Bess Rowen 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 Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month Bess Rowen By Published on June 1, 2024 Download Article as PDF Becca Blackwell and Amanda Duarte in It’s That Time of the Month at Soho Rep. Photos: Julieta Cervantes . Courtesy Soho Rep Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month By Becca Blackwell and Amanda Duarte Directed by Jess Barbagallo Soho Rep New York, NY December 3, 2023 Reviewed by Bess Rowen Right under the poster art for It’s That Time of the Month , which features a dripping red smiley face against a dark pink background, Soho Rep’s website includes a statement in large font that reads: “ Trigger Warning: There will be fluids! ” But this was the only preparation for what would transpire after I passed through the bright pink, fleshy folds that led me into the space for a unique meditation on menstruation. It’s That Time of the Month is part talk show, part game show, part variety show, and part stand-up routine written and performed by Becca Blackwell and Amanda Duarte, and directed by Blackwell’s frequent collaborator, Jess Barbagallo. The audience follows Blackwell’s Snatch Adams, an out of work (clown) vagina whose journey to Soho Rep is covered in an animated video (designed by Derek Rippe) that precedes Snatch’s entrance. After running from some scary laws targeting women and trans people, Snatch enters the theatre and is given the chance to make a wish. Snatch wishes for a talk show, which ends up being co-hosted by Duarte’s Tainty McCracken, a fellow comedian with the gender politics and misogyny level of an average shock jock. These two foils create an environment where improv and crowd participation are essential parts of a journey through the trails and tribulations of menstruating people, a topic that is still too rarely discussed, especially in mixed company. Before a word is ever spoken or a video played, Greg Corbino’s production design set the stage for both the “taboo” topic and the forthright approach of Blackwell and Duarte. Audiences enter through the aforementioned pink, vaginal canal into a space featuring a golden vulva—complete with clitoris—framed by an open pair of legs. Illuminated letters spell “It’s That Time of the Month” above the legs, while the area underneath each leg provides a seating area for each host. Tainty’s features a sign reading “Man Cave” while Snatch’s holds the video screen that also plays commercial breaks between each scene. Snatch and Tainty’s entrances reveal their visceral costumes, designed by Amanda Villalobos. Snatch is a six-foot-tall vagina that people can reach into—as the audience discovered when Blackwell asked audience members of different identities (e.g. gay man, lesbian, straight man) questions and then told them to take a treat out of their snatch. Tainty wears a furry coat with a puckered heart fascinator and a mantle of balls that Duarte often had to adjust throughout the performance. The layering of textures in both costumes during the performance was all the more impressive because of how much crowd interaction there was, meaning that the audience had the chance to see the details of these pieces up close. The layering of textures in each costume was yet another instance of mirroring form and content, as the structure of It’s That Time of the Month was also a purposeful mix of genres. Blackwell and Duarte were joined by Becky Hermenze and Amando Houser, who comprise the “Slit Crew,” a nod to the “Pit Crew” from RuPaul’s Drag Race . Hermenze and Houser are equally important members of this team, as it takes all four performers to accomplish all that this show requires. From cleaning up the unfortunate yeast infection that causes Snatch to spit up some mealy liquid to helping prepare the space for the special guest (Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael R. Jackson for this performance), the Slit Crew helps keep the tone consistent across the ever-shifting scenes. The performances re the most crucial component of It’s That Time of the Month since Blackwell and Duarte are the thread that ties everything together. Becca Blackwell and Amanda Duarte in It’s That Time of the Month at Soho Rep. Photos: Julieta Cervantes . Courtesy Soho Rep. Blackwell, a storied and respected downtown performer, has an easy-going stage presence that inspires trust. They are charming, but they are also incredibly intuitive, funny, and quick-witted. These qualities allowed for moments of gravitas and pathos that one might not expect from someone dressed as a six-foot-tall vagina. Duarte’s character is certainly more abrasive, as Tainty is meant to be a Me-Too’d comic, but she managed to use this persona to make fun of such people instead of simply recreating the type on stage. And her easy rapport with Blackwell made the two a truly dynamic duo. Within the framework of the show, Tainty was there to serve as the ignorant one, which was easier to watch because Duarte is also someone who has an experience of menstruation. Of course, one important lesson I took away from this show is that having a period does not make you an expert on one. I learned a great deal myself! Aside from the knowledge gained, I was also struck by how comforting it was to see menstruation treated as a topic that can be painful and difficult. This was possible because of Blackwell’s approach, particularly because of how their grounded, masculine energy encouraged participation from the cis men in the audience in ways that surprised and inspired me. Blackwell’s final monologue touched on some of the nuances of being a trans person who has a period, and about the differences they have noticed in how people react to them now versus how they did before their transition. Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month is a rare piece of theatre that focuses on a common bodily experience in a way that increases inclusivity and works against stereotypes and taboos through comedy. Having a trans performer lead a show about the monthly realities of periods across the gender spectrum proved an excellent model for how to push back against cisheteronormative expectations in discussions of health. And to do it in a way that included facts, prizes, puppets, and a splash zone only made it feel all the more relevant and fun. It’s That Time of the Month does indeed include the fluids it promises in its cheeky trigger warning, but those are only meant to w(h)et your appetite for what comes next. Becca Blackwell and Amanda Duarte in It’s That Time of the Month at Soho Rep. Photos: Julieta Cervantes . Courtesy Soho Rep. This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Bess Rowen (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. She is also affiliate faculty for both Gender & Women's Studies and Irish Studies. She is a member of Actors' Equity and an intimacy choreographer. Her first book, The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment (2021) focuses on affective stage directions. Her next book project looks at the theatrical archetype of the “mean teenage girl.” Other recent work can be found in Milestones in Staging Contemporary Genders & Sexualities , Theatre Survey , and The Eugene O'Neill Review , among other publications. She also serves as the LGBTQ+ Focus Group Representative at ATHE and as the Co-Editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre . 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.

Lauren Friesen Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 1 Visit Journal Homepage Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage. Edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 212. Lauren Friesen By Published on January 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage. Edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 212. Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage is a book that would have been helpful a century ago but could not have been written then; it would have prepared everyone for the winds of change that began then and continue today. This volume avoids prior emphases on form and structure and instead focuses on diverse methodologies and aesthetics. It provides hindsight into where playwriting has been and, more importantly, makes suggestions, even offering practical exercises as a guide to the current situation and the future of the craft. Every chapter in this landmark publication explores alternatives to Aristotelian structuralism, first articulated in Aristole’s Poetics (ca. 330 BCE). The essays have been carefully and logically selected to outline alternatives to a linear structure with its unities, singular plot line, and heroic characters. Sara Freeman’s 2023 publication Playwriting, Dramaturgy and Space begins the quest for a new direction . Decentered Playwriting takes that quest for new perspectives and presents them in full bloom. Philosophers have observed that space and time are the two constants in human experience, and playwrights have often structured their works according to time sequence (i.e., Hamlet occurs during nine months in his life). Decentered Playwriting begins with Sarah Johnson’s chapter “Playwrights as Architects of Third Space: The Dramaturgy of Japanese Traditional Performing Arts.” Johnson’s suggestion is to lay aside, for the time being, the narrative of time and explore the possibilities of space. With that declarative beginning, the following three chapters examine playwriting on “nothingness,” praxis, and hip-hop. Few playwriting guides of the past have availed themselves of philosophical foundations for dramaturgical analysis, but these chapters wrestle with the philosophical roots of Sartre, Kant, and Paul Butler, respectively. Decentering Playwriting takes another leap by advocating alternatives to the well-made play, the epic sagas of Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett’s existential wanderings. There is, instead, a vigorous emphasis on giving a listening ear to the people, issues, and connections that form the web of a playwright’s immediate social and cultural life. The book outlines how theatre can and should focus on contemporary themes rather than myths, on the daily lives of people rather than heroes, on stories about supportive relationships instead of linear plot lines, and on valuing interconnectedness over stock characters. Characters that emerge from a variety of cultural contexts, including Indian, Hawaiian, Indigenous, African, Filipino, and others, are explored throughout the book. Decentered Playwriting has sixteen chapters that present a meaningful guide to fresh writing methods with pedagogical techniques that often focus on emotional memory of cultural expressions and the ingredients for attentive relationships. This guide emphasizes the connection each writer has with their own family, local identifiers, animal interactions, local rituals, and the interactions with the wider community. Instead of exploring the universal, this study challenges playwrights to fully examine the particular, beginning with the self in community. Faculty, students, and theatres seeking approaches that reflect contemporary social and artistic sensibilities will be interested in what this text explores. Each chapter forwards a unique voice for a new aesthetic and its cultural context. Essayists of Native American, African, Indian, Cuban, LGBTQ, and other identities are included. In addition, unique and constructive methods are also represented, such as the archeology of identity or the analyzing of human experience as one dimension of a community eco-system rather than the solitary hero or victim narrative. Chantal Bilodeau’s chapter titled “Decentering Humans” offers a challenge to seasoned and aspiring playwrights: “Every play should aspire to fundamentally change our relationships to the world and to each other, and to ‘dethrone’ the human species while emphasizing that despite growing uncertainty, safety and connection are still possible” (81). According to Bilodeau, plays can present how humans are entwined with all of creation where everything is dependent on others for their existence and well-being. This interconnectedness is vital in character development to shift each one past a stereotype or two-dimensional portrait. Each chapter provides an array of options for interpersonal analysis and collaborative methods for devising scripts for stage performances. This is especially true in Oluwatoyin Olokodana-James’s chapter, in which the community as author is valued above the individual talent. The process is presented as a shared venture instead of assuming that a play is the expression of the solitary voice who is bringing the latest tablets from a mountain peak to an eager audience. This new trend might be viewed as a modern variation on the playwriting processes at the Globe in London (see Gary Taylor, “Why Did Shakespeare Collaborate?,” Shakespeare Survey , vol. 67, Cambridge University Press, 2014, 1-17). This book picks the ripe fruit for an epic theatre that is not bound by traditional rules for the stage. Brecht’s alienation effect ( verfremdungseffekt ) once served as an alternative to the well-structured play, but the chapters in this volume move beyond Brecht. Authors here instead explore how characters have meaning not because they present the alienation dynamic but because they do the opposite: illustrate the social fabric of their relationships. Diane Clancy describes how the character’s identity “aligns with the fabric of your own being” (163). The emphasis in each chapter is on new concepts and methods that focus on liberation, personal integrity, and communal experience for devising new work. Although each chapter presents new and creative playwriting approaches, the careful reader will note that Wole Soyinka, Paula Vogel, María Irene Fornés, Augusto Boal, and Kwame Anthony Appiah, and C. C. Mehta have paved the way for the current climate where the voices of Decentered Playwriting ’s authors will now be heard and absorbed. They also laid the groundwork for jettisoning colonial perspectives, moving away from Western styles, and incorporating marginalized communities. Every chapter deconstructs those previous norms and advocates a performative nature that emerges from those that previously had no voice. In summary, this contribution to the field of playwriting is a significant and practical development. If Decentering Playwriting had been available during my teaching years, I would have clung to it as a lifeboat that is headed to a new land. References Footnotes About The Author(s) LAUREN FRIESEN is the David M. French Professor Emeritus of Theatre at the University of Michigan. He is Past Chair of the Kennedy Center’s National Playwriting Program. He recently published Theatre and Aesthetics: Performance and Transformation. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications. 2024. 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 Fat Suits and Fat Futures: Ob*sity Drag in The Whale “The Star of the Aggregation”: Maggie Calloway’s Performances of Aggregation and Pleasure in Colonial Manila and British Malaya What’s at Stake? Sustaining DEIJ in U.S. Theatre "The Gift That Keeps on Giving": An Interview with Carmelita Tropicana Saying The F Word: A Conversation with Jordan Tannahill Staging Intimacy and Paradox through a Queer Lens: A Conversation with Jen Silverman Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage. Edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 212. Race and the Forms of Knowledge: Technique, Identity, and Place in Artistic Research. Ben Spatz. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2024; Pp. 314. Bloody Tyrants & Little Pickles: Stage Roles of Anglo-American Girls in the Nineteenth Century. Marlis Schweitzer. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2020; Pp. 276. Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity. Bethany Hughes. New York: New York University Press, 2024; Pp. 272. The Brothers Size Dead Outlaw 2025 Oregon Shakespeare Festival ZAZ Introduction: New England Theatre in Review 2.0 Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres, 2024-25 Politics Take Center Stage in the Berkshires, 2024-25 Long Wharf Theatre, 2024-25 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Richard Jones Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director Richard Jones By Published on May 27, 2018 Download Article as PDF Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director . Natka Bianchini. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; Pp. 204. To discuss the production history of Samuel Beckett’s work in the US is inevitably to begin with Alan Schneider. Schneider directed the American premiere of all twelve of Beckett’s major works, from the Miami opening of Waiting for Godot in 1956 to Catastrophe and What Where in New York in 1983; five of these ( Happy Days , Not I , Ohio Impromptu , Rockaby , and What Where ) were world premieres. He also directed the aptly titled Film , whose collaboration occasioned Beckett’s only visit to the US. In Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America , Natka Bianchini examines the growing relationship between Beckett and Schneider, and charts the development of Beckett’s American productions. Bianchini’s introductory chapter makes two crucial points. First, Beckett scholarship, even of his work for the theatre, has concentrated rightly or wrongly on dramatic texts rather than on theatrical productions; this book seeks to balance those scales at least a little. Secondly, for production histories to be any more than cursory, we need more than production reviews. Luckily, both Beckett and Schneider were avid letter-writers, and Bianchini benefited enormously from “Schneider’s inveterate saving of his notebooks, letters, and theatrical ephemera” (8). Indeed, the geographical distance between the two men contributed to more detailed and thoughtful correspondence between them than would have occurred had they been able to communicate more freely and informally. It should come as no surprise that the period from 1956-71, described by Bianchini as one of “resistance to and uncertainty about Beckett’s work” (14), and encompassing the American premieres of Waiting for Godot , Endgame , Krapp’s Last Tape , and Happy Days , should receive three of the five numbered chapters and nearly half of the book’s total text. The first post-introductory chapter draws its title from one of the most misguided promotional campaigns in theatre history: producer Michael Myerberg’s attempt to capitalize on the star quality of Bert Lahr and Tom Ewell by hyping Waiting for Godot as “The Laugh Sensation of Two Continents.” The out-of-town opening at the Coconut Grove in Miami appropriately receives more attention here than does any other collaboration between Beckett and Schneider, despite its failure in virtually every sense of that term. It was the first time the two had worked together, and it was clear that Schneider had attempted to stage the play Beckett wrote, while Lahr saw the play as a star vehicle, and Myerberg was more interested in placating his star than in supporting the authority of his director. The subsequent two chapters, more traditionally titled “Finding a Home Off-Broadway” and “A Series of Firsts,” trace simultaneously the growing if perhaps grudging acceptance by the New York establishment of Beckett as a writer of stature and the burgeoning professional relationship between Beckett and Schneider. Perhaps of particular significance is the 1958 letter from Beckett to Schneider about a change in the “business” of Endgame . Although Schneider had convinced designer David Hays to simplify the set and resisted the producers’ attempts to “gag it up” (50), he did, in the final tableau, burden Clov with skis, a climbing rope, a backpack, and an oar—none of which appear in Beckett’s stage directions. Beckett, hearing of the change, wrote “I’m told Clov carries skis…I think I understand your idea, but I feel this is wrong, stylistically…Load him down with as much as you like with shabby banal things…but not skis” (51). One wonders if even such an apparently insignificant departure would have been tolerated in another director. Unfortunately, no correspondence remains from the next few months, so whether Schneider apologized for the change, or whether he removed the skis for the end of the run, is unknown. The next two chapters, “New York and Beyond” and “American Zenith,” discuss both revivals of earlier works and the premieres of Beckett’s later plays, including four world premieres. Beckett was now firmly established to the point of having February 16, 1984 declared “Samuel Beckett Day” in Manhattan in ceremonies attended by not only New York’s mayor Ed Koch but both New York US Senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alfonse M. D’Amato. By this time, Beckett’s plays were more likely to be produced off-Broadway or outside New York altogether in the burgeoning regional theatre scene, at academic conferences, and on university campuses. The book concludes with an excellent if brief assessment of Schneider’s legacy. Wondering why Schneider is not more highlighted in lists of significant American directors, Bianchini muses that perhaps he was devalued for “slavishly following an author’s text without contributing his own artistic vision” (148). She points out, aptly, that “regardless of the level of detail in Beckett’s stage directions, there is still work to be done in mediating the text” (150). Bianchini ultimately argues that Schneider as a Beckett director should be viewed precisely the way that Billie Whitelaw is perceived as a Beckett actor, as an example of how “ interpretation of the author’s text can be both visionary, and, simultaneously, truthful to the author’s intent” (149). One could certainly find fault with some details of this book: a couple of grammatical errors made it into print, some points are merely repeated without expansion, the index could be more comprehensive, and a chronology would be useful. Bianchini sides with Schneider in all disputes except those with Beckett himself, and she accuses those who discount or argue with Schneider of “bias” (7) or even “duplicity” (24). But these are quibbles. This book is a readable, often fascinating work that relies on a host of source material never before brought together: the notes and bibliography total more than a quarter of the book’s length. Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America will be of enormous assistance to those who wish to better understand either of its central characters, or the American theatre especially in the period from 1956-71, or indeed the relationship between playwright and director in the theatrical process. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Richard Jones Stephen F. Austin State University 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 Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Catherine M. Young Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 29 2 Visit Journal Homepage Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines Catherine M. Young By Published on Download Article as PDF Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines: Woman’s Work. By Jessica Silsby Brater. Methuen Drama Engage Series. Series editors Enoch Brater and Mark Taylor-Batty. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Press, 2016; Pp. 255. The Methuen Drama Engage Series “offers original reflections about key practitioners, movements and genres in the fields of modern theatre and performance.” Prior to the publication of Jessica Silsby Brater’s Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines: Woman’s Work , the series published books on Ibsen, Brecht, and Howard Barker. As the first book in the series to assess a woman in theatre, Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines underscores the importance of an ongoing commitment to recuperative scholarship that plumbs the archives, asks new questions, and approaches subjects in deliberately interdisciplinary ways. Ruth Maleczech’s own interdisciplinarity as a performer, director, and co-artistic director informs the content and structure of the book. What are the lived experiences and public profiles of women in collaborative performance ensembles? How is artistic and logistical labor distributed and documented? Yolanda Broyles-González has taken up these crucial questions in her work on El Teatro Campesino (1994), while Helen Krich Chinoy’s posthumously published research on the Group Theatre acknowledges such power imbalances (2013). Silsby Brater’s project contributes to this mode of inquiry, her subtitle “Women’s Work” signaling that Maleczech’s labor was gendered. Maleczech, along with other company members mainly known for performing, was consistently sidelined by critical and journalistic privileging of Mabou Mines co-artistic director Lee Breuer (Maleczech’s former husband and the father of her two children). The project is indebted to now-canonical feminist theatre studies frameworks forged in the late 1980s and 90s, as well as James Harding’s more recent analysis of feminist performance and the American avant-garde (2012). In addition, Silsby Brater builds on Mabou Mines scholarship by Iris Smith Fischer (2011), Alisa Solomon (2002), and Bonnie Marranca (1977, 1996). She focuses on Maleczech’s work from 1980 until her death in 2013 because it was from the 1980s onward that Maleczech’s independent vision as a director developed (27). In her assertion that the the book “functions in part as a recuperative history,” (28) Silsby Brater contends that “the full significance of Maleczech’s work has been ignored in part because she was a woman and in part because she was best known as a performer” (28-29). The fact that theatre and performance scholarship often privileges writers and directors over performers further demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary analyses of interdisciplinary artists. In her multivalent approach to Maleczech’s work, Silsby Brater draws on video documentation of a dozen productions and several interviews with Maleczech, her family, and other collaborators. These oral histories reveal a dense, interconnected web of personal and artistic affiliations. Silsby Brater is writing at the intersections of ethnography, performance studies, and theatre history, accessing her mentee/mentor relationship with Maleczech by combining intimate knowledge of the subject with expertise in the subject matter. The book’s eleven production stills bring another dimension to the work, showing readers a diversity of staging approaches. From the glass flasks and beakers used to play Marie Curie in Dead End Kids (1980) to the ethereal puppetry and trapeze in Red Beads (2005), Mabou Mines’ avant-garde aesthetics show Maleczech’s facility with various performance modes over decades. Founded in 1970, Mabou Mines, The Wooster Group (founded in 1975), and, of course, The Living Theatre (founded in 1947) have become increasingly canonized as the key collaborative ensembles of the American avant-garde, even as they are marginalized in traditional accounts of US theatre history. Each group represents a different permutation of influence by Europeans working outside the aesthetics of realism, most prominently Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, and Jerzy Grotowski. Silsby Brater’s introduction offers basic biographical information and places Maleczech in her cultural context, identifying the similarities and differences she shares with other key women of the US avant-garde based in New York City, including Judith Malina, Elizabeth LeCompte, Ellen Stewart, and JoAnne Akalaitis, a Mabou Mines co-artistic director. This helpful treatment allows readers to consider the specific aesthetics and innovations sometimes obfuscated by broad terms such as “American avant-garde” or “downtown performance.” Silsby Brater contends that Maleczech’s “singular focus on the representation of women on stage sets her apart” (10) from her contemporaries. In addition, Silsby Brater details Maleczech’s investment in the work of Samuel Beckett, and the influences of the Berliner Ensemble, Herbert Blau, and Grotowski on Maleczech’s expansive oeuvre. Maleczech’s body of work is analyzed in four thematically organized chapters that focus on the roles women play on and off stage. Chapter One, “Ordinary Women,” takes up Maleczech’s performances as Annette in Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Through the Leaves (1984) and her turn as Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days (1996) to argue that Maleczech elevated the seemingly unimportant, i.e. women without social status. In the second chapter, Silsby Brater flips the script by focusing on “Extraordinary Women.” Her evaluation of Dead End Kids , Belén: A Book of Hours (1999), which Maleczech directed, and Lucia’s Chapters of Coming Forth by Day (2007) allows Silsby Brater to thematically connect three distinct performance histories across decades. The chapter highlights Maleczech’s non-hierarchical collaborative directing approach, which contrasts with Akalaitis and Breuer’s styles. “Family Drama,” the third chapter, reads Mabou Mines’ production of Lear (1990) alongside the autobiographical Hajj (1983) in order to explicate how the two very different shows unsettle “the traditional notion of the father figure” (109). The theme of financial resources in both works allows Silsby Brater to discuss the stress Mabou Mines experienced in “keeping the company solvent” (114). Artistic issues were often family issues. The fourth chapter, “Mother-Daughter Collaboration” extends scholarship on productions written and directed by Breuer involving performances by Maleczech and their daughter, Clove Galilee. Silsby Brater also takes up Maleczech’s second and third directing projects, Wrong Guys (1981) at The Public Theater and Samuel Beckett’s adapted short story Imagination Dead Imagine (1984), which featured a levitating hologram image of Galilee. With her interdisciplinary approach and use of oral history, Silsby Brater offers the reader remarkable stories of motherhood in the avant-garde. Mabou Mines’ pathbreaking approach to collaboratively funding childcare still seems progressive today. Silsby Brater then pivots to close reads of the work that so often masks the reproductive labor required to bring it to fruition. In this, her scholarship contributes to theatre studies’ increasing attention to the unresolved dilemmas of combining family life and theatre. Silsby Brater not only places Maleczech more fully within the American avant-garde, but within the theatre history canon, connecting Maleczech’s actor-manager-director status to performance traditions including noh and commedia dell’arte, and to specific figures such as Caroline Neuber and Molière. Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines: Woman’s Work explicates the aesthetic and interpersonal complexities of a sustained avant-garde performance practice and the invisible labor women often shoulder. It will interest researchers of experimental and avant-garde performance, women in theatre, US performance history, and New York City’s downtown theatre scene. In addition, I hope it inspires more scholars to recuperate neglected figures of theatre history. References Footnotes About The Author(s) CATHERINE M. YOUNG New York University, Tisch School of the Arts Guest Editor for Special Issue: Bruce McConachie Editorial Board for Special Issue: Meredith Conti Allan Davis John Fletcher Ju Yon Kim Scott Magelssen Julia Walker 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 to American Theatre and Performance in the Anthropocene Epoch Searching for Solutions: Humanizing Climate Narratives in an Age of Global Change and Connectivity Towards a Synthesis of Natural and Human History: Situating the Municipal and Ecclesiastic Viceregal Arches of 1680 Mexico City within the Lacustrine The Anthropo(s)cenography of Ricardo Monti's Marrathon Food Futures: Speculative Performance in the Anthropocene Tú eres mi otro yo - Staying with the Trouble: Ecodramaturgy & the AnthropoScene Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines The Theatre of David Henry Hwang. By Esther Kim Lee. New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015; pp. x + 207. Directing Shakespeare in America: Current Practices. By Charles Ney. London UK, New York NY: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2016. Pp. 362. Acting in the Academy: The history of professional actor training in US higher education. Peter Zazzali. London, New York: Routledge, 2016; Pp. 219. 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Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 15 Spring 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Interview with Nasser Rahmaninejad by Babak Rahimi By Babak Rahimi Published: June 15, 2024 Download Article as PDF Nasser Rahmaninejad. Photo courtesy of the author. Interview with Nasser Rahmaninejad By Babak Rahimi The introduction of theatre under the Qajars (1789-1925) marked a new era in the cultural history of Iran. First, the theatre played a pivotal role in shaping new cosmopolitan spaces, mainly among the middle-class population who viewed the new art form as a civilizing means to become modern. Second, considering the complex ways in which theatre developed as an aesthetic medium for critical thought during the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), a political movement aimed to limit monarchical despotism by establishing a representative government, cities from Rasht to Tehran saw staged performances by growing independent theatre troupes and ensembles, who actively produced plays for political progress. As in the late Qajar period, however, various new theatre groups performed plays mainly for an educated and elite audience, many of whom saw translated European performances in “Clubs” and small theatres with limited public access (1). This was to change under the Pahlavi regime (1925-79) when theatre's popularity grew with the nationwide eruption of theatrical productions. Many productions, mostly translated American and European plays, were staged by an emerging generation of independent theatre makers who showed a deep intellectual interest in drama in a reflective search for the modern experience. The most significant development in the Pahlavi-era theatre productions took place between 1947 and 1949 when the Ferdowsi Theatre, under the directorship of Abdolhossein Nooshin (1906-71), staged European plays for a wider audience, who saw a brief period of openness after the forced abdication of Reza Shah by the Anglo-Soviet invasion in 1941. Earlier in 1939, Lalehzar Street in Tehran saw the opening of Honarestan-e Honarpishegi-e Tehran (The Tehran Acting School), where director and playwright Seyyed Ali Nasr (1894-1962) established the first permanent troupe and a school for acting. By the mid-twentieth century, theatre represented one of the most popular cultural practices in an increasingly modernizing Iran. With the 1953 U.S.-led coup that toppled the government of Mohammad Mossadeq and brought back the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Shah, Iranian theatre, like other artistic spheres of activities, encountered increased state censorship. The mid-1950s and late 1970s marked more organized attempts to regulate theatre production as part of a broader campaign by the State Organization for Intelligence and Security (SAVAK) to stifle dissent across the country. While industrialization and, by extension, urbanization gave way to a robust middle class, a broader perception of social inequality implied a critical response to the growth of frivolous consumerism and unfettered wealth. By the 1960s, a vibrant and politically conscious youth viewed the despotic regime of the Pahlavi dynasty as an impediment to an equal and just political order. While the Pahlavi state continued to build artistic and cultural centers, the independent theatre offered an alternative medium for cultural life, particularly in its modernist manifestation. Inspired by the new European intellectual trends and global revolutionary movements, post-coup playwrights and theatre directors staged translated and original plays, displaying a mix of realist and surrealist genres as critical commentary on a rapidly changing society. The proliferation of independent theatre groups and the emergence of innovative playwrights such as Bahram Beyzaie (b.1938), Abbas Nalbandian (1947-1987), Akbar Radi (1939-2007), and Gholam-Hossein Sa’edi (1936-85) represent a vibrant Iran-based theatre culture that sought to carve out new cultural spaces while under increasing state censorship. In this post-coup context, Nasser Rahmaninejad’s contributions to Iranian theatre reflect this dynamic shift led by a new generation of dramatists. Rahmaninejad also represents a generation of theatre actors and directors whose interest in staging performances of varied theatrical genres not only challenged Pahlavi consumerism, especially the escapist theatres of Lalezar Street in Tehran, but offered a critical expression for political change among the masses. Rahmaninejad’s theatre activities mirror the ideals of an era when experimentation and translation of theatre entailed the revolutionary conviction that to do theatre is to engage with the emancipatory possibility of performance. While the publication of his 2020 memoir, A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran , provides a detailed account of Rahmaninejad’s professional and political experience, in this interview we aim to discuss a range of topics that reveal the complex relationship between politics and theatre in the Pahlavi period (2). The following interviews were conducted via email and Zoom on January 10, 2024. They have been edited for length and clarity. Babak Rahimi: Our interview takes place just weeks before the forty-fifth anniversary of the 1979 Revolution in Iran. Before we discuss your views on the relationship between theatre and revolution, I’d like to ask you about your experience as a theatre producer, director, and actor in pre-revolutionary Iran. As you explain in detail in your A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran (2020), you began your life in theatre by attending the Anahita Acting School in Tehran in 1959. Established in 1958, the Anahita acting school was the first educational center where the Stanislavsky system was taught amid an emerging independent theatre culture that sharply contrasted with the escapism of what you call “commercial theatre.” Could you expand on your early training at the school and the role of Konstantin Stanislavsky in modern Iranian theatre? Nasser Rahmaninejad : As you mentioned, I began my theatre career and training at the Anahita Theatre School in 1959. The Anahita Acting School was the first training center to systematically teach Iran's Stanislavsky system. The training school was founded in 1958 by a couple named Mustafa and Mahin Oskui, both of whom were trained in Moscow under the supervision of Yuri Zavadsky. Of course, teaching this system in Iran was not comparable to what was taught by government-funded facilities in the Soviet Union. Still, the basis of the concept and philosophy of training, which mainly emphasized acting as experience, in contrast to mere representation, was the same. Before the Anahita Acting School, there was limited understanding of the Stanislavsky system in Iran. It was taught for Iran's growing theatre when Anahita School enrolled students and trained new actors. As for drama education, the first acting school in Iran, called Honarestan-e Honarpishegi-e Tehran [The Tehran Acting School], was established in 1939 and was active until 1958. The instructors of this school were trained in the French acting style. But before that, theatre actors in Iran had mainly been trained experimentally and almost spontaneously, mostly by Abdolhossein Nooshin, who studied theatre in France and taught his students in the French acting style. There were attempts to initiate a modern theatre in the mid-1930s. But the dictatorship of Reza Shah, despite his apparent efforts to modernize Iran, severely suppressed such attempts, and other progressive artistic, cultural, and social activities. It was after World War II, that is, with the removal of Reza Shah from the throne and the end of his dictatorship, coupled with the anti-fascist atmosphere around the world, that Iran's social and political atmosphere opened, albeit briefly. Many talents dormant under the dictatorship, including in the theatre field, emerged during this period. Nooshin’s activities appeared during this time, as he established his theatre group and trained his actors, as I mentioned, according to the modern French method. So, Iran’s modern theatre was influenced by the French theatre school from the beginning and continued to be so for many years into the Pahlavi period. After the CIA-led coup of 1953, commercial theatre grew in popularity. There are two reasons for this development. First, the new censorship policies, which primarily involved the suppression of leftist activists, limited the development of intellectual and progressive theatre. Second, the sponsorship of escapist and reactionary theatre performances became a dominant form of theatrical production after the coup. This situation continued until the early 1960s, when the Shah was forced to make economic and social reforms, known as the “White Revolution,” primarily because of the Kennedy administration’s policy to limit Soviet influence in Iran. During this era, Lalezar Street, which was the center of a robust leftist and progressive theatre, and also the central meeting place for intellectuals at cafes before the 1953 coup, gradually changed into a cultural space of entertainment. After the coup, Lalezar Street became the symbol of superficial theatre, staging vulgar and worthless comedies. Connected with this development, the audience of these theatres also changed, as owners and producers of such theatre venues introduced a range of Turkish and Arab belly dancing and juggling. Theatre became a small part of the performances. Meanwhile, the Administration of Fine Arts established a branch of theatre called the Office of Dramatic Arts in 1957, which supported apolitical performances while censoring leftist theatre. BR: Your first professional experience with theatre came six years after the 1953 U.S.