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Zach Dailey 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 Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity. Ryan Donovan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023; Pp. 316. Zach Dailey By Published on December 16, 2024 Download Article as PDF BROADWAY BODIES: A CRITICAL HISTORY OF CONFORMITY. Ryan Donovan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023; Pp. 316. What exactly is a “Broadway body?” This is the question central to Ryan Donovan’s timely 2023 monograph Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity. Published in a new era of “miracle” cures and adaptive assistance technology juxtaposed with the body-positivity movement circulating via social media, Donovan’s book situates itself firmly in the middle of this conversation. Well-researched and readable, this tome contributes to the continually growing body of work at the intersection of performance studies and greater cultural studies, namely race, queer, gender, disability, and fat studies. Early in his introduction, Donovan defines what he means by a “traditional” Broadway body: “the hyper-fit, muscular, tall, conventionally attractive, exceptionally able triple-threat performer (one highly skilled in acting, dancing, and singing)” (4). In defining this term, Donovan is not endorsing this definition , but rather critically establishing what he wants to interrogate: how did this body type become the stereotypical Broadway body? As Donovan points out, this issue is not simply a social one. On the contrary, the proliferation of a Broadway body grounds labor disputes: getting consistent work is how actors survive in this business. By being constantly disqualified due to physical characteristics, the canonization of the Broadway body has created a sizeable socioeconomic problem in our industry. Donovan highlights these central issues through interviews with working actors, critiquing casting calls, and analyzing theatrical texts and performances. After defining the Broadway body, Donovan parses that definition through lenses of size, sexuality , and ability. In the book’s first chapter, Donovan analyzes the megahit musical A Chorus Line (1975). Here, the author considers how the original production of this show developed into a global commercial phenomenon that required triple-threat performers to keep the machine going for its thirty-year production history. Donovan argues that the casting of A Chorus Line is where this idea of a “Broadway body” originated, since all performers in this show had to be able to sing, dance, and act with the best of them. To illustrate how formative A Chorus Line ’s casting policies were, the case studies of the ensuing chapters of this book examine Broadway productions post- Chorus Line . Donovan’s next two chapters form a section titled ‘Size'. In Chapter 2, which considers Dreamgirls (1981), the author postulates how the body of a character’s original actor affects the future casting of said role, centering the character Effie White and the fat body of original performer Jennifer Holliday. Holliday’s performance and body cast such large shadows that future actresses of the role wore fat suits, despite the character not needing to have a fat body. In Chapter 3, Donovan considers the casting of fat women on Broadway, with his main case study being the roles of Tracy Turnblad and Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray (2002). Hairspray ’s producers required actors to literally “weigh-in” weekly and attend boot camps before they were cast. These two chapters illustrate Donovan’s methodological approach to his central question, simultaneously dissecting the texts of a Broadway production and examining the conforming machine of Broadway casting. The author notes how “standardized” bodies are enforced and argues for the dismantling of such enforcement. Broadway Bodies ’s next section considers ‘Sexuality’. While the relevance of sexuality in a project dedicated to the politics of casting and bodily appearance may not be immediately apparent, Donovan contends that the casting of straight or closeted actors in queer parts reinforces embodied conformity. Chapter 4’s case study of La Cage aux Folles (1983) questions the politics of the queer affectations performed by the show’s two heterosexual leads alongside the burgeoning AIDS crisis that decimated much of the cast. While La Cage may have registered as an important piece of theatre for the gay pride movement, the liberation espoused by critics and the media at its Broadway premiere was undercut by the fact that the gay couple onstage was played by Gene Barry and George Hearn, actors who were decidedly not gay. Chapter 5 further addresses LGBTQ+ representation in theatre through the 1990s and 2000s, accenting boundaries broken by openly queer actors. While the number of queer roles has grown exponentially over the last forty years— not to mention that openly queer actors have played straight romantic leads to great acclaim for decades— many mainstream LGBTQ+ roles are crafted with stereotypes in mind, further reinforcing bodily conformity on Broadway, argues the author. While Donovan described the Broadway body as “hyper-able,” his last section instead