living Theatre company's early period between 1947 and 1963, feminist critiques of theatre and film, and the work of playwright Mac Wellman through the lens of cognitive science. She also makes music as These Liminal Days and can be found on most streaming services and at https://theseliminaldays.com . Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Censorship/Public Censure and Performance Today: Special Issue Introduction Remembering Censorship in the World Premiere of Seán O’Casey’s The Drums of Father Ned: Lafayette, Indiana, 1959 The Stage as Networked Battleground: Dissent and Censorship in Contemporary Canadian Theatre and Performance Censor/Censure: A Roundtable Which of These Are Censorship? The Divide Between Prior Restraint and Soft Censorship How Can an Artist Respond to Censorship? The Dilemma That Faces Contemporary Creatives in the UK The LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project: A Roundtable Conversation Life is Drag: Documenting Spectacle as Resistance An Interview with Rachel Rampleman Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists. Michael Malek Najjar. Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2021; Pp. xvi + 237. Lessons from Our Students: Meditations on Performance Pedagogy. Stacey Cabaj and Andrea Odinov. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 126 Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene. Angenette Spalink. Studies in Theatre, Ecology, and Performance Series, no. 3. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 116. Fauci and Kramer Our Town Frankenstein Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

People This is your Services Page. It's a great opportunity to provide information about the services you provide. Double click on the text box to start editing your content and make sure to add all the relevant details you want to share with site visitors. Whether you're offering multiple services, courses or programs, you can edit this space to fit your website's needs. Simply double click on this section to open the content manager and modify the content. Explain what each item entails and add photos or videos for even more engagement. Staff Members Visiting Scholars Board of Directors Volunteers Staff Members Martin E. Segal Theater Center Frank Hentschker Executive Director & Director of Programs e. fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu Marvin Carlson Director of Publications e. mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu Ann Kreitman PRELUDE 2023 Co-Producer e. ann4prelude@gmail.com Taylor Everts PRELUDE 2023 Co-Producer e. taylor4prelude@gmail.com Gaurav Singh Nijjer Digital & Web Consultant e. gauravnijjer@gmail.com Former staff members Andie Lerner (Co-Producer, 2021-23) Tanvi M. Shah (Co-Producer, 2021-23) Journal for American Drama & Theatre Naomi J. Stubbs Co-Editor e. fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu James Wilson Co-Editor e. mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu David Samran Advisory Editor e. ann4prelude@gmail.com Kiera Bono Managing Editor e. taylor4prelude@gmail.com Ruijiao Dong Assistant Managing Editor e. gauravnijjer@gmail.com Former staff members Names go here Journal: European Stages Naomi J. Stubbs Co-Editor e. fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu James Wilson Co-Editor e. mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu David Samran Advisory Editor e. ann4prelude@gmail.com Kiera Bono Managing Editor e. taylor4prelude@gmail.com Ruijiao Dong Assistant Managing Editor e. gauravnijjer@gmail.com Former staff members Names go here Journal: Arab Stages Naomi J. Stubbs Co-Editor e. fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu James Wilson Co-Editor e. mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu David Samran Advisory Editor e. ann4prelude@gmail.com Kiera Bono Managing Editor e. taylor4prelude@gmail.com Ruijiao Dong Assistant Managing Editor e. gauravnijjer@gmail.com Former staff members Names go here Staff Members Research Scholars Recent Visiting Research Scholars Naomi J. Stubbs Co-Editor e. fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu James Wilson Co-Editor e. mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu David Samran Advisory Editor e. ann4prelude@gmail.com Kiera Bono Managing Editor e. taylor4prelude@gmail.com Ruijiao Dong Assistant Managing Editor e. gauravnijjer@gmail.com See the full list of former visiting research scholars here. Board of Directors Board of Directors Advisory Board Jane Alexander Victoria Bailey Roger Berlind Louise Hirschfeld Cullman Blythe Danner Sharon Dunn John Guare Todd London Marsha Norman Antje Oegel Harold Prince Paul Segal Stephen Sondheim Paula Vogel Robin Wagner Edwin Wilson Robert Wilson Founding Members in Memoriam Cy Coleman Hume Cronyn Tony Randall Roy A. Somlyo Wendy Wasserstein Robert Whitehead August Wilson Editorial Board Marvin Carlson David Savran James Wilson IN MEMORIAM: Martin E. Segal (1916-2012) Daniel Gerould (1928-2012) Executive Director/Director of Programs Frank Hentschker Segal Board Marvin Carlson Seward and Cecelia Johnson William P. Kelly Joseph LoCicero Board of Directors Volunteers If you are interested in helping with Martin E. Segal Theatre Center events and programs, please contact us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu. Past volunteers Names go here