-led coup that toppled the government of Mohammad Mossadeq and restored Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the country’s monarch. Could you describe the burgeoning independent theatre groups during the post-coup period as Iran experienced heightened Pahlavi state repression and an increasing regime of censorship? Rahmaninejad : After the CIA-led coup of 1953, the theatre groups that had emerged and matured during the 1940s, mainly under the influence of the progressive and leftist movements, were destroyed by state crackdowns. Even those groups that could potentially be formed into political organizations were quickly suppressed one by one by the security forces, preventing their activities from forming and hence making them disappear. On the day of the coup d’état, Saadi Theatre, for example, which was the most influential theatre at the time and had inspired a new generation of progressive theatre makers, was burned down by thugs and lumpen, who were recruited by the police. They destroyed the buildings and offices of the Tudeh party, the Iranian Communist party, nationalist organizations, progressive publishing houses, and bookstores, beating people who resisted and so on. After the restoration of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s monarchy, brutal repression, and insular censorship ensued, and for several years, no one dared to raise their voices in opposition. Cultural and intellectual meeting places were closed. Even gathering five or six people for poetry reading or storytelling became impossible. Society came to a standstill. However, in the second half of the 1950s, we see limited signs of opening. After the 1953 coup and the political suppression that followed, groups that formed in the relative freedom of the 1940s, or that were inspired by the theatre of that period, disappeared . One of these groups, for example, was the Oscar Theatre group, which was forced to disband in 1956 after only two years of activity. Many of its actors later joined the Anahita Theatre School. During the 1950s, after the coup, we faced a contradiction in the field of artistic, cultural, and political activities. On the one hand, the Tudeh Party was dismantled as the only well-organized and influential political organization and the most crucial oppositional force. The Party’s many members were arrested, while all branches of the Party were destroyed. All other cultural and political activities with nationalist orientation and critical of the regime were also shut down. The worker unions also refrained from activism. A reign of fear permeated throughout the country. But, on the other hand, a few years after the coup, there were theatre groups here and there, including at the University of Tehran, which started to take shape. For example, Mohammad Ali Jafari, an actor who was a member of the Tudeh Party, worked with Saadi Theatre, most of whose actors were also members of the Party. The theatre was burned down on the day of the coup by thugs who were supported by the Pahlavi regime. Jafari was released from prison in 1956. Later, he established his theatre called “Jafari Theatre Troupe.” Despite the repression, the theatre continued to be alive. It was in such a precarious situation that I grew up. I was lucky to know a few survivors of the previous generation who described to me good stories of life before the coup and terrible stories that followed the coup. So, with these historical events in mind, when I started my involvement with theatre, I had an idea of the theatre in my imagination that I wanted to do. And I was not alone, as others like me formed theatre groups. This is how independent and progressive theatre, or I should say opposition theatre , was born. In Iran, each generation had to begin afresh with a new experience, often with a tragic ending. If the harsh and bitter reality of that time is any indication, our growth has always been limited by repression, hardly ever simply handing over the flag to the next Iranian generation. For the most part, in Iran, not a single generation has tasted the stability to continue creating its art. Life and the artistic career of our youth have always been interrupted midway. This is the sad fate of Iranian theatre. Look at my life, for example. At the height of my artistic bloom, I was arrested and imprisoned several times, and my works were censored. Though I was released during the revolution (1979), I could not work for more than two years after the revolution. The atmosphere of terror forced me to flee my homeland and, once again, my life and career were interrupted. Even in exile, despite all my efforts, due to dispersion of Iranian compatriots because of ideological and political differences, the necessary connection between the artist and the audience never took form. Broadly speaking, the community support for continuity and coherence, which is essential for the growth of artists and their creative activity, never materialized. BR: You founded The Mehr Theatre Group (1966). How did your theatre group contribute to Iran’s independent theatre culture? Rahmaninejad : When I founded Mehr Theatre Group in 1966, there were still a limited number of independent theatre groups. Of course, I must say that most of them did not influence the theatre nor did they establish a stable venue to stage performances, due to lack of financial support or producing a coherent mission statement. For the most part, the theatre of this period was primarily amateurish since theatre needs continuity of stage performances. This was one of the reasons why, after two years of working under the name of Mehr Theatre Group, I inevitably changed the group’s composition and invited those friends who saw theatre as a serious activity and not just as a hobby. Those who saw theatre as a hobby had other ambitions in their lives than theatre. With a clear mission statement and a reliable theatre group, the Iran Theatre Association was founded in 1968. So, to answer your question, I must say that the Iran Theatre Association truly identified as an independent theatre group and, at times, the only independent theatre group that aimed to make an effective contribution to the field of theatre in Iran. We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay! by Dario Fo, directed by Nasser Rahmaninejad, produced by Iran Theatre Association, 1980. Photo courtesy of the Iran Theatre Association. BR: What were some of the productions of note that were staged by your theatre group and how were they received? Rahmaninejad : Our productions were generally well received. The problem is that we were limited in our activities because we didn’t have venues to rent, long-term, for our performances. Even after the 1979 Revolution, when we staged Bertolt Brecht’s epic parable Round Heads and Pointed Heads, the provisional government gave us the prominent Sangelaj Hall for one month. Later, when the performance was moved to the larger Rudaki Hall, despite the agreement that the venue would be available to us for two months, we faced opposition from the management and, following several meetings and intense discussions, they finally agreed to lend us the hall for two weeks. We then only had sixteen performances. Mohsen Yalfani’s The Teachers in 1970, directed by Saeed Soltanpour, was among the most notable productions. Bertolt Brecht’s The Visions of Simone Machard in 1972, again directed by Saeed Soltanpour (I was in prison at the time), was also successful. Maxim Gorky’s The Petty Bourgeois , the Persian translation of The Philistines , which was first staged in Rasht, capital city of Gilan, a progressive province in north of Iran, was received enthusiastically. BR: In A Man of the Theater , you portray your experience with post-coup theatre as deeply political. Would you describe your theatre activities, as an actor and director, as revolutionary? Rahmaninejad : This is a difficult question! First, let me say that I have never claimed to be a revolutionary. I have always considered myself an independent member of the left and in the revolutionary opposition. I did not imagine theatre could make a revolution, but I believed, and still do, that it could contribute to the idea of a revolution. In my opinion, art, literature, and, broadly, cultural activities do not lead to revolution by themselves but as mental factors that could help bring about a revolutionary moment. Revolutions require other, more important, and necessary factors and conditions. In the first place, the chaotic economic condition of the working class and the poverty of the masses, the repression and violence of the government against the people, the irresponsibility of the government failing to protect the people, and many other objective and necessary, concrete factors lead to the disruption of the social order. Revolution occurs in a complex setting and a long process. We see the same factors in the revolutions that have occurred so far. These factors contribute to popular dissatisfaction and protests, demonstrations, strikes, and resistance as people organize themselves to change the status quo for something different. In such a situation, art, literature, and theatre can enrich and strengthen the idea of a revolution. There are distinct and specific situations where theatre can play a more prominent role. For example, in the revolutionary period, theatre played a role in strengthening the idea of revolutionary movements and the larger urban protests and strikes. This is the kind of theatre that politically and openly challenges the status quo in the spreading of political ideas, which is known as agitprop theatre. With other names such as guerilla theatre and street theatre, such forms of political performances take place among the people, on the streets, in the factories, universities, and at heart of a social movement. As I mentioned, this type of theatre appears in certain political situations, such as the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the student revolts of 1968 in England, France, and the United States. It played a role in the 1979 Revolution in Iran too. However, in the case of Iran, the presence of agitational theatre was very weak and mostly affiliated with political organizations, which lacked independence. All in all, to answer your question, art in general and theatre in particular can enrich the human aspect of a revolution, but it cannot alone make revolution. So, theatre can be a creative force in a revolution, but it cannot create revolution on its own. BR: In your book, you write about various censorship measures that you and your theatre group had to deal with. What was censorship like before and after the revolution? And how, if at all, did you circumvent censorship? Rahmaninejad : The main difference between Pahlavi, a secular dictatorship, and the Islamic Republic, a religious despotism, lies in the type of censorship applied to shape public opinion. These forms of censorship can be shown, if not accurately and in detail, with specific examples. Let me expand on this. During the Pahlavi period, a critic or a dissident of the regime was censored, threatened, and imprisoned. This was the general policy of the regime. Now there were cases that some were murdered, mostly under Reza Shah (1925-1941), and under the pretext of political activity deemed a threat to state power. Broadly speaking, under the Pahlavi regime, censorship had unwritten rules, which the artists and writers already knew. We could circumvent censorship by simply deleting or modifying certain content. We could then proceed to stage a performance mostly without the knowledge of the censors. We did this by first showing the work to our close friends, who discussed the content of a play, suggesting what could be included or edited. We had to be clever about what could be presented to the censors. For the most part, though, the criteria for censorship were clearer in the Pahlavi period, and because the monarchy was not a theocracy, we had more flexibility with our publications and staging a performance. This was the case in 1970 with Mohsen Yalfani’s play Kenar zendegi [By the Side of Life]. After a private performance for a group of friends, a discussion ensued that led to changes with the content of the play. With modification with the content, Yalfani then decided to change the title to The Teachers . In anticipation of the censors objecting to the revised version, I then submitted a letter to the Supervisory Council without presenting the new play but only explaining that due to change of the title, The Teachers, we kindly request to issue a new performance license. We then got the permission and staged the play. The Pahlavi censorship bureaucracy was hardly meticulous or able to detect and understand the changes. But there were other times when censorship could not be avoided. For example, b efore appearing on stage in Tehran in 1974, The Parasites by Maxim Gorky was shut down, as all members and actors of the Iran Theatre Association were arrested and sentenced to nearly fifty years in prison. In this case, censorship included imprisonment to prevent critical art. Yet, despite censorship, in terms of production before the revolution, the Iran Theatre Association was successful in staging several plays. Under the Islamic Republic, however, censorship of theatre became broader, prohibiting especially themes that may be deemed a threat to religion. Such a form of censorship has consisted of two important features: first, effective techniques in monitoring theatre production and, second, a consistent ideological campaign to clamp down on secular culture. First, as an effective technique, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, a government organ in charge of censorship, has adopted the extra procedure of viewing a performance before being staged. Sometimes, the censors would view a play several times, asking the director to change dialogue, words, content, and movement. The most effective way to censor has been to inhibit performances and make arrests to create an atmosphere of fear in the theatre community. Second, since 1979 and mainly under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, repression against intellectuals, particularly secular leftists, became more effectively institutionalized. This anti-secular repression continues to operate under the Islamic Republic, with victims ranging from poets and songwriters to cinematographers, playwrights, and theatre directors. Regarding this aspect of censorship, the Islamic Republic is innovative with measures to regulate the language of the public sphere, especially of a secular kind. We could call it “lexical censorship,” or regulation of speech in what could be said and published in print or live production of plays. Censors have significantly impacted the meaning of artistic works, changing the author’s language, and sometimes rendering the language meaningless. All in all, censorship under the Islamic Republic, though complex, is inherently contradictory, which sometimes seems to be pointless or simply madness. BR: The following question is sensitive since it involves your imprisonment experience under the Pahlavi regime. In recent months, a revisionist discourse, led primarily by monarchists, has depicted the notorious intelligence and security force, SAVAK, as a patriotic institution heroically defending Iran against domestic and foreign foes. In a recent documentary, Parviz Sabeti , the former director of SAVAK, Parviz Sabeti, who now resides in the U.S., has denied that his security force committed torture. He has also broadly described the use of force necessary for protecting national security. You were arrested for your political activities during a period when Sabeti played an integral role in consolidating SAVAK as an intelligent institution, implementing security measures that clearly included torture. If possible, could you explain why you were arrested? Were you tortured? Also, what is your response to Sabeti? Rahmaninejad : Our arrest occurred during a critical period when the armed struggle had spread in response to growing repression. Armed struggle was ultimately viewed as a vital threat to the regime’s existence. So, SAVAK decided to adopt harsh measures against armed organizations. The security campaign implemented by SAVAK was as follows: first, extending confinement of prisoners whose sentences had ended and were expected to be legally released; second, the arbitrary imprisonment of anyone deemed suspicious, which included those who appeared leftists or intellectuals. This might sound odd, but decisions to arrest people included how a person wore a particular mustache, a pair of glasses, jeans or velvet pants, sports shoes or boots, long hair, or simply a stylish or patterned t-shirt or shorts. The securitized atmosphere advanced a view that if one leftist or dissident was arrested out of a hundred, the government had made a significant accomplishment. The campaign also included the detainment of young people who entered Iran from abroad or students who came to visit their families during the summer. The objective was to determine if they were affiliated with the Confederation of Iranian Students or political groups abroad. At universities, anyone who questioned or engaged in suspicious discussions could be identified and arrested by SAVAK informants operating among the students. In prison, torture was done to the point of death. After arrest, the prisoner would be taken directly to the torture chamber without any investigation or interrogation, and to crush the will to resist, the interrogator or torturer would first beat up the victim, punch, kick, and then use electric cables. While torture had been used before, its intensity and extent changed. In such a situation, we were among the first suspicious individuals with the potential to be arrested. Obviously, not all members of the Iranian theatre community were Communists or members of a leftist political organization. But the government viewed artists with suspicion. As for our relations with intellectual circles, such as the Iranian Writers’ Association, and the production of critical art, the government saw us as a threat. Such perception of threat was essentially because of our independence. At that time, there was no independent organization in any field, artistic or otherwise. The only independent organizations were the Iranian Writers’ Association, which was not allowed to be active, and the Iran Theatre Association, which staged only one play a year. Moreover, we were not members of a political organization and had no political activity other than doing theatre from a political perspective. Our work in theatre followed the regimes’ legal procedure, albeit our subversive attempts to bypass censorship. That is, the plays we staged had proper license by an official censorship commission. None of the actors or directors in the Iranian Writers’ Association were political activists, and, in fact, the state did not convict them on political charges. But the sad truth is that SAVAK fabricated lies about us. For example, in my case, if the agency needed evidence, they would come up with fabricated documents so as to accuse me of “forming a communist group under the guise of theatre.” And this was applied to theatre actors who faced imprisonment. Such accusations implied that we were members of a Communist organization and therefore acted against national security. It is no exaggeration to say that nearly 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s political prisoners during the Shah’s era were not political activists in the true sense of the word. Now, one should ask Mr. Sabeti, in defense of which national security did he execute all those innocent young people and turn the existence of thousands of families into ashes? As the head of the third department within SAVAK, Sabeti was directly responsible not only for killing and torturing many prominent and talented young people of Iran, but also for the death of hundreds of innocent people during demonstrations during the revolution. Mr. Sabeti should be handed over to the International Court of Justice for his crimes against humanity! Moreover, the government of the United States had no compunction about hiding its own complicity with crimes that occurred during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was supported by Washington. It is a legitimate question to ask. Give me one example, just one example, of a politician who has committed crimes during his or her career and has freely confessed to those crimes. Sabeti is no exception. For the moment, the extremist right-wing government of Israel continues to massacre the Palestinian people while the United States along with other Western countries defend such atrocities with all their might. Do you think the perpetrators of such gruesome crimes, particularly Netanyahu, will be brought to justice? I doubt it. We live in an upside-down world. . BR: These two broad questions follow your experience with dissident politics. What was the shared view, if at all, amongst theatre practitioners about the role of theatre in political transformation in the 1970s? Broadly speaking, how do you see theatre’s contribution to the 1979 revolution? Rahmaninejad : Before the revolution, most theatre practitioners in Iran were employed by the Theatre Programs Administration, a Ministry of Culture and Arts section. As a government employee, a person in a theatre production played an important role in following state laws and regulations, including, of course, censorship. When you are employed by the government, you inevitably must comply with the imposed regulations, including censorship, and especially when in need of a job, you are completely at the disposal of the government. In this way, artistic, creative work becomes a job like any other governmental profession. And since the nature of the regime was dictatorial, censorship was widely and severely implemented within the press, publications, cinema, literary, cultural, intellectual fields, and theatre. This explains why conservative approaches in art and culture were widespread during this period. The plays that had a critical aspect were, first, limited in terms of production and, secondly, involved shallow and superficial content. If a play included a severe criticism of the regime, SAVAK would immediately react. As I mentioned earlier, this was the case with Mohsen Yalfani’s 1970 The Teachers. The show was closed after ten nights of performances, followed by the arrest of its author, Yelfani, and its director, Saeed Sultanpour. In the 1970s, the Iranian theatre saw an increase in the number of productions but not in political change. For the most part, theatre had become more and more conservative, primarily because of censorship. As for the rest of your question, I must say that, unfortunately, the theatre’s contribution to the 1970 revolution in Iran was very limited. Only in the final months leading up to February 1979, when the insurrectionary phase saw its completion with the regime's collapse, a small segment of the theatre community openly supported the revolution. BR: In 1983, you left Iran for the U.S. Could you briefly discuss your theatre activities in the diaspora? Rahmaninejad : Yes, in early 1983, I escaped Iran and traveled through Kurdistan to Turkey, then to Paris, France, where I became a political refugee. I was in France for almost four years, and during this time, I produced four plays. Then, I migrated to the United States to join my family. Working in the diaspora involves many problems, especially in the beginning. Apart from the basic problems of living in a new country, a new culture, a new language, and a new set of laws, being unfamiliar with everything, it is a major challenge to resolve everyday problems and requires a lot of effort. As for theatre in the diaspora, the first problem is finding the right play for an audience no longer in the homeland. This audience now lives in a different environment and deals with different problems, so it demands different subjects. The second is the financial problem. As an artist, how do you meet your financial needs? Then there is the problem of finding a place for performance. Where do you go to rehearse and meet with your group? Then there is the problem of finding people who are willing to devote their time to theatre without expectation of financial reward. The reality is that theatre in exile does not facilitate financial support. I have never been able to support myself through theatre during all the years that I have been active in theatre outside of Iran. In many instances, I have even paid from my own pocket to produce theatre. But in some European countries, Iranian diasporic theatre has thrived due to the financial support of the state. For example, two annual theatre festivals are held in Germany (“Iranian Theatre Festival”) in which Iranians and, most recently, Afghani theatre groups have participated. The continuation of these festivals is only due to the financial support of the local municipalities; otherwise, like many other theatre groups, they would disappear. In general, the theatre activities of the Iranian diaspora have decreased compared to the early waves of exile following the 1979 revolution. And especially since Covid-19, the number of theatrical productions has decreased even more. BR: What do you plan to do next? Rahmaninejad : In terms of producing plays, I must say that there is no clear perspective. When I imagine working on a play and the exhausting process of rehearsals along with the problems that come with it, such as the actors being late for rehearsals, sometimes the absence of some, providing the budget of the show, determining a suitable performance date that is acceptable to everyone, finding the right venue, and dozens of other problems, I can only describe it as a nightmare. In recent years, I have focused on writing and translating, and I am satisfied with this work. Writing usually needs considerable research, which is a learning and enjoyable process for me. BR: A final rather broad question: How do you see the future of theatre in Iran? Rahmaninejad : As long as the Islamic regime is ruling, theatre has no future in Iran, nor anything nor anyone. Iranian theatre has a high capacity for creative transformation and development, but it must be provided with suitable conditions for it to grow. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes On Iranian theater of the Constitutional Revolution, see Babak Rahimi, ed, Performing Iran: Culture, Performance, Theatre (London: I.B. Tauris, 2021), 12 and Willem Floor, The History of Theater in Iran (Washington D.C., Mage Publishers, 2005), 222-258. See Nasser Rahmaninejad, A Man of The Theater (New York: New Village Press, 2020). References About The Author(s) Babak Rahimi is the Director of the Middle East Program and Associate Professor of Culture, Communication, and Religion at the Department of Literature, U.C. San Diego. He is the author of Theater-State and Formation of the Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran: Studies on Safavid Muharram Rituals, 1590-1641 C.E. (Brill 2011) and Senses of Mourning: Muharram Performances in Iran, 1868/9-2022 (forthcoming). Rahimi is also the editor of Theater in the Middle East: Between Performance and Politics (Anthem Press 2020) and Performing Iran: Culture, Performance, Theatre (I.B.Tauris 2023). Rahimi’s research interests concern the relationship between performance, religion, and technology. The historical and social contexts that inspire his research range from early modern Islamicate societies to the Global South . 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 Table of Contents Carving a Path: Desiring-Production in Displaced Syrian Theatre Interview with Nasser Rahmaninejad by Babak Rahimi Arab American Drama: Five Books that Inspired My Journey Five Arab American Plays Everyone Should Read MIDNIGHT IN CAIRO: THE DIVAS OF EGYPT'S ROARING '20S. By Raphael Cormack (REVIEW) Previous Next Attribution:

Shilarna Stokes 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 Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Shilarna Stokes By Published on May 13, 2019 Download Article as PDF Over the course of five evenings in May 1914, more than eight thousand St. Louisans dressed up as Indians, Pioneers, and a host of allegorical figures—Gold, Poverty, and Imagination among them—to perform two versions of their city’s history before over a half million spectators. Hailed by George Pierce Baker as the crowning achievement of the early twentieth-century pageantry movement in the United States, The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis proved “what this drama of the masses may do for the masses.” [1] As the most prominent Symbolist dramatist in the U.S., the Masque’s creator, Percy MacKaye, enjoyed a well-established reputation for plays in which “time is a dream” and in which “the real and the ideal, the substance and the show, the actor and the audience, the poet and the figment of the poet’s imagination” are all interchangeable. [2] A friend and advocate of modernist theatre pioneer Edward Gordon Craig, he echoed Craig’s attack on realism in his own writings and advocated instead for the use of emblematic design elements, allegorical plots, and figurative choreographies. [3] In his view, these were essential to what he called “rituals of democracy,” mass masques cultivating “the half-desire of the people not merely to remain receptive to a popular art created by specialists but to take part themselves in creating it.” [4] By enjoining his fellow theatre artists “to illumine and body forth the life of the people in perennial symbols of power and beauty,” MacKaye pointed to a convergence of Symbolist aesthetics and nationalist sentiment that distinguished his unique contributions to the pageant movement in the United States. [5] The Masque was an elaborate work of verse drama, written in an erudite style and meant to be heard as well as seen. Nonetheless, like other pageants of its time, its narrative and its visual impact depended on the collective movement of large numbers of performers. Mass dances, pantomimes, and gestures allowed Masque performers to communicate its complex story to vast audiences that included spectators hundreds of yards from the stage. In U.S. pageantry, all scenes were, in some sense, crowd scenes. Due to their scale—with hundreds or thousands of citizens performing local histories for hundreds or thousands of their fellow citizens—mass pageants claimed an unambiguous correspondence between the actors and characters onstage, and the spectators in the audience. In doing so they were able to generate performative arguments about civic engagement, citizenship, and democracy on a grand scale, to promote certain kinds of collectivities over others, to incorporate communities seen as vital to the development of the social body, and to exclude communities that were regarded as dangerous to its integrity. To date, David Glassberg’s American Pageantry (1990) is the only published work to offer a substantive discussion of The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis . [6] Though he notes the Masque’s significance as a work of theatre, he is mainly interested in how it reflects Progressive Era conceptions of public history. As such, he steers clear of performance-based analytical approaches. By contrast, I offer here a close analysis of the Masque as a multi-layered performance that sought to shape St. Louisans’ conceptions of collectivity through embodied practices of dance, gesture, and pantomime, as well as the embodying practices of casting and puppetry. In what follows, I discuss how MacKaye’s Masque performed processes of civilization and Americanization that were designed to influence the newly expanded white population of the city. I draw on archival materials, MacKaye’s published works, contemporary secondary sources, and the text of the Masque to demonstrate how its three distinct choreographic modes sustained these processes. Its first and second modes of “playing Indian”—the ritualized and the savage—demonstrated for audiences the difference between rational forms of collective self-organization and wild expressions of collective fervor. The third mode, “Playing Pioneer,” gave shape to an ideal civic body that was consistent with the political and economic vision of city officials. The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis and its audience, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. Reaching its peak of influence in 1914, the American Pageantry movement, as it was called by its supporters, sought to achieve the complete transformation of society through the nationwide production of large-scale pageants: vast open-air historical dramas in which hundreds or thousands of local amateur performers participated. [7] Pageants could be fitted to almost any purpose, though they were nearly always associated with Progressive Era causes and themes. Whereas some reformers saw pageants as civic rituals that would, in time, give shape to a genuine democratic social order, others saw them as an efficient means of achieving immediate political reforms and modernization schemes. Given the wide range of aesthetic and social ideals to which pageants aspired, and the variety of communities that created them, it is not surprising that current scholarship concerned with the American Pageantry movement is similarly varied, tending to ground itself in matters specific to locality and history, and to organize itself around discrete social problems. [8] For MacKaye, pageantry was an antidote to the problem of commercialized leisure and its effect on the white urban working classes. In The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure (1911), MacKaye’s sweeping proposal to reform theatre in the United States, he writes that “The use of a nation’s leisure is the test of its civilization. How then does [this gigantic producer America] organize his night leisure? Into what hands of public trust does he commit this most precious engine of national influence? Ignored by the indifference of public spirit, [it] has been left to be organized by private speculation—the amusement business.” [9] For MacKaye, only the symbolist theatre’s refusal to reproduce reality, its utopian insistence on transformation, and its emphasis on universality were powerful enough to redirect the gaze of spectators past motion-pictures, vaudeville, and burlesque shows, and towards a “nobler theatre” existing “not primarily for the boards” but “in the mind of man.” [10] It is on that imaginary stage, MacKaye believed, that human beings may play their proper roles and begin to envision better forms of social organization. The St. Louis Pageant Drama Association (SLPDA), organizers of The Pageant and Masque , had two interrelated aims: to inspire a sense of civic unity in a city with a rapidly growing and increasingly heterogeneous population, and to use this sense of civic engagement to convince voters to pass a new city charter calling for the construction of a downtown plaza and bridge. Three years earlier, Civic League members who had led the charter campaign represented it as a boon to business owners and real estate developers. When the campaign failed they blamed ethnic divisions that, from their perspective, kept residents focused on the growth of their own neighborhoods rather than on projects benefitting St. Louis as a whole. Reinvented as the SLPDA in 1914, former Civic League members argued that The Pageant and Masque would “influence and control the emotions of the masses that their civic activity will be along proper lines,” thereby convincing voters to pass the charter. [11] Whereas MacKaye drew on the language of art, spirituality, and the social good to explain the purpose of his masques and pageants, the SLPDA expressed its aims in terms of progress, efficiency, and the social order. Both, however, operated on the same collective subject: white St. Louisans whose collective mind needed redirection and cultivation, and whose collective body needed redefinition and reorganization. By 1914 St. Louis had already been the site of several monumental celebrations including the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and Olympic Games, the 1904 Democratic National Convention, and the 1909 Centennial of the city’s incorporation. Whether to surpass its own recent history of mass performances or to outdo other U.S. cities that had recently hosted mass pageants, the SLPDA made a bold decision when it agreed to MacKaye’s plan for a colossal double-feature. Thomas Wood Stevens’s naturalistic pageant would present historical episodes performed during daylight hours. Beginning at nightfall, MacKaye’s masque would reinterpret Stevens’s play in the mode of symbolism, employing allegorical mass characters, abstract design, and sequences of symbolic mass movement. MacKaye’s frequent collaborator, Joseph Lindon Smith, would direct and choreograph the Masque , which in the end took more than five hours to perform. [12] The American Pageant Association defined the masque as a subgenre of pageantry in which the balance between realism and symbolism favored the latter. [13] The differences were more significant, however, for MacKaye. Whereas the function of a pageant is to reenact the past, the aim of a masque, according to MacKaye, is to point to the future progress of civilization. Unlike other pageants of the period, which MacKaye regarded as “tending [too much] toward the static,” his Masque sought to represent the dynamic energies of modern life with its crowded cities and its seemingly endless flows of people by means of “large rhythmic mass-movements of onward urge, opposition, recoil and again the sweep onward”—crowd movements that were part of the script and integral to the plot. [14] The plan to produce both a pageant and a masque solved what MacKaye described as “a special problem in crowd psychology.” [15] Because “a huge, half-socialized, modern multitude [is] unused by experience to imagining,” the unique function of the Masque was to “lead the attention of [the] large masses” from the realistic images presented in the earlier Pageant towards symbolic forms representing the theme of the Masque : “the fall and rise of social civilization.” [16] The idea that civilizations, like organic species, must evolve or suffer extinction, was one to which MacKaye subscribed. Like many among the intellectual elite, he believed that European civilization was in a state of irreversible moral and physical decline because of increasing political unrest and urban overcrowding, plagues that threatened to reach U.S. shores via the mass migration of Europe’s working classes. The Masque took place at the height of the “Great Departure,” historian Tara Zahra’s term for the period between 1846 and 1940 when more than fifty million Europeans moved to the Americas, the majority from Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. [17] Between 1900 and 1910, St. Louis’s foreign-born white population increased nearly 35%, leading to an overall population increase of nearly 20%. Because St. Louis’s rapid growth was directly attributable to recent immigration, city officials recognized the need to communicate with a greater variety of immigrant communities than the city had seen in its history. The SLPDA claimed The Pageant and Masque would break down divisions between the city’s ethnically diverse communities. However, the eventual result of the six-month long casting process was to expand the definition of who counted as a St. Louisan by implicitly establishing whiteness, rather than duration of residency, as the only essential criterion. Although black St. Louisans outnumbered all but the city’s German and Irish populations, and although the overall percentage of black residents was increasing at a much higher rate than that of white residents, only one Black St. Louisan appeared in MacKaye’s Masque —in the allegorical role of Africa. St. Louis’s Indigenous community was small by comparison with other ethnic groups. Nonetheless, when a Chippewa group proposed to perform in an exhibition baseball game for a fee the SLPDA declined their offer. [18] Not one Indigenous person appeared in MacKaye’s Masque. As one example of the “rituals of race” described by Alessandra Lorini, the Masque of St. Louis proposed to gather as many as possible under the sheltering canopy of whiteness in order to answer the question of how to create cohesive civic bodies in an age of racial and ethnic conflict. [19] Although the SLPDA’s refusal to allow the Chippewa to participate was only one of many acts of exclusion from the pageant’s history, the number and variety of Indigenous communities represented in the Pageant by white performers (Mississippians, Osage, Missouri, and more), in contrast to the total invisibility of black communities, invites questions concerning why “Indians” were so heavily represented in the Masque . For the majority of its performers, participation in the city’s largest civic spectacle meant covering one’s face and body with copper greasepaint and “playing Indian,” a concept Philip Deloria has used to describe performances of nativeness by non-native peoples that serve to negotiate contradictory models of U.S. national identity. [20] In the Masque , the symbolic value of Indian bodies is so great that actual Indigenous bodies, as persistent reminders of colonial violence, are rendered invisible. MacKaye himself blamed the “reverted social state” of “the Indian race” on the invasion of the hordes of the bison. [21] Building on Deloria’s work, Shari Huhndorf provides additional context for an interpretation of the Masque through her focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples of “going native” that contributed to “the regeneration of racial whiteness and Euro-American society,” particularly during “moments of social crisis that [gave] rise to collective doubts about the nature of progress.” [22] In keeping with Huhndorf’s assessment of the kinds of social malaise that “going native” has habitually addressed, representations of Indians in the Masque in fact bore little resemblance to other contemporary attempts to portray Indigenous peoples, such as those that took place in Wild West shows or World’s Fairs. Rather, “playing Indian” in the Masque was a way to engage and represent white urban workers to themselves—the same leisure-seekers who MacKaye’s Civic Theatre plan proposed to re-educate. That pageants often linked the bodies of Indians to those of white urban workers can be seen in countless images that represent workers and Indians mirroring one another in costume or in gestures of submission. In cartoons like one from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat , Masque participants perform gestures involved in Indian work and ritual on a mound “built by Moundbuilders Local no. 6,” and discuss “working class” themes such as baseball, lumbago, and the need for tobacco. The Masque’s representation of Indians was both a continuation of and an exception to the modes of “playing Indian” that took place in Wild West shows or in World’s Fairs, both of which had begun to attract massive audiences well before the pageant movement began. Like the Wild West shows in which Indigenous performers “[observed] traditional spiritual and cultural practices, [and] simulated hunting, shooting, and fighting back,” the Masque’s red-face performers engaged in similar activities for an audience. [23] Like the 1904 World’s Fair that took place in St. Louis, in which a model Indian school operated alongside a model ethnological village, the Masque aimed to articulate differences between “progressive Indians” and “primitive Indians.” [24] Unlike both the Wild West shows and the World’s Fairs, however, no Indigenous performers appeared in the Masque. As such, the Masque’s Indians did not aim at authenticity and were not subjects of an anthropological gaze. Rather, they offered an example of red-face performance that wholly consumed and expelled the bodies of Indigenous persons in order to re-present them as a collective symbol of a vanished past. Mass masques like MacKaye’s were spectacles that claimed to be anti-spectacle, and commercial enterprises that claimed to be anti-commercial. Defined as gatherings of the people and as events performed by the people (rather than as entertainments performed by paid professionals) the exclusion of Indigenous performers in pageants and masques was consistent with the contradictions inherent in an art form that sought to give shape to ideas of “the people” by excluding so many of them. To participate in a pageant not only meant “going native” but “becoming native,” in the sense of performing one’s affective belonging to a place in which one was not born. Indigenous peoples stood apart from the structures of belonging that the pageants and masques offered to others because, being neither white nor able to become white, they could only ever be foreign. Poster for A Pageant of Progress in Lawrence, Massachusetts (1911), courtesy of Dartmouth College Library, and “Sidelights on the Pageant.