highlights spectrums of ‘Ability’ found in both actors and their roles. Chapter 6, for example, documents and interrogates Deaf West’s 2015 Broadway revival of Spring Awakening. Featuring d/Deaf actors and hearing actors working in tandem to create roles, Donovan states that this landmark production illustrated a level of inclusion that Broadway strives to employ yet rarely does. After all, Broadway is a commercial venture, and while Deaf West’s Spring Awakening was a critical darling, the show fiscally faltered. In his final chapter, Donovan considers the long history of disabled characters, from Porgy in Porgy and Bess to Farquaad in Shrek , being played in “crip face” by non-disabled actors. Donovan contrasts this bodily erasure with the rise of disabled Broadway stars, namely Ali Stoker and her Tony Award-winning performance as Ado Annie in the 2019 revival of Oklahoma! While Broadway rarely puts its money where its mouth is regarding disability inclusion, Donovan portends that Stoker’s celebrity may mark a new beginning for casting and non-conformity. Donovan concludes his book by documenting four activist groups who are working to change casting practices on Broadway, as well as by highlighting the 2022 Olney Theatre Center production of Beauty and the Beast that cast the romantic leads against type, signaling a potential shift in representational and production practices. As a reader, I greatly appreciate how Donovan opens his book with a personal narrative regarding his time as a musical theatre dancer, specifically noting how his height and size were cast as barriers to employment. A person’s relationship with their body is an extremely personal one, a concept that Donovan takes to heart throughout this book. Through his personal lens and insightful case studies, Donovan successfully illustrates that casting reflects more than just a theatrical decision – it reflects and shapes societal norms. This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References Footnotes About The Author(s) ZACH DAILEY is the Assistant Professor of Theatre History at the University of Houston-Downtown. His research interests include regionality on the commercial American stage, fatness in performance, and non-performative internet/social media movements. His research has been published in Theatre Annual , and he has presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the American Society for Theatre Research, and the Comparative Drama Conference, among others. Professionally, he is a director, dramaturg, and actor. He received his PhD from the Fine Arts Doctoral Program at Texas Tech 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 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.

Isaiah Matthew Wooden 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 The Brothers Size Isaiah Matthew Wooden By Published on January 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF The Brothers Size By Tarell Alvin McCraney Co-Directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney and Bijan Sheibani The Shed (Co-Produced with the Geffen Playhouse) New York, NY September 6, 2025 Reviewed by Isaiah Matthew Wooden In the nearly two decades since Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size debuted Off-Broadway as a part of the third Under the Radar Festival, the evocative three-hander has garnered considerable praise for its trenchant, poetic dramatization of some of the lasting questions shaping the lives and relationships of Black men in the United States. Audiences and critics alike have found much to admire in McCraney’s shrewd fusion of ancient tales drawn from Yoruba cosmology with given circumstances and dramaturgical devices of his own making that invite reflection on such themes as brotherhood, masculinity, vulnerability, love, and freedom. No doubt adding to the play’s appeal are the rich opportunities it affords the actors portraying its central trio—Ogun Size; his younger brother, Oshoosi Size; and Oshoosi’s close friend and former cellmate, Elegba—to flex an extraordinary range of performance muscles. The play’s return to New York City in 2025 in a co-production by The Shed and the Geffen Playhouse reaffirmed its status as one of the most compelling and resonant dramas to spotlight and interrogate the intricacies of the inner lives and social worlds of Black men. Co-Directed by Bijan Sheibani and McCraney, and featuring three actors who have achieved notoriety for their stage and screen work, André Holland (Ogun Size), Alani iLongwe (Oshoosi Size), and Malcolm Mays (Elegba), this revival was remarkably elegant in its simplicity, relying mostly on the physical and vocal agility of its performers to bring expressive clarity to the details of their respective characters’ at once mythic and mundane journeys. The integration of live music by Munir Zakee and choreography by Juel D. Lane enhanced the overall rhythm of the performance while also reinforcing the sense of call-and-response that McCraney’s striking incorporation of spoken stage directions aims to evoke. Suzu Sakai’s spare set design, which was anchored by an improvised circle marked out with a white, chalk-like substance in a clear nod to the symbolic spaces central to various syncretic spiritual traditions of the