Shane Strawbridge Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 2 Visit Journal Homepage A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams. Katherine Weiss, ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2014; Pp. 290. Shane Strawbridge By Published on January 28, 2019 Download Article as PDF A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams . Katherine Weiss, ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2014; Pp. 290. The book opens with a quote from Tennessee Williams: “truth is something you need to deserve,” a statement that volume editor Katherine Weiss asserts “fl[ies] in the face of the imaginary worlds so many of his characters create” (1). From this nucleus emerges A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams , analysis of four plays that attempts to reconcile the contradiction between Williams’s “truth” and his characters’ fictions. The second release in Bloomsbury’s A Student Handbook to the Plays of… series, the text aims to provide a study guide to the most studied dramas from this celebrated American playwright. In her introduction, Weiss lays the dramaturgical framework from which the rest of the volume springs. She posits that the plays from the late 1960s and after lack “the tension and the need to express topics that were considered taboos,” leaving students and scholars to focus on Williams’s early works that explore topics such as “ageing, loneliness, and time’s devastation” (7). In the chapters that follow, scholars Stephen J. Bottoms, Patricia Hearn, Michael Hooper, Philip C. Kolin, and Weiss herself offer in-depth investigations of Tennessee Williams’s most produced and critically favored plays, The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). Following the introduction, the volume divides into four sections dedicated to plot, commentary, production history, and notes for each one of Williams’s major plays. The plot breakdowns vary in length from Streetcar ’s four-page summary to Glass Menagerie ’s eighteen-page dissection, divided scene by scene. The dramaturgical commentaries connect the plays to contextual history, culture, Williams’s biography, and contemporary playwrights and their works. These sections also offer insights into character arcs and specific actions in the plays’ pivotal moments. In addition, the scholars clarify their arguments by examining the dramatic structure and language of each play. Commentaries conclude with a history of significant productions and adaptations on stage and screen. The notes section for each play reads like a glossary of words and phrases that a layperson might find useful in understanding the plays, and that a theatre scholar or practitioner might use for closer study. Finally, a list of questions for further research opens up opportunities for more in-depth thinking. Stephen J. Bottoms, who specializes in contemporary theatre, probes The Glass Menagerie. Bottoms notes the usefulness of looking at Menagerie as “a series of inter-related paintings, each one of which presents a key component in a much bigger narrative, and which together build up to create an impression—but perhaps not a conclusive understanding—of that ‘whole story’” (19). As such, he breaks down each scene into multiple parts dealing with each character’s role in that scene, a specific hour, or a sub-title (such as Scene Five’s “Annunciation”), lending itself to the “impression” of the scene as a whole, a sort of pointillist view of the play. Bottoms suggests that had Menagerie not been the success that it was, Williams would never have achieved the sort of recognition that allowed study of him as one of the great American playwrights. Patricia Hern and Michael Hooper, who frequently collaborate on Williams scholarship, tackle A Streetcar Named Desire. The crux of their chapter lies in the “close connection between [Williams’s] writing and the circumstances of his own life” (89). For example, Hern and Hooper reference Williams’s need to hide from pain and sorrow while searching for contentment and happiness—no matter the cost to those around them—as a piece of Blanche DuBois’s “fall from grace” (92). Closely reading specific textual examples, they also link the works of Williams to playwrights such as Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen, and