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat , May 29, 1914. The Prelude to the Masque depicted an invented lamentation ritual of the Mississippian or “moundbuilding” peoples, the eleventh-century inhabitants of the middle Mississippi river valley known for their creation of colossal earthwork mounds. In MacKaye’s mass pantomime, the Moundbuilders performed ceremonial dances, acrobatic feats, and prayers in honor of a deceased leader. Employing a ritualized mode of “playing Indian,” the Masque offered spectators a demonstration of a self-governing civic body that supported both MacKaye’s theatrical vision and the SLPDA’s economic vision, a body that achieved physical excellence through ritual dances imitating the geometrical forms of the city’s sacred architecture. Although few St. Louisans were familiar with them, MacKaye was so enchanted by his visit to the “Mounds” in nearby Cahokia, Illinois that he decided to recreate them in St. Louis’s Forest Park. The densely populated urban center of Mississippian culture, also called Cahokia, was composed of a vast central plaza, surrounded by mounds of differing geometrical shapes that may have corresponded to different civic functions. [25] The plan of this ancient city, with its monumental buildings, vast causeways, and interconnected plazas, correlated well with the city-of-the-future envisioned by the SLPDA. It also suited MacKaye’s goal, which was to imbue his Masque with classical values of form, beauty, and serenity. Despite the depiction of Moundbuilder rituals in the Globe-Democrat cartoon, the participants in the Prelude were not middle-aged men, but Boy Scouts and girls from local athletics clubs as well as young leaders of these organizations. Baker described the choreography of the scene: “Slowly and exquisitely, figures walking, swaying, dancing, filled the great stage [with] right arm extended before them and right knee raised high like figures in Assyrian bas-reliefs , [. . .] their bodies stained a yellow-brown.” [26] Ernest Harold Baynes added, “They represent the race at the very height of its civilization—a people beautiful of form and dress, lithe and graceful of movement, rejoicing in the strength and skill of their bodies which have been brought to a wonderful state of perfection.” [27] As described by Baker and Baynes, the athletic bodies of the Masque’s young performers provided the model material from which great civilizations may be built; moreover, their callisthenic acts confirmed that bodies can be “brought to perfection” through the performance of civic rituals such as the Masque . The Moundbuilders’ tightly choreographed ritual, designed by Joseph Lindon Smith, demonstrated their ability to create complex patterns without the instruction of a visible leader. [28] Instead, their movements were directed by the geometrical motifs of the emblematic setting: the cubic altar, the circular shrine, and the pyramidal mounds. Photographs taken during rehearsal and in performance indicate that although both male and female Moundbuilders entered in winding lines imitating the shape of a river, the boys soon began to dance in a rectangular pattern around the center altar while the girls danced towards them, eventually forming circles on stage left and right. The men playing older priests arranged themselves symmetrically at the edges of the largest central mound, creating a triangle while younger boys imitated their elders by making human pyramids on top of the two smaller mounds at stage left and stage right. In Smith’s choreography, the Moundbuilders were represented as a people who have so thoroughly incorporated the architectural shapes surrounding them that they need no leader to guide their movements. They performed as a self-governing civic body, whose rational and efficient movements corresponded in every detail to the design of their city. Moundbuilders rehearsing the Prelude , courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. As the Moundbuilders’ ritual faded from the audience’s view, an enormous puppet called Cahokia was revealed sitting on the center mound. Waking from a long sleep, he explained to the audience that the preceding Prelude enacted his dreaming memory of the glorious city in which he was once a revered priest. Now, Cahokia lamented, his people have vanished. MacKaye lovingly called Cahokia “my Über-marionette.” [29] Although the convention of beginning a pageant with a soliloquy delivered by an Indian was already well-established, MacKaye’s decision to use a giant puppet was unusual. Cahokia’s majestic presence not only underscored the extent of Edward Gordon Craig’s influence upon MacKaye’s ideas for reforming US theatre, it provided an aesthetic form through which MacKaye communicated his understanding of the relationship between the creative artist and the people in the socio-aesthetic work of pageantry. MacKaye’s profound reverence for Cahokia is unmistakable in numerous photographs that show him gazing up at the puppet and holding his hand. Conversely, photographs showing MacKaye rehearsing with actors tend to betray the posture of a stern disciplinarian. The different attitudes displayed in these photographs suggest that, for MacKaye, as for Craig, the human body was less suitable material for art than the Über-marionette. Unlike the “half-formed” people of St. Louis, who “provide[d] in themselves [the] creative material” for the poet-dramatist to shape and control, Cahokia’s puppet-body was an already complete work of art exemplifying MacKaye’s ideal civic body—his limbs, head, and hands moving in harmony with each other and with the music of the hidden orchestra. [30] MacKaye professed disagreement with Craig’s idea to banish from the theatre all “the personal elements implied in the work of the actor.” [31] However, his repeated descriptions of Masque participants as materials to be harmonized through performance suggest that MacKaye relished the opportunity to transform the individual bodies of St. Louisans as well as the civic body of St. Louis into works of art that might move with as much grace and precision as a puppet. MacKaye holds Cahokia’s hand. MacKaye directs Raymond Koch. Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. Although the Moundbuilders, like Cahokia, embodied physical perfection, they did not speak. Consequently, it was left to Cahokia to speak as the last member of his once-civilized tribe: [. . .] Ai-ya, my people! Where are the tribes of Cahokia? Lo, where the trails of twilight Hide them, naked and scattered, Luring them backward—backward Deeper in primal darkness, Masking with brutes, and mating In lairs of the jungle.[32] With these lines Cahokia bewailed the de-evolution of his people into the beast-like Wild Nature Forces, a group of characters that allegorized all the allegedly savage Indigenous communities descended from the Moundbuilders. A brief glance at the text of Stevens’s Pageant helps makes this clear for its opening scenes trace the de-evolution of the Indian from a supposedly single, distinct culture (that of the Moundbuilders) to a passel of nomadic hordes whose degenerate habits are easily repelled, then reeducated through the heroic efforts of European colonists. In Stevens’s Pageant the Osage and the Missouri are represented as homeless, cowardly thieves who survive by means of begging and stealing. Those St. Louisans who played Osage and Missouri in Pageant scenes were double-cast as Wild Nature Forces in the Masque. [33] MacKaye’s stage directions indicate what has become of them: “ Below [Cahokia], mysterious, half-seen, at the foot of the mound—crouched on its sides and lurking in the dark background–brute-headed forms of the “Wild Nature Forces” move and mingle with glimmering limbs of savages .” [34] Recognizing the Masque’s Indians as a representation of the city’s rapidly expanding white working-class population, it becomes apparent that the transition from “playing Moundbuilders” to “playing Wild Nature Forces” signified a descent from civilization into savagery, and from culture into nature, that was resonant with contemporary fears about urban overcrowding and the corrupting influence of urban life. Like the denizens of modern cities, which sociologist E.A. Ross described as scenes of “mingling without fellowship and [. . .] contact without intercourse,” of “wolfish struggle, crimes, frauds, exploitations and parasitism,” the tribes of Cahokia, the puppet-priest explained, were lured away from their ancestral grounds. [35] No longer heeding Cahokia’s prayers, the Wild Nature Forces began to obey gods of Chaos who urged them to give into their basest animal instincts towards lust, greed, and violence. In all their aspects, the Wild Nature Forces illustrated the savagery of the modern city. Their movements consisted of lurking, crouching, crawling, mingling, mating, leaping, rushing and, unsurprisingly, crowding. Unlike the Moundbuilders, the Wild Nature Forces exhibited only groping, half-formed motions or rowdy, uncontrolled dancing. They gestured in multiple, arbitrary directions, all at the same time. They remained close to the ground where it was darkest and their shapes, which are described in the text of Masque as “half-seen” or “half-hidden,” were indistinguishable from one another. When the allegorical character named Saint Louis first entered the Masque , he appeared as a four-year-old boy, dragging behind him an immense sword that was too heavy for him to lift. Sensing his weakness, the Wild Nature Forces attacked the child, attempting to kidnap him. At the moment Saint Louis miraculously heaved the sword high above his head, the Wild Nature Forces suddenly froze, stunned into stasis and silence, “the beast faces [. . .] startled, glowering, murmurous.” [36] Then, all at once, they “swarm[ed] down the mound sides, rush[ed] into the darkness and vanish[ed].” [37] Saint Louis’s first victory in the Masque was one in which the mere appearance of a symbol of European conquest possessed the power to bring savage bodies to order and banish them from the stage. Having cleared the stage of actual Indigenous persons, stage Indians, and allegorical Indian figures by the end of the first act, the remainder of MacKaye’s Masque followed the actions of an equally complex representation of the urban masses: the Pioneer. Like the Indian, the Pioneer was familiar from earlier public celebrations. Scenes of pioneers marching with the tools of their various trades or symbolically clearing the land in front of them with axes had been a staple of US civic parades since the eighteenth century. [38] Participants in such performances embodied the nation’s pursuit of manifest destiny and the conquest of the frontier. In the Masque of St. Louis , however, the Pioneer was adapted to reflect twentieth-century concerns. Whereas the Masque’s Moundbuilders illustrated a vanished preindustrial and proto-national collective subject, the Pioneers of the second act represented an emerging national and progressive collective subject, one that must repeatedly confront the problems of participatory democracy in an age of industrialization and mass immigration. The first of the Masque’s Pioneers entered a theatrical space from which the ritual center, the sacred altar fire of the Moundbuilders, had been removed. The only remaining light on stage emanated from the small shrine at the apex of the center mound. “Marching [forward] in widespread numbers” with spades, scythes, axes, and rifles, the Masque’s Pioneers were unlike their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century forebears. [39] Carrying useless tools that clear no land, they presented themselves as lost and leaderless bands of men, desperately in search of a place to make camp or a direction in which to move. As if suddenly recognizing the urgent need for guidance, one Pioneer cried out: “Our trails blaze with desire and danger and hope born of to-day. For tomorrow is dim and yesterday–dead. Now lead us to-day! Lead us, St. Louis!” In unison the others echoed: “Lead us, St. Louis!” Emerging from a nearby shrine, Saint Louis suddenly appeared as a young knight clad in white armor with a brilliant white sword. The sword, as tall as the actor, animated the immense spaces of the pageant stage, directing the Pioneers onstage and the spectators’ attention. From this scene onward, the Pioneers did not move or act unless directed to do so by Saint Louis and his sword. As the Masque’s promptbook reveals, the leaders of each of the three Pioneer groups were given typewritten sheets that explained where their groups should assemble and provided precise instructions for movement and choral speech. When read together, and in conjunction with the text of the Masque, they demonstrate the degree to which the Pioneers functioned as an automatic onstage audience, one formed by a reflexive, nearly involuntary instinct to applaud the actions of civic leaders. [40] Though the Pioneers were unable to move forward on their own, they were able to pledge their obedience to new leadership without hesitation. By performing spontaneous consensus and by demonstrating their willingness to be guided by familiar symbols of Anglo-European culture, the Pioneers provided an onstage model of the kind of civic responsiveness SLPDA members hoped St. Louisans would emulate offstage. Throughout the Masque’s Second Act, the Pioneers displayed their boundless energy. The prompt sheets instructed them to move swiftly from mound to mound and between various parts of the stage, often for no reason connected to the action of the scene. [41] Though their movement rarely indicated any achievement, it nevertheless performed the dynamism of modernity MacKaye sought to represent. Whereas the measured, ritualized group movement of the Moundbuilders expressed the rhythms of ancient, civilized collectivities, the velocity and urgency of the Pioneers’ numerous flights across the stage expressed the rhythms of the modern city. Though they did not represent a self-organizing collective body on the model of the Moundbuilders, the Pioneers were no less attuned to the necessity of precision, repetition, and rhythm in their collective movements. Once they arrived at their appointed positions on the stage, their vocabulary of gestures was even more restricted than that of the Moundbuilders. Confined to gestures of deference and supplication, the prompt sheets instructed them to stand, half-kneel or kneel, to extend their arms up or out, and to point towards symbols as they appear on stage. Perhaps one of the only opportunities for creative self-expression came in the form of a repeated request, appearing in almost every prompt sheet, for the Pioneers to “make a great show of interest” through audible noises and visible gestures whenever any astonishing action occurred onstage. The Pioneers provided an onstage audience for the allegorical Saint Louis that was intended to serve as an exemplary model for the Masque’s actual audiences. Their prescribed range of movement suggests that in the Masque’s view, being an active participant in modern civic life meant being an appreciative and impressionable spectator. It meant performing one’s patriotism by recognizing symbols, manifesting visible and audible signs of reverence for them, and agreeing to be led by those who employ them. Saint Louis and the Sword, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. If MacKaye hoped that audiences would concentrate on the mass symbols and choreographies performed by their fellow citizens, the St. Louis press was more focused on the masses of spectators themselves. Local newspapers attempted to give readers an experience of the Masque’s scale by printing panoramic photographs of its audiences, which by the end of its run comprised more than a half-million individuals. Many more saw the Pageant and Masque during its week of rehearsals prior to opening day. The test of any pageant’s success was the degree to which it could hold the attention of its vast crowds. As such, newspaper accounts remarked on the degree to which St. Louisans paid attention to an event that so many had presumed they could not understand. Spectators reportedly sat silent through sizzling summer days just to watch rehearsals, stood in the rain for many hours to gain access to the pageant grounds, and climbed dangerously high into trees to get the best viewing spots. Sitting amongst the minority of spectators who paid for their seats, Baker described several of his co-spectators chattering through the Prelude. From his perspective, they chatter because they are leisure-seekers, unaware that they are participating in a civic ritual. Eventually, however, the Masque worked its magic; the group became quiet and still as the performance continued. Before they left, he explained, they turned back to look at the stage once more before silently walking away. For Baker, this transformation proved that the Masque had succeeded in sparking a moment of collective attention that might be mobilized for social purposes if repeated often enough. [42] Despite Baker’s insistence on its singular social and cultural significance, MacKaye’s Masque , like so many previous civic entertainments, was absorbed into the urban spectacle it promised to transcend. Local papers reported everything from women overcome by heat, children lost in crowds, horses run astray, and water boys mobbed by thirsty spectators. Far from the ideal of civic enlightenment MacKaye describes in The Civic Theatre , spectators at one performance broke through seating barriers and caused a brawl. Rather than diverting attention away from the city’s commercial entertainments, some members of the Pageant and Masque’s chorus performed onstage at one of the city’s vaudeville houses immediately after an evening performance of the Masque. Although the Masque ’s critical and popular success was unsurpassed by any previous or subsequent event to emerge from the American Pageantry movement, its legacy remains fraught. On the one hand, the Masque’s success directly contributed to the passing of the charter, which in addition to its construction projects ensured stronger concentration of authority in the mayor’s office, fewer elected and more appointed positions, and rezoning provisions that narrowed participation in the political process. On the other hand, it also led to the establishment of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company, the expansion of St. Louis’s public arts programs, and the construction of a permanent outdoor amphitheater in Forest Park. Despite MacKaye’s belief that large-scale participation in the Masque would encourage St. Louisans to work together for reforms that grew out of their own desires and imaginations, he misunderstood the extent to which the SLPDA’s interpretation of the Masque as well as its definition of popular participation predetermined its potential social meanings. Luther Ely Smith, who saw the Masque as evidence of “the [same] civic spirit which will build our bridge, pass our charter, [and] stretch a plaza from 12th Street to Grand Avenue” was but one of many voices echoing the official interpretation. [43] In the end, MacKaye’s Masque may have taught St. Louisans more about collectively performing towards the aspirations of its leaders, than about collective action or even collective dreaming. It stands as an unusual cultural experiment, and as a reminder that greater participation by citizens in the social and cultural work of performance neither equates nor necessarily leads to greater participation in official political processes. The work of coalition-building requires more sustainable performance practices than pageant-makers like MacKaye tended to have in mind. Acts of inclusion, when performed on a monumental scale, have the power to make a positive impact on communities, and even to instantiate processes of engagement, but their long-term efficacy depends on how they cultivate the meaning and the practice of collective participation before, during, and after the crowds go home. References [1] George Pierce Baker, “The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis.” World’s Work , vol. 28 (Aug 1914), 389. Though known primarily for pioneering the study of playwriting in the United States, Baker was a prominent advocate of pageantry as well as a pageant writer and director. [2] Thomas Dickinson, Playwrights of the New American Theater (New York: McMillan, 1925), 19. Despite his lack of popular success, Dickinson and others considered MacKaye one of the most important playwrights of his day. His most well-known plays are The Canterbury Pilgrims (1903), Jeanne d’Arc (1906), Sappho and Phaon (1907), The Scarecrow (1911), and Yankee Fantasies (1912). [3] Directly quoting Craig’s On the Art of the Theatre (1912) in his own book, MacKaye described realism as “the blunt statement of life, something everybody misunderstands while recognizing,” (Percy MacKaye, The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1912: 28). Despite their occasional disagreements, MacKaye and Craig were lifelong friends and correspondents. On their relationship, see Susan Valeria Harris Smith, Masks in Modern Drama (Berkeley: UC Press, 1984): 49-84. [4] Percy MacKaye, quoted in Joyce Kilmer, Literature in the Making, By Some of its Makers (New York: Harper, 1917), 314. [5] Letter from Percy MacKaye to Grenville Vernon, March 12, 1907, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. MacKaye’s work in the masque genre predated the rise of the pageantry movement. The Saint-Gaudens Masque , performed at the Cornish Art Colony in 1905, was MacKaye’s first critical success. His first pageant was performed at Gloucester, Massachusetts in August 1909 and, though it never materialized, he developed a pageant for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1910. After The Masque of St. Louis MacKaye created his most well-known and most often studied masque, Caliban by the Yellow Sands, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It was produced both in New York and Boston in 1916. MacKaye remained a member of the American Pageantry Association’s Board of Directors until its dissolution in 1930. [6] David Glassberg’s American Pageantry: the Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990) currently serves as the starting point for scholarship on MacKaye’s Masque . Two dissertations also consider the event in some detail from different perspectives: Kenneth Graeme Bryant, “Percy MacKaye and the Drama of Democracy,” (PhD diss., Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1991), ProQuest AAT 9200131, and Michael Peter Mehler, “Percy MacKaye: Spatial Formations of a National Character,” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2010), ProQuest AAT 3417299. [7] A bibliography of contemporary works on American pageantry can be found in Caroline Hill Davis, Pageants in Great Britain and the United States: a List of References (New York: New York Public Library Association, 1916). The American Pageant Association (APA), founded in 1913, was organized for the purposes of protecting the new genre from commercialization, disorganization, and low aesthetic standards. Its founding and development is discussed in Naima Prevots, American Pageantry : a Movement for Art and Democracy (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990). [8] For examples of the variety of forms that current pageant scholarship takes, see the following: Karen Blair, “Pageantry for Women’s Rights: The Career of Hazel MacKaye, 1913-1923, Theatre Survey , Vol. 31, no. 1: 23-46; Brook Davis, “Let the children speak: The ‘Pageant of Sunshine and Shadow,’ a child labor pageant by Constance D’Arcy Mackay,” Theatre Studies , 1997, Vol. 4: 33-44; Brian Hallstoos, “Pageant and Passion: Willa Saunders Jones and Early Black Sacred Drama in Chicago,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre , 2007, Vol. 19, no. 2: 77-97; Hannah Hammond, “A Masque on Behalf of the Birds,” New England Theatre Journal , Vol. 27: 41-62; Jenna L. Kubly, “Staging the Great War in the National Red Cross Pageant,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre , 2012, Vol. 24, no. 2: 49-66. [9] Percy MacKaye, The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure , 30-31. In the Civic Theatre MacKaye draws heavily on Jane Addams’s Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909) and Michael D. Davis’ Exploitation of Pleasure (1911) for support for his ideas. See also, George Elliott Howard, “Social Psychology of the Spectator,” American Journal of Sociology , vol. 18, No. 1 (July 1912): 37-41. [10] Percy MacKaye, “On the Need of Imagination in the Drama of To-day,” Harvard Advocate , vol. 63, no. 10 (June 30, 1897): 140. [11] Luther Gulick, quoted in Glassberg, American Pageantry , 199. [12] Percy MacKaye, Saint Louis: A Civic Masque (New York: Doubleday, 1914), xi-xii. [13] Anne Throop Craig, “Pageantry,” Encyclopedia Americana (Encyclopedia Americana Co., 1919): 101. [14] Percy MacKaye, “Worcester Address on Pageantry,” February 26, 1912, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library; MacKaye, Saint Louis , xiv. [15] MacKaye, Saint Louis , x. [16] Ibid., xvi-xix. [17] Tara Zahra, The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 4. For demographic data see The Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910: Statistics for Missouri , 602-622. [18] My description of the casting process is based on Glassberg, 178-181, and upon documents in the Dartmouth College Library. [19] Alessandra Lorini, Rituals of Race: American Public Culture and the Search for Racial Democracy (Charlottesville: Virginia University Press, 1999), 236-243. [20] Glassberg, American Pageantry , 178; Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 5. [21] MacKaye, Saint Louis , xix. [22] Shari Huhndorf, Going Native (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001): 3, 14. [23] Rosemarie K. Bank, “Show Indians/Showing Indians: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and American Anthropology,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , vol. 26 (Fall 2011): 152. [24] L.G. Moses, “Indians on the Midway: Wild West Shows and the Indian Bureau at the World’s Fairs, 1893-1904,” South Dakota History, vol. 21 (Fall 1991): 24. [25] Sally A. Kitt Chapel, Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 142-145. [26] Baker, 391. [27] Ernest Harold Baynes, “The Biggest Show Ever Staged,” Boston Evening Transcript , undated, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. [28] Joseph Lindon Smith was a painter known primarily for the skill with which he recreated ancient artifacts discovered on archaeological expeditions in Egypt. My description of his choreography for the Prelude is based on more than fifty rehearsal and performance photographs in the Dartmouth College Library, as well as dozens of newspaper accounts from MacKaye’s scrapbook on the Masque , also in the Dartmouth College Library. [29] MacKaye wrote this on the back of a photograph of Cahokia in the PMK Papers. Edward Gordon Craig explains his theory of the Über-marionette in On the Art of the Theatre (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008), 54-94. Both Robert Edmond Jones and Thomas Dickinson regarded the Masque as the only theatrical work to successfully explore the possibilities of the Über-marionette on the US stage. [30] MacKaye, Saint Louis , x. [31] MacKaye, The Civic Theatre (fn.), 27. [32] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 7-8. [33] Program of the Pageant and Masque of St. Louis , PMK Papers. [34] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 5. [35] Edward Alsworth Ross, Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations of Order (New York: MacMillan, 1901), 19. Highly influential during his lifetime (1866-1951), Ross wrote twenty-seven books and over 300 articles on social psychology, history, and urban reform. [36] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 22. [37] Ibid. [38] See, for examples, Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theater in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1986), David Waldstreicher , In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: the Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1997), and Simon P. Newman, Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2000). [39] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 42. [40] Promptbook of The Masque of St. Louis , courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. [41] Ibid. [42] Baker, 391. [43] Luther Ely Smith, “Pageant to Make City Better Place to Live In,” Bulletin of the Pageant and Masque of Saint Louis , No. 2 : 7. Footnotes About The Author(s) SHILARNA STOKES is a Lecturer in Theater Studies at Yale University. Her research centers on how mass theatrical events give shape to ideas about public space, collectivity, and political life. 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.

Caitlin A.Kane Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 35 2 Visit Journal Homepage Reviving Feminist Archives: An Interview with Leigh Fondakowski Caitlin A.Kane By Published on May 17, 2023 Download Article as PDF Leigh Fondakowski (they/she) has dedicated nearly 25 years to creating theatre from narrative interviews and archival research. In works including The Laramie Project, The People’s Temple, I Think I Like Girls, and Spill, Fondakowski uses the words of real people to create nuanced portraits of communities in crisis and to illuminate difficult moments in U.S. history. In 2018, they were commissioned to craft a podcast about women’s liberation in honor of the 19th Amendment centennial. That commission led to Feminist Files , [i] an audio theatre series about the “nerdy revolutionaries” (including Dr. Bernice “Bunny” Sandler, Pauli Murray, Edith Green, and Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink) who started the “academic sex revolution” by clandestinely passing the legislation that we now know as Title IX. Although the commission for that work came before the pandemic began, Fondakowski’s research and creative process were undeniably affected and constrained by pandemic-era shutdowns and by rising awareness of the need for more accessible approaches to producing and presenting theatre. In this conversation, conducted via Zoom in November 2022, Fondakowski and I discuss how these forces shaped their development of a hybrid podcast-theatre form that blends Fondakowski’s first-person narrative, recorded interviews with relatives of those who led the fight for gender equity in academia, and performances of edited archival materials. Podcasts and other audio forms, we both agree, have great potential for theatre artists interested in exploring experimental and unconventional dramatic forms and for creating more accessible theatrical works. Caitlin Kane: Can you describe Feminist Files for those who have not yet heard it? Leigh Fondakowski: Feminist Files is a ten-part narrative audio series that tells the secret origin story of Title IX. It covers the years of 1969-1976, tracing how this group of women in Washington went behind the scenes to create legislation that has had an amazing impact. CK: In the series, you describe those women as “nerdy revolutionaries,” and it is such an apt descriptor. LF: Right, there are a lot of cliches about women’s libbers from that period: bra-burning, protests in the streets, all that kind of stuff. That did happen. The radical lesbians were really at the forefront, but the women [whose stories we tell in the series] were not doing that. These were women who were focused on legislative change. The thing that I love about the [timing of this project] – it’s tragic in a way – but Feminist Files was released on the 50th anniversary of Title IX in June [2022], and the day after that, Roe was overturned. So, in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment and Title IX pass, and in 1973, Roe is instated. Half a century later, Title IX is the last one standing. It is incredible in terms of the arc of history. CK: It makes the series even more urgent at this moment. There is a lot that we can learn about the legislative side of activism from the women whose stories you tell. LF: Right. I think my biggest discovery was realizing the intricacies and the convergence of different people’s work that went into [passing Title IX]. I never really thought about how the sausage gets made. CK: How did you become interested in the stories of this group of feminist activists and the history of Title IX? LF: The project has a bit of a history. I was approached by this media company called Frequency Machine – a young startup co-founded by two women. They wanted to do something for the centennial of the 19th Amendment, so they approached me with this outline they had created for a women’s series, right? I wish I could show you this document. Each episode was an epic chunk of women’s liberation from 1910 to the present. So, I was like, I’ll take this, and I’ll see what I can find. I knew Title IX could be one of the episodes, so I sat down to talk with Rora [Brodwin, another playwright who had previously written a solo show about her Great-Aunt Bunny Sandler, the “godmother of Title IX”], and I realized the series could tell Rora’s story and the story of Title IX. Then, I went to the Schlesinger Library and was convinced that it could be the whole series because I found all this material there. There was so much material, and there were so many parts to the story that I was discovering. So, I went back to [Frequency Machine], and I pitched it. The producers had a background in reality television, so we had to learn how to talk to one another, how to find a common language. I had to learn to speak in TV dramatic logic, which I’m still learning. It took a lot to convince them that there would be enough drama in it because this is not true crime, you know. I told them, “We’re gonna use oral history, but we’re gonna have an actor perform it.” And they were like, “Why are we gonna have an actor perform it? Can’t we just use the real audio of it?” But Bunny Sandler isn’t an actor, so the real audio doesn’t quite have that dramatic energy. I said, “I’m gonna adapt it to my style.” It was a long process of me convincing them this could be dramatic enough, which it turns out it absolutely is. In the end, I think maybe [the producers] were beaten down by my endlessly returning to this pitch! They also gave me the freedom to create something they didn’t entirely understand at first, which is a rare opportunity as an artist, to be trusted in that way. So, the origin story of it was that it was supposed to be this gigantic women’s history. From a hundred years of women’s history, I homed in on Title IX. CK: The audio theatre form that you developed for this project blends the dramatic forms that you use in your interview- and archival-based plays with a more conventional podcast structure. Can you describe how this developmental process built on the processes that you’ve used in the theatre? LF: What’s interesting about it for me as a writer is I really hear text musically when I’m playwriting, both when there’s pre-existing text and when I’m making the text up. In a way, it was like a long rehearsal process. I could live with these recordings and edit from these recordings. Instead of saying to the actor, “Cut that line” or “change this around,” I could just do that with their voice. It did give me the thought that, in the future, when I’m playwriting from big source material again, I’ll have actors record the read-throughs of the whole play so that I have that audio and can play with that audio as I’m playwriting. This form also frees you from having to worry about bodies and space. You create an image world for each episode –you can really focus on voices and story. CK: What do you see as the possibilities for this form looking forward? LF: I think that it’s an underexplored form. I mean, it’s interesting to see what’s happening in the theatre, right? Audible is putting plays on tape… LA Theater Works has been doing it forever, but I think people are more open to audio now, and Hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon because it’s a proof of concept, right? They don’t have to invest in developing a TV series. It can be a podcast first, and then, they can decide they want to make it into a TV series. But there are also people who – instead of selling their intellectual property to someone in Hollywood – they are making an audio version where they have more control and can play with form. It has been called the Wild West because it doesn’t have a lot of rules. SAG and Equity don’t know what to do with it. It’s not governed by any of that stuff, so people are still just exploring. I think it’s a truly experimental landscape right now. It’s also just a different form, right? When [the producers] were giving me notes, they were saying that I needed to imagine someone doing their laundry, being on the treadmill, or cleaning their house. So, we’ve lowered the artistic bar, but it’s also universal. Everybody can access it. It’s not expensive, so in terms of what you were saying earlier– CK: In terms of what the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated for us as theatre-makers– LF: Right, we still have an issue in the theatre of affordability and accessibility: how much money is spent to make the thing, who gets to watch it, and who are the gatekeepers. In this podcast world, you still have some constraints, but anybody can make a podcast, and most people can access it. CK: You are somewhat present in your theatrical work as an interviewer or narrator figure, but in Feminist Files, you play a much more substantive role. What was it like to be that present as the host and narrator of this series? How did it feel to put yourself into the work in that way? LF: I’ve always resisted that, but in this form, it felt like an inevitability because I’m the one finding this stuff, and I’m trying to recreate this experience for the listener of going on this journey [as a researcher]. Before I found the oral history transcript [in Bunny Sandler’s files at the Schlesinger Library], Rora [Brodwin] had already told me most of Bunny’s history and her own story of sexual assault, including her going into the Title IX office that her great-aunt had created and not being able to tell her great-aunt about that experience. So, that was a narrative arc, right? Then, some of the most moving experiences for me were finding Pauli [Murray’s] journal, realizing that I was working beneath her portrait [in the archive], and Rora introducing me to her as a figure in history. I thought Rora was going to be able to thread all those other elements in. I spent an unbelievable number of hours putting [Rora and Bunny’s] voices together, so they were telling the story together. I thought it was just gonna be the two of them talking to each other because they couldn’t talk to each other in real life anymore, but there was too much that needed to be filled in. I needed to talk people through and give context. I would also say that Sarah Lambert [my co-producer] had a lot to do with it because she is the standard bearer for artistic integrity. So, when Sarah was encouraging me to put myself forward, I knew I had to pay attention. She had never said that in any other process. And, of course, Sarah fact-checked everything to within an inch of its life, so I always felt confident in everything we were saying, you know? And then I had to learn how to direct myself narrating, which was a process. CK: Right – I can imagine how different that felt from working in a theatre with actors, particularly amidst the pandemic. Can you describe your directorial process? How did you do the recordings? Was the whole process done via Zoom? LF: Yeah, [the actors] would set up recording studios, most of the time in their closets, and then they would record, and I would direct via Zoom, but I didn’t have a live feed to the recording because they were sent these kits with SIM cards, so it was nerve-wracking. I could hear how they were sounding over Zoom, and I could hear when they messed up a line, but I couldn’t hear the quality of the recording until they sent us the files, so some of the editing was based on the takes and how they sounded. It was a very different process than when you’re building work in a room with actors. CK: Did you do all the editing yourself, or did you do a rough edit and then have audio engineers who cleaned things up? LF: I did all the editing. I’m trying to think of how many passes on average, but we did a pass, and then, [the producers] would give notes, and then, we’d do another pass, and they would give notes. As it came more into form, they had more and more to say about it. In the beginning, they didn’t know what it was going to be, so they didn’t have much to say, but as it began to take shape, they wanted to weigh in more and more. Then it went to the sound person, Gary [Grundei], and he would edit based on sound, which was such an important element. So, there were probably three to five editing passes for each episode. CK: You mentioned that the process of creating this felt like being in twelve straight weeks of tech. LF: It really did. After I would make the final layout of the words, it would go to an engineer who does a pause pass, which is like a pacing pass. Then, it went to Gary for sound design again, and it came back to me, and I would usually edit out large swaths of the text based on Gary’s work. CK: He does beautiful work, recreating the sounds of the archive for instance, which is both such a quiet space and a space that really comes alive in this podcast. Given how effective this form was in activating this period of feminist history and the capaciousness of the title, Feminist Files, I wonder if there is any plan for additional seasons or episodes? LF: I wanted to call it The Consequential Feminist. CK: What happened to that title? LF: That title never made it out of committee! CK: That’s too bad! LF: I know. I wanted it to be called The Consequential Feminist. I really fought for that title. I think that’s why you hear the term so often in the series. The producers were a bit wary of Feminist Files, too. They wanted to shorten it to be F Files. Because feminism is a “bad” word – people recoil and don’t want to pay attention to feminism. The producers were feminists themselves but having worked in Hollywood for as long as they had, and experienced the sexism and misogyny of the industry, they felt people would be afraid of the word. CK: That’s disheartening. Do you know what the response has been to the project, given the title you chose? LF: It has a steady following but not gigantic because they are a young startup without a big marketing budget. We’re hoping that we’ll be nominated for a GLAAD Award so it can gain some traction. It’s had a steady following, but I only know that from hearing from people that they’re listening to it and enjoying it. CK: If it gets a more robust response, do you think there will be other iterations of the project? LF: That was the idea. The idea was that it could be anthologized, that we’d go back to the archives. I don’t think they’re gonna let me do it, but the story that I want to do next is one I came across accidentally in my research. Somebody left in the scanner a membership card for women in the KKK. It was just sitting there, and Teddy [one of the archivists] said, “Oh, they’ve left this in here.” We were both looking at it and looking at each other, and she said, “Yep, that archive is here.” I mean, that’s a whole different story. We tend to think of the history of mobilization on the left, but I don’t think we think of the history of mobilization on the right. CK: It would be a hard story to sit with for a long time, and you’d have to find an entry point for yourself and audiences, to help them find their way into that story and recognize it as part of our history that we need to grapple with. This project centers on a more uplifting narrative, but it was crafted at a difficult time. You began researching Feminist Files before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the recording and editing of the project was completed in 2020. What was it like to be working on it in the early months of the pandemic? LF: Well, as you know, it was a very scary and isolating time. Once we figured out the mechanics of how to send people the [recording] kits, and I started directing those recordings, though, it was like, “Oh, I’m back in my world.” Being able to spend those hours with Mercedes [Hererro], who is a longtime collaborator of mine, getting to be in the room with Ronald Peet, having conversations with Margo Hall about Black Lives Matter and her life – it was like air in a world without air, you know? And in the end, the producers and I did find a common language and we became strong collaborators, we trusted each other. They were able to get Jodie Foster on board to play Bunny, which shows how much they believed in this project. Getting to work with Jodie [Foster], with that high calibre of an actor… I got off that Zoom call, and I was dancing around the living room. It was lifesaving to have something big to focus on and to be able to connect artistically with people to create it. As a director, working with actors is the whole game, right? Without having that contact, you can think about the projects you want to make and read plays and do other things, but that engagement is where the creative flow really happens. [At the beginning of the pandemic], it felt like that was gone, and it would never be back. But then, it was right there. I could connect with these actors. It was amazing. The decision to have them break character from time to time to have conversations with me was me trying to capture that feeling of creating something together. We’re discovering something together. We’re in community, which is how the women in the story were also in community. I was trying to mirror that. It was a gift. References [i] Fondakowski, Leigh. Feminist Files. Accessed November 10, 2022. https://feminist-files.sounder.fm . Footnotes About The Author(s) CAITLIN KANE (she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Dramatic Criticism at Kent State University and a freelance dramaturg, director, and intimacy director. Their research and creative practice sit at the intersection of theatre and social change and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies and center on queer and feminist approaches to staging history. 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 Chevruta Partnership and the Playwright/Dramaturg Relationship The Heart/Roots Project and a Pandemic Pivot From Safe to Brave—Developing A Model for Interrogating Race, Racism and the Black Lives Matter Movement Using Devised Theater The Front Porch Plays: Socially-Distanced, Covid-Safe, Micro-Theatre Making Up for Lost Time: New Play Development in Academia Post COVID 19 Meet Me Where I Am: New Play Dispatches from the DC Area México (Expropriated): Reappropriation and Rechoreography of Ballet Folklórico Effing Robots Online: The Digital Dramaturgy of Translating In-Person Theatre to Online Streaming Emergent Strategy Abolitionist Pedagogy in Pandemic Time 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 Playing Global (re)Entry: Migration, Surveillance, and Digital Artmaking Reviving Feminist Archives: An Interview with Leigh Fondakowski Sarah Gancher and Jared Mezzocchi : How Collaboration is Dramaturgy Between Playwright and Multimedia Creator (Re)Generation: Creating Situational Urban Theatre During COVID and Beyond Starting with the Space: An Interview with Patrick Gabridge Pandemic Performance: Resilience, Liveness, and Protest in Quarantine Times: Edited by Kendra Capece, Patrick Scorese. New York: Routledge, 2023; Pp. 188 The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre Since 1945: Edited by Julia Listengarten and Stephen Di Benedetto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021; Pp. 273. Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past. Ariel Nereson. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 290. Borderlands Children’s Theatre: Historical Developments and Emergence of Chicana/o/Mexican-American Youth Theatre. Cecilia Josephine Aragόn. New York: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 158. Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age. Duška Radosavljević. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022; Pp. 224. Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances. Jill Stevenson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2022; Pp. 243. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Jonathan Shandell Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 2 Visit Journal Homepage Reflections on Fundamental Principles Jonathan Shandell By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF The approaching centennial of the publication of W.E.B. DuBois’s “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre: The Story of a Little Theatre Movement” invites renewed consideration of this manifesto for Black theatre in the United States. What explains the expansive impact of this brief essay, emanating out of the work of a shoestring “Little” theatre company housed in a tiny basement auditorium of a neighborhood library? How do we account for the essay’s seminal influence among artists, critics, and scholars, across one hundred years of Black theatre history? To pay tribute to this remarkable document, here I share some reflections on why the mission of the Krigwa Players proves so fundamental for so many, and for me in particular. The essay’s now familiar “four fundamental principles” for “a real Negro theatre” loom large across Black theatre historiography, including my own scholarly work. In two monographs, and several journal articles and book chapters, I use the formulation of “About us… By us… For us… [and] Near us…” 1 as a cornerstone of critical analysis, whether or not the period under discussion is the New Negro Renaissance. 2 I employ DuBois’s principles as mathematicians use their X and Y axes—assigning value to objects based on proximity to and/or distance from these brightly drawn lines. Similarly, in teaching African American theatre, DuBois’s framework becomes an indispensable standard against which my students and I chart the field’s rich past, the realities of the present, and possibilities for the future. Why? What allows this vision of Black theatre to loom so large in my thinking about the history and evolution of this artistic tradition? For me, one attraction to the essay is its rhetorical strategy. I find myself drawn toward this statement for the directness of its tone, the elegance of its quadripartite structure, and the unassailable logic of its claims. To read DuBois’s account of the birth of the Negro little theatre movement is to be guided naturally toward an inescapable conclusion: there simply is no other group of people that a truthful, genuine, socially relevant Black theatre could plausibly be about, by, for, or near. From our own vantage point, that conclusion seems self-evident. But from DuBois’s position in 1926, the statement defies almost the entirety of the nation’s cultural history to that point. The four principles, while fundamental for honest Black theatrical self-expression, are defiant counter-arguments to an American genealogy defined by gross violations against them: falsifications and demeaning stereotypes, cynical acts of racial impersonation, blatant pandering to the basest prejudices of the white public, and Broadway “race dramas” penned by white writers (Eugene O’Neill, Paul Green, Ridgely Torrence, and others) out of reach for most Black audiences (and never intended for their consumption in the first place). “About us… by us… for us…near us…” lays those tendencies bare for condemnation and reinvention. Each two-word phrase encapsulates an indictment of the theatrical status quo , a vision of future progress, and a non-negotiable standard against which that progress must be measured. DuBois’s essay thus becomes a lucid, user-friendly guide for confronting questions foundational to American theatre history of the early-20th Century. What I also find indispensable in DuBois’s “four fundamental principles” is the foregrounding of the theatre’s multifaceted and collaborative nature. Debates about racial authenticity within Black culture were ubiquitous within the critical discourse of the New Negro Renaissance; essays on theatre were a key part of that conversation. Often, statements about “Negro drama” from this era focus narrowly on one of two specific concerns: either the question of how playwrights might represent African American life more truthfully; or else the need for wider acceptance of Black actors portraying serious dramatic roles (including within familiar classical works of the Western canon). 3 DuBois’s manifesto expands the aperture on Black theatre in several important ways. While its enumeration of principles refers to the “plots” of new plays and the contributions of “Negro authors,” there is also an implicit argument that actors, directors, and designers “who understand from birth and continued association just what it means to be a Negro today” are necessary as collaborators in the mission of “reveal[ing] Negro life as it is” on the stage. This perspective becomes more explicit later in the essay, as DuBois celebrates how members of the Krigwa Players “furnished the curtain, the scenery, gave the plays and secured the audiences” to bring to fruition a new “experiment” whose “success is unquestioned.” 4 The manifesto’s focus on Black audiences is particularly revelatory in this regard, in its call for a theatre that is unequivocally “for us ” and “near us .” The need for flesh-and-blood witnesses who share a racial subjectivity with the artists on stage and behind the scenes is a condition that had been largely underplayed in the era’s discussions. DuBois’s statement reminds us how, in distinction to other acts of cultural consumption (such as the reading of literature, the viewing of visual art, or the screening of a film), each performance of a play occupies a single, fixed, unreplicable sliver of space-time that ignites a live communion between creators and witnesses. The veracity of that performance depends upon the ratification of the spectators it is offered “for,” and whether those necessary co-participants are “near” enough to access it. The Krigwa Players knew, no matter how many race dramas with integrated casts came to Broadway, that the “Great White Way” could never foster a “real Negro theatre.” Revisiting and reckoning with DuBois’s essay keeps me attuned to questions of geography, of community, and of the role of spectatorship—essential considerations for all rigorous theatre scholarship. At the same time, the statement touches something of a nerve for me, in light of my own positionality as a white scholar, and as a white instructor situated at a predominantly white institution. Each repetition of “us” speaks to a subjectivity to which I have no access. The more I ponder DuBois’s repetitions of “us” as the object of four prepositions, the more unstable my own relationship to the subject seems to be. DuBois’s statement reminds me how my own claims to expertise come from an unbridgeable distance; I stand fixedly on the outside of “us,” trying my best to be responsible, thorough, scrupulous, and open-minded as I look in. I will never have direct, personal insight into how a play script or a performance might capture the subjective experience of African American life in the United States. And yet, DuBois’s essay also offers a scaffold upon which I can build my own inquiries—a series of tests that any historian (whether of the intended “us,” or not) can apply to the study of Black theatre in any era. Keeping these tests in the forefront of my thinking helps mitigate some of my anxieties about the possibility of misreading or (even worse) of marring the historical terrain I endeavor to traverse. (Ultimately, I leave it to readers, to colleagues, and to students to help me understand where I might be succeeding in that project, and where I fall short.) There’s one more thing I find inspirational within the Krigwa Players’ legacy, which is found elsewhere, apart from its most oft-quoted statement of purpose. To illustrate the application of his “four fundamental principles,” Dubois provides in “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre: The Story of a Little Theatre Movement,” a brief account of the ensemble’s first public performance, which had been mounted the previous year: Three one-act plays were selected for the initial experiment. Two were tragedies by Willis Richardson: “Compromise,” which was published in The New Negro, and “The Broken Banjo,” which took the first prize in The Crisis Contest of 1925. The third, “The Church Fight,” by Mrs. R. A. Gaines-Shelton, is a comedy which took the second prize in The Crisis Contest of 1925. 5 The playbill from this 1925 evening of short plays survives in the archives of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (located in the same library building that housed the theatre itself). In that playbill appears a different mission statement for the Krigwa Players, which departs somewhat from the manifesto published in Crisis the following year: Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre: An attempt in High Harlem, New York City, a Little Theatre which shall be primarily a center where Negro actors before Negro audiences interpret Negro life as depicted by Negro artists; but which shall also always have a welcome for artists of all races and for all sympathetic comers and for all beautiful ideas . 6 The published essay of 1926 contains no echo of this last portion of what was shared with the Krigwa’s first audiences. The 1925 statement points to something beyond the boundaries of “About us… by us… for us… near us…” It expands the parameters of exactly whom this ensemble’s work could be by, about or for . That the Krigwa Players would—amid their transformational experiment building a “real Negro theatre”—also extend its welcome to sympathetic supporters “of all races” in search of “beautiful ideas” is provocative. This invitation, for me, is itself a beautiful idea. I consider it one more field-defining principle to add to the more recognizable list of four. It is a principle which also grounds, informs, and inspires my scholarly work, one hundred and one years later. References 1 W.E.B. DuBois, “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre: The Story of a Little Theatre Movement,” Crisis 32 (July 1926), 134. 2 For some examples, see: Jonathan Shandell, The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era (Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2018), 4-5; Jonathan Shandell, Readying the Revolution: African American Theatre and Performance from Post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2025), 46; Jonathan Shandell “The Negro Little Theatre Movement,” in The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre , 2nd edition, ed. Harvey Young (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 108. 3 For some illustrative examples, see: Wallace V. Jackson, “The Negro Stage,” The Messenger 5 (1923), 746; Rowena Woodham Jelliffe, “The Negro In the Field of Drama,” Opportunity 6, no. 7 (July 1928): 214; Alain Locke, “The Drama of Negro Life,” Theatre Arts Monthly 10, no. 10 (October 1926), 701-6; Willis Richardson, “The Hope of a Negro Drama,” Crisis 19:1 (November 1919), 338-39); Esther Fulks Scott, “Negroes As Actors in Serious Plays,” Opportunity 1:4 (April 1923), 20-23. DuBois’s own essay “Can the Negro Serve the Drama?” [ Theatre Magazine 38, no. 1 (July 1923: 12, 68)] also shows a somewhat singular focus on attitudes around the question of Black actors playing roles in works of Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Moliere, etc. 4 Dubois, “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre,” 136. 5 Dubois, “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre,” 136. 6 Playbill for the Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre, May 3-17, 1925, Programs and Playbills Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY. My emphasis. Footnotes About The Author(s) Jonathan Shandell is Professor of Theater Arts and director of the Theater Arts program at Arcadia University. His scholarship includes the books  Readying the Revolution: African American Theater and Performance from post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement  (University of Michigan Press),  The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era  (University of Iowa Press), and the co-edited anthology  Experiments in Democracy: Interracial and Cross-Cultural Exchange in American Theatre, 1912-1945  (S Illinois University Press).Other publications include articles and chapters in  The Cambridge Companion to African American Theatre,   African American Review, Theatre Annual, Theatre History Studies, Journal of American Drama and Theatre,  and others.   Jonathan is currently editor of  Theatre Annual: A Journal of Theatre and Performance of the Americas . He is past president of Black Theatre Association (BTA), and currently a board member for the American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS). 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 100 Years of Du Bois: “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art” “One Great and Fine Mode of Expression”: On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Exigencies of Black Drama and Theatre Reflections on Fundamental Principles An Expansive “Us”: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Pan-Negro” Theatrical Vision W. E. B. Du Bois’s Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement in Harlem and Beyond It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Teaching August Wilson in an Age of Democratic Decline: Du Boisian Imperatives and Black Pedagogy Across Campus and Community Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T The Wild Duck Picnic at Hanging Rock Last Call: A Play with Cocktails The Dinosaurs The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Catherine Burroughs and J. Ellen Gainor, editors. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 652. Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Thomas Keith Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 37 1 Visit Journal Homepage “It’s Cumming yet for a’ that”: Bringing the Scottish Bard to Life in the 21st Century Thomas Keith By Published on December 16, 2024 Download Article as PDF Left to right: portrait of Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787; John Cairney as Burns, 1965; and Alan Cumming as Burns, 2022. (Credits: Nasmyth painting photographed by Antonia Reeve, used by permission of Scottish National Portrait Gallery; photo of John Cairney courtesy of Alannah O’Sullivan; photo of Alan Cumming by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan, used courtesy of The National Theatre of Scotland.) Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a’ that, That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that. For a’ that, and a’ that, It’s coming yet for a’ that, That Man to Man the warld o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that. — —Robert Burns, “Song—For a’ that and a’ that—” In most of the English-speaking world, Shakespeare is “The Bard.” However, in Scotland “The Bard” is their national poet, Robert Burns (1759-1796), and his popularity extends far beyond Scotland, having long ago reached global proportions. Since the early nineteenth century there have been annual gatherings called Burns Night Suppers—rife with whisky, tartan, haggis, bagpipes, poetry, singing, and dancing—to celebrate his birthday, now numbering in the thousands worldwide each year.(1) During the same period, well over one hundred plays and musicals about the Scottish Bard’s life and influence have been written and produced. However, in the last thirty years it is rare that a new stage work about Burns is performed in the United States.(2) In 2022, the announcement that transplanted Scot Alan Cumming would star in Burn , a dance theatre piece about the poet, was met with enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic, especially among Burns clubs and societies, Scottish organizations, scholars, Alan Cumming fans, and those in the dance and theatre communities. For over two-hundred and twenty-five years, since Burns’s death at the age of thirty-seven, there have been ongoing debates about his poetry, patriotism, morals, faith, politics, health, alcohol consumption, sexual prowess, romantic ideals, and cultural impact. Most recently questions about Burns’s mental health, his treatment of women, and his response to slavery have come to the fore. In spite of a life filled with contradictions and complications, his potency as a symbol of Scotland and Scottish identity has only grown stronger. Yet, the challenge for theatre artists is to sift through the layers of oversimplifications that have been imposed on Burns and have often reduced him to one hollow stereotype or another. This is due in part to the tug-of-war to define and claim Burns by different factions and interests. Orcadian novelist and poet Edwin Muir (1857-1959) described the role Burns 's malleability has played in the Scottish psyche: The myth is endlessly adaptable; so that to the respectable, Burns is a decent man; to the Rabelaisian, bawdy; to the sentimentalist, sentimental; to the socialist, a revolutionary; to the Nationalist, a patriot; to the religious, pious; to the self-made man, self-made; to the drinker, a drinker. He has the power of making any Scotsman, whether generous or canny, sentimental or prosaic, religious or profane, more whole-heartedly himself than he could have been without assistance; and in that way perhaps more human(3) Scottish poet and ethnomusicologist Hamish Henderson described the situation this way: “Like all great artists, Burns has needed a lot longer than his lifetime to come into his own. But the question is: are we ready for him? His own age emphatically was not. Already in his lifetime, attempts were being made to cut him down to size . . . What Scots succeeded in doing with Burns was a truly grisly spectacle. They wanted to turn him into a sort of literary equivalent of Lenin in his tomb. . . . how is it possible to rescue this poor painted, cosmeticized cadaver of a dead poet from the ghastly mess in which they’ve laid him? Can it be done?”(4) This is the legacy that Cumming and his collaborators were faced with when deciding why and how to embody the Scottish Bard onstage, and the question becomes whether or not they were able to find new ways to frame and understand the complexities of Robert Burns. Produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, The Edinburgh Festival, and the Joyce Theater, Burn opened August 9, 2022, at the King’s Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Festival. It subsequently toured Scotland, including performances in Glasgow, and concluded its run with six nights at the Joyce Theater, the distinguished dance venue in New York City, in September 2022. Actor Alan Cumming (creator and performer) and choreographer Steven Hoggett (creator and co-choreographer) have concocted a musical, epistemological, and biographical mediation on Robert Burns. The structure of the event, which lasts about an hour, is a chronological accounting of Burns’s life—the timeline indicated by projections of dates that continue year by year from 1759 to 1788, and then jump to 1796. For the initial fifteen minutes, Cumming used Burns’s 1787 autobiographical letter to Dr. John Moore—edited and often paraphrased—as a first-person monologue delivered via direct address and interspersed with images and dates that flashed on an upstage scrim while he performed dance-like movements and gestures that mimicked parts of the text.(5) As if employing an elementary form of sign language in this section, Cumming made gestures to emphasize at least one or more words in every sentence, sometimes an entire phrase or idea. Because the gestures were literal, they were often, though perhaps not always intentionally, funny; his dependable, knowing smirk indicated that they were at least clever. However, the larger implication was that the words themselves were insufficient to carry their own meanings. Had the gestures used been in opposition to the dialogue or conveyed action, one wonders if they might not have been cumbersome. The rest of the hour consisted of edited excerpts from letters by Burns, snatches of his poems and songs, dance sequences, and original music by Scottish composer Anna Meredith. An impressive creative team, including set designer Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, costume designer Katrina Lindsay, lighting designer Tim Lutkin, video designer Andrezej Goulding, sound designer Matt Padden, and illusion consultant Kevin Quantum, collaborated closely to create a whirlwind of light, sound, projection, and charming special effects including chairs that rested upon only one leg, a quill that wrote by itself, and a dress lit from within that emerged airborne from a dark pile of papers and rags. If there was a motif, it was that of extremes; the theatre was rarely silent, the energy on stage swinging from moments of excited sound, music, and dancing, to quieter recitations and lighter, easier movements. If that concept was intended as a metaphor for the concentrated, short life of Burns, it was successful. Although Cumming remained intensely focused and committed during the entire piece, he often had to compete with the volume of the music or sound effects, and at other times his prerecorded voice was heard while he was in motion. There didn’t appear to be a pattern as to when the recordings of Cumming’s voice were played versus when he spoke live—sometimes after an athletic section of movement, he would breathlessly speak a nearly inaudible stanza by Burns. I counted at least a dozen excerpts from Burns’s poems and songs (from over 700), most unidentified. The choices tended to underline the tone or mood of a given moment and, in some cases, served as a metaphor for an aspect of the story. For example, after excerpts from letters about the grueling life of a farmer juxtaposed with the joys of poetry and love, Cumming recited stanzas from “O Were I On Parnassus Hill.” Choreographer Hoggett is renowned for his work in physical theatre and his athletic style rooted in text. Co-choreographer Vicki Manderson and Hoggett’s contributions to Burn often began with the rudiments of utilitarian movements, usually related to farming or writing, then at times expanded into modern dance vocabulary, occasionally with what seemed to be touches of ballet and Highland dancing. Advance press for the production on both sides of the Atlantic set forth the allowance that the fifty-eight-year-old Cumming has had no formal training as a dancer.(6) The original score, rarely separated from physical action, recitations, or projections and sound effects, was most often bass line variations on low throbbing, a pulse, or an electronic thumping at high volumes. In and of itself, Meredith’s music was effective, but it seemed indiscriminately used so that it often masked other theatrical elements, creating a cacophonous effect. In addition to being a farmer, a poet, and later an exciseman, Burns was also a lyricist and song-collector, having written lyrics for upwards of three-hundred and fifty traditional Scottish tunes. Whether or not any of those melodies influenced, or were incorporated into, Meredith’s score, was not clear. The narrative moved from one well-known and well-trod episode in Burns’s life to another: his poor childhood in Ayrshire, his father’s hardships with debt and his early death, Burns’s love of poetry, then of girls, his womanizing, his plan to emigrate to Jamaica, the publication of his poems, his hot-and-cold treatment by the Edinburgh literati, his work in the excise, his illness, and death. Burn is in the tradition of a long line of Burns plays that have promised in their publicity to offer the elusive “real Burns” or the “truth about Burns,” but were unable to deliver.(7) This is an ongoing issue with Burns that artists quite rightly attempt to address: accumulated generalizations and stereotypes about Burns over the last two centuries have frequently resulted in depictions of a rather flat character, instead of a person.(8) Burns’s likeness was used to advertise and sell products from whisky to tobacco, so Cumming was quite justified in declaring that his interpretation would “challenge the ‘Hollywoodised’ and ‘biscuit tin’ image of Burns.”(9) In Burn , much time was spent recounting some of Burns’s love affairs and tribulations with women, several of whom were at one point effectively represented by shoes hanging on wires, which Cumming spoke to and about, flattered, relished sexually, and swung at contrasting speeds. He concluded this section with a rousing interpretation of the shocking “thundering scalade,” the description of sex with and beating of his wife Jean Armour contained in a 1788 letter to Robert Ainslie (edited in this case, perhaps for more impact).(10) Little context was given for the chain of women whom the audience was meant to understand had been used, abused, and abandoned by Burns, such that there was little or no distinction between the women he courted, corresponded with, wrote love songs about, or fathered children out of wedlock with—all of the latter’s children he acknowledged and supported financially. Cumming shared the women’s stories with an arched eyebrow of conspiratorial lasciviousness, rather than conveying the unguarded or unashamed sexuality attributed to Burns and evidenced in his correspondence and poetry, or much at all by way of the romantic strains central to his love poems and songs. Thus, Burns’s relationships with the women in his life—his mother, siblings, children, friends, girlfriends, and his wife—were mostly left unidentified and unexamined. Thus far, the most successful and well-known dramatic interpretations of the poet were in the one-person plays There was a Man by Tom Wright and The Robert Burns Story by John Cairney in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. In each, the handsome and charismatic John Cairney (1933-2023) became the personification of Burns on stage and television for several generations of Scots, Canadians, and Americans.(11) Cairney’s dashing, alpha-male stage Burns was exactly what the public would have expected, and likely wanted—he took a “realistic” and sentimental embodiment of Burns as far as it could go. As poet Donny O’Rourke observed, John Cairney was “Rabbie’s representative on earth, eradicating the Nasmyth and other portraits with a single toss of his pony-tailed head."(12) One way to look at plays about Burns is as “biographies come to life,” since the impulse to tell Burns’s story, or even part of it, usually requires enough biographical context to allow an audience to experience the character of an eighteenth-century Scottish farmer and poet without getting lost.(13) There is a long tradition of trying to cram Burns’s entire life into one theatrical evening instead of choosing a single incident, episode, or aspect to dramatize.(14) The attempt to cover such a vast amount of biographical information in Burn led to frequent oversimplification or misinformation, which has been the case for many of the previous plays and musicals about Burns. In Burn , it was not any errors in the facts offered about Burns that created confusion—Professors Kirsteen McCue and Moira Hansen from the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow were the Academic Consultants for the production—but rather the way in which the information selected was organized into a narrative often felt cursory or disjointed, and many times editorialized more than dramatized the story. In addition to the pitfalls of a cradle-to-grave biographical play told in one hour, Burn suffered from too many genres, too many subjects, and not enough time.(15) The high-speed combination of stage effects frequently obscured whatever it was we may have been meant to understand or feel. Some of the focus was surprising: the woman whom this Burns talked about the most was Mrs. Frances Dunlop and Burns bore so much humiliation at accepting the job of an exciseman that he fell into a weird self-pity. Certain incidents were cherry-picked such that if one didn’t already know all the primary events of Burns’s life, which most people both inside and outside of Scotland do not, they might be perplexed. One seasoned theatregoer I spoke with mentioned that he hadn’t known about Burns’s love affair with Frances Dunlop and wanted to know more about her. A middle-aged widow, Dunlop was in fact a friend and correspondent of Burns’s, twenty-nine years his senior, not one of his lovers. This audience member was also surprised to discover that Burns had lived in Jamaica. He had not. It was Burns’s desperation to escape financial ruin as a farmer and leave behind the contentious situation with Jean Armour and her family, that prompted him to self-publish, by subscription. The purpose of what became known as the Kilmarnock Edition of his poems was to raise enough money for passage to Jamaica. In part, because his slim volume of poems became such an immediate and resounding success—not just in Scotland but also when interest was fueled in London by Henry Mackenzie’s glowing review in The Lounger —Burns eventually abandoned his plans to emigrate.(16) That audience member’s misunderstanding was quite understandable considering the frenetic and fragmented ways in which information was conveyed in Burn . One aspect of Burns’s personality addressed in Burn , not previously explored theatrically, involved contemporary research into the poet’s mental health. Burn introduced the topic primarily using sections of his correspondence that described times of emotional distress, and then, during a shower of strobe lights, images, and sound that accompanied rapid-fire movements from Cumming—likely meant to represent Burns’s mental state when he was overwhelmed—the word “Hypochondria” flashed on the scrim, which at the time was a term used to describe anxiety and depression. This was followed by the word “Hypomania,” its letters beginning to distort. A clinical designation for a condition characterized by dramatic swings of mood, interest, and energy, hypomania is thought to be much like what is now understood as manic-depression or bipolar disorder. It has long been known that Burns experienced extended bouts of profound melancholy; considering the volume and intensity of Burns’s creative output, song collecting, correspondence, friendships and fraternal socializing, love affairs, and his responsibilities with farming, excise, and family that kept him engaged for the duration of his short, thirty-seven-year life, it is quite believable that his manic highs and lows may in hindsight indicate that he suffered from bipolar disorder.(17) However, if any connection was made between the projection of the word “Hypomania” and Burns’s mental state, it was experienced on a visceral level only, lost in the swirl of sound, movement, and light. The words “apoplectic” or “stressed” might have been projected with the same effect. The most innovative element of Burn was Cumming’s appearance: shoulder-length black hair untied, black fingernails, a ghostly pale whitened face and arms, almost blue in places, darkened lips, and the silhouette of a slender man who appeared to be quite a bit older than Burns was when he died. By creating an incarnation of Burns that bears no relationship to the well-known variations of the ubiquitous Alexander Nasmyth portrait (such as was John Cairney’s Burns), the audience was offered a rare opportunity to view Burns through a different lens.(18) Burns’s immediately recognizable image and established narrative—much like Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the readymade—is ripe for reframing or fracturing to create a new and contemporary understanding of Burns, and quite in keeping with Cumming’s desire to dispense with the Burns of biscuit tins and bring him to life as a complex person.(19) Even for audience members who were not familiar with the standard Nasmyth image of Burns, they would have recognized immediately that Cumming’s Burns did not appear to be an eighteenth-century farmer.(20) This is where the creators succeeded, by offering a personification unlike any Burns character that has been previously embodied on stage: quite opposite to sometimes hyper-masculine depictions of Burns, and with a sexual ambiguity not previously attributed to the poet. Likewise, the choice to convey a biographical portrait via dance, contemporary music, and sophisticated audio-visual effects, had the potential to broaden our contemporary understanding of the poet. However, in addition to the Burns character who bears no resemblance to any known image of Burns, we are introduced also to the impish character of Alan Cumming himself, whose public persona is so well known that he also has the effect of a readymade. Further layers are added by the physical, verbal, musical, and visual techniques, so rather than merely a different lens, this Burns is seen through a prism in which not only is the readymade-Burns refracted, it is distorted by the readymade-Alan Cumming character; thus the biographical details, such as they are, take on meanings that may or may not have to do with Burns. How is an audience to know the difference: when are they seeing an embodied Burns from a different angle, and when are they actually witnessing a running commentary on Burns? The evening is therefore as much about Cumming, and often more so, than it is about Burns. Since Cumming has played many characters on stage and screen that bear no immediate resemblance to his public persona as a celebrity, one can reasonably understand that this characterization was a choice; Cumming never got lost in the role of Burns. To the contrary, he seemed to revel in the role of Alan Cumming, as when he ignited some flash paper then cheekily quipped to the audience, “Well, the show is called Burn .” The choice to portray the character of Cumming in turn portraying the character of Burns may have squandered an opportunity to reveal the humanity of Burns. It meant that the cursory narratives offered about various well-known incidents in Burns’s life, as well as facets of his personality, were reduced to clichés. It was all left for the audience to untangle, or not. Engaging a director or a dramaturge, or some other outside eye, might well have helped to sharpen the narrative and guide the audience’s focus. The description of Burn by the creators and producers as a “dance theatre” piece is accurate to a large extent—even more so, it is a hybrid that hasn’t prioritized any of its genres. Though much of Burn consists of monologues delivered via direct address—the audience being consistently assigned the role of Cumming’s scene partner—it’s not entirely a play. And while the projections and contemporary trappings are reminiscent of Scottish performance artist and drag king Diane Torr’s (1948-2017) successfully didactic, cross-dressing, and campy Ready Aye Ready (a standing cock has nae conscious) (1992)—about Burns and his collection of bawdy songs and poems, The Merry Muses of Caledonia — Burn is not quite performance art.(21) As it happens, the evening’s reliance on the recognizable persona of Alan Cumming is what gives it much in common with performance art. The combination of the vivid, often beautiful, projections, powerful lighting, intense music, and high energy Cumming sometimes resembled an art installation, except that members of the audience were, of course, unable to come and go as they pleased or share immediate physical space with the performer. The evening didn’t adhere to any traditional definition of a dance concert, and it wasn’t really a spectacle, yet there were times it came close. Within their construct, Cumming and Hoggett offered arresting theatricality that resonated with Burns’s status as a Scottish icon, such as when Cumming held the ends of what appeared to be a five-foot-long Saltire (the Saint Andrews cross flag) which, as he marched toward the audience rapping the lyrics of Burns’s “Scots Wha Hae” to a contemporary beat, became the long blue cape of a superhero. In a striking recreation, Cumming appeared in a black long coat and boots facing an upstage projection of mist and snow-covered mountains, replicating the famous painting “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (1818) by German Romanticist Caspar David Friedrich. Without any context, connective tissue, or narrative link to Burns’s recently accepted status as either an immediate forerunner to Romanticism or an early Romantic, the imposing image remained unexploited. Another arresting episode resulted from the simplicity with which Cumming stepped in front of the curtain during the final moments of the performance and sat on the lip of the stage with a glass in hand to quietly—without editorializing or indicating from the Cumming/Burns character—speak a stanza from Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne” and raise his glass to the audience. This was possibly the first time since the evening started that there were no sound effects, projections, dramatic lighting, movement, special effects, or music accompanying an encounter between the performer and the audience. Compared to the relentless sound and fury of the previous hour, the result was deeply charged and dramatic. However, the most powerful moment of the evening occurred during the curtain call. It was a revelation of truth and intense connection with the audience: a breathless and sweaty Cumming bowed before the applauding theatregoers, then stood and accepted their approval in stillness, a grave and vulnerable look of gratitude on his face. I wondered where that guy had been for the last hour. Alan Cumming in Burn , posing as a recreation of “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (1818) by German Romanticist Caspar Friedrich, photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan. (Used by permission of The National Theatre of Scotland.) This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References Lauren Brancaz-McCartan, “The Twenty-first-century Burns Supper—a constantly evolving tradition?,” Burns Chronicle , 130.2 (2021): 149-173; Clark McGinn, The Burns Supper: A Concise History (Edinburgh: Luath Press Ltd., 2018), 144-150, 242-258; Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow: https://burnsc21.glasgow.ac.uk/supper-map/ . For more on Burns’s international reach, see Murray Pittock, ed., Robert Burns in Global Culture (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2011). Thomas Keith, Robert Burns’s Life on the Stage, with a Bibliography of Dramatic Works 1842-2022 (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Libraries, 2022). Hugh MacDiarmid, Burns Today and Tomorrow (Edinburgh: Castle Wynd, 1959), 47. Timothy Neat, The Tree of Liberty documentary film (Edinburgh: Everallin, Scottish Televison, 1988). The Letters of Robert Burns, edited by G. Ross Roy, second edition, Vol. I - 1780-1789 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 133-146. Roslyn Suicas, “Alan Cumming Uses Dance to Get at the Truth of Robert Burns,” New York Times , September 18, 2022, AR 9. Keith, Burns’s Life on the Stage , 7-8. Josephine Dougal, “Iconic Burns: A Shape Shifting ‘Sign’ of the Times,” Gerard Caruthers, ed, The Oxford Handbook of Robert Burns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), 493-509; Ian Brown, Performing Scottishness: Enactment and National Identities (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 237. Brian Ferguson, “Alan Cumming says new Robert Burns dance show has left him feeling exhausted but looking decades younger” The Scotsman July 25, 2022. The Letters of Robert Burns, edited by G. Ross Roy, Volume 1 – 1780-1789 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 250-251. Keith, Burns’s Life on the Stage , 10, 13. Donny O’Rourke “Supperman: Televising Burns,” in Kenneth Simpson, ed., Burns Now (Edinburgh: Canongate Academic, 1994), 120. Rhona Brown, “Robert Burns on the Twentieth-Century Stage,” Performing Robert Burns , Ian Brown and Gerard Carruthers, eds. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021), 120. Keith, Burns’s Life on the Stage , 37, 38, 50, 53, 61, 65. To be fair, the collaborators did not try to include every biographical or literary topic related to Burns. They indicated that they deliberately chose not to create a dance theatre piece investigating Burns’s writing, and neither did they explore his travels in Scotland, song colleting, troubles with the Scottish kirk and subsequent satires, his bawdy collection and the Crochallan Fencibles, work as an exciseman, politics, education, or most of his love affairs. Henry Mackenzie, “Heaven-Taught Ploughman,” The Lounger, London, December 9, 1786. For further information about Professor Moira Hansen’s research into Robert Burns’s manic depression and possible bipolar disorder see: Moira Hansen, Daniel J. Smith, and Gerard Carruthers, “Mood disorder in the personal correspondence of Robert Burns: testing a novel interdisciplinary approach,” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 48 (2018): 165-74, ( https://doi.org/10.4997/jrcpe.2018.212 . ); Moira Hansen, “’Melancholy and low spirits are half my disease’: physical and mental health in the life and work of Robert Burns.” (PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2020) ( https://theses.gla.ac.uk/79040/ ); Moira Hansen, "Burns and Blue Devilism" in Robert Burns Lives! no 246 (2018) ( https://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/frank/burns_lives246.htm ). Keith, Burns’s Life on the Stage , 69, 74. Adina Kamien-Kazhdan, Remaking the Readymade : Duchamp, Man Ray, and the Conundrum of the Replica (New York: Routledge, 2018), 1-17. Keith, Burns’s Life on the Stage , 9, 10, 73, 76. Diane Torr and Stephen Bottoms, Sex, Drag, and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 113-114, 173-79, 187-89. Bibliography Ian Brown and Gerard Carruthers, eds, Performing Robert Burns (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021). Ian Brown, Performing Scottishness: Enactment and National Identities (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). John Cairney, The Man Who Played Robert Burns (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1987). Gerard Carruthers, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Robert Burns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024). Adina Kamien-Kazhdan, Remaking the Readymade : Duchamp, Man Ray, and the Conundrum of the Replica (New York: Routledge, 2018). Thomas Keith, Robert Burns’s Life on the Stage, with a Bibliography of Dramatic Works 1842-2022 (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Libraries, 2022). Thomas Keith, “Robert Burns’s Life on Stage: A Bibliography of Dramatic Works, 1842-2019,” Studies in Scottish Literature Vol. 47, Issue 1 , ed. Patrick Scott and Tony Jarrells (Columbia, South Carolina: Dept. of English, University of South Carolina, 2021). Hugh MacDiarmid, Burns Today and Tomorrow (Edinburgh: Castle Wynd, 1959). Clark McGinn, The Burns Supper: A Concise History (Edinburgh: Luath Press Ltd., 2018). Murray Pittock, ed., Robert Burns in Global Culture (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2011). Diane Torr and Stephen Bottoms, Sex, Drag, and Male Roles : Investigating Gender as Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010). Further Reading Robert Crawford, The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 2009). Alan Cumming, Not My Father’s Son (New York: Dey Street Books, 2014). Patrick Scott, ed., Robert Burns, A Documentary Volume (Farmington, Michigan: Gale, A Cengage Company, 2018). Footnotes About The Author(s) THOMAS KEITH , a consulting editor for New Directions Publishing and Associate Adjunct Professor of Theater at Pace University, has edited over twenty Tennessee Williams titles since 2002, including four volumes of previously unpublished one-acts. Co-editor of The Luck of Friendship: The Letters of Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin (2018), he has also written extensively about Williams for academic journals. A 2004 Ormiston Roy Fellow of Scottish Literature at the University of South Carolina, Keith is the author of Robert Burns’s Life on the Stage (2022), and his work appears in Studies in Scottish Literature , The Burns Chronicle , Burns in the 21st Century , Robert Burns & America , and the Oxford Handbook of Robert Burns , among others. Keith has also written for American Theatre , Gay & Lesbian Review , The Drouth , Provincetown Arts , and compiled and edited Love, Christopher Street (2012), a volume of original LGBTQ essays about New York City. 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 A Comedy of Sorts: Race, Gender, and Satire in Slave Play Performing Girlhood, Riffing on Lolita: Fornés and Vogel Respond to Nabokov “It’s Cumming yet for a’ that”: Bringing the Scottish Bard to Life in the 21st Century Historiographic Metatheatre and Narrative Closure in Pippin’s Alternate “Theo Ending” “Each One, Teach One”: Interview with Harvey Fierstein Artists as Theorists in Their Craft: Interview with James Ijames The Spectacular Theatre of Frank Joseph Galati: Reshaping American Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Julie Jackson. London: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing. 2022. 215pp. Playing Real: Mimesis, Media, and Mischief. Lindsay Brandon Hunter. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2021; Pp. 192. Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity. Ryan Donovan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023; Pp. 316. Precarious Forms. Performing Utopia in the Neoliberal Americas. Evanston. Candice Amich. Northwestern University Press: 2020; Pp. 232. Queering Drag: Redefining the Discourse of Gender Bending. Meredith Heller. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020; Pp. 236. New England Theatre Journal: A fond farewell 1989-2023 New England Theatre in Review American Repertory Theater . Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2023–2024 Barrington Stage. Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 2023 The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm). Warwick, Rhode Island, 2023-24 Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres. 2023-24 Season Hartford Stage. Hartford, Connecticut, 2023-24 The Huntington. Boston, Massachusetts, 2023-24 Long Wharf Theatre. New Haven, Connecticut, 2023-24 Portland Stage Company. Portland, Maine, 2023-24 Shakespeare & Company. Lenox, Massachusetts, 2023 Trinity Repertory Theatre Company. Providence, Rhode Island, 2023-24 Vermont Stage. Burlington, Vermont, 2023-24 Yale Repertory Theatre. New Haven, Connecticut, 2023-24 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Encounter Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble's work Pliable Futures in Brooklyn, at this year's edition of the Prelude in the Parks festival by The Segal Centre, presented in collaboration with . Prelude in the Parks 2024 Festival Pliable Futures Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble Interactive Theater Friday, June 7, 2024 @ 6pm Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn Throughout the Park. Begins at the entrance at North Portland Ave and Myrtle Ave. 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 Experience a dynamic fusion of jazz, dance, and theater addressing the global plastic crisis in this unique, durational, site-specific performance. Strike Anywhere’s talented ensemble of jazz musicians, dancers, and actors will lead audiences through the park using Soundpainting—a live composing sign language—to guide their improvisations in real-time. The ensemble will weave music, movement, and narrative into a captivating exploration of our world's plastic plight. This performance deftly employs creativity and humor to spark dialogue about an urgent environmental issue. Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble Established in 1997, the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble is a permanent collective of jazz musicians, modern dancers, and actors. Performers collaborate through an ensemble-based process to create politically-charged, original works. Strike Anywhere’s mission is to inspire empathy, creativity, and social awareness through provocative performance and innovative education. Its work is guided by the words of Bertolt Brecht, "Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it." SA performances always feature live music, physical theater and modern dance. The company applies structures and concepts from American jazz to their interdisciplinary improvisations to create performances that are engaging and alive. Strike Anywhere is the preeminent theatre company in the United States practicing Soundpainting, a universal sign-language developed by composer Walter Thompson for live composition with improvisers. Visit Artist Website Location Throughout the Park. Begins at the entrance at North Portland Ave and Myrtle Ave. Visit Partner Website