African diaspora, further bolstered the production’s invitation to audience members to embrace their roles as co-creators of the storytelling. This necessarily created space for some of the play’s more distinct features, including its setting in a fictional town in the Deep South at some point in the “distant present,” to accrue fresh significance, while also allowing Holland, iLongwe, and Mays to embody their characters with incredible specificity and vitality. André Holland (Ogun Size). The Brothers Size , The Shed, New York, August 30-September 28, 2025. Photo: Marc J. Franklin. Courtesy The Shed. Given Holland’s longstanding connection to The Brothers Size and to McCraney’s work more broadly—he played Elegba in the 2009 staging of the play co-produced by The Public Theater and the McCarter Theatre Center, and also starred in the McCraney-penned films Moonlight (2016) and High Flying Bird (2019)—it was especially moving to witness the layered complexity he brought to his portrayal of the elder Size brother. While Oshoosi often admonishes Ogun for moving through life with unnecessary hardness, Holland was deliberate about endowing the character with charm and tenderness. His insistence on surfacing the character’s multidimensionality made moments like his recollection of the suffering endured by his former lover, Oya, or his account of always getting blamed for Oshoosi’s troubled behavior during their youth, reverberate long after the action had shifted focus elsewhere. The sensitivity of Holland’s performance came into sharpest focus in what remains one of The Brothers Sizes’s most touching and restorative scenes. When Oshoosi yet again finds himself teetering on the brink of captivity by a criminal legal system that views all young Black male life as fungible, the elder Size brother commands that his sibling flee their distressed hometown as soon and as fast as possible. The boom and quake in Holland’s voice as Ogun vowed to deny his younger brother up to three times when the Law came looking for him, deepened the emotional intensity of the duo’s final embrace and, in so doing, further distinguished Holland as one of the most dynamic interpreters of McCraney’s sublime language. iLongwe and Mays likewise proved adept at surfacing the idiosyncrasies and subtleties of McCraney’s dramaturgy. The tremendous energy and vigor of iLongwe’s Oshoosi served to punctuate how the character’s relentless yearnings to make freedom mean something often complicated his everyday life. Indeed, while Oshoosi’s articulated aims to acquire a car and find a woman registered as pretty straightforward, at least at first blush, iLongwe’s nimble portrayal called attention to the ways they were symptomatic of his much larger aspirations to imagine and enact possibilities unencumbered by carceral and other oppressive logics. This accounted for the powerful hold that Mays’s spry and clever Elegba seemed to maintain over Oshoosi’s life. Much like the orisha of the same name, Elegba often appears at key moments of decision-making in the play, reminding Oshoosi of the beauty and power inherent in choices. Mays’s portrayal of Elegba as simultaneously sweet and crafty amplified his allure for Oshoosi while shedding light on why Ogun remained so deeply suspicious of the pair’s friendship. Malcolm Mays (Elegba), Alani iLongwe (Oshoosi Size), and André Holland (Ogun Size). The Brothers Size , The Shed, New York, August 30 – September 28, 2025. Photo: Marc J. Franklin. Courtesy The Shed. The minor script revisions McCraney made for the production underscored the crucial role that love—familial, platonic, erotic, and otherwise—can play in sustaining the bonds between Black men. These updates, paired with McCraney and Sheibani’s sleek staging, Adam Honoré’s subdued lighting, and Dede Ayite’s practical costumes, not only sharpened the overall storytelling but also accentuated the play’s enduring emotional and thematic resonances. Simultaneously and significantly, they enabled the production to make a persuasive case for why The Brothers Size ’s stirring explorations of Black men’s interiorities and vulnerabilities marks it as a singular and transformative work of twenty-first-century theatre. References Footnotes About The Author(s) ISAIAH MATTHEW WOODEN is a scholar-artist, writer, and Associate Professor and Chair of Theater at Swarthmore College. He is the author of  Reclaiming Time: Race, Temporality, and Black Expressive Culture  (2025) and co-editor of  August Wilson in Context  (2025),  Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration  (2020), and “Manifestos for Black Theatre, Then and Now,” a special section of  Theatre History Studies  (2024). Additionally, he served as the volume editor for the Methuen student edition of  A Raisin in the Sun  by Lorraine Hansberry (2025). Wooden’s articles and essays on contemporary art, drama, and performance have appeared in numerous scholarly and popular publications. As a director and dramaturg, he has collaborated on projects in venues ranging from the Uganda National Theatre to the Kennedy Center, including works by Lorraine Hansberry, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Lynn Nottage, and Robert O’Hara. 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.