Miller, as well as authors Edgar Allan Poe and D. H. Lawrence. Author of several books about Tennessee Williams, Philip C. Kolin contributes to this volume commentary and notes on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . His synopsis contains, like the play itself, act breaks, electing not to divide each act into sub-sections for readability. Two levels of history, “the long tradition of ante- and post-bellum (Southern) customs and their literary expression and the more recent history of the 1950s in American political life” (177) form the foundation of Kolin’s analysis. After glossing these two historical periods, he discusses the structure, drafts, and language of the play, though most of his work centers on the nuances of each character and how they “reveal various sides of Williams’s own personality,” from the “melancholy Brick” to the “sexually frustrated Maggie” (190). Kolin makes character comparisons across the Williams canon: he refers to Big Daddy as an “older Stanley Kowalski” (197), parallels Maggie’s demeanor with that of Serafina in The Rose Tattoo instead of with Amanda or Blanche, and aligns Brick’s “deliberate cruelty” (192) of rejecting Skipper with the behavior of Blanche. Sweet Bird of Youth falls to Weiss. Her summation adheres more to the model of Kolin in providing a broad overview of the events of the play as opposed to running commentary. Using examples from Williams’s play and extra-theatrical writings, Weiss addresses several themes including “The Catastrophe of Success,” “Preaching Hate,” and “The Korean War.” She evaluates the play’s structure, language, and style before analyzing the characters that Williams was “never quite satisfied with” (252). In her estimation, however, Weiss contends that they are “much more complicated than Williams realised [sic]” (253). The section ends with not only a glossary and questions for further consideration but also a list of additional resources. This handbook casts a wide net to capture all definitions of students, as per the title. If only the same wide net had been cast for the definition of “plays.” By limiting the evaluation to Williams’s four best-known and commercially successful plays, the volume leaves a desire for more study, particularly into those works that do not usually receive the same level of attention. Yet Weiss can hardly be faulted for not including the entirety of Williams’s extensive canon. Practicality and familiarity trump a comprehensive study, but one can hope that this will generate more investigation into his works. Although there are other studies of these texts available, what Weiss has done here is sculpt a text that, despite its limitations, provides an in-depth primer to one of the United States’ most decorated playwrights. Ultimately, A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams will be useful for students and professors who are searching for an easily navigable and digestible analysis of Williams and his early work. References Footnotes About The Author(s) SHANE STRAWBRIDGE Texas Tech University Editorial Board: Guest Editors: Johanna Hartmann and Julia Rössler Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Managing Editor: Kiera Bono Editorial Assistant: Ruijiao Dong Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction: Reflections on the Tragic in Contemporary American Drama and Theatre "Take Caroline Away”: Catastrophe, Change, and the Tragic Agency of Nonperformance in Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change The Poetics of the Tragic in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America Rewriting Greek Tragedy / Confronting History in Contemporary American Drama: David Rabe’s The Orphan (1973) and Ellen McLaughlin’s The Persians (2003) Branding Bechdel’s Fun Home: Activism and the Advertising of a "Lesbian Suicide Musical" Haunting Echoes: Tragedy in Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Elliot Trilogy Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches. Edited by Sharrell D. Luckett with Tia M. Shaffer. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017; Pp. 233. Palabras del Cielo: An Exploration of Latina/o Theatre for Young Audiences. Compiled by José Casas with Christina Marín, ed. Woodstock, IL: Dramatic Publishing, 2018; Pp. 581. The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era. Jonathan Shandell. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018; Pp. 213 + xii. Unfinished Business: Michael Jackson, Detroit, & the Figural Economy of American Deindustrialization. Judith Hamera. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017; Pp. 286 + xvii. A Student Handbook to the Plays of Tennessee Williams. Katherine Weiss, ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2014; Pp. 290. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.