Meredith Conti Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 36 1 Visit Journal Homepage Community Circles and Love Triangles: Gun Violence and Belonging in Oklahoma! and West Side Story Meredith Conti By Published on November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF As the national tour of Daniel Fish’s critically acclaimed Oklahoma! crisscrossed the United States in 2022, company members found themselves in unfamiliar territory. Instead of the stunned silences and standing ovations that typified the production’s reception at Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre, the national tour’s audiences offered an unexpectedly prickly bouquet of responses, including walkouts, boos, taunts, “thumbs down” gestures, refund demands, social media rants, and in one case, “vomiting in the balcony.” ( [1] ) Of course, Oklahoma! had its share of detractors since the production’s pre-Broadway days at St. Ann’s Warehouse, just as the national tour’s hostile reception was neither comprehensive or invariable; still, in cities across the country, the revival inspired tonally different audience responses to its New York City run. In a 2023 HowlRound article, Jud Fry actor Christopher Barrow suggests some likely triggers in Fish’s Oklahoma! for the tour’s audiences, including its aesthetic boldness, its identity-conscious casting, and its refusal to treat its source material as canonical, precious, and unchanging. ( [2] ) (It is worth noting, too, that the production’s original deep thrust staging was flattened to fit the US’s network of proscenium theatres). While I, like many non-coastal Americans, bristle at generalized depictions of our theatregoers as less open-minded or equipped to handle experimental or challenging performances, I do suspect that Bannow missed a potential trigger for heartland audiences: the revival takes direct aim at the nation’s ever-hungry gun culture and those who continually nourish it through word and action. ( [3] ) A buoyant, nostalgic, and unproblematically patriotic musical Fish’s Oklahoma! is not. But was Oklahoma! ever? The theatre of post-Newtown America (or post-UVA, post-Pulse Nightclub, post-Las Vegas, post-Tops Market….) has yet to fully reckon with a discomfiting, perhaps inconvenient reality: the industry and its artists have long been active, direct participants in the country’s gun culture. Indeed, many of the theatre’s cumulative products, from anti-gun docudramas and Annie Get Your Gun revivals to vaudevillian William Tell tricks and Wild West Show battle reenactments, are not just embodied responses to gun culture, they are gun culture. While the term itself has become something of a partisan battleground, “gun culture” is an omnipresent, self-reinforcing system of beliefs, values, and feelings about firearms and their usage, as well as the behavioral actions and socioeconomic, cultural, and political transactions that inspire or sustain them. Gun cultures exist anywhere guns circulate, and therefore “gun culture” as a term lacks specificity until contextualized by the society in which it functions. In what follows, I treat the phrase “US-American gun culture” as neither neutral nor strictly pejorative or celebratory, though I favor Pamela Haag’s assertion that gun companies have long exerted a behemothic and tactical influence on how Americans regard guns. ( [4] ) Despite the relative youth of the nation’s gun culture, it is a maddeningly complex, enduring, and variform organism. It whispers in myths; it shouts at the gun range. It operates simultaneously on the personal and institutional levels and engages manifold publics. It is animated by patrolling border militias and simulated gunfights at the OK Corral, and it is embodied by gun control activists and the twelve-year-old girl cradling her first shotgun in the glow of the Christmas tree. It meticulously sutures guns to American identity, and American life to guns. And whether or not we like it, the theatre regularly supplies the thread. Onstage gunplay not only disturbs audiences by surrogating actual gun violence or reenacting trauma, however; it also delights, astounds, amuses, and disarms. Nowhere is this capacious narrative and affective flexibility more apparent than in the American musical canon, where firearms serve a startling variety of functions while sliding easily along spectrums of genre, style, and tone. They are the go-to props of musicals set or staged in wartime, symbolic of hostile environments, courageous heroes, and desperate aggressors. They are the accoutrement of comedy and the drivers of tragedy. And, of course, they persist as ambivalent, malleable, and unpredictable indexers of political schisms, social inequities, and the empire-building violence required by Western patriarchy, colonization, and capitalism. As a vehicle for propelling questions of US-American gun culture(s) into the popular consciousness, the musical is a uniquely equipped performance form. Mounted to the notes of soaring harmonies, transported on the limbs of undulating, often virtuosic bodies, or underscored by elaborate landscapes and soundscapes, gun narratives intensify, stretch, transmute, and become unsettled in the musical medium. Despite their thematic and aesthetic heterogeneity, however, American gun musicals tend to press guns into service as potent indicators of belonging or marginality—often by distinguishing natural or paradigmatic Americanness through authoritative gun use or by harnessing guns as tools that induct characters into or expulse them from meaningful relationships, identity groups, or communities. ( [5] ) Indeed, with few exceptions, a gun musical’s firearms help compose, fortify, alter, and/or destroy human connections, be they romantic couples, love triangles, family units, friend circles, or communities organized by place, politics, religion, race, and other social or material conditions. To trace the guns in Hamilton (2015), for example, is to see guns violently regulate American identity/ies. ( [6] ) The mainspring of 2000’s The Wild Party ’s climactic gunfire, to cite another, is a love triangle that materializes and dematerializes in a single evening. And while The Wild Party is fictional and Hamilton fictional ized , intimate partner and intra/inter-community gun violence in the US is real, persistent, and documented. According to the John Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, over half of all intimate partner homicides in the US are committed with firearms, and “a woman is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a gun.” ( [7] ) In addition, the Deputy Police Commissioner of Buffalo, New York argued in 2021 that an “overwhelming number of shootings and murders in Buffalo stem from revenge, retaliation and escalating beefs,” many of them now fueled by social media. ( [8] ) American gun violence carves up communities along and across categories of identity and culture: Black Americans are ten times more likely to die by gun homicide than white Americans;( [9] ) 4.5 million US women alive today report being threatened with a gun;( [10] ) firearms were used in 73% of trans American homicides between 2017 and 2021;( [11] ) current or former members of the US military make up a disproportionately high number of gun suicides;( [12] ) and “gun deaths recently surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for American children,” making the US an “extreme outlier” in gun fatalities in minors. ( [13] ) Still the country’s gun culture continues to thrive, buoyed by a formidable supply of ideologies, narratives, factoids, slogans, and figureheads that operate both within and far beyond gun-positive spaces. Germane to this essay is the recurring deployment of gun industry propaganda that reinforces an insider/outsider binary of American life. This includes mythic depictions of gun ownership that imply gun-handling is an endower of true, unassailable Americanness, and that personal firearms enable US-Americans to safeguard their loved ones and communities from external threats (despite data that concludes that guns in homes increase the risk of gun injury and death). ( [14] ) In this essay, I analyze how guns and the people who carry them shape and reshape two of the American musical’s classic human groupings: the community circle and the love triangle. I engage in close readings of two Golden Age musicals, Oklahoma! (1943) and West Side Story (1957), as well as their recent, gun-heavy Broadway revivals, in order to illuminate how firearms arbitrate or exacerbate race- and class-based conflicts within the depicted communities and “solve” the musicals’ imbalanced love triangles¾either facilitating a community-sustaining union or preventing a community-conjoining union from occurring. Indeed, in assessing these musicals and their twenty-first-century revivals as gun musicals, distinctive patterns in the gendering, racializing, and classing of American guns and gun violence become evident. These patterns, not surprisingly, are directly tethered to and expressive of the gun cultures and the wider sociopolitical landscapes in which the productions were created. As I argue, the original musicals reified conventional notions of the appropriate US-American gun handler as the white, Christian, cishet man, presenting their gun possessions as uncomplicated, necessary, and intuitive within the plays’ white supremacist patriarchies. The revivals, however, attempt to adapt the musicals’ guns to the country’s hyper-violent present, both by amplifying the gun’s role in catalyzing domestic and community violence and inculcating more participants into gun culture systems, including through the increased representation of skillful women, Black, and Latine gun handlers. In manifesting this provocative transferring of power, the revivals variously challenge and fortify the mythic triangulation of firearms, white masculinity, and Americanness. Shotgun Weddings and Handgun Honeymoons: The Guns of Oklahoma! (1943) and West Side Story (1957) Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway two years before World War II’s Allies and Axis powers laid down their arms. West Side Story ’s Broadway opening occurred one day after the Little Rock Nine, surrounded by heavily armed National Guardsmen, integrated Arkansas’s Central High School. While mapping both musicals onto a timeline of US gun events is a useful task, it is more meaningful to determine how Golden Age gun musicals reflected and upheld prevailing firearm discourses and representations. Following a brief primer on the material and metaphorical contours of midcentury America’s gun culture, I will assess Oklahoma! and West Side Story ’s guns—and, more importantly, gun handlers—as chief arbitrators of belonging or marginality within the musicals’ imagined communities. By the 1940s and 50s, US-American gun culture bore only a partial resemblance to its nineteenth-century predecessor(s). As homegrown demand for firearms dried up following the American Civil War, the US gun industry attempted to stem the tide by pursuing foreign military contracts, especially in Europe, and by popularizing civilian gun ownership and use in North America. Late-1800s ads from Winchester, Ithaca Gun Company, and other manufacturers increasingly appealed to modern women and family men, recommending shooting sports—hunting, target shooting, and trapshooting—as healthful, safe, character building, suitable for women and children, and implicitly American (despite the sports’ much longer history in Europe). ( [15] ) Meanwhile, the newly founded National Rifle Association (NRA) promoted the creation of rifle clubs, training courses, and competitive shooting matches with an eye toward advancing marksmanship in the general public and, by extension, deepening the country’s reserve of skilled shooters. ( [16] ) In the twentieth century’s early decades, increasing numbers of white middle-class women took up shooting sports, while gun manufacturers and conservative commentators intensified their use of fear-based rhetoric to present personal gun ownership as the effective defense against home invasions and violent assaults. The latter exploited white Americans’ anxieties around race, immigration, and the specter of “urban crime” and reified whiteness as a prerequisite for proper gun ownership in the United States. Such rhetoric persisted through the mid-twentieth century as the civil rights movement re-enlivened debates about which Americans had (or should have) uncontestable gun rights. Some civil rights leaders, for example, proclaimed the right to bear arms as essential both to protecting Black communities from violent white mobs and to fully enfranchising African Americans as US citizens. As historian Nicholas Johnson notes, Rosa Parks, T.R.M. Howard, Daisy Bates, and other Black activists whose families were terrorized by firebombs and burning crosses “embraced private [armed] self-defense and political nonviolence without any sense of contradiction.” ( [17] ) As a weary but victorious America emerged from two World Wars, flush with good-guys-with-guns narratives, the gun industry endeavored to amend US history by inserting firearms at every page turn. According to Haag, midcentury ads “retroactively fetishized” guns and boasted “[c]asual assertions…that Americans had ‘always’ loved guns, or that they had a ‘timeless’ tradition of gun fluency, a ‘priceless tradition’ in firearms, or had ‘long known how to shoot,’ with ‘every boy’ trained as a marksman.” ( [18] ) Of especial importance in this historical re-envisioning was the mythologizing of the Wild West. Colt’s ads “rehabilitated the cowboy” into a “steely-eyed” and courageous icon of white American masculinity, while Winchester marketed its Model 1873 rifle as The Gun that Won the West. ( [19] ) Mythic depictions of the American West swept through 1940s and 50s popular culture like wildfire. Taking a page from the dime novels, frontier melodramas, and Wild West Shows of the nineteenth century, midcentury movies, magazines, and television series invited American audiences to visit an Old West of unparalleled danger, bravery, and beauty, with expert gun handling serving as the coin of the realm. ( [20] ) It was within this gun culture that Oklahoma! and West Side Story ’s original productions operated. In an essay illogically asserting that politics are “absent” in American theatre, political theorist and theatre writer Benjamin Barber concedes that “on second inspection” the dual love plots in Oklahoma! “emerge as emblems of a powerful social context”: No less than Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle , whose social context is a struggle between goatherds and vintners over the right to use a contested valley, Oklahoma! puts the question of whether the territory can unite as a state around a common civic faith and a common political identity, or will be allowed to fracture and disintegrate along the fissures opened up by the competition of its economic factions. ( [21] ) These adversarial populations—farmers and cowmen, settlers and nomads—coalesce (if only outwardly) as the Indian and Oklahoman territories become one state. ( [22] ) As Bruce Kirle explains, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! “historicizes the isolationist/ interventionist conflict that preceded and shadowed America’s participation in World War II” and argues for unity in the face of a common enemy: the spread of fascism. ( [23] ) Yet national belonging in Oklahoma! is determined not just politically or geographically, but also socioeconomically and racially, as Andrea Most and Warren Hoffman have ably illustrated. ( [24] ) Furthermore, the musical’s male characters employ violence (or the threat of violence) as a way of formalizing the community’s boundaries, with firearms often accelerating the admissions process or keeping outsiders at bay. Indeed, the firearm’s vital role in US settler colonialism is plainly wrought in the musical. Though the original libretto contains no staged or referenced gun deaths, it also notably contains no Indigenous characters, suggesting that the settlers’ rifles have already succeeded in ejecting Native communities from their lands (“Oklahoma” comes from the Chocktaw “okla humma,” meaning “Red People”) and denying their identities as US-Americans. ( [25] ) Because Rodgers and Hammerstein “erased [the] indigenous complexity” of the musical’s source material, Lynn Riggs’s 1930 play Green Grow the Lilacs , and whitewashed its frontier community, Oklahoma! ’s guns persist as the designated material and symbolic deliverers of Manifest Destiny. ( [26] ) In more recent productions—at DC’s Arena Stage (2010), the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2018), and Broadway’s Circle in the Square (2019)—multiracial casts reconstitute Oklahoma! ’s typically homogeneous community, “unsettl[ing] preconceptions of the frontier as white,” as Donatella Galella argues. ( [27] ) However, in Oklahoma! ’s first Broadway run guns appeared predominantly in the hands of white men, though some scholars read farmhand Jud Fry’s sexual savagery as representative of a stereotyped class- and race-based Otherness that “cannot be whitened.” ( [28] ) (Curly’s description of Jud as “bullet-colored, growly man,” indicating, perhaps, a tanned, dirty laborer’s bronzy skin tone, nevertheless leaves open the possibility that Jud is not white). ( [29] ) The only woman to touch a gun is Aunt Eller, Oklahoma! ’s no-nonsense matriarch; in the spontaneous brawl between farmers and cowboys at the top of Act Two, Aunt Eller “ grabs a gun from some man’s holster and fires it, ” putting an abrupt halt to the fighting. She then points the gun at groups of men, coercing them to rejoin the singing. They do. Within Oklahoma! ’s strict gender binary, Aunt Eller is unique. “She is an uncommonly public woman who mediates between male and female culture,” notes musicologist Susan C. Cook, but “[h]er public power comes at a cost; widowed, she is a desexualized crone, who stands apart from the other women[.]” ( [30] ) Gun handling, then, is a mark of Aunt Eller’s singularity. If Oklahoma! ’s guns exclusively belong to white men, what do they signal about the men’s belonging within the musical’s real and aspirational American communities? Two scenes offer clues: cowboy Curly McClain and antisocial farmhand Jud Fry’s private meeting in Act One, and Act Two’s box social. In the first, Curly and Jud converge in Jud’s lodgings, the farm’s defunct smokehouse, where Curly goads Jud into imagining killing himself (the better to live on in the memories of his mourners). On the smokehouse’s walls, Rodgers and Hammerstein specify, hang the accoutrements of manual farm labor and images of nearly naked women. Below them sit limited furnishings: a “grimy” and unmade bed, a spittoon, and a table and chairs. ( [31] ) Within this hypermasculine space, a remote and decommissioned site of work that now hosts the community pariah, each of Jud and Curly’s gun acts—for they are acts in the theatrical sense—exteriorize the men’s identical objectives: to triumph over their competitor, win Laurey and her farmland, and through these conjoined possessions achieve a level of community integration and security that presently evades them both. The acts escalate in intensity as the scene progresses. Jud seizes his pistol as Curly approaches the smokehouse and begins to methodically clean it; following a spate of Curly’s insults, Jud “reflex[ively]” pulls its trigger and blasts a bullet into the ceiling; Curly demonstrates his shooting skill by firing a bullet through knothole in the smokehouse wall. Due to their solitude and emotional intimacy, Jud and Curly’s forced displays of heteronormative frontier masculinity reverberate with both violent and homoerotic potential. But rather than the smokehouse containing the men’s armed antagonism, the guns audibly broadcast it, drawing Aunt Eller, Ali Hakim, and several others to their spot. “’S all right!” Aunt Eller assures those who have gathered. “Nobody hurt, just a pair of fools swapping’ noises.” ( [32] ) The box social is a community-sanctioned pageant of territorial masculinity masquerading as a charity auction. Like the display behaviors of male peacocks and harbor seals, Oklahoma! ’s men flaunt their authority, capital, and sexual devotion, but unlike the female peacocks and harbor seals in the market for a mate, the eligible women whose lunch hampers (and selves) are up for auction lack the agency to choose or refuse bidders. “ Oklahoma! thus embodies what Erin Addison calls an ‘American secular ideology’ of individualism and freedom for men and romance/marriage for women,” offers Cook. ( [33] ) Within this frontier thunderdome of cishet male competition, guns are enlisted as valuable commodities and tools of intimidation. In negotiations as part of the box social’s transactional politics are Oklahoma!’ s two love triangles. Curly and Jud are in pursuit of Laurey, who understands she must choose a man to help manage the farm she has inherited. The flirtatious Ado Annie, meanwhile, is torn between sweet but featherbrained cowboy Will Parker and the “Persian peddler / Lothario” Ali Hakim, the latter of whom is an ethnoracial outsider “typically played broadly and theatrically—for laughs—via the conventions of vaudeville,” writes Kirle. ( [34] ) Given that Ali’s interest in Ado Annie is carnal rather than marital, Will and Ali’s battle over Ado Annie’s hamper is an asymmetrical affair. Its lopsidedness is also engendered by violence, as Ado Annie’s father Carnes forces Ali to participate at gunpoint, prodding the peddler in the back with the tip of his gun to ratchet up the bidding. Though Will loses the hamper to Ali, he “gets” Ado Annie by satisfying Carnes’s demand that his daughter’s husband-to-be be financially solvent. Later, Ali marries the universally irritating Gertie Cummings in a shotgun wedding, consequently abandoning his nomadic lifestyle and assimilating into the territory folks’ white Christian community, his amorous ways and his Otherness curbed by the promise of gun violence. In Oklahoma! , the fathers’ firearms orchestrate unions that are advantageous for the community’s survival but not necessarily for marital harmony. Sung by the musical’s bachelors with Ali singing lead, Act One’s “It’s a Scandal! It’s a Outrage!” lampoons the men’s “entrapment” by armed fathers and their supposedly eager daughters: MEN: It’s gotten’ so you cain’t have any fun! Every daughter has a father with a gun! It’s a scandal, it’s a outrage! How a gal gets a husband today!( [35] ) Winning Laurey’s hamper (and presumably her hand in marriage) also requires considerable capital. In an effort to best Jud—who eventually bids “all I got in the world,” two years of savings from farm work—Curly sells off the vital assets of a cowboy: first his saddle, then his horse, and finally his gun. As the coup de grâce of the men’s acrimonious bidding, Curly drawing his gun is read first as a physical threat, frightening the crowd and inspiring Jud to retreat. For Scott McMillin, Curly’s capacity with a gun appeals to Laurey because it keeps Jud’s violence in check: “The cowboy-hero handles a gun so well that even the hired hand has to worry about him—that is one of the hero’s desirable attributes.” ( [36] ) Even after his gun sells, Curly secures Laurey’s hamper, her hand, and newfound respectability as a chosen caretaker of colonized Oklahoman land. Of the three guns in Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story , the famed musical that transports Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to a hot and claustrophobic Manhattan neighborhood in the 1950s, two tellingly belong to law enforcement officials. Lieutenant Schrank and Officer Krupke are white supremacist authority figures who enforce an inequitable set of rules for rival street gangs, the Puerto Rican Sharks and the (traditionally) white ethnic Jets. The officers never draw their guns, at least according to the Broadway libretto. Schrank is a plainclothes cop whose weapon is presumably concealed by his suit jacket; Krupke’s sidearm, however, is always a visible part of his police uniform, indexing his simultaneous, conflated roles as neighborhood protector and aggressor. The third gun, and the only one that discharges within the course of the musical, is extracted from its apartment hiding place in Act Two, Scene One by Chino, a young Shark desperate to avenge the death of the gang’s leader, Bernardo. Chino unwraps the gun, which the stage directions specify has been stored in a cloth “the same color as BERNARDO’s shirt,” and jams it into his pocket before exiting, affiliating West Side Story ’s sole civilian firearm with two Puerto Rican immigrant men. ( [37] ) At the musical’s climax Chino finds his target, former Jet member Tony, and fatally shoots him as he runs into the arms of his lover Maria, Bernardo’s sister and Chino’s intended wife. As “CHINO stands very still, bewildered by the gun limp in his hand,” the lovers sing fragments of “Somewhere,” the musical’s utopic ballad of freedom and inclusion, before Tony succumbs to his gunshot wound. In the action that follows, Maria silently beckons for Chino’s gun and then turns it on Sharks and Jets alike, who at the report of the gunshot have amassed in a “ritual assembly” around Tony’s body. “How many bullets are left, Chino? Enough for you? And you? All of you? WE ALL KILLED HIM; and my brother and Riff. I, too. I CAN KILL NOW BECAUSE I HATE NOW. How many can I kill, Chino? How many – and still have one bullet left for me?” Unable to pull the trigger, Maria throws the gun away and collapses on the ground, sobbing. In the musical’s final moments, Tony’s body is carried away by Jet and Shark boys, a procession forms, and Maria follows in its wake, “lift[ing] her head proudly and triumphantly.” The neighborhood’s adults, including Schrank and Krupke, remain onstage, “bowed, alone, useless” as the curtain falls. ( [38] ) The importance of this gun, as a material node in which the musical’s themes of racialized violence, urban youth culture, and generational discord seem to converge, has largely gone unacknowledged in the existing literature, likely because the gun is introduced relatively late in the play, after Bernardo and Jet leader Riff die by knife-wounds in the gangs’ late-night rumble. However, even in the pre-van Hove world of West Side Story , a world that Brian Herrera describes as “characterized by the constant threat of incipient violence,” guns are conspicuous. ( [39] ) Consider the Jets’ first conversation about rumbling with the Sharks. Riff suggests that the Sharks “might ask for bottles or knives or zip guns,” inspiring a worried “Zip guns…Gee!” from Baby John, the youngest of the group. ( [40] ) Guns are named again at the gangs’ war council, not by Riff or Bernardo but by Tony, who attempts to mitigate mounting tensions by urging the leaders to agree to a fair fight, sans weapons. “Bottles, knives, guns! What a coop full of chickens!” he baits. ( [41] ) In both conversations, the Jets are depicted as reluctant to arm themselves with guns as a way of holding their turf: “I wanna hold it like we always held it, with skin!” Riff assures his gang in Act One. ( [42] ) And yet, in Jerome Robbins’ choreography the Jets habitually map onto their bodies gestures of guns and gun violence. Jets wannabe Anybodys responds to A-Rab’s insults about her appearance by shooting him with her finger, prompting Baby John to ask about the maiming power of zip guns. No one answers. Similarly in “Cool,” a frenetic dance in which the Jets attempt to regulate their volatile, pre-rumble energies, A-Rab shapes his hand into a gun, pantomimes firing it, and shouts “pow!,” a close mirroring of Anybodys’ finger shot. In a choreographic replication of cycles of violence, A-Rab is now no longer the victim but the shooter. Ying Zhu and Daniel Belgrad note in their study of dance in West Side Story ’s 1961 film adaptation that “Over the course of the dance, this [gun] gesture is not eliminated, but is disciplined and integrated into the emotional fabric of coolness, so that Action, at the dance’s end, can control it and use it.” ( [43] ) The Jets’ pretend gunplay, Zhu and Belgrad argue, can be situated within the musical’s larger motif of subversive “play [as] the bodily assertion of vitality in the face of adult regulation.” ( [44] ) Of course, this simulated battleground of finger pistols and vocalized “pows” —itself a reflection of popular mid-century children’s games pitting cops against robbers, cowboys against Indians—fails to prevent real gun violence from materializing. As Herrera, David Román, Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, and Frances Negrón-Muntaner have all forcefully argued, West Side Story ’s message of racial tolerance comes at an ironic cost: the perpetuation of Latine stereotypes and the faulty association of urban US-American crime to rising rates of immigration. ( [45] ) In the original lyrics to “America,” Shark girl Anita paints an unseemly picture of her native island, depicting Puerto Rico’s inhabitants as disease-ridden, oversexed, poor, and prone to unrestrained bursts of gun violence: “Always the hurricanes blowing, / Always the population growing, / And the money owing, / And the babies crying, / And the bullets flying.” ( [46] ) The fact that the only gun that takes a life in West Side Story is owned by one Shark and fired by another is neither inconsequential nor unrelated to Bernardo and Chino’s Puerto-Ricanness and their shared status as racialized outsiders who, if Anita’s lyrical tirade is at all based on reality, brought the problems of their homeland with them. The lie Anita tells Tony after being sexually assaulted at Doc’s store—that Chino has fatally shot Maria—is not only plausible, given Chino’s armed state; it also accords with the feud’s escalating violence and anticipates the ballistic trauma to come. In contrast to the white police officers’ holstered weapons, Bernardo’s gun was unsecured in the home and becomes uncontainable on the streets. With Maria’s seizure of the gun, its relationship to the Latine community is solidified. Though she is clearly unaccustomed to handling the gun, its scriptive thingness immediately instructs her how to channel what the libretto terms her “savage” rage. ( [47] ) America Reloaded: Gun-Centric Revivals of Oklahoma! (2019) and West Side Story (2020) In the midst of its direct transfer from St. Ann’s Warehouse to Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre, Daniel Fish’s revival of Oklahoma! grabbed headings in early 2019 by announcing it would be Broadway’s first “Gun Neutral” production. For every visible gun onstage, Oklahoma! ’s producers donated to “organizations working to destroy illegal guns” as well as to those providing arts and STEM programming to communities disproportionately impacted by US-American gun violence. Speaking on the production’s partnership with the non-partisan Gun Neutral Initiative, lead producer Eva Price remarked: “[j]ust because a particular story calls for the presence of a particular weapon, that doesn’t mean that we have to remain complacent in America’s gun-violence epidemic. Helping to destroy firearms that shouldn’t be in circulation is both a privilege and a responsibility.” ( [48] ) Implicit in this gun neutral pledge is an acknowledgement that even prop firearms cannot claim neutrality in 2019 (if indeed they ever could). Furthermore, monetary pledges concede that gun cultures and politics are inextricably bound up in economic transactions and therefore tend to capacitate the financially privileged. Much like carbon offsetting, a gun neutral pledge operates from an assumption that even simulated gunplay has the potential to cause harm; it attempts to mitigate possible negative effects, even as it admits the perceived inevitability of theatrical and mediatized guns in popular culture. Shortly after the news went viral, the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action characterized the production’s move as “‘smack[ing] of antigun political pandering.’” ( [49] ) There is much to attend to in Fish’s Oklahoma! and Belgian auteur Ivo van Hove’s revival of West Side Story (not the least of which are van Hove’s casting of a sexual predator in the role of Bernardo and staging of Anita’s assault as a penetrative rape). ( [50] ) But rather than comprehensively review the productions or summarize their critical receptions—the latter no small task, given the strikingly polarized opinions of Fish’s and van Hove’s work—I wish to compare the productions’ transformative treatments of guns with those advanced by their source productions. ( [51] ) Historically, the guns of Oklahoma! and West Side Story have operated as connotatively ambiguous objects until they are lifted into service by their handlers. That is, Curly, Jud, and Carnes’s guns are expected accessories for “territory folks” that become threatening with use. Fish and van Hove’s guns, by contrast, persistently and independently menace, from the racks of guns hanging on Oklahoma! ’s auditorium walls, always in view and materially and spatially inculcating theatregoers into the production’s culture of guns, to the pistol tattoo above Chino’s hip, a symbol of his early indoctrination into a gun-saturated world (he is now forever “armed”) and a foreshadowing of West Side Story ’s tragic climax. The revivals’ guns not only consummate the violent impulses of their operators, they engender personal and systemic violence. Of Fish’s Oklahoma! Soraya Nadia McDonald asserts, “social order is enforced and maintained by guns,” a description easily transferrable to van Hove’s New York. ( [52] ) In a conspicuous extension of the original musicals’ gun narratives, the revivals’ community circles and love triangles are contoured or irrevocably broken by armed characters and gun violence. Fish and van Hove take different tacks in mining and reframing their source material. Fish retains Hammerstein’s book almost in its entirety, embedding his major interventions interstitially or via bespoke stagings of scenes and songs. In its most dramatic departure from the libretto, Fish’s Oklahoma! reconceptualizes Jud’s killing as a deliberate gun death. On Curly and Laurey’s wedding day, Jud kisses the bride and presents the couple with a gift: his gun, and an opportunity to end his life. It is an earnest plea with a subtle “gotcha” undertone, for if granted, Jud’s slaughter will forever haunt their wedding day memories. Curly, with Laurey’s wordless blessing, accepts Jud’s offer and shoots him. Husband and wife are sprayed by blood as Jud crumples to the ground. ( [53] ) By replacing Jud’s accidental stabbing with the close-range gunning down of an unarmed man (however consensual the victim), Fish renders the impromptu trial that exonerates Curly of criminal culpability distressingly perfunctory. Curly’s acquittal, writes The Atlantic ’s Todd S. Purdum, “feels less like justice and more like rough complicity in vigilantism.” ( [54] ) West Side Story ’s single, fatal gunshot remains as scripted, though van Hove’s fixation on US-American gun violence is manifest throughout the production. Moreover, with a compressed run-time of 105 minutes and no intermission, the revival hastens toward Tony’s gun death without West Side Story ’s customary flashes of levity: “I Feel Pretty” has been cut and “Gee, Officer Krupke” refashioned. Though Fish began developing Oklahoma! in 2007 at Bard College, its 2019 Broadway iteration and the 2020 West Side Story revival hum with unmistakable nowness, dialoguing directly with US-American gun politics in the Trumpian age. Both stories are set in an unspecified present and feature multiracial casts, with gender expansive ( West Side Story ) and disabled actors ( Oklahoma! ) further diversifying the depicted communities. ( [55] ) Fish’s reimagined frontier boasts an interracial love triangle (Rebecca Naomi Jones’s Laurey, Damon Daunno’s Curly, and Patrick Vaill’s Jud) and a Black federal marshal (Anthony Cason as Cord Elam), the latter’s powerlessness during the murder trial suggestive not just of the community’s fervor to exonerate Curly but the precariousness of Cord’s endowed authority, even when armed. The antagonistic outsider Jud Fry is no longer a brutish farmhand, but a brooding, wiry, plaid-and-hoodie-wearing blonde, “a repository of loneliness and disconnection” who seeks community belonging and validation through Laurey. ( [56] ) Developed by Vaill and Fish over years of collaboration, this Jud oozes a despondent vulnerability that adheres his villainous acts¾including sexually assaulting Laurey and attempting to kill Curly with a switchblade masquerading as a kaleidoscope¾to his ‘victimization’ by an insular, cliquish community. “[It is t]he act of someone who feels pushed into a corner,” Vaill claims of Jud’s foiled murder plot. “This is someone who feels he does not have control, which is scary.” Of Jud’s role as the story’s villain, Vaill is quick to qualify: “He’s cast as the villain …. At the end of the day, he’s guilty of being in love with someone that people don’t think he should be in love with.” ( [57] ) Fish and Vaill’s apologist approach to Jud sets the character, and his assisted gun suicide, adrift in murky cultural waters. “Sympathy for the Incel?” wonders Catherine M. Young from the title of her HowlRound essay on Oklahoma!. In it, Young records a handful of the disparate public responses: Journalist Alison Stewart couldn’t tell if Jud was more like a fragile, vulnerable “Kurt Cobain type” or a school shooter. Sarah Holdren and Elisabeth Vincentelli both describe him as an incel, the involuntarily celibate men who resent (and occasionally kill) women who won’t sleep with them. Frank Rich was enthralled by Jud’s anguish. Such ambiguity has political implications. ( [58] ) Ambiguities there may be, but for Fish and Vaill, Jud is a distinctly American product: a seething, unstable concoction of “virulent misogyny,” toxic (white) masculinity, and lone-wolf reclusiveness that finds affirmation through the nation’s gun culture. ( [59] ) But here another troubling narrative metastases. If Jud represents “the role of the outsider that the community can create,” as Fish indicates (emphasis added), then the blame for Jud’s ostracism lies not with him, but with those charged with nurturing and binding communities together: the play’s women. ( [60] ) In van Hove’s New York, the Jets encompasses white and Black “native” Americans who together rail against the immigrant Puerto Rican Sharks, transforming the Jets’ racial animus from blatant white supremacism to a sort of qualified nativism with irreconcilable outcomes. “Mr. van Hove’s casting misrepresents the real solidarities that form at the margins of U.S. citizenship,” notes writer and translator Carina del Valle Schorske of the blended Jets. “‘Inclusion’ here is code for willful colorblindness.” ( [61] ) The gang’s new composition enables van Hove to broach stereotypes of African American gun use , as well as more fully confront the injustices of race-based police brutality. Baby John’s fear of the zip-gun’s ballistic power, for example, is now voiced by a Black teenager (Matthew Johnson). Later, after a brief squabble with the Jets, Officer Krupke (Danny Wolohan) draws his weapon and aggressively pushes it into the temple of one of its Black members, prompting several Jets to draw their smartphones and film the altercation. Krupke backs off, but the event propels the gang into a revamped rendition of “Gee, Officer Krupke.” Once a vaudevillian take-down of domineering and inept authority figures, the song is now a humorless “indictment of the carceral state,” with white and Black Jets striking ‘don’t shoot’ poses in front of “a bleak video montage of young men being humiliated and abused by the police.” ( [62] ) Branded “harrowing” by Los Angeles Times ’s Charles McNulty, an “overreach” by Newsday ’s Rafer Guzmán, and “pandering” by The New Yorker’s Alexandra Schwartz, “Gee, Officer