Becca Levy and Jared Rubin Sprowls 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 Chevruta Partnership and the Playwright/Dramaturg Relationship Becca Levy and Jared Rubin Sprowls By Published on May 16, 2023 Download Article as PDF What began as a peer-reviewed research paper naturally grew into a dramaturgical adaptation of chevruta , a centuries old Rabbinic approach to interpreting Jewish texts. The style of this paper mimics our process of multiple voices in conversation. In chevruta , dialogue is necessary as one voice can’t capture the depth of a text; we can only approach understanding through discussion and interpretation. Through this lens, we push against prioritizing finality (a deadline, production, or publication) which dictates a linear process. Rather, we hold space to return again, offering a process that spans a lifetime as both the people and art deepen and unfold. We share authorship below, identifying the writer above each section. Though our names signify what we initially wrote, through revision, our voices continue to overlap, always in conversation. As we consider how this lens is valuable for new work development, both Jewish and non-Jewish, we invite you to engage in our reflection of Fringe Sects’ script development as a fellow chevruta partner: our voice, your voice, and the text. JARED In March 2020, I was finally ready to write my “Jewish play” based on a Buzzfeed article a friend sent to me a year prior: “Finding Kink in God: Inside The World Of Brooklyn Dominatrixes And Their Orthodox Jewish Clients.” [1] This article complicated the stereotype of Jewish sexuality I saw being portrayed on stage and screen: Jews as less sexual and less desirable. Expanding what a Jewish “man,” “woman,” or “relationship” looked like felt important to my own understanding of Jewish queerness and an inquiry I could share with my community. COVID interrupted that plan as Jewish sexuality onstage was no longer an urgent exploration, instead it was the last thing on my mind. What we thought would be a few weeks of mandated isolation became months. As Passover approached, I felt detached from my Jewish identity without the ability to invite friends over for Seder. The holiday traditions, rooted in community, didn’t feel the same with only me and my two roommates skimming through the Haggadah. In August 2021, I moved to Tempe, Arizona to pursue an MFA in Dramatic Writing. Fear of isolation continued, and I wondered what I’d do for the upcoming High Holidays. Rosh Hashanah felt like an opportunity for a new chapter in the desert, but I wondered if anyone would be there to join me. BECCA That’s where our Research Methods course comes in; it was my first semester of grad school as well, beginning the MFA program in Theatre for Youth and Community at ASU. I had also just moved to Tempe from Chicago, and much to my delight and surprise the old song “Wherever you go there’s always someone Jewish” [2] proved to be true. I overheard Jared talking about Jewish dominatrixes and had to learn more. JARED As I discussed revisions to my research question, I vividly remember Becca leaning over to join the conversation. Another Jewish woman to discuss Jewish womanhood and femininity? Baruch Hashem! On that day, I was paired with Clara, whose Hebrew necklace had sparked conversation a class prior. Marissa would soon ask what we were doing for Rosh Hashanah. She too had overheard the musings of Jewish study and wanted to join. We had all worried that we’d be the only Jew in the program and were relieved to have found each other so quickly. BECCA Jared and I requested to be paired for the final round of peer review. What was scheduled to be a brief meeting about our papers over coffee became a multi-hour conversation relating our artistry to our values and our values to our Judaism. We intuitively worked as chevruta: a non-hierarchical dyadic practice of Jewish text study rooted in traditional methods going back centuries. A chevruta partnership is a meaningful and holy relationship through which we understand text, and our relationship to text, more fully. The word chevruta comes from the Hebrew root chet, vet, reish, chaver , meaning “friend,” emphasizing that this relationship is between more than peers or colleagues. In fact, it’s not just a relationship between two voices, but three: two people and the text. Scholarly discourse around Fringe Sects was a catalyst for our partnership, while genuine friendship became central to our ongoing collaboration. Jared was researching about Jewish gender and sexuality while more deeply connecting with Jewish ways of being through his writing. JARED Where do the stereotypes, roles, and ideas of Jewish women come from? Who perpetuates them within our community and how does that differ from what we see in the media? BECCA In my initial notes, I wrote about the importance of discoveries, using this play to reveal Jewish challenges and provide space for healing while weaving the Jewish with the universal– JARED Questions and themes that simultaneously drew me into Becca’s research. BECCA What is the relationship between creativity, identity, and values in Jewish artmaking spaces? Grad school was the opportunity to further explore our embodied knowledge through research and practice. JARED Research and practice exist over coffee as much as they exist in conferences and classrooms. I got to know Becca through her research, and I better understood her research by getting to know Becca. BECCA We spent the next semester together in a graduate Dramaturgy Workshop course. One of our first readings was from Geoffrey Proehl’s Towards a Dramaturgical Sensibility ; I sent Jared a text, “Ok so I finally started the reading this morning and tbh I think a dramaturgical sensibility is just simply how Jews read Torah” [3] [4] . I quickly recognized in Proehl’s description of dramaturgical practice a kinship with Jewish ways of thinking, conversing, and analyzing. JARED “Isn’t there a Jewish thing about rehearing the Torah and the purpose of that? Helping me connect dramaturgy and Judaism again” [5] , I texted Becca as