Krupke” (with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker) functions as an embodied condemnation of systemic racism, police violence, and the prison-industrial complex—and one of the revival’s most overt bids for political relevance. ( [63] ) Audiences consume the productions’ gun acts via unmediated and mediated witnessing. Van Hove’s imagistic theatre routinely includes the use of video to bring the “characters closer to the audience” and “create subjective worlds on stage,” the director himself explains. ( [64] ) In West Side Story, the characters’ smartphones, pre-filmed footage, and live video from handheld cameras¾all projected onto a mammoth, stage-spanning screen¾together constitute an omnipresent surveillance apparatus that is in turns covert and intrusive. At intervals, the films decelerate into slow motion as the stage action unfolds at regular speed, a techno-theatrical “time warp” (to use Sarah Taylor Ellis’s term) that often prolongs the audience’s encounter with violence, as in Tony (Isaac Powell) fleeing from the rumble in a blood-soaked shirt. ( [65] ) Of one on-location shot that moves through a dead-end street, Schwartz remarks, “The camera advances in a slow dolly shot, producing the weightless, gliding momentum of a first-person shooter game.” ( [66] ) Indeed, the footage collectively documents a story of interchangeable hunters and prey. Cameras invade enclosed spaces—several interiors are pocketed behind the projection screen, including Doc’s store—and capture private and imagined interactions. ( [67] ) In one of the video design’s most unsettling interventions, Tony’s mental picture of Maria’s gun death fills the screen, her head blasted open by Chino’s close-range shot. Tony’s own death, however, is left unmediated. Chino approaches, fires his pistol, and Tony’s body registers the bullet’s impact; no extreme closeups linger on his bloodied torso or Chino’s inscrutable expression. Fish’s Oklahoma! employs live video and projections far more sparingly, notably when handheld video cameras penetrate the cramped environs of Jud’s smokehouse. At first, Jud and Curly’s tête-à-tête is plunged into total darkness, a drastic shift from the “aggressive brightness” employed elsewhere in the production’s lighting design. ( [68] ) The blackout, which amplifies the dramaturgical work of the scene’s soundscape, is later softened by live video tightly trained on Jud’s face—tormented, longing for connection—projected onto the stage’s backdrop. The scene vacillates in tone between a hushed, erotic intimacy (the men, faces mere inches from each other, whisper their lines into handheld microphones) and the unrelenting menace of cyberbullying, as Curly’s disembodied voice calmly extols the virtues of suicide. ( [69] ) Notes Ben Brantley of the smokehouse scene, “the lines of sex and violence…blu[r] in this gun-toting universe[.]” ( [70] ) When, after singing “Pore Jud Is Daid” and still blanketed by darkness, the men fire their guns at a knothole, the loud reports startle and unnerve. Sound and sight decoupled, the invisible weapons index their presence sonically. Though only men suffer gun deaths in Oklahoma! and West Side Story , the stories’ women together absorb much of the gun-related violence and trauma. Armed men (fathers, law enforcers, lovers, and stalkers) perambulate the playing space in Oklahoma! , pistols holstered and rifles clutched under armpits; Aunt Eller, by contrast, is accoutered with a wooden spoon for stirring cornbread. But if we simply track Oklahoma! ’s guns as they pass through men’s hands, we risk losing sight of Jones’s Laurey and Ali Stroker’s Ado Annie, outspoken women of intelligence and agency who must nevertheless navigate the complexities of a materially and psychically hostile landscape. Ado Annie’s life choices are under near-constant monitoring by her armed father, while landowning woman of color Laurey “resolute[ly] refus[es] to be thought of as someone’s possession” even as she’s caught in the crosshairs of rival suitors. ( [71] ) The production’s dream ballet and wedding scene lay bare Laurey’s conscious negotiations with Oklahoma! ’s gun culture¾and the men that drive it. In choreographer John Heginbotham’s postmodern dream ballet, Laurey’s avatar (Gabrielle Hamilton) moves with within a growing minefield of cowboy boots that are dropped one by one from the rafters. “[T]he sound they make as they hit the stage is as explosive as . . . gunshots,” pronounced The New Yorker ’s Sarah Larson in her 2018 review of the Off-Broadway production. ( [72] ) Less abstract is Laurey’s endorsing of Jud’s murder/suicide. In an extended moment of silent contemplation, Laurey spatially maps her inner conflict. She leaves Curly’s side to peer searchingly into Jud’s face, and then slowly returns to Curly. ( [73] ) We can only speculate on why Laurey sanctions “prairie justice,” Jud’s violent and permanent excision from the community, but as a Black woman and a survivor of sexual assault and stalking, Laurey is all too aware of how violence operates at the margins. ( [74] ) West Side Story ’s gun culture is likewise androcentric and hierarchical, but the women exhibit manifest signs of inculcation. Whereas Jerome Robbins’ choreography restricted the use of gun gestures to his male dancers and Anybodys, De Keersmaeker democratizes the movement by setting it onto the Sharks girls’ bodies in “America.” The aggressive gesture¾fingers shaped into a gun, straight arm tracing an arc from low to high like a protractor¾runs counter the women’s buoyant lyrics (“I like to be in America! / O.K. by me in America! / Everything free in America”). Violence continues to reach West Side Story ’s Black, white, and brown women in ways unprescribed by Robbins, Laurents, Sondheim, and Bernstein, including Anita’s attempted gang rape, Maria’s graphic head wound, and the rain-soaked rumble, where several feminine-presenting Jets and Sharks fight. ( [75] ) One need only witness the distraught Maria’s actions after Tony’s shooting to comprehend how versant the women are in West Side Story ’s microcosmic culture of violence. Silently, Maria (Shereen Pimentel) gestures for Chino’s gun. Unlike Marias past, who handle the gun with trepidation and difficulty, Pimentel’s Maria racks the handgun’s slide with speed and skill, advancing the next round of ammunition as she asks, “How do you fire this gun, Chino? Just by pulling this little trigger?” It’s a rhetorical question. She is well-acquainted with guns, even if this is the first she’s handled, and the Jets and Sharks take her threats seriously. The gun changes hands several more times: a Jet gently disarms Maria as she faces the audience and holds the pistol to her head; later, she reclaims the gun and passes it to Anita. In entrusting the gun to Anita, Maria effectively bars Jets and Sharks alike from accessing it, effectively removing the weapon from circulation¾at least temporarily. Guns are instruments of revolution and disruption, but they are also instruments of a sort of brutal petrification, of holding in abeyance those who might act counterculturally and preventing new, transformative associations from solidifying. The Golden Age Oklahoma! and West Side Story ’s firearms police the perimeters of homogenous human groups, simultaneously restricting access into and thwarting departures from them. In reinforcing the community circle’s curved boundaries and transforming a love triangle with three vertices into a straight line with two points, guns and their handlers are bold, convenient catalysts for the American musical’s conservative endings. They help the boy get the girl; forestall any integrative or conciliatory pacts between rival street gangs; and fortify the settler-colonialist claims on stolen lands. In their twenty-first-century adaptations of Oklahoma! and West Side Story, Fish and van Hove present guns as the most responsive, convenient deliverers of modern violence, but their contemporary anti-gun, pro-diversity messages strain uncomfortably beneath the musicals’ constrictive Golden Age fabric, fabric that engages firearms in ways that unequivocally benefit white heteronormative America. After seeing Fish’s reimagined Oklahoma! , Johnny Oleksinksi of the right-leaning New York Post sardonically declared: “everything you cherish about this classic has been taken out behind the bar and shot, replace by an auteur’s bag of tricks and a thesis on gun control and westward expansion. Here, the West was won by a culture of violence and toxic masculinity— what fun! ” ( [76] ) In all his rhetorical outrage, Oleksinski fails to recognize that Oklahoma! has always told this story. What he is detecting, however, are the heightened political stakes of the contemporary gun musical. Staged in the midst of partisan debates over Second Amendment gun rights and alarming rates of US gun injuries and deaths, the majority of twenty-first-century gun musicals, including Fish’s Oklahoma! and van Hove’s West Side Story , proceed from three assumptions. First, they regard gun violence as a public health crisis in the United States. Second, they implicate all Americans as active perpetrators or passive abettors in the country’s gun violence epidemic. Third, rather than depict gun handling as a prime signifier of national belonging, they suggest that merely persisting within the country’s omnipresent gun culture is a uniquely American act. Oleksinski’s “auteur” jab is likewise somewhat founded. In their searing critiques of US-American gun violence and its impact on disenfranchised communities, Daniel Fish and Ivo van Hove undertake crucial (if imperfect) work. And yet, as progressive white men of privilege, they perhaps cannot help but ventriloquize rather than possess the perspectives voiced by frontline populations. References 1. Christopher Bannow, “Surviving in the States: Audience Rejection on the Road with Oklahoma!,” 3 April 2023, https://howlround.com/surviving-states-audience-rejection-road-oklahoma . 2. Ibid. 3. According to musical theatre scholar Bryan M. Vandevender, the touring production featured less visible guns in its scene design than its Broadway counterpart. 4. See Pamela Haag’s analysis of gun companies’ influential tactics in The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2016). 5. As I theorize, a “gun musical” focalizes firearms—and their provocative meaning-making—as essential objects in the musical’s dramaturgy and physical world. Put another way, just as a perfect Aristotelian plot would unravel with the removal of any scene, a gun musical could not function without their signature weaponry and the human conditions they engender. 6. For a fuller examination of Hamilton’s guns, which contextualizes the production’s weaponless Tony Awards performance, see my article “‘What if This Bullet is My Legacy?’: The Guns of Hamilton,” Studies in Musical Theatre 12, no. 2 (June 2018): 251-56. 7. Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, “Domestic Violence and Firearms,” https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/domestic-violence-and-firearms/ . 8. Kimberly King, “Gun Violence Crisis: With Revenge and Retaliation on the Rise, How Police Are Responding,” 17 February 2021, https://wlos.com/news/local/gun-violence-crisis-with-revenge- retaliation-on-the-rise-how-asheville-police-are-responding. 9. Marissa Edmund, “Gun Violence Disproportionately and Overwhelmingly Hurts Communities of Color,” Center for American Progress, 30 June 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun- violence-disproportionately-and-overwhelmingly-hurts-communities-of-color/. 10. Ibid. 11. Nicole Moeder, “Number of Trans Homicides Doubled over 4 Years, with Gun Killings Fueling Increase: Advocates,” ABC News, 12 October 2022, https://abcnews.go.com/US/homicide-rate-trans- people-doubled-gun-killings-fueling/story?id=91348274. 12. Eugenio Weigend Vargas and Marissa Edmund, “Gun Suicides Among Former and Current Military Members,” Center for American Progress, 3 March 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun- suicides-among-former-and-current-military-members/. 13. Robert Gebeloff, Danielle Ivory, Bill Marsh, Allison McCann, and Albert Sun, “Childhood’s Greatest Danger: The Data on Kids and Gun Violence,” New York Times, 14 December 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-children-data-statistics.html . 14. Beth Duff-Brown, “Californians Living with Handgun Owners More Than Twice as Likely to Die by Homicide, Study Finds,” 4 April 2022, https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/04/handguns- homicide-risk.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CDespite%20widespread%20perceptions%20that%20a,of%20health%20p olicy%20at%20the 15. For histories of the gun industry’s attempt to domesticate US firearms through white women consumers, see Laura Browder, Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Meredith Conti, “Hired Guns: Whiteness, Womanhood, and Progressive-era Shooting Promoters,” Theatre Journal 73, no. 4 (Dec. 2021): 511-532; and Andrea L. Smalley, “‘Our Lady Sportsmen’: Gender, Class, and Conservation in Sport Hunting Magazines, 1873–1920,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4, no. 4 (October 2005): 355–80. 16. The NRA was founded in 1871 in New York. 17. Nicholas Johnson, Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms (New York: Prometheus Books, 2014), 13. While magistrates and legislators banned or significantly curtailed Black and Indigenous gun ownership from the colonial period onward, marginalized communities of color had their own traditions of arms that variously conformed to and resolutely rejected governmental interference. 18. Haag, The Gunning of America, 357 and 356. 19. Ibid, 354. 20. Ibid. 21. Benjamin Barber, “Oklahoma! — How Political Is Broadway?” Salmagundi 137/138 (2003): 3-11, 9. 22. To be more specific, the Oklahoma Enabling Act of 1906 permitted “the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory to enter the union under a single-state constitution.” Michael Schulman, “Two Broadway Shows Dismantle the American Myth,” The New Yorker, April 16, 2019. 23. Bruce Kirle, “Reconciliation, Resolution, and the Political Role of ‘Oklahoma!’ in American Consciousness,” Theatre Journal 55, no 2 (May 2003): 251-274, 251. 24. See Andrea Most, Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004) and Warren Hoffman, The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014). 25. As Warren Hoffman notes, the show’s refrain, in which the company repeatedly chants “Oklahoma!,” can ironically be translated to them shouting “Red People!” Hoffman, The Great White Way, 66. 26. Donatella Galella, America in the Round: Capital, Race, and Nation at Washington DC’s Arena Stage (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2019), 202. 27. Galella, America in the Round, 197. Galella describes three modes of understanding multiracial Oklahoma! casts that both producers and spectators could adopt: multiracial-conscious, whitened, and postracial (200). 28. Kirle, “Reconciliation, Resolution, and the Political Role of ‘Oklahoma!,’” 262. 29. The Theatre Guild Presents Oklahoma!: A Musical Play Based on the Play ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’ by Lynn Riggs, music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein (New York: Williamson Music, 1943). 30. Susan C. Cook, “Pretty like the Girl: Gender, Race and Oklahoma!” Contemporary Theatre Review 19, no. 1 (2009), 35-47, 43. 31. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!. 32. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!. 33. Cook, “Pretty like the Girl,” 37. 34. Kirle, “Reconciliation, Resolution, and the Political Role of ‘Oklahoma!,’” 251-274, 259 and 261. 35. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma! 36. Scott McMillin, The Musical as Drama: A Study of the Principles and Conventions Behind Musical Shows from Kern to Sondheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 27. 37. West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, based on a conception of Jerome Robbins, book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (New York: Musical Theatre International, 1960), 86. 38. West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 119-120. 39. Brian Eugenio Herrera, “Compiling West Side Story’s Parahistories, 1949-2009,” Theatre Journal 64 (2012), 231-247: 236. 40. West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 6. 41. West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 56. 42. West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 7. 43. Zhu and Belgrad, “This Cockeyed City,” 86. 44. Ibid, 90. 45. Herrera, “Compiling West Side Story’s Parahistories, 1949-2009” and Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth-Century U.S. Popular Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015); David Román, “Comment — Theatre Journals,” Theatre Journal 54, no. 3 (Oct. 2002), https://www.jstor.org/stable/25069090 ; David Román, Paula Court, and Richard Termine, Performance in America: Contemporary U.S. Culture in the Performing Arts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005); Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, José, Can You See? Latinos on and off Broadway (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999); and Frances Negrón-Muntaner, “Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses,” Social Text 63, vol. 18, no. 2 (2000), 83-106. 46. West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 43. 47. Robin Bernstein, “Dances with Things: Material Culture and the Performance of Race,” Social Text 24, no. 7 (2009), 67-94. 48. Greg Evans, “‘Oklahoma!’ to be Broadway’s First ‘Gun Neutral’ Production: Lauded Musical Joins Hollywood Initiative: Sundance, Deadline, January 28, 2019, https://deadline.com/2019/01/oklahoma- broadway-musical-gun-neutral-sundance-daniel-fish-1202543741/. 49. Qtd. in Charles Passy, “‘Oklahoma!’ Takes Aim at Gun Issue,” Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2019. 50. Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai have edited the first essay collection on van Hove’s work entitled Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie (London: Methuen Drama, 2018). For coverage of the protests of Amar Ramasar’s casting, see Julia Jacobs, “‘West Side Story’ Stalemate: Bernardo’s Staying. So Are Protestors,” New York Times, February 19, 2020, and Adrian Horton, “‘We can’t stand by this any more’: Inside the West Side Story Premiere Protest,” The Guardian, February 21, 2020. 51. An inventory of West Side Story’s reviews was created by Playbill’s Dan Meyer on February 20, 2020. http://www.playbill.com/article/read-reviews-for-the-west-side-story-revival-on-broadway . 52. Soraya Nadia McDonald, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Oklahoma!” The Undefeated, September 16, 2019. https://theundefeated.com/features/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-oklahoma-on-broadway/ . 53. A cleverly installed blood cannon delivers the graphic stage effect. 54. Todd S. Purdue, “Culture: Oklahoma! Gets a Dark, Brilliant Remake,” The Atlantic, April 8, 2019. 55. Of van Hove’s “austere aesthetic” Helen Shaw wryly observes: “he automatically modernizes everything he touches, from Shakespeare to O’Neill.” Helen Shaw, “In the New West Side Story, When You’re Onstage You’re Onscreen All the Way,” New York Magazine/vulture.com, February 20, 2020. https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/theater-review-a-new-west-side-story-onscreen-all-the-way.html . 56. Tim Teeman, “‘Oklahoma!’ on Broadway: Creator and Cast Reveal How to Reimagine a Classic,” The Daily Beast, thedailybeast.com , April 15, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/oklahoma-on-broadway-creator-and-cast-reveal-how-to-reimagine-a-classic . 57. Laura Collins-Hughes, “For 13 Years, He has Humanized the Villain of Oklahoma!,” New York Times, January 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/theater/patrick-vaill-oklahoma-broadway.html . 58. Catherine M. Young, “Sympathy for the Incel? On Oklahoma! and Jud Fry in the #MeToo Era.” Howlround.com , June 26, 2019. https://howlround.com/sympathy-incel . 59. McDonald, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Oklahoma!” Bryan M. Vandevender queered Vaill’s portrayal of Jud in a compelling paper delivered at the 2022 Mid-America Theatre Conference. 60. Qtd. in Teeman, “Oklahoma! on Broadway.” 61. Carina de Valle Schorske, “Opinion: Let ‘West Side Story’ and Its Stereotypes Die,” New York Times, February 24, 2020. 62. Alexandra Schwartz, “Theatre: A Grim Take on ‘West Side Story,’” The New Yorker, February 21, 2020. 63. Charles McNulty, “Review: ‘West Side Story’ Blasts Back to Broadway – Kinetic, Bloody and Modern to the Core,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 2020; Schwartz, “A Grim Take”; and Rafer Guzmán, “Review: ‘West Side Story’ on Broadway Gets a Dark Update, Loses Some of its Cool,’ Newsday, February 21, 2020. 64. “Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai, “Ivo van Hove: An Introduction,” in Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie, edited by Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai (London: Methuen, 2018), 1-16, 7. 65. See Sarah Taylor Ellis‘s Doing the Time Warp: Queer Temporalities and Musical Theatre (London: Methuen Drama, 2022). 66. Schwartz, “A Grim Take.” 67. Jan Versweyveld designed West Side Story’s sets and lights, and Luke Hall designed the video; Laura Jellinek designed Oklahoma!’s set and Joshua Thorson designed projections. 68. McDonald, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Oklahoma!.” Scott Zielinksi was the production’s lighting designer. 69. “When the camera turns and shows us both Daunno’s and Vaill’s profiles,” notes Sara Holdren, “stretched out huge across a wall where a black-and-white vista of fields and ranch houses is painted, we get a nasty jolt: Here is the country inside of these men, and here are their brutalities laying the foundations for the country.” Sara Holdren, “Theatre Review: An Oklahoma! Where the Storm Clouds Loom Above the Plain,” New York Magazine/Vulture.com, October 8, 2018. 70. Ben Brantley, “Review: A Smashing ‘Oklahoma!’ Is Reborn in the Land of Id,” New York Times, April 7, 2019. 71. Teeman, “‘Oklahoma!’ on Broadway.” 72. Sarah Larson, ”Daniel Fish’s Dark Take on ’Oklahoma!’” Ariel Nereson analyzed the choreographic work of the re-envisioned dream ballet in a 2022 Mid-America Theatre Conference presentation. 73. Laurey is effectively muzzled by Hammerstein’s book, which provides no dialogue during Curly and Jud’s struggle and Jud’s accidental stabbing. 74. Jesse Green and Ben Brantley, “Review: There’s a Dark Golden Haze in This Reclaimed ‘Oklahoma!,’ New York Times, October 7, 2018. Green and Brantley’s joint review is responding to the 2018 Off- Broadway production. 75. Of watching Anita’s attempted gang-rape (and its replication on the enormous projection screen) as a Puerto Rican woman, Carina del Valle Schorske surmises, “[Mr. van Hove] may not feel the oppressive repetitions of the history of violence against brown women bearing down on his body. But for many of us, it’s the umpteenth time we’ve seen Anita assaulted for dramatic effect, each time under the guise of greater authenticity.” De Valle Schorske, “Opinion: Let ‘West Side Story’ and Its Stereotypes Die.” 76. Johnny Oleksinski, “‘Oklahoma!’ Review: Anti-gun Revival of Classic Shot to Hell,” New York Post, April 7, 2019. Footnotes (1) Christopher Bannow, “Surviving in the States: Audience Rejection on the Road with Oklahoma!,” 3 April 2023, https://howlround.com/surviving-states-audience-rejection-road-oklahoma . (2) Ibid. (3) According to musical theatre scholar Bryan M. Vandevender, the touring production featured less visible guns in its scene design than its Broadway counterpart. (4) See Pamela Haag’s analysis of gun companies’ influential tactics in The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2016). (5) As I theorize, a “gun musical” focalizes firearms—and their provocative meaning-making—as essential objects in the musical’s dramaturgy and physical world. Put another way, just as a perfect Aristotelian plot would unravel with the removal of any scene, a gun musical could not function without their signature weaponry and the human conditions they engender. (6) For a fuller examination of Hamilton’s guns, which contextualizes the production’s weaponless Tony Awards performance, see my article “‘What if This Bullet is My Legacy?’: The Guns of Hamilton,” Studies in Musical Theatre 12, no. 2 (June 2018): 251-56. (7) Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, “Domestic Violence and Firearms,” https://efsgv.org/learn/type-of-gun-violence/domestic-violence-and-firearms/ . (8) Kimberly King, “Gun Violence Crisis: With Revenge and Retaliation on the Rise, How Police Are Responding,” 17 February 2021, https://wlos.com/news/local/gun-violence-crisis-with-revenge- retaliation-on-the-rise-how-asheville-police-are-responding. (9) Marissa Edmund, “Gun Violence Disproportionately and Overwhelmingly Hurts Communities of Color,” Center for American Progress, 30 June 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun- violence-disproportionately-and-overwhelmingly-hurts-communities-of-color/. (10) Ibid. (11) Nicole Moeder, “Number of Trans Homicides Doubled over 4 Years, with Gun Killings Fueling Increase: Advocates,” ABC News, 12 October 2022, https://abcnews.go.com/US/homicide-rate-trans- people-doubled-gun-killings-fueling/story?id=91348274. (12) Eugenio Weigend Vargas and Marissa Edmund, “Gun Suicides Among Former and Current Military Members,” Center for American Progress, 3 March 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun- suicides-among-former-and-current-military-members/. (13) Robert Gebeloff, Danielle Ivory, Bill Marsh, Allison McCann, and Albert Sun, “Childhood’s Greatest Danger: The Data on Kids and Gun Violence,” New York Times, 14 December 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-children-data-statistics.html . (14) Beth Duff-Brown, “Californians Living with Handgun Owners More Than Twice as Likely to Die by Homicide, Study Finds,” 4 April 2022, https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/04/handguns- homicide- risk.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CDespite%20widespread%20perceptions%20that%20a,of%20health%20p olicy%20at%20the (15) For histories of the gun industry’s attempt to domesticate US firearms through white women consumers, see Laura Browder, Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Meredith Conti, “Hired Guns: Whiteness, Womanhood, and Progressive-era Shooting Promoters,” Theatre Journal 73, no. 4 (Dec. 2021): 511-532; and Andrea L. Smalley, “‘Our Lady Sportsmen’: Gender, Class, and Conservation in Sport Hunting Magazines, 1873–1920,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4, no. 4 (October 2005): 355–80. (16) The NRA was founded in 1871 in New York. (17) Nicholas Johnson, Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms (New York: Prometheus Books, 2014), 13. While magistrates and legislators banned or significantly curtailed Black and Indigenous gun ownership from the colonial period onward, marginalized communities of color had their own traditions of arms that variously conformed to and resolutely rejected governmental interference. (18) Haag, The Gunning of America, 357 and 356. (19) Ibid 354. (20) Ibid. (21) Benjamin Barber, “Oklahoma! — How Political Is Broadway?” Salmagundi 137/138 (2003): 3-11, 9. (22) To be more specific, the Oklahoma Enabling Act of 1906 permitted “the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory to enter the union under a single-state constitution.” Michael Schulman, “Two Broadway Shows Dismantle the American Myth,” The New Yorker, April 16, 2019. (23) Bruce Kirle, “Reconciliation, Resolution, and the Political Role of ‘Oklahoma!’ in American Consciousness,” Theatre Journal 55, no 2 (May 2003): 251-274, 251. (24) See Andrea Most, Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004) and Warren Hoffman, The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014). (25) As Warren Hoffman notes, the show’s refrain, in which the company repeatedly chants “Oklahoma!,” can ironically be translated to them shouting “Red People!” Hoffman, The Great White Way, 66. (26) Donatella Galella, America in the Round: Capital, Race, and Nation at Washington DC’s Arena Stage (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2019), 202. (27) Galella, America in the Round, 197. Galella describes three modes of understanding multiracial Oklahoma! casts that both producers and spectators could adopt: multiracial-conscious, whitened, and postracial (200). (28) Kirle, “Reconciliation, Resolution, and the Political Role of ‘Oklahoma!,’” 262. (29) The Theatre Guild Presents Oklahoma!: A Musical Play Based on the Play ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’ by Lynn Riggs, music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein (New York: Williamson Music, 1943). (30) Susan C. Cook, “Pretty like the Girl: Gender, Race and Oklahoma!” Contemporary Theatre Review 19, no. 1 (2009), 35-47, 43. (31) Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!. (32) Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!. (33) Cook, “Pretty like the Girl,” 37. (34) Kirle, “Reconciliation, Resolution, and the Political Role of ‘Oklahoma!,’” 251-274, 259 and 261. (35) Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma! (36) Scott McMillin, The Musical as Drama: A Study of the Principles and Conventions Behind Musical Shows from Kern to Sondheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 27. (37) West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, based on a conception of Jerome Robbins, book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (New York: Musical Theatre International, 1960), 86. (38) West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 119-120. (39) Brian Eugenio Herrera, “Compiling West Side Story’s Parahistories, 1949-2009,” Theatre Journal 64 (2012), 231-247: 236. (40) West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 6. (41) West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 56. (42) West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 7. (43) Zhu and Belgrad, “This Cockeyed City,” 86. (44) Ibid 90. (45) Herrera, “Compiling West Side Story’s Parahistories, 1949-2009” and Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth-Century U.S. Popular Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015); David Román, “Comment — Theatre Journals,” Theatre Journal 54, no. 3 (Oct. 2002), https://www.jstor.org/stable/25069090 ; David Román, Paula Court, and Richard Termine, Performance in America: Contemporary U.S. Culture in the Performing Arts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005); Alberto Sandoval-Sanchez, José, Can You See? Latinos on and off Broadway (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999); and Frances Negrón-Muntaner, “Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses,” Social Text 63, vol. 18, no. 2 (2000), 83-106. (46) West Side Story Libretto / Vocal Book, 43. (47) Robin Bernstein, “Dances with Things: Material Culture and the Performance of Race,” Social Text 24, no. 7 (2009), 67-94. (48) Greg Evans, “‘Oklahoma!’ to be Broadway’s First ‘Gun Neutral’ Production: Lauded Musical Joins Hollywood Initiative: Sundance, Deadline, January 28, 2019, https://deadline.com/2019/01/oklahoma- broadway-musical-gun-neutral-sundance-daniel-fish-1202543741/. (49) Qtd. in Charles Passy, “‘Oklahoma!’ Takes Aim at Gun Issue,” Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2019. (50) Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai have edited the first essay collection on van Hove’s work entitled Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie (London: Methuen Drama, 2018). For coverage of the protests of Amar Ramasar’s casting, see Julia Jacobs, “‘West Side Story’ Stalemate: Bernardo’s Staying. So Are Protestors,” New York Times, February 19, 2020, and Adrian Horton, “‘We can’t stand by this any more’: Inside the West Side Story Premiere Protest,” The Guardian, February 21, 2020. (51) An inventory of West Side Story’s reviews was created by Playbill’s Dan Meyer on February 20, 2020. http://www.playbill.com/article/read-reviews-for-the-west-side-story-revival-on-broadway . (52) Soraya Nadia McDonald, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Oklahoma!” The Undefeated, September 16, 2019. https://theundefeated.com/features/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-oklahoma-on-broadway/ . (53) A cleverly installed blood cannon delivers the graphic stage effect. (54) Todd S. Purdue, “Culture: Oklahoma! Gets a Dark, Brilliant Remake,” The Atlantic, April 8, 2019. (55) Of van Hove’s “austere aesthetic” Helen Shaw wryly observes: “he automatically modernizes everything he touches, from Shakespeare to O’Neill.” Helen Shaw, “In the New West Side Story, When You’re Onstage You’re Onscreen All the Way,” New York Magazine/vulture.com, February 20, 2020. https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/theater-review-a-new-west-side-story-onscreen-all-the-way.html . (56) Tim Teeman, “‘Oklahoma!’ on Broadway: Creator and Cast Reveal How to Reimagine a Classic,” The Daily Beast, thedailybeast.com , April 15, 2019. https://www.thedailybeast.com/oklahoma-on-broadway- creator-and-cast-reveal-how-to-reimagine-a-classic. (57) Laura Collins-Hughes, “For 13 Years, He has Humanized the Villain of Oklahoma!,” New York Times, January 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/theater/patrick-vaill-oklahoma-broadway.html . (58) Catherine M. Young, “Sympathy for the Incel? On Oklahoma! and Jud Fry in the #MeToo Era.” Howlround.com , June 26, 2019. https://howlround.com/sympathy-incel . (59) McDonald, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Oklahoma!” Bryan M. Vandevender queered Vaill’s portrayal of Jud in a compelling paper delivered at the 2022 Mid-America Theatre Conference. (60) Qtd. in Teeman, “Oklahoma! on Broadway.” (61) Carina de Valle Schorske, “Opinion: Let ‘West Side Story’ and Its Stereotypes Die,” New York Times, February 24, 2020. (62) Alexandra Schwartz, “Theatre: A Grim Take on ‘West Side Story,’” The New Yorker, February 21, 2020. (63) Charles McNulty, “Review: ‘West Side Story’ Blasts Back to Broadway – Kinetic, Bloody and Modern to the Core,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 2020; Schwartz, “A Grim Take”; and Rafer Guzmán, “Review: ‘West Side Story’ on Broadway Gets a Dark Update, Loses Some of its Cool,’ Newsday, February 21, 2020. (64) “Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai, “Ivo van Hove: An Introduction,” in Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie, edited by Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai (London: Methuen, 2018), 1-16, 7. (65) See Sarah Taylor Ellis‘s Doing the Time Warp: Queer Temporalities and Musical Theatre (London: Methuen Drama, 2022). (66) Schwartz, “A Grim Take.” (67) Jan Versweyveld designed West Side Story’s sets and lights, and Luke Hall designed the video; Laura Jellinek designed Oklahoma!’s set and Joshua Thorson designed projections. (68) McDonald, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Oklahoma!.” Scott Zielinksi was the production’s lighting designer. (69) “When the camera turns and shows us both Daunno’s and Vaill’s profiles,” notes Sara Holdren, “stretched out huge across a wall where a black-and-white vista of fields and ranch houses is painted, we get a nasty jolt: Here is the country inside of these men, and here are their brutalities laying the foundations for the country.” Sara Holdren, “Theatre Review: An Oklahoma! Where the Storm Clouds Loom Above the Plain,” New York Magazine/Vulture.com, October 8, 2018. (70) Ben Brantley, “Review: A Smashing ‘Oklahoma!’ Is Reborn in the Land of Id,” New York Times, April 7, 2019. (71) Teeman, “‘Oklahoma!’ on Broadway.” (72) Sarah Larson, ”Daniel Fish’s Dark Take on ’Oklahoma!’” Ariel Nereson analyzed the choreographic work of the re-envisioned dream ballet in a 2022 Mid-America Theatre Conference presentation. (73) Laurey is effectively muzzled by Hammerstein’s book, which provides no dialogue during Curly and Jud’s struggle and Jud’s accidental stabbing. (74) Jesse Green and Ben Brantley, “Review: There’s a Dark Golden Haze in This Reclaimed ‘Oklahoma!,’ New York Times, October 7, 2018. Green and Brantley’s joint review is responding to the 2018 Off- Broadway production. (75) Of watching Anita’s attempted gang-rape (and its replication on the enormous projection screen) as a Puerto Rican woman, Carina del Valle Schorske surmises, “[Mr. van Hove] may not feel the oppressive repetitions of the history of violence against brown women bearing down on his body. But for many of us, it’s the umpteenth time we’ve seen Anita assaulted for dramatic effect, each time under the guise of greater authenticity.” De Valle Schorske, “Opinion: Let ‘West Side Story’ and Its Stereotypes Die.” (76) Johnny Oleksinski, “‘Oklahoma!’ Review: Anti-gun Revival of Classic Shot to Hell,” New York Post, April 7, 2019. About The Author(s) Meredith Conti is Associate Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo, SUNY (UB) and a historian of nineteenth-century theatre and popular culture in the United States and Britain. Her research variously explores the intersections of theatre and medicine; nineteenth- and early twentieth-century popular entertainment forms (including world fairs, vaudeville, Wild West shows, and fancy shooting exhibitions); gender and race in the Victorian period; and guns and gun violence in theatre. 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 Community Circles and Love Triangles: Gun Violence and Belonging in Oklahoma! and West Side Story Decommissioning the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Anna Deavere Smith’s Notes from the Field and Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline More than a Props List: Redefining Material Culture as Survival and Pleasure in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined The Politics of Trance: Victoria Woodhull and the Radical Reform of Platform Mediumship Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print After 1900 Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theatre Made Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Daria Kerschenbaum Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 2 Visit Journal Homepage Last Call: A Play with Cocktails Daria Kerschenbaum By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF Last Call: A Play with Cocktails by Hansol Jung Directed by Hansol Jung & Dustin Wills Various New York City Apartments New York, NY September 22, 2025 Reviewed by Daria Kerschenbaum Figure 1: Esco Jouléy. Photography: Fred Charles. One of the allures of immersive theatre is the promise of intimacy. And intimacy requires trust. Last Call: A Play with Cocktails, a new work by Hansol Jung and The Pack, not only understands this facet of the genre, but exploits it. Performed in a rotating variety of homes for roughly thirty attendees, and produced by the site-specific company En Garde Arts, the play promises solace to those “craving connection.” But instead of creating closeness or community, the piece lies to the audience at close-range until they become complicit in a murder. Last Call uses the unique features of immersive performance to underscore how vulnerable audiences are to misinformation, both at a national level and an interpersonal scale. The seduction begins as soon as guests arrive at that evening’s location—in my case, a Boerum Hill brownstone—and deliver a password into walkie-talkie before entering a private house party. The gathering has an air of exclusivity; audience members mingle over drinks, glimpsing the ephemera (fridge magnets, framed posters, bookshelf collections) that suggest the host’s private life. This sense of gaining access to a unique affair is only heightened by the fictional circumstances of the gathering. A welcome letter sets the scene: “Congratulations on leaving the comfort and safety of your homes during this crisis... Leave your street disguises, bulletproof vests, night goggles, and other PPE [at the door].” Through the language that is reminiscent of recent events, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the South Korean martial law crisis, the letter implies that an authoritarian government looms over the function. Participants are subtly asked to trust one another in the face of extraordinary circumstances. The party is interrupted when someone disguised as a mailbox steps through the door. This is our bartender for the night. Identified as the Tender in the program, this character is played by a rotating cast of The Pack regulars, including Nicole Villamil. She apologizes for her tardiness as she sets up her bar cart for the night. It appears that we, the audience, have hired her despite the curfew. A fascinating power dynamic emerges as the Tender mixes a Vieux Carré: we have the security and capital to hire entertainment amid a catastrophe, and the Tender is precarious enough to risk her safety. She sends a tip jar around, causing guests to squirm and cough up a few singles. The gesture highlights the dynamic of the wealthy patron and starving artist, uncomfortably amplified by the production’s intimacy. It also places the audience on the back foot as they attempt to prove their liberalism or disown their privilege, many of them made vulnerable by their eagerness to please. Figure 2: Dorcas Leung. Photography: Fred Charles Though it might appear that the audience is in control, the Tender holds all the cards. Participants are selected to guess if a given piece of liquor trivia is true or false. A correct answer results in a coveted cocktail (though the Tender is happy to hand out drinks to patrons who offer her a compliment, too). The Tender also determines who amongst the audience gets attention, doling out banter and asides throughout the performance. In this way, the very structure Last Call sets up an uneven power relationship between actor and audience, in which audience members seek something from the performer and must follow a set of rules to win her over. When the Tender steps outside to answer a call, a new character saunters to the center of the living room. This is the ghost of the Tender’s husband, referred to only as the Other Tender, played by Esco Jouléy. He brags about his glory days behind the bar. He had a gift for knowing exactly what a patron needed—a Rum Negroni, a hug, or even a tryst in the supply closet. Holding the keys to someone else’s desire is his superpower, as is his disarming honesty. He asserts his reliability by telling the audience he has nothing to hide, even if it means admitting to past infidelity. So, when he claims that the Tender murdered him in cold blood, the audience is forced to pause. “She’s an actress. She believes her lies until they become true!” he warns. Last Call magnifies the real-life tension between patron and performer, customer and service worker, even further; what feels like intimate emotional caretaking easily morphs into manipulation. We need them, and it feels dangerous. When the Tender returns to the apartment, she stirs an Aviation and recounts her version of the marriage. She refused to acknowledge her husband’s affairs for months until they became unavoidable. After a blow-up fight and weeks of silence, the Other Tender was caught in a crossfire on the way to a bartending gig. Whose version of events do we believe? Or, rather, which story do we prefer? The play concludes in a “shot off” in which guests vote for one of the mixologists by drinking a shot they prepared. At the show I attended, an overwhelming majority of guests sided with the liar, including myself. Yet in retrospect, the truth was plain to see, practically waved in front of our faces from the first moments of the play. One of the Tender’s first trivia questions involves a line from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden , “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” She personally couldn’t disagree more: when life is short, expensive, and filled with terror, the Tender would much rather take the love, money, and fame. Truth, the play suggests, is already null and void under an authoritarian regime. This search for pleasure and avoidance of pain motivates the Tender to ignore her husband’s cheating, and, to a certain degree, drives this audience to go to a brownstone in Boerum Hill and indulge in the fantasy of community. It is one thing to watch a play about manipulation, and another thing entirely to experience that manipulation firsthand. The latter forces spectators to confront their fallibility, their desire for comforting fabrications, with far more immediacy than the former. That confrontation takes on particular significance for New York audiences; many liberal-leaning participants would like to believe they are immune to the narratives peddled by the current administration. Last Call compels them to reexamine who and what they trust. References Footnotes About The Author(s) DARIA KERSCHENBAUM is a writer and theater artist whose work centers on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and experimental performance. She is currently a DFA candidate in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, where she also earned her MFA. Daria serves as Associate Editor of  Theater magazine. 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 100 Years of Du Bois: “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art” “One Great and Fine Mode of Expression”: On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Exigencies of Black Drama and Theatre Reflections on Fundamental Principles An Expansive “Us”: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Pan-Negro” Theatrical Vision W. E. B. Du Bois’s Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement in Harlem and Beyond It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Teaching August Wilson in an Age of Democratic Decline: Du Boisian Imperatives and Black Pedagogy Across Campus and Community Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T The Wild Duck Picnic at Hanging Rock Last Call: A Play with Cocktails The Dinosaurs The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Catherine Burroughs and J. Ellen Gainor, editors. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 652. Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

kt shorb Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 2 Visit Journal Homepage Reappropriation, Reparative Creativity, and Feeling Yellow in Generic Ensemble Company’s The Mikado: Reclaimed kt shorb By Published on May 22, 2022 Download Article as PDF A disembodied voice announces, “Places for T.L.M.,” prompting the two women holding fans to usher a man between them. The three unfurl their battered fans and begin waving them in rictus as the voice says, “Standby for telecast transmission in 5…4…3…” A jaunty introduction cues the three to bob up and down with the beat, while the two other ensemble members lie across their bunks desultorily fanning themselves. They sing, “Three little maids from school are we / Pert as a school-girl well can be…” [1] They bob and giggle behind their fans. They shuffle around the small stage in single-file, bowing and cow-towing. The music ends and the disembodied voice says, “Cut.” The ensemble members rub the forced smiles off their faces, and the man who evidently subbed in for a missing woman ensemble member nods approvingly to himself (Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Q-mates perform “Three Little Maids.” Photo by Kannou Aiana via Blue Inferno Creative. The Mikado: Reclaimed (Reclaimed) [2] uses the 1885 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan operetta The Mikado: Or the Town of Titipu as source material to criticize anti-Asian racism inherent in both the text and present day yellowface productions. Set in a near future ravaged by a global viral pandemic, Reclaimed depicts life in an internment camp for people of Asian descent who have been deemed “carriers” of the virus. “Q-mates (short for ‘quarantine inmates’)” are forced to perform song and dance numbers portraying “happy camp life” in the national livecast, “Virus Times Live!” Produced by the Austin-based Generic Ensemble Company (GenEnCo) in partnership with The VORTEX, Reclaimed was directed by me and devised by a mostly-Asian American ensemble. Four years after closing this show, the so-called “Chinese Virus” of COVID–19 quarantines millions across the world, as anti-Asian violence escalates alongside protest against state-sanctioned anti-Black violence after the murder of George Floyd. In 2016, we could not have consciously anticipated COVID–19 and its accompanying scapegoating of Asian bodies as carriers of disease. Yet, unconsciously, we did. Through the creative devising process, collaborators not only divined elements of the future but also developed a community of resistive care that concatenated a COVID–19 futurity with a carceral past. To invite this community of resistive care, we enacted reappropriation through strategies of reparative creativity, seduction of stereotype, and feeling yellow. In this practice-as-research article, I provide the background to the impetus of Reclaimed followed by a synopsis of the show. Citing literature by Asian Americanist performance scholars, I show how our creative process interwove critical race theory with aesthetic considerations, leading to a project-specific process I call “reappropriation.” Finally, I reflect on how our process provided an opportunity for racial healing amongst the collaborators. Background and Genesis The Mikado has been produced in yellowface nearly every year since it debuted in 1885. A satire about British aristocracy set in a perceived-exotic locale, a “Japan” where flirting is illegal, the plot of Mikado is a ridiculous farce. Few elements signal a “real” Japan, like the “Mikado,” a rarely-used moniker for the Japanese Emperor. [3] Most character and place names are derisive, nonsensical words such as “Yum-Yum,” “Nanki-poo,” and “Titipu.” As an Asian American performing artist racially traumatized by Mikado since being exposed to it in college, I expressed my opposition to it in every place I lived over the span of two decades—garnering little notice or support. The Asian American community response to the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s Mikado in 2014 sparked perhaps the first mainstream awareness of yellowface in this operetta as anti-Asian racism. When the production published publicity stills of white actors in yellowface, many local Asian American theatre artists expressed their long-held outrage. This led to Asian American-centered social media campaigns that spread to coverage by mainstream outlets such as the Seattle Times and NBC News . The yellowface Seattle production still opened, but many were put on notice. When New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) announced Mikado in 2015 with a yellowface production image, Japanese American playwright Leah Nanako Winkler sounded the call to respond. [4] I was part of a national groundswell of Asian Americans responding to Winkler’s call on Twitter that led to a postponement and re-imagining of the show in partnership with Asian American artists. In a moment of frustration and sheer bravado, I announced on Twitter that GenEnCo could do The Mikado in a thoughtful, anti-racist way. Our task was set. GenEnCo’s Reclaimed occurs in a larger context of multiple Asian American and Japanese treatments of Mikado . Doriz Baizley and Ken Narasaki’s 2007 The Mikado Project portrays an Asian American theatre company struggling through financial ruin by mounting a production of Mikado . [5] This play and the subsequent independent film based on it depict ambivalent Asian American actors critiquing the Orientalism of the original while embracing its musical elements and performing emotional and political acrobatics to justify the performance. [6] The Mikado Project manages to critique the racialized harm of yellowface as well as “camp plays” set during WWII Japanese American incarceration. The film starred Asian American veterans of stage and screen, including Erin Quill, who was also part of the Twitter groundswell around NYGASP in 2015. Quill has cultivated a “no-nonsense” persona leveling ongoing critiques of racism in New York theatre on her blog, fairyprincessdiaries . [7] Under the direction of Rick Shiomi in Minneapolis, Theatre Mu collaborated with Skylark Opera and set their Mikado in Edwardian England. [8] Shiomi’s 2013 production kept the broad narrative strokes as-is with significant cultural-political interventions. References to Japan were either excised or in a form of humorous wordplay; names and terms were changed to reflect early twentieth-century English mores. Perhaps most significantly, Shiomi cast Asian Americans in these English roles, thereby upending some historical baggage of yellowface. Meanwhile, The Chichibu Mikado (2006), directed by Kyoko Fujishiro and translated by Toru Sasakibara, was sung entirely in Japanese by a Japanese cast. [9] When the rural city Chichibu gained international fame as “The Town of Titipu” following the production, the residents of the city chose to believe it was based on their own town because Chichibu could also be transliterated to “Titibu,” although there is no concrete evidence that Gilbert and Sullivan had made such a connection. Re-contextualizing the plot through Japanese modern sensibilities mapped on Japanese proto-professional actor bodies speaking in Japanese, this version conveyed a means by which Japanese citizens could gain access to cosmopolitan trappings of Britain and other western contexts. These productions engaged in widely varying degrees of critique and deconstruction through adaptation. Our Reclaimed depicts the typical “day in the life” of quarantine inmates (or, Q-mates) incarcerated during a global pandemic. We follow the story of a Q-mate repeatedly summoned by a bell to change into a Lolicon outfit to perform non-consensual sex acts off-stage (JooHee) while she falls in love with another Q-mate (Rachel, Fig. 2). We witness denied physical autonomy by glowing red “chips” embedded in Q-mates’ arms that can shock and control them. Meanwhile, a surveillance state manifests in self-silenced soundscapes. Q-mates rarely speak, and when they do, it is in whispered Korean or Tagalog. When one Q-mate (Leng) speaks about freedom in English, her chip shocks everyone and then summarily impels her off-stage where her execution is broadcast for the entire cell-block to witness via video feed. Despite the draconian context, Q-mates enact the extraordinary, joyous, and mundane. Between bouts of boredom, they sing songs for one another to pass the time (“The Criminal Cried”) or to convey warnings or woe (“As Someday It May Happen,” “Here’s a How-de-do”) while periodically singing numbers for “Virus Times Live!” (“Miya Sama,” “Three Little Maids”). JooHee and Rachel join in an ad-hoc commitment ceremony (“On a Tree by a River”), which prompts a jealous Q-mate (Annie) to betray their affair to the authorities (“Alone and Yet Alive…Hearts Do Not Break”). When JooHee is summoned to perform sexual favors again, she refuses, leading instead to Rachel’s chip-shock removal and a subsequent beating, broadcast live. Rachel is released back to the cell-block, only to die in JooHee’s arms. During JooHee’s lament (“The Sun Whose Rays,” Fig. 3), the Q-mates in the entire cell-block signal to one another a refusal to continue the oppressive status quo. When the Q-mates are prompted to deliver another livecast, they abstain from song and instead reveal Rachel’s bloodied body. The show ends with a blackout and a “shock” sound, implying that everyone dies. Figure 2. Lovers’ kiss. Photo by Kannou Aiana via Blue Inferno Creative. Figure 3. Lamentation of a lover’s death. Photo by Kannou Aiana via Blue Inferno Creative. Reparative Creativity, Feeling Yellow, and Reappropriation As Dorinne Kondo argues in Worldmaking , theatre artists, through performative acts, unmake and remake race. [10] Kondo calls such processes “reparative creativity,” saying they “[offer] a way to remake worlds counter to the affective violence of minoritarian life” while also imagining something else. [11] Creative projects allow us to examine pain and transform it into different—though related—new artifacts. She further describes how reparative creativity can revisit “histories of affective violence” that can address the complexities of facing that violence. [12] Through theatre, theatre artists of color create new meanings of race and its representations with and in response to audiences of color. Devising Reclaimed , then, was a process by which both historical and contemporary notions of race were made and unmade. [13] In both the rehearsal room and onstage we have the capacity to name and rectify the affective and physical violence inflicted upon our bodies and communities. Coming together to confront yellowface as Asian Americans who have experienced its violence forms a central part of what Donatella Galella calls “feeling yellow.” [14] Galella uses Sara Ahmed’s discourse on happiness to highlight how encounters with yellowface create dichotomies where those in power find entertainment and joy, while those “feeling yellow” have to either feign joy or hide a combination of rage, disappointment, and alienation. Galella identifies two ways that feeling yellow sparks utopic hope. One is through the “impishly gleeful” process of “making another person feel awful for their enjoyment of and complicity with racist musicals… This act redistributes pain more equitably.” [15] The other is through acts of solidarity and collectivity: “By feeling together, Asian Americans can foster solidarity and use their affect to move others just as they are moved.” [16] As an imagined, strategic, and politicized community, Asian Americans must overcome historical divisions of national origin and immigration status; such opportunities for coalition are empowering if rare. Here I note a significant paradox: Reclaimed undoes racial violence through reparative creativity while the narrative of the piece ends with all the characters dead. This collective death was chosen by the ensemble deliberately to address issues of (il)legibility of Asian Americans and anti-Asian racism in the context of Austin, Texas in 2016. The piece confronted the invisibilized racial harm enacted upon bodies of Asian descent in the form of yellowface. In laying bare the hidden, Reclaimed unmade the violence of this erasure. Depicting resistance to carceral violence narratively onstage also cultivated a culture of care in the rehearsal room. In addition, while the specific stereotypes contained in Mikado were aimed at what Josephine Lee calls a Japan of “pure invention,” the production employed a majority non-Japanese ensemble of Asian Americans who had differing stakes in “Japanese-ness” but similar stakes in generalized Orientalism. [17] Though we could not articulate it at the time, the collaborative team for Reclaimed sought a space of healing and repair that could connect ensemble members’ experience of harm with the audience. If Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado is a prime example of appropriation, Mikado: Reclaimed is that of reappropriation. Reappropriation, broadly, is a process whereby a community whose cultural legacy has been defaced through harmful misinterpretation takes an object of that misinterpretation and transmutes it into something that furthers an identitarian strategic project. Lee takes up reappropriation in her treatments of works by David Henry Hwang and Philip Kan Gotanda where she notes the allure in the “excessiveness of the stereotype.” [18] She contends that reappropriation has the power to dissect stereotypes and its racialized histories, showing that it can have “the potential for its disruption.” [19] She goes further to illustrate that undoing the stereotype is not simple or easy, but the inherent theatrical power in the stereotype can serve as a potential tool for liberation. For the collaborators of Reclaimed and its audiences, reappropriation was a means of taking Orientalizing and white supremacist texts and transforming them. It was not reclamation. Reappropriation requires a breaking down of a text into components that still contain discernable referents to the original but re-create meanings different from—if not counter to—the text from which it draws. Keeping a musical number but setting it with different staging, design, and arrangement can not only excavate different implications from the original, but also reveal the political and cultural subject positions of those performing the reappropriation. Indirectness is key to how reappropriation works. To simply refute each element in the original would have repeated the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in relief, not transform it. We began the project by watching a recording of a yellowface production of The Mikado . [20] It left the cast angry. We fluctuated between revisiting the original and sharing childhood experiences of racial formation, not being taken seriously, and failed attempts at assimilation. From the super “woke” person who knew critical race theory to the “model minority” who announced that she “never encountered racism, just ignorance,” everyone expressed a sense of otherness they have felt in their lives. In order to mitigate the potential for re-traumatization, we devised a check-in/check-out process whereby collaborators could name what they wanted to “bring in from the world” or “leave in the rehearsal room.” We were committed to examining the pain as a means of healing. The actors’ initial anger brought on by having seen the original led to the ideas of overt resistance through visceral offense—eating Asian foods with strong smells such as durian or natto, enacting slasher fantasies on white effigies, and so on. We wanted to be, as Eve Oishi has called it, “Bad Asians.” [21] Our aversion, combined with knowledge of how Mikado is a part of popular culture, helped us narrow down the song list. While learning songs, we conducted parallel research. The “Muslim ban” had only been mentioned by one Republican candidate in passing during the 2016 primary campaign, and it frightened all of us, not just the sole Arab American member of the ensemble. It prompted us to examine images of Syrian refugees. These images felt familiar, echoing the detainment of people seeking asylum in border states. As Asian Americans confronting heightened yet casual racism in the form of yellowface, we were also keenly aware of how such representational violence could easily slip into yellow peril and detaining over 100,000 people of Japanese descent as potential enemy combatants. We realized that an internment camp was the requisite setting for our production. As the setting and tone became clearer, we began to imagine how we might find ourselves incarcerated again. Using the knowledge of a biologist in the cast, we created a detailed backstory around potential viral outbreaks that many scientists (rightly) considered inevitable. We then returned to the original operetta to poach as many elements as we could while homing in on what we wanted to say. Each actor chose a character they would emulate in devising their own character. We began criticizing subtler aspects of Mikado , such as the sexually-exploitative relationship between Yum-Yum and Ko-Ko and the casual treatment of death. One element specific to GenEnCo we deliberately included was a normalizing (but certainly not normative) existence of queer romance, sex, and friendship. GenEnCo was founded specifically to show bodies, aesthetics, and stories onstage that I—as a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Asian American—found to be everyday and “generic.” Our mission has always been to center queer people of color in our theatrical storytelling. I take inspiration from José Esteban Muñoz’s words that “[q]ueerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality.” [22] And that “[b]rownness is already here. Brownness is vast, present, and vital.” [23] We did however make one major textual revision that mobilized reappropriation to transform meanings in the original. Most productions of Mikado update the lyrics in “As Someday It May Happen” to reflect the undesirable subjects in the zeitgeist. In Reclaimed, these revisions provide plot context, diegetic rules, and analysis of how anti-Asian racism manifests and provides an example of reparative creativity: There’s the Centers for Disease Control who sounded the alarmThe epidemiologists, I’ve got them on the list!And the “cheap and chippy” chippers who installed these in our arms,Nanotechnologists, they never would be missed!Then the bigot who denounces with enthusiastic tone,Every race but his, and all religions but his own;And the Poo-Bah of the Quarantine, the boss man of “The Cage,”Who takes a shine to pretty girls who are less than half his ageAnd the lovers of Chinoiserie, the Asian fetishists,I don’t think they’d be missed, I’m sure they’d not be missed! [24] As we continued to create material, I asked the actors to explore mimicking white people performing yellowface. The actors were understandably disgusted at first. The disgust turned into ridicule, to rupture, then to catharsis. Through repetition of the original material, we somehow found a way to parse the past from the present, as if we were reverse engineering the racial trauma the original operetta symbolized. Rehearsing the classic earworm “Three Little Maids” was particularly informative. The song about three women “who, all unwary/ come from a ladies’ seminary” and who are “filled to the brim with girlish glee” is often performed with shuffling feet and giggles behind hands. [25] I associated this song with a falling-out with a white college friend. At first, as we rehearsed the piece, I was transported to my own past and the end of that friendship and the violent incidents around it. Due to the passing of time, I was able to manage potential emotional triggers. Partly to ground myself in the present, and partly in solidarity, I committed myself to learning all three sung parts with the actors. The repetition was at first very painful. Moving forward, however, my experience of the past began to shift. The pain became more manageable. Traumas slowly healed as the experiences of racial violence were merged with and overwritten by moments of being together as a community. We figured out a way to sing that very hurtful song while feeling yellow. The resistive care that GenEnCo created through reappropriation served as a balm to the ensemble. In hindsight, although one of the ensemble members was a trained psychologist, I would have provided more formal and robust mental health resources to examine racial trauma. That said, Reclaimed is an example of how employing reparative creativity and feeling yellow enabled minoritized theatre makers to transform both the art and the communal experience of racial trauma. References [1] Arthur Sullivan & W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado, Or, the Town of Titipu. (New York: G. Schirmer, 2002), 69. [2] Generic Ensemble Company, “The Mikado: Reclaimed,” Vimeo, 1 May 2016, https://vimeo.com/160895296. This performance featured the following actor-devisers: JooHee Ahn, Annie Kim Hedrick, Jonathan G. Itchon, Laura Khalil, Abigail Lucas, Rachel Steed, and Leng Wong. Additional collaborators on the workshop version of the piece were: Kanoa Michél Bailey, kubby, and Saray de Jesus Rosales. [3] Josephine Lee’s The Japan of Pure Invention provides an in-depth analysis of the myriad contexts of Mikado . Josephine D. Lee, The Japan of Pure Invention: Gilbert and Sullivan’s the Mikado (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). [4] Leah Nanako Winkler, “‘The Mikado’ in Yellowface Is Coming to The Skirball Center of the Performing Arts and We Should Talk About It,” Leah Nanako Winkler (blog), 15 September 2015, https://leahnanako.com/2015/09/15/the-mikado-in-yellowface-is-coming-to-the-skirball-center-of-the-performing-arts-and-we-should-talk-about-it/. See also: Victor Maog and Leah Nanako Winkler, “Leah Nanako Winkler, The Mikado , and This American Moment,” Howlround Theatre Commons (blog), 7 October 2015, https://howlround.com/leah-nanako-winkler-mikado-and-american-moment/. [5] Doris Baizley and Ken Narasaki, The Mikado Project (New Play Exchange, 2007), accessed 2 February 2022. [6] The Mikado Project , directed by Chil Kong, featuring Tamlyn Tomita, Allen C. Liu, Erin Quill, and Ryun Yu (New Cyberian, 2010), DVD. [7] Quill, Erin. fairyprincessdiaries (blog), https://fairyprincessdiaries.com/. [8] Diep Tran, “Building a Better ‘Mikado,’ Minus the Yellowface,” American Theatre , 21 June 2021, https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/04/20/building-a-better-mikado-minus-the-yellowface/; Rick Shiomi, “Director Removes Racism and Yellowface from Minneapolis Staging of ‘the Mikado,’” Star Tribune , 8 March 2019, https://www.startribune.com/director-removes-racism-and-yellowface-from-minneapolis-staging-of-the-mikado/506842272/. [9] The Chichibu Mikado , directed by Kyoko Fujishiro, translated by Toru Sasakibara, International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival, Buxton, Derbyshire, England, 1 August 2006. [10] Dorrine K. Kondo, Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018), 25. [11] Ibid., 212. [12] Ibid., 212. [13] A note about tense: to differentiate between production and process, I refer to the performance in present tense and the process in past tense. [14] Donatella Galella, “Feeling Yellow: Responding to Contemporary Yellowface in Musical Performance,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 32, no. 2 (2018): 67-77, http://doi.org/10.1353/dtc.2018.0005. [15] Ibid., 74. [16] Ibid., 73. [17] Lee, The Japan of Pure Invention . [18] Josephine Lee, Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 91. [19] Ibid. , 96. [20] The Mikado , DVD, directed by Brian MacDonald (Canada: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1999). [21] Eve Oishi, “Bad Asians: New Media by Queer Asian American Artists,” Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism, eds. Darrell Hamamoto and Sandra Liu (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), 221-241. [22] José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 1. [23] José Esteban Muñoz, The Sense of Brown (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020), 121-122. [24] The Mikado: Reclaimed . [25] Sullivan and Gilbert, 69-73. Footnotes About The Author(s) kt shorb (they/them/their) is Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing at Allegheny College and the producing artistic director of the Generic Ensemble Company. Their current research focuses on anti-racist and anti-colonial rehearsal room practices and actor training. As a director, they focus on devised work by underrepresented communities and new play development as well as opera stage directing. kt is currently the Vice President for the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists. They will be joining Macalester College this fall. Deepest gratitude to Rick Shiomi who sent footage and score copies of his adaption of The Mikado. Many thanks to James McMaster, siri gurudev, Margaret Jumonville, Priya Raman, and Alexis Riley for giving me in-depth feedback on drafts of this article. 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 Embodied Reckonings: “Comfort Women,” Performance and Transpacific Redress The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong: Exploring Curiosity and Otherness Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration Introduction to Asian American Dramaturgies Behind the Scenes of Asian American Theatre and Performance Studies On Young Jean Lee in Young Jean Lee's We're Gonna Die by Christine Mok Representation from Cambodia to America: Musical Dramaturgies in Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band Holding up a Lens to the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists: A Photo Essay Theatre in Hawaiʻi: An “Illumination of the Fault Lines” of Asian American Theatre Randall Duk Kim: A Sojourn in the Embodiment of Words Reappropriation, Reparative Creativity, and Feeling Yellow in Generic Ensemble Company’s The Mikado: Reclaimed Dance Planets Dramaturgy of Deprivation (없다): An Invitation to Re-Imagine Ways We Depict Asian American and Adopted Narratives of Trauma Clubhouse: Stories of Empowered Uncanny Anomalies Off-Yellow Time vs Off-White Space: Activist Asian American Dramaturgy in Higher Education Asian American Dramaturgies in the Classroom: A Reflection Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

By Alfred Farag, Gamal Maqsoud, Lenin El-Ramly, Marvin Carlson | Contains the first English translation of short plays by leading Egyptian playwrights. < 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 Contemporary Theatre in Egypt Alfred Farag, Gamal Maqsoud, Lenin El-Ramly, Marvin Carlson Download PDF Edited by Marvin Carlson This volume includes the proceedings of a symposium on this subject, held at the CUNY Graduate Center in February of 1999, along with the first English translations of three short plays by leading Egyptian playwrights who spoke at the symposium: Alfred Farag’s The Last Walk (1998); Gamal Maqsoud’s The Absent One (1968); and Lenin El-Ramly’s The Nightmare (1999). This volume also contains a bibliography of English translations and secondary articles on the theatre in Egypt from 1955 to 1999. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Natka Bianchini Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 26 1 Visit Journal Homepage Waiting for Triumph: Alan Schneider and the American Response to Waiting for Godot Natka Bianchini By Published on March 9, 2014 Download Article as PDF Alan Schneider, one of the most important American directors of the twentieth century, was know for being a "playwright's director." He believed it was his responsibility to interpret the script as a faithful representation of the playwright's intent. For this reason, so many major playwrights [ . . . ] [scribd id=211700074 key=key-171aa737vjlfcqtl6q57 mode=scroll height=930 width=600] References 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 Between Blackface and Bondage: The Incompletely Forgotten Failure of The Underground Railroad's 1879 Midwestern Tour “One Live as Two, Two Live as One”: Bert Williams and the Uprooted Bamboo Tree Playwright as Publicity: Reexamining Jane Martin and the Legacy of the Humana Festival Feminist Periodization as a Structural Component of Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles Waiting for Triumph: Alan Schneider and the American Response to Waiting for Godot Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Jaclyn I. Pryor Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 33 1 Visit Journal Homepage Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide To Devised Theater. Chloe Johnson and Coya Paz Brownrigg. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2019. Pp. 202. Jaclyn I. Pryor By Published on January 11, 2021 Download Article as PDF Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide To Devised Theater. Chloe Johnson and Coya Paz Brownrigg. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2019. Pp. 202. Chloe Johnson and Coya Paz Brownrigg’s Ensemble-Made: A Guide to Devised Theater (2019) is a valuable resource for theater educators and practitioners, particularly those who wish to deepen their knowledge of the craft variously known as devised theater, ensemble-based performance, and collective creation. Each short chapter of the book focuses on a distinct Chicago-based theater company (15 in total)—which range from large, nationally-renowned companies such as Lookingglass Theatre and The Second City to smaller, community-based collectives. Each chapter includes a brief history of the company alongside descriptions of games and exercises emblematic of their process and pedagogy. The co-written book also includes an Introduction which places the field of devising in its larger cultural and historical context, as well as a Time Line of the field and List of Exercises By Type, which function as the book’s conclusion. The authors’ methodologies are informed by their own relationship to devised theater in Chicago: Johnson is an ensemble member of the Neo-Futurists and Paz Brownrigg is the Artistic Director of Free Street Theater and cofounder of Teatro Luna—both of which are featured in the book. In this regard, they write as scholars and practitioners of devised theater but also as colleague-critics within the expansive but close-knit network of the Chicago theater community. (Colleague-criticism is a term developed by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Jill Dolan and me to describe the queer and feminist practice of writing criticism from a place of love, respect and mutual aid, as articulated in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies in 2009.) As Ensemble-Made Chicago’s introduction makes clear, Chicago theater has deep roots in ensemble-based creation methods, and, in turn, the field of devising writ large has a great debt to pay in this neighborhood-based, immigrant-rich town that propagated the craft of ensemble-based theater and performance. Johnson and Paz Brownrigg effectively detail how this history can be traced to the late 19th century emergence of the field of modern social work in the city of Chicago—which was made possible, in large part, through the establishment of the Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr Hull House on Chicago’s West Side in 1889. The Hull House was an early settlement house focused on direct services for new Americans; as the authors duly note, “very early on, Jane Addams discovered the profound effect theater had on the children who attended” (xii). The Hull House Players, as they came to be known, were part of the contemporaneously burgeoning Little Theatre Movement in the U.S. (1912-1925) which distinguished itself by its break from commercial theatre and its focus on theatre as civic good. Guided by the pivotal contributions of sociologist Neva Boyd and social worker Viola Spolin—who brought their respective skills and interests in theatre as a catalyst for play, collaboration, and issue-driven exploration to the Hull House—the authors demonstrate how the Hull House paved the way for this contemporary community of devised theatre makers to thrive. Through both its introduction as well as its body chapters, Ensemble-Made also makes a compelling case for considering devised theatre’s relationship not only to social work and arts education, as previously noted, but also to the history and methods of physical theatre. Although not always explicitly cited, many of the games and exercises featured in the book bear obvious ties not only to the pedagogy of Boyd and Spolin (and Spolin’s son, Paul Sills, who founded Second City), but also to the pedagogy of 20th century French theatre maker and educator Jacques Lecoq who developed a codified system of actor training grounded in embodiment. Featured companies, such as 500 Clown, Albany Park Theater Project, Every house has a door, and Walkabout Theater, among others, draw from physical theatre games and exercises in their creation process, resulting in work that resembles experimental performance as much as it does community-based theater. What also becomes clear, as the reader moves their way through the book, is the fact that the Chicago devised theater community is hardly confined by its midwestern geography. Dell’ Arte International (Blue Lake, CA), Third Rail Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Double Edge Theatre (Ashfield, MA), Sojourn Theatre (Portland, OR), and Pilobolus Dance (Hanover, NH and Washington, CT) all receive honorable mentions in descriptions of exercises. In other words, the artists who comprise Johnson and Paz Brownrigg’s case studies cite not only one another but also those companies from around the country (and world) whose creation methods have circulated through a vast and interlocking network of theater educators and practitioners. In this regard, Ensemble-Made tacitly provides a compelling genealogy of contemporary performance traditions, making evident the ways in which “something as simple as a warm-up has a history” (xi), and revealing the complex ways in which embodied practices circulate across changing times, places and social contexts. While Ensemble-Made ’s explicit focus is more practice than theory, the authors productively place their book in conversation with the field of performance studies—specifically, Diana Taylor’s foundational The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (2003). Taylor’s work is useful to Johnson and Paz Brownrigg’s project because it provides them with a key rationale: citing Taylor, Johnson and Paz Brownrigg situate ensemble-based performance as a “repertoire event.” They elaborate, “it lives in performance and process, not necessarily in text” (xi). Because the creation process for devised theater breaks from traditional theater methods in which “the script” precedes the rehearsal process (and, relatedly, often from clearly delineated roles such as “playwright,” “director,” “performer,” and “audience”), both the devised theater event as well as the process of making the event do not always leave a clear archive for the historian to later interpret. As the authors succinctly put it, “all of [the companies under consideration] have developed a way of creating performance that is predicated on collective, rather than individual, agency. Their work starts in a room, rather than on a page, building a show bit by bit, together” (x). As such, Ensemble-Made Chicago is all the more indispensable: like the field of devising itself, it privileges process over product, while also serving as an accessible guidebook for the history, methods and practices of devised theater—making it a volume to be used in the present and future of the field. References Footnotes About The Author(s) JACLYN I. PRYOR Pennsylvania State University 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 "Ya Got Trouble, My Friend, Right Here": Romanticizing Grifters in American Musical Theatre Troubled Collaboration: Belasco, the Fiskes, and the Society Playwright, Mrs. Burton Harrison Unhappy is the Land that Needs a Hero: The Mark of the Marketplace in Suzan-Lori Parks's Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1-3 Silence, Gesture, and Deaf Identity in Deaf West Theatre's Spring Awakening Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft. Paulette Marty. London; New York: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Collections, 2019; Pp. 292 + viii. Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide To Devised Theater. Chloe Johnson and Coya Paz Brownrigg. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2019. Pp. 202. Twenty-First Century American Playwrights. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018; Pp. 228. Encounters on Contested Lands: Indigenous Performances of Sovereignty and Nationhood in Québec; Provocative Eloquence: Theater, Violence, and Antislavery Speech in the Antebellum United States Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

By Liwaa Yazji | A collection of poems from Syrian playwright and filmmaker Liwaa Yazji. < 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 Three Poems Liwaa Yazji Download PDF This collection of three poems was written in 2015 by the Syrian playwright and filmmaker Liwaa Yazji. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Jennifer Joan Thompson Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 29 2 Visit Journal Homepage Acting in the Academy: The history of professional actor training in US higher education. Peter Zazzali. London, New York: Routledge, 2016; Pp. 219. Jennifer Joan Thompson By Published on June 4, 2017 Download Article as PDF Acting in the Academy: The history of professional actor training in US higher education . Peter Zazzali. London, New York: Routledge, 2016; Pp. 219. In Acting in the Academy, Peter Zazzali marshals some rather grim employment data provided by Actors Equity Association to argue that it is now harder than ever to be a stage actor in the United States (9). This is not only due to the decreasing number of jobs in theatre, but also to the increasing number of graduates of professional BFA and MFA programs entering the field every year. In light of this imbalance, Zazzali conveys the urgent need for educators within these programs to ask whether it is efficacious, and indeed, ethical, to continue training large numbers of actors for the stage. Acting in the Academy thus functions as a systemic critique of the current acting profession told through a history of mid-twentieth and twenty-first century actor training in US higher education and, ultimately, an argument for training programs to better address the realities of the current profession and equip students to transform it. Zazzali locates the origin of the imbalance in the acting job market in the historical relationship between regional theatre and actor training programs in US higher education. He traces this history through the formation, decline, and legacy of the League of Professional Theatre Training Programs—an organization established to develop curriculum, set standards, and hold accountable participating MFA and BFA programs training actors for professional theatre careers. He examines how the curriculums of League schools developed to meet the demands of regional theatres for resident companies of actors and charts how these programs and their pedagogies continued to proliferate, despite the eventual decline of these regional companies and the displacement of employment opportunities from stage to screen. In light of the shifting demands of the profession, Zazzali argues that training programs ought to embrace an “entrepreneurial” model aimed at giving actors the skills to create their own work and put themselves at the center of their careers. Though there have been many studies on the history and theory of US actor training, as well as a handful of studies on US not-for-profit theatre by practitioners and scholars such as Robert Brustein (2009) and Donatella Galella, Zazzali’s is unique in tracing the relationship between the two. Additionally, his work builds on projects such as Ellen Margolis and Lisa Tyler Renaud’s collection of essays, The Politics of American Actor Training (2011) , which examines the socio-politics of actor training, by situating these questions within a historical context and grounding them in archival and testimonial data. By employing sociocultural and institutional perspectives, Zazzali thus poses an important intervention into scholarship on actor training that has ramifications for the current state of the field. Although the majority of Zazzali’s investigation is historically grounded in the life of the League and its constituent programs (1965-1987), the long-term implications of his work are underscored by the study’s structure, which is bookended by chapters on the current state of the profession and actor training. In chapter one, Zazzali employs sources including employment statistics and interviews with actors, educators, and casting directors to argue that many programs perpetuate a training model that no longer equips students to navigate the realities of the profession. Saddled by debt and trained primarily for the stage, graduates confront a profession dominated by television, film, and celebrity. Though many of the educators he interviews thoughtfully seek to adapt their programs to better prepare students for these realities, they acknowledge that there is a kind of systemic crisis at hand (11). Zazzali proceeds to situate this crisis in the history of the League and its constituent training programs (chapters two through four). Arguing that the League is the “most important development in US actor training since the Group Theatre” (5), he contextualizes its emergence within the culture boom of the 1960s and the regional theatre movement that sought to employ an ensemble of actors capable of performing works in repertory. To meet these demands, universities established BFA and MFA programs, several of which organized to form the League in 1971. With financial support from the NEA, the League set standards of recruitment and developed a “psychophysical” pedagogical template—a combination of elements of Stanislavsky’s method with rigorous physical and vocal training that remains dominant in programs today. Zazzali’s study demonstrates that much of today’s training pedagogy emerged from the specific needs of regional theatres and the institutional structure of the League. However, Zazzali notes that the task of vocational actor training was not always a symbiotic match for bureaucratic university systems. Departing from W. McNeil Lowry’s assertion that they existed in “an uneasy dichotomy” (64), Zazzali examines the fraught field of institutional dynamics that shaped the development of these programs. In the third chapter, Zazzali focuses on three case studies in particular—Carnegie Tech, Juilliard, and the American Conservatory Theatre—to explore how administrative policies, funding structures, and bureaucratic infighting had an impact on these programs and their pedagogies Chapters five and six return to the profession. Zazzali examines the League’s dissolution alongside a consideration of the careers of alumni from each of the three case studies. Through the lens of these individual careers, Zazzali explores how the shift in job opportunities from stage to screen emerged in tandem with an increasing commercialization of the profession overall, including an emphasis on celebrity and a pressure for actors to “brand” themselves. Actors increasingly sought work in television and film—positioning their careers in a medium that required very different skills than had been provided by their psychophysical training. In the concluding chapter, Zazzali examines the ways in which former League schools have equipped actors to navigate this new landscape. Of particular interest to Zazzali are Juilliard’s initiatives to connect students and their work to community service organizations, as well as curricular modules—such as at Carnegie Mellon and NYU—that encourage students to cross disciplinary boundaries and create their own work. Deeming this an “entrepreneurial” approach, Zazzali posits that it can put actors at the center of their careers. The success of PigPen Theatre—which emerged out of CMU’s Playground program—is a testament to the long-term ramifications of this work on graduates’ careers. Acting in the Academy is both an institutional and sociocultural history of US actor training beginning in the mid-twentieth century, as well a systemic critique of the current profession. Ultimately, Zazzali argues that programs ought to embrace an entrepreneurial model that “promotes self-reliance, innovation, initiative, and most crucially, serving society” (184). This social focus is essential, he argues, because it could generate an increased demand for what actors do, and provide them with the tools to reshape the state of the profession. Though a shift in actor training alone will likely not create a wholesale restructuring of the profession, challenge the dominance of television and film, or reverse the industry’s commercialization, Zazzali makes an urgent and ethical case for training programs to respond to the changing demands of the profession and to give actors the tools to shape that profession themselves. This book will thus be of interest to historians of actor training and twentieth century US theatre, as well as anyone involved in the education of actors. References Footnotes About The Author(s) JENNIFER JOAN THOMPSON The CUNY Graduate Center Guest Editor for Special Issue: Bruce McConachie Editorial Board for Special Issue: Meredith Conti Allan Davis John Fletcher Ju Yon Kim Scott Magelssen Julia Walker 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 to American Theatre and Performance in the Anthropocene Epoch Searching for Solutions: Humanizing Climate Narratives in an Age of Global Change and Connectivity Towards a Synthesis of Natural and Human History: Situating the Municipal and Ecclesiastic Viceregal Arches of 1680 Mexico City within the Lacustrine The Anthropo(s)cenography of Ricardo Monti's Marrathon Food Futures: Speculative Performance in the Anthropocene Tú eres mi otro yo - Staying with the Trouble: Ecodramaturgy & the AnthropoScene Ruth Maleczech at Mabou Mines The Theatre of David Henry Hwang. By Esther Kim Lee. New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015; pp. x + 207. Directing Shakespeare in America: Current Practices. By Charles Ney. London UK, New York NY: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2016. Pp. 362. Acting in the Academy: The history of professional actor training in US higher education. Peter Zazzali. London, New York: Routledge, 2016; Pp. 219. 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Bess Rowen Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 2 Visit Journal Homepage Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T Bess Rowen By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T Bess Rowen Debbie with a D performs in Debbie with a D’s Tennessee with the Tea at the AllWays Lounge in New Orleans in March 2026. Photo: Nick Shackleford. In March of 2026, I had the pleasure of seeing my second Debbie with a D drag show in New Orleans. The first time I had seen her perform was as part of a drag brunch connected to the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival a few years ago, and this year she returned to the festival program with Debbie with a D’s Tennessee with the Tea . This adult Drag Queen Story Hour was produced by The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans, led by Co-Founding/Producing Artistic Directors Augustin Correro and Nick Shackleford. Drag queens Tara Shay Montgomery, Vantasia Divine, Muffy Vanderbilt III, Kozmik, Laveau Contraire, and Debbie herself each read the plot of a specific Tennessee Williams play before performing a lip sync inspired by the plot. Debbie served as the emcee and also contributed a story herself. After seeing her perform in two shows involving Tennessee Williams, I wanted to ask her more about her connection to theatre and how she sees it connecting to her drag work. And, of course, in the current political climate, I wanted to know more about how being a full-time drag queen feels at this moment. Debbie with a D has received many awards and honors, including two Mardi Gras Bourbon Street Awards, 2026 King Cake Queen, and Gambit ’s #1 Drag Queen in New Orleans. You can also find her in the newest iteration of Queer as Folk . She is not only a celebrated and talented drag queen, but she also has a master’s degree in public health. She is particularly adept at combining her advocacy work in this field with her drag, which is something we discuss at the end of the following interview. We also discuss her theatrical origins, her love of Tennessee Williams, her drag journey, the importance of queer art, and how she came to be a public health drag queen. This interview was conducted via Zoom on April 24 th , 2026. It has been edited for length and clarity. Bess Rowen : Thanks so much for doing this! You had teased a bit of your theatrical past and your involvement with Tennessee Williams, so maybe we could start there? Or maybe how you got into drag? Debbie with a D : I guess the quickest way to go through it all is to start all the way back. I was homeschooled Pre-K through 12 th grade, but I was part of this megachurch. My father was a pastor, and they did huge theatrical productions for Christmas and Easter. And because I was homeschooled, that was my first introduction into a theatrical situation. Of course, I loved it! Once I started college, I still wanted to do like whatever theatre I could get into. But because it wasn’t part of the church and I wasn’t necessarily great because I hadn’t been to acting classes in home school, I was not getting roles in college. But I did do a bunch of theatre classes there, but oddly enough I did not really come across any of Tennessee Williams’s works at that point. BR : I’m not surprised by that. A lot of people don’t actually encounter him in the discipline of Theatre anymore. DwaD : It’s crazy! Because his work is so good. There were a couple other theatre-related things I did along the way. Eventually, I was cast in Picasso at the Lapin Agile in college. After coming out, leaving the church, and finishing college, I was working in a coffee shop—where I actually met my partner. He was in town for a post-bac program to get into medical school in New Orleans. He had already lived in New Orleans, so we always knew that he was going to be coming back. We did long distance for a little bit and then I followed him down here. I went and got my master’s in public health at Tulane. I didn’t want to move solely for a relationship, so I had to do something for myself. That’s why I went back to grad school. All of that time, there was no theatre really in my life. But then I got my day job managing a clinic at Crescent Care. About a year into that job, I started feeling like I had no big projects. I asked myself: What are my interests now? What are my hobbies and art? So I tried out for a play here in New Orleans and started working with a couple of the small production companies. Then I auditioned for a show at Le Petit Theatre and was cast in Jesus Christ Superstar . I was a swing, one of the priests, and an understudy for Jesus. But it was there that I met Augustin Correro and Nick Shackleford, co-founders of the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans. Nick was playing Jesus, and Augustin was the director. I had met Augustin earlier that year as he had come in and interviewed for a job in the clinic. Then, within that year, I auditioned for the show and he hired me. Shortly thereafter, they started the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans. They asked me if I’d be interested in being a production manager. I’d also started doing drag by then. I became the production manager for Small Craft Warnings and The Rose Tattoo in the first two years the company was producing work. BR : Weird Tales was the first thing I saw from Augustin and Nick. And that was before they had a connection with The Lower Depths Theater at Loyola University. DwaD : I had never experienced Tennessee Williams until I was the production manager for the company. And what was the first one they did? Kingdom of Earth ! That was my first experience with Tennessee Williams. I went in not knowing anything. But I came out changed, and deeply feeling things. As someone who, at that point, had experienced lots theatre, it was just one of the most visceral feelings I’ve ever left a theatre feeling. Somehow, Williams makes new what you’ve been feeling your whole life. You think, “How did he put words to that?” BR : I am delighted by that way into Williams! I feel like we often encounter people who love Williams, and even queer people who love Williams, but most people only know the “big three”: A Streetcar Named Desire , The Glass Menagerie , and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . So, I’m delighted that your intro was Kingdom of Earth and Small Craft Warnings , which are absolutely bread and butter parts of what his entire work means to those of us who love all of it, but now what most people encounter for the first time. Have you ever seen or encountered those big ones that everyone talks about? And what did you think when you saw them? Were you expecting this other version of him and his work from later on in his career? DwaD : I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Le Petit the last time they did it. That was my first time seeing it. My second time seeing Cat was when the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans put it on. BR : Do you have a favorite Williams play? Is Small Craft Warnings your favorite? DwaD : Small Craft Warnings for sure is up there. I also love The Rose Tattoo . I love the scene where Serafina comes in covered in the ashes. Camino Real too. BR : So out there! But also a delight. There’s a one-act version and also a full-length version of Camino Real . The Williamstown Theater Festival did a production with Pamela Anderson this summer, which was the perfect casting that none of us knew we wanted. DwaD : That’s amazing. BR : It’s such a wackadoo play. I don’t know if you know where it comes in his oeuvre, but it’s after Streetcar and before Cat . Williams was convinced that it was going to be his next big hit. And people were like, “What is this?!” They kept putting him in this box of playwrights whose plays are sentimental and realistic. But he was never actually writing that. But Camino Real has these grander themes that I think—for those of us who really dig the later plays—are used to seeing. But boy were his audiences not ready for it when it premiered. DwaD : But maybe they are now . It’s like the original White Lotus ! BR : That’s such a good connection! I have never thought about it like that, but absolutely. Talk about family dynamics gone astray, and failing aristocracy. DwaD: Miserable people that don’t necessarily meet, but then are all in the same station and place. But then: Who’s gonna die ? BR : Is Small Craft Warnings the original White Lotus ? DwaD : I think so. You heard it here first! BR : I think you’re so right that Williams puts words to things that we feel deeply. I think especially as queer people—although I don’t know that we have sole ownership over Williams at this point—we see that he has compassion for all of his characters. And he’s deeply interested in how society treats the most vulnerable. He’s able to really see that and unflinchingly look at that in a way that still makes it seem like there is hope. I’m wondering if you can loop in your fabulous drag work by talking a little more about this latest version of Debbie with a D’s Tennessee with the Tea that I know you’re doing in collaboration with Nick and Augustin. Can you talk a little more about how you got involved in that? DwaD : I’d like to jump back to the bookmark we left on my drag from before. I had just started my day job, finished grad school, and had done the production of Jesus Christ Superstar . After three weeks of intense rehearsals every night after work, and I was exhausted. I loved it, but it wasn’t sustainable and I had to pay off my student loans. So, I let theatre go for a while, but stil attended the various festivals in New Orleans on nights and weekends. But soon I started getting that theatre itch again. And I thought: I’m queer. I could try drag. But I had no clue where to start. It was Vinsantos DeFonte who started the New Orleans Drag Workshop. I had seen a couple of little articles pop up about that. I looked it up and sent him a message to see if I could join the workshop. I ended up being in the eighth cycle of that workshop. That experience gave me knowledge of the drag basics: what I need to purchase, creating a character, and starting on the journey of learning costuming, wigs, and makeup. Because each of those is its own profession! But an eight-week course does not a drag queen make. I started with a booking maybe once or twice a month. But then the pandemic hit and I was locked in my house. I had so much time that I just started practicing a lot of those skills, and thankfully, it went really well. At one point, right before the pandemic hit, Poppy Tooker—an institution in New Orleans—put out a casting call for her Drag Queen Brunch book. It was a Facebook open call, so any drag queen who wanted to be in it could be in it. She could pay $50 for the day for the photo shoot. And I, being a new queen, was like “$50 for a gig? Absolutely!” But I think a lot of the other queens that had been doing it longer were not so impressed. But I lucked out and ended up on the back cover of that book. Then I ended up doing a bunch of brunches with Poppy at Tujague’s, Dickie Brennan’s, and all around New Orleans. So there’s the Vinsantos tie-in, the Nick and Augustin tie-in, and the Poppy Tooker tie-in. Unintentionally, these were my introductions into the Tennessee Williams scene in New Orleans. After the drag brunch book was published, I ended up getting a bunch of bookings, which allowed me to put more money into costuming and better products, and consequently more gigs. Later, I was on the new version of Queer As Folk as an extra in New Orleans, but that paid so much money. They wanted all the local queens to be in the show as regulars to make it feel like New Orleans. That pushed me to take the leap into full-time drag three years ago. BR : And here you are, a multi-award-winning drag queen. Debbie with a D. Photo: Scotty Kirby. DwaD : I still cannot believe it. Through Poppy Tooker, I got involved in some of the Tennessee Williams drag brunches. And Nobu or [Dickie] Brennan’s wanted us to do a Tennessee Williams themed drag brunch. That was the first time I started thinking about what it would look like for a drag queen to interpret Tennessee Williams. I did a mix where I cut in different clips from Streetcar of Blanche saying crazy things into Ava Max’s “Sweet but Psycho.” BR : Yes, I remember that! And one of the other queens had been the runner-up in the Stella Shouting Contest that year, and she did the Stella shout for us. Iconic. DwaD : I think we did that show three times with Poppy. Then Nick and Augustin approached me about doing Tennessee with the Tea in the annual Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival in New Orleans. They were really the visionaries on the project. They approached it as a Drag Queen Story Hour where we would get local playwrights to write reimagined versions of the plays, and then various local queens reading the stories and interpreting them. BR : Now that you’ve gotten to do this show a few times, what’s your favorite play that’s covered in there? And were there plays that you didn’t know before the show? DwaD : At this point, I have seen everything covered in Tennessee with the Tea , so getting to see the drag interpretations has been a lot of fun since I get the references. But not all of the queens doing the interpretations have seen all the plays. Probably most of the queens didn’t really know much about Tennessee Williams other than A Streetcar Named Desire or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . So, some of them were like, “What the fuck is going on? What is the story here?” BR : Which is a correct response. DwaD : I loved it. It’s been fun to get to watch them know Tennessee Williams in this draggy way for the first time. And then get to explain to them a little bit the plot of each show. BR : I appreciate that when you set up the conceit of the show at the top you say that these are actually not exaggerated versions of the plot. The stories are literally telling the audience the plot, but I feel like some audience members don’t believe that. But it’s true! People are also rarely describing a Williams play blow by blow. Williams plays have been kind of deranged since the start, so that’s half the fun! DwaD : Yes. And my favorite performance in the show is probably The Glass Menagerie version that Muffy Vanderbilt III did as the unicorn. BR : The splicing of Menagerie with the Toni Braxton song “Un-Break My Heart” as “Un-Break My Horn!” was hilarious. As a Tennessee Williams scholar who also loves and writes about drag, I saw this show as an amalgamation of all the things I like in one place. The things that I love about Tennessee Williams are his deep sensitivity, and the ability to see the strange, the crazed, the queer, as the characters say in The Mutilated . You’re here to see the strange, the crazed, the queer, but you’re also here to see drag queens do what drag queens do best, which is to both poke fun and look at something from a really interesting angle; to highlight something you didn’t see before. They let you see the work in a completely different way. I mean, talking about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof dressed like Cat in the Hat, I was living. Like, give me a drag queen name pun in real life, Cat in a Hat on a Hot Tin Roof is exactly what I want. I mean, The Glass Menagerie is my favorite Williams play, and now I will never look at it again without thinking about “Un-Break My Horn”! What is your dream role, in drag or out, in Tennessee Williams’s oeuvre? DwaD : I think there are two that pop to my mind. One is Maxine from Night of the Iguana . And the other is Violet from Small Craft Warnings . I mean, come on, reimagined as a drag queen? Handies under the table? BR : Handies under the table, yes. But also such deep feeling. I love Violet. I also think a drag version of Maxine running the hotel in Night of the Iguana would be really fun. DwaD : Also Lot in Kingdom of Earth . He dresses in his mother’s clothes. BR : Definitely. Also, you’ve touched on this a little bit, but I’m curious about why you think we keep going back to Williams today, especially from a drag perspective. DwaD : As humans, we love stories and storytelling. But his work is more than just stories. It leaves you feeling more human. And somewhere in the midst of this onslaught of language and words—and bless all the Williams leading ladies who have to memorize all of that—something from the words falls away and you’re left with the emotion and impact of being human that Williams is trying to convey. I feel like his plays are like those optical illusions where if you look at it long enough, another picture emerges… BR : Magic Eye! DwaD : Tennessee Williams is Magic Eye. His words come at you fast and fierce, but once you sit there and lock in, you get what he’s saying. And not every playwright has that ability. With Williams, in just about every scene there are moments that you’re like “oh, they’re human. Oh I’m human. I felt that.” He was ahead of his time in storytelling, in creating relatable characters that are timeless. Regardless of it being decades after he has written these characters, they are still incredibly human. And there’s drama of course! And who doesn’t love a little bit of tea? BR : That’s beautifully put. Part of this interview series is also about what it’s like to make queer art now at this tumultuous moment. Williams is part of that, but as a queer artist who’s making queer art right now, what is that like? DwaD : Since it’s my full-time job, I have to find ways to be marketable in a country where an event can be targeted, or where it is not beneficial for a business or brunch spot to be widely visible. If they hire a drag queen now, they’re very clearly aligning themselves with one political view. It’s become very political to be visible. I have to find ways to survive and make a living by being palatable. However, I don’t always necessarily think of that part as creating the art. Being a drag queen and being visibly queer is an act of resistance at this juncture in the country. And so there is an aspect of any visibility—regardless of if it’s for work or as a creative outlet—there is an aspect of art in it because I’m a product of the time, and the things I’m doing are products of the time. But for me, it doesn’t always feel like that because I also do drag for a living. However, there are spaces when I get to do art more explicitly, and that is really special. I host this show at Oz on Tuesday nights on Bourbon Street—it’s a competition every week. It’s mostly drag queens who compete, but we’ll get some burlesque performers, drag kings, comedians, and live vocalists. But it’s heavily drag queens, and many of them trans. Especially over the last three years it’s been really great to see—and great to create a space—where there is a little bubble of safety, where everyone gets to be and express themselves through art. Part of my art is creating the space for others to create art. A lot of these queens have started their journey during the last three to five years while in this show. And that’s brave given the political state of things. Do we need to vote? Yes! Do we need to do other things? Yes! But in this queer space where we are creating art tonight, it is okay to take a deep breath, enjoy art, enjoy your creative process, and find a way to refresh oneself for the work ahead. So, I think that’s what queer art is doing now. It is an outlet and a way for us to take a breath, reflect, figure out what is important to us, so when it’s time to work, we can work . BR : Times of great political upheaval and repression often produce astonishing art. It’s radical to have a space of queer joy right now because there are people who don’t want that to exist. And I know whenever I’ve had the privilege to be in spaces like that, I always feel refueled and recharged. And that’s what drag does for me. That is why I try to see as much live drag as I possibly can, everywhere I go. That community and that art is sustaining, especially right now. DwaD : You know, I’m just putting it together right now, but you saying that you seek out drag wherever and thinking about how it helps us recharge—it’s kind of how we feel human, which is also what Tennessee Williams is doing. It’s like watching people create and perform their art that is about themselves. There’s something similarly trance-like, especially right now when it is political, and it means that much more that you’re being visible and okay with that. You are seeing someone who is being real, maybe afraid, but they’re being brave. You’re seeing all of these different aspects of a person and that’s so beautiful and relatable . And I think that touches on the things that Williams captures in those plays. He gets you to see those things in his characters. And maybe that’s why I like both of these things! BR : I love that connection. The vulnerability involved in making art that shows people as they truly are is definitely a commonality between Tennessee Williams and drag. I do think there’s a special experience I have when I watch drag as well as when I watch Williams’ plays. I’m on this ride, and I’m ready for you to take me wherever you want. I want to transition to another area of your life where I think you’re making some brave space and also leaning into your Master’s in Public Health and the training you have involved in keeping communities safe and informed. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you got into this sort of activism, education, and work? DwaD : After I completed my Master’s degree, when I first started doing drag, I was still doing full-time work at the clinic. I was managing the HIV testing program, and a couple of the clinic’s programs had done community outreach. We had medical mobile units that went out to churches, parks, festivals, concerts and do free testing. We started giving out at-home HIV test kits. And we were doing testing at the bars in the French Quarter for years before the pandemic. When I started doing drag, I knew what was possible in terms of outreach from where I was performing and the resources I could bring into the community. I was doing grant writing for a CDC clinic and knew what deliverables they were looking for, especially community-based programs. We were supposed to identify members of the community who would be able to help us reach the community and make a finded program more likely to succeed. As I started doing drag, I was finding myself in this place where I was becoming that community person who knew everybody, and I was trusted by the community. I also had the access and knew how to code switch into the public health speak. Our healthcare system is a mess. A superpower I have is connecting people with resources. Even when I first started doing drag, I joked that I would be the “public health drag queen.” I created an event called Debbie with Plan B where I was bringing out Plan B and HIV test kits and then doing referrals for PrEP at the events. Eventually, the Plan B stuff dried up, but I was still able to have a medical mobile unit out or have someone from the clinic there for referrals. But I usually still had tests to give away, and that eventually turned into COVID test kits. When I made the jump to full-time drag, a clinic started asking if I’d be their person on the ground for PrEP referrals. They started compensating me to put on the talent competition that I was telling you about on Tuesday nights. They would sponsor a lip sync battle halfway through the show. I’d have two queens come out and do a lip sync battle, but before that, I’d say a sixty-second thing about PrEP and DoxyPEP and U=U [Undetectable = Untransmittable]. And then the lip sync battle would happen, and the audience would choose a winner. After that, I would quiz people on the information that I had told them. If they answered questions correctly, they got drink tickets. So there was motivation for people to recall that information. More recently, that also became connected with the anti-smoking campaign that Louisiana is doing too. BR : That’s fantastic! Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. DwaD : Thank you! References Footnotes About The Author(s) BESS ROWEN is Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. She is also affiliate faculty for both Gender & Women's Studies and Irish Studies. She is a member of Actors' Equity and an intimacy choreographer. Her first book, The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment (2021) focuses on affective stage directions. Her next book project looks at the theatrical archetype of the “mean teenage girl.” She also serves as the President-Elect of the American Theatre & Drama Society and co-editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre (JADT) . 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 100 Years of Du Bois: “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art” “One Great and Fine Mode of Expression”: On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Exigencies of Black Drama and Theatre Reflections on Fundamental Principles An Expansive “Us”: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Pan-Negro” Theatrical Vision W. E. B. Du Bois’s Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement in Harlem and Beyond It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Teaching August Wilson in an Age of Democratic Decline: Du Boisian Imperatives and Black Pedagogy Across Campus and Community Debbie with a D Talks Theatre with a T The Wild Duck Picnic at Hanging Rock Last Call: A Play with Cocktails The Dinosaurs The Routledge Anthology of Women’s Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Catherine Burroughs and J. Ellen Gainor, editors. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 652. Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. The Theatre of Paula Vogel: Practice, Pedagogy, and Influences. Lee Brewer Jones. New York: Methuen Drama, 2023; Pp. 194. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Michael DeWhatley 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 Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspapers in New York Michael DeWhatley By Published on June 1, 2024 Download Article as PDF STAGED NEWS: THE FEDERAL THEATRE PROJECT'S LIVING NEWSPAPERS IN NEW YORK. Jordana Cox. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2023; Pp. 168. Jordana Cox’s 2023 Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York is a striking reminder that the practice of adapting the news for popular expression has deep roots that have historically influenced the fields of both journalism and theatre. Staged News bridges the constructive processes of both arenas, revealing how journalists deem which subjects are newsworthy and how artists interpret and communicate “the news” to an audience. As Cox explores the continued legacy of the living newspapers that the Federal Theatre Project constructed between 1935 and 1939, she creates an expansive resource for historians, artists, and journalists. In an important deviation from existing approaches to the study of the New York Living Newspaper (NYLN) that focus on the political message or artistic value of living newspapers, Cox sees the NYLN as a “news-making” body that was able to identify and publicize urgent social issues. The designations “news-making” and “news-makers” in reference to the NYLN reflects the group’s hybrid combination of professional journalists and theater-makers as it worked under the auspices of the Federal Theatre Project. Cox argues throughout the book that the NYLN “cultivated journalistic imagination ,” a term she defines as “a capacity to perceive, reflect on, and revise the processes through which people and issues are deemed newsworthy ”(2-3, emphasis original). Cox extends the influence of living newspapers to the history of journalism, a historiographical challenge to a field that has traditionally ignored the NYLN. Cox makes the case that the NYLN had a substantive effect on journalistic imagination; moreover she asserts that the study of the NYLN offers a chance to “consider how text, image, time, and space work together to create conditions for witness” (26). Living newspapers, in Cox’s study, are an important site for understanding how journalists create and perform the news. This insightful volume traces the evolution of the NYLN’s approach, providing an organizational history that analyzes the NYLN in her first chapter, followed by three internal chapters, each of which investigates an NYLN production, presented in chronological order. While the NYLN produced six living newspaper projects in its four years of operation, Cox explores four: Ethiopia (1936), The Events of 1935 (1936), One-Third of a Nation (1938), and Liberty Deferred (1938) in detail. All her case studies illustrate the NYLN’s philosophical development in its newsmaking processes. She argues that Ethiopia , which the NYLN developed first, and Liberty Deferred , which came last, hold particular importance in highlighting the NYLN’s approach to racial representation. Her selection fills a gap in scholarship around the NYLN’s first and last productions, yet it also seems a bit subjective. Neither Ethiopia nor Liberty Deferred received public performances during the operation of the Federal Theatre Project; at 168 pages, Cox’s history might have benefitted from the presence of two additional case studies of works that engaged audiences. In the first chapter, Cox dives into organizational logistics and describes how networks, labor practices, economic precarity, and political expedience shaped the NYLN. Having established the logistical circumstances in which Living Newspapers were produced, Chapter Two investigates what publics the NYLN was attempting to reach and why. Cox considers these social questions primarily by analyzing The Events of 1935 (also referred to as Highlights of 1935 or 1935 ), the NYLN’s third project and one in which the NYLN developed stage techniques—such as courtroom performances as an embodiment of nationhood and citizenship—that the company would use consistently thereafter. Chapter Three turns its focus to One-Third of a Nation , the most widely popular of the NYLN’s projects. Rather than examine that show’s political message about the shortage of affordable housing, Cox asserts that One-Third expanded journalistic imagination by highlighting the co-constructive relationship between mass media and the greater public of US audiences. In Chapter Four, Cox’s examination of Liberty Deferred , an unproduced anti-lynching living newspaper written by Abram Hill and John D. Silvera, serves as a meta-commentary on the flawed approach of the NYLN towards anti-Black racism in the 1930s US. Despite the white hegemony present at the NYLN, Cox demonstrates that Liberty Deferred broadened the perspective of the NYLN and, crucially, was evidence of how news is simultaneously constructed and consumed in the context of identity, specifically racial identity. In a relatively short conclusion, Cox connects the legacy of the NYLN to two projects outside the Federal Theatre Project: One-Third of a Mitten (1939) and the Royal Court Theatre’s series of living newspapers produced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cox argues that these two projects, inspired by the NYLN, utilize journalistic imagination in a similar way to create news even as they were freed from “current events and journalistic norms” (139). Staged News is consistently well-researched, drawing on photographs and archival sources in order to immerse readers in the theatrical situation of Living Newspapers and in the visual and aural experiences of the NYLN’s audience members and artists. Cox’s detailed analysis of the Living Newspaper projects provides a fresh resource for cultural critics, universities and theatremakers interested in re-staging these plays. Staged News also forges an important link between the histories of journalism and theatre. With this volume, Cox points to embodiment as a central constructive force that influences what and who journalists consider to be news and newsworthy, both at the NYLN and in the present. Ultimately, Cox argues that making and receiving news is a process of “embodying information, of taking in and responding to information at the moment it arrives in the body” (25). Significantly, the NYLN’s process of embodiment drew attention to some important social and political issues, like affordable housing, while also engaging in racial exclusion in its failure to produce Liberty Deferred . Cox’s focus on the crucial power of public embodiment in shaping journalistic imagination is one of the book’s great strengths. Staged News holds particular relevance for scholars of journalism, communication and political science interested in the methodologies of communication, performance and entertainment related to the production and consumption of news. Cox argues that journalistic history is a relatively young field of study, and this book weaves living newspapers into the fabric of the history of journalism, as opposed to the histories of labor or theatre that focus on living newspapers as a cultural program subsidized by the government. At a point when the development of new media in photojournalism and radio broadcasting caused journalists and their readers to rearticulate what the news was and how it was consumed, Cox convincingly argues that theatre offered a “glimmer of possibility” about how theater and the newspaper might “supplement and transform each other” (4). The relevance of that work from the 1930s is even greater today, Cox argues, and her book provides a significant resource in understanding how embodying the news, particularly in nonliteral ways, may again redefine what is ultimately newsworthy. This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References Cox, Jordana. Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspapers in New York. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2023. Footnotes About The Author(s) Michael DeWhatley is a Ph.D. in Theatre candidate with a specialization in performance as public practice at The University of Texas at Austin. A native of Asheville, North Carolina, he holds a B.A. in Theatre with departmental honors from Wake Forest University and a M.A. in Theatre with a specialization in performance as public practice from The University of Texas at Austin. DeWhatley's research is focused on the role of community and locality on American regional theatres, as well as the governance of those theatres and related arts organizations. He is particularly interested in board performance during executive leadership transition and its larger impacts on institutional health and focus. DeWhatley spent six years as the associate production manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville and has had a variety of experiences in production and artistic management at Kentucky Shakespeare, Berkshire Theatre Group, Lexington Children's Theatre and the Austin Film Festival. He previously served on the board of Theatre[502], Centerstage at the Jewish Community Center and Trinity Street Players. He is a contributor to HowlRound Theatre Commons, Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Theatre Design & Technology. 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.

Erin Rachel Kaplan Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Erin Rachel Kaplan By Published on May 27, 2018 Download Article as PDF Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s . Chrystyna Dail. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016; Pp. 194. In Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s , Chrystyna Dail reveals a significant piece of theatre history and asserts its rightful place in the canon of American drama. Dail begins the book by arguing that the claim often made by theatre historians such as John Gassner that social activist theatre died in the 1930s, only to resurface in the 1960s is a false one. Engaging with Douglas McDermott’s political performance continuum, Dail contends that the group Stage for Action (SFA) created a new kind of socially conscious theatre that served as a propaganda machine for the progressive left, as well as a megaphone for civil rights, workers’ rights, the fight against fascism, and more. For Dail, SFA did more than raise awareness about these issues; it was “diligently involved in theatrical praxis,” demanding and proposing solutions to social justice problems of the day (22). Dail breaks down her historical study of SFA clearly and concisely containing just enough cultural, political, and economic history to contextualize fully the work of SFA. Dail first offers a chronicle of its creation, arguing that SFA became a “reimagining of progressive performance, both during the War and after, and as an underappreciated model for social activist theatre in the United States” (15). Founded by four young women—Perry Miller, Donna Keath, Berilla Kerr, and Peggy Clark—SFA began as a tool to support the War effort in Europe and to bring attention to the “menace of native fascism” (33). In its brief three years, SFA amplified the voices of the some of the most radically anti-racist, anti-fascist, and pro-union thinkers of the era; was one of the earliest racially integrated theatre groups in the US; and became an integral part of Henry A. Wallace’s failed 1948 presidential campaign. Dail argues that what started as a small New York-based volunteer theatre group became the breeding ground for a multitude of progressive causes nationwide. To buttress this argument throughout the book, Dail highlights particular plays within the SFA canon that exemplify the progressive politics of the group. For the second chapter, Dail “explicates the relationship between Stage for Action and labor unions during and following World War II ” (45). Dail argues that Arthur Miller’s That They May Win put SFA in the spotlight. Eleanor Roosevelt discussed the play in her nationally syndicated “My Day” column, and it played to sold-out audiences in New York and around the country. For Dail, Miller’s “missing years” (1945-1946) were spent pouring “himself into revolutionary work and leftist theatrical criticism” (47). He ultimately became the playwright in residence of the SFA. That They May Win existed in multiple versions and called for better military wages, state-sponsored childcare, and the political activism of everyday Americans. Dail also critically analyzes Les Pine and Anita Short’s satirical musical Joseph McGinnical, Cynical Pinnacle, Opus II . Dail claims that “August 1946 through November 1948 saw SFA producing work that substantiated its position as the premier social activist theatre group of the late 1940s” (69). Chapter three examines specific SFA plays that adopted progressive views on racial politics including Charles Polacheck’s Skin Deep . The play was written to advocate for racial equality and address the anti-black violence and race riots making their way across the nation. In addition, Dail includes a detailed analysis of Ben Bengal’s 1946 play All Aboard , which dealt with transportation segregation, as well as Dream Job by Arnold Perl and Talk in Darkness by Malvin Wald. Performed as a part of the Wallace campaign, which fiercely advocated for full civil rights, universal healthcare and childcare, a robust social safety net, federal minimum wage laws, and equality for women in the workplace, among other policies, these SFA productions forced Truman to take up the cause of civil rights (though not as fervently as Wallace did) in order for him to win the 1948 presidential election. In her fourth chapter, Dail looks at yet another project of the SFA—its fight against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Based on close readings, she argues that Miller wrote The Crucible after Sidney Alexander’s Salem Story , noting that “the plays share the same basic plotline and major characters” (112) and that “too many parallels exist between these two artists for the overlap in their plays to be mere coincidence” (116). Finally, she chronicles the red-baiting that several members of SFA suffered. She observes that “during the decade of 1946-1956 informants ‘named’ 40 percent of Stage for Action membership as Communists or subversives” (139) and that several SFA members were called to testify in front of HUAC. Due to the outcomes of these hearings, some lost their careers and even their lives. In her final chapter, Dail somewhat undercuts her argument that HUAC brought an end to SFA. While the group formally disbanded, several socially activist theatres and productions rose in its place. She offers in-depth readings of the post-SFA plays Open Secret by Robert Adler, who addressed the horrors of the atomic bomb, as well as We Who Are the Weavers by Joseph Shore and Scott Graham Williamson, who strongly critiqued the colonization of Puerto Rico. Dail closes her analysis and argument by making the point that the professionalism and dedication to social justice found in the SFA directly links the workers’ theatres of the 1930s with the companies founded after its disbandment such as the Free Southern Theater and El Teatro Campesino. Stage for Action serves as a fascinating and incredibly well-researched and well-written exploration into an important and oft-forgotten piece of theatre history. Given SFA’s commitment to the notion that “entertainment should have a purpose…and that purpose must be exerted to prevent war, stamp out race hatreds, combat poverty” (151) and more, I cannot think of a more appropriate time to revisit and revive their works. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Erin Rachel Kaplan University of Colorado Boulder 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. 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