we continued to quip that “dramaturgy is Jewish.” It became our special segment in class where we reflected on how teachings from Jewish synagogue, camp, and school prepared us to analyze text as dramaturgs. Later that semester, I assembled a team for a staged reading of Fringe Sects at ASU: Marissa as director, Becca as dramaturg, and Clara, Matt (the only other Jew in our MFA program) and Sam (a non-Jewish MFA peer) as actors. The energy of the rehearsal room was immediately alive – BECCA Is the milk a reference to milk and honey? JARED I hadn’t even thought of that. BECCA What about the Binding of Isaac? JARED That sounds like BDSM. BECCA Our playful yet serious conversations around script development were contagious, or perhaps Jared had just gathered the perfect group for this week-long rehearsal process. We were more than Jewish artists chosen for a Jewish play; we were friends. In our first few months of grad school, we had already spent High Holidays, birthdays, and Chanukah together, discussed art that was important to us, and reflected on the ways our Judaism connected us even when it manifested differently. In fact, the different shades of Judaism were what we celebrated most: the variety of latke recipes, family and community traditions, or the way we pronounced “bimah.” Questioning, connecting, and respecting the multitude of text interpretations based on our diverse lived experiences were the foundation upon which the script could develop so significantly in such a short amount of time. Reflecting upon the process, it is clear that this ensemble intuitively worked from a place of shared values. JARED It was interpretive. It was direct. It was Jewish. BECCA Jared and I always bring these values into our creative practice. Through this process we affirmed that we practice those values creatively in specifically Jewish ways. Text Messages between Jared and Becca during Fringe Sects development. JARED Although I had been in a new work development space with other Jewish artists, I had never felt that a room was guided by a Jewish way of reading text in the way this process was. Sam’s active participation proved that anyone can engage with text in this way. Not only did this way of working benefit the script, but it was life-giving. I was no longer an isolated writer but an artist in the community. BECCA Going deeper into the etymology of chevruta, the Hebrew chaver (friend) derives from the Aramaic, chibor , meaning “to bind together.” In this process, chevruta partners’ understanding of text becomes bound together in discussion, creating something entirely new with what is on the page. Below is an example of a text study where a peer and I engaged with the very first Torah portion. The first translation you’ll read is a more standard version and the second is a collaborative translation discovered in shared study. While working with the text, I was drawn to the word “ ruach ” which translates to “wind” or “spirit” and my partner noticed “ pnei ” which can mean “surface” or “face.” We excitedly investigated more translations and read the text anew. Together, we uncovered a translation that neither of us would have found on our own. Hebrew words with multiple meanings are illustrated below in corresponding colors. I invite you to notice what is the same, what is different, and how these changes influence your understanding of the text. When God created heaven and earth, the earth was chaos and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God fluttering over the surface of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2) When The Universe began to create sky and land, the land was without form and void. Behold darkness over the face of the abyss and the spirit of Creation floating over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2) [6] Stereotypical depictions of dramaturgy seem so isolating– an image of a lonely scholar with their head in their laptop or a book comes to mind; it’s not so different from the rabbi locked in their study or b’nai mitzvah student up in their room, practicing their Torah portion alone. But these are all misrepresentations of reality. To be Jewish is to congregate. To make theatre is to congregate. In the process of working together we bond with one another and the work binds to the point where it’s sometimes hard to know where one person’s idea ends and another’s begins. Jared and I intuitively did this work with our research papers, with everything we read in Dramaturgy Workshop, and with our collaboration on Fringe Sects . JARED Below is a visual representation of our chevruta-inspired conversations analyzing a paragraph from the opening monologue of the play, Rabbi Moshe’s Rosh Hashanah sermon, which we’ve retroactively formatted in the style of rabbinic commentary of Talmud. Visual representation of chevruta-inspired conversation between Becca and Jared on Fringe Sects script text. BECCA Rabbi Adina Allen writes, “Like the parchment wound around the Torah handles, our reading of this story is not circular, but spiral. We move along the same axis, but drop in and down, unearthing new meanings in the cracks of our old stories” [7] . This concept of time provides repetition while acknowledging that with repetition comes a new depth of experience in the present. During our collaboration on Fringe Sects , Jared and I trusted each other to continue to drop in and down in the reading and re-reading, writing, and re-writing, talking and re-talking of the script. We built trust and a shared language through cultural understanding, shared values, and unearthing new meanings while the script developed. The play is set during The Ten Days of Awe, the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we’re tasked with Tshuvah. Tshuvah means to “return:” to return to right relationship with one another, the world around us, and ourselves. We return to something old or familiar – an ancient practice, text, or question. We seek to find something new, not in hopes of the perfect answer or action, but to embrace the multiplicity of interpretations and meaning-making as part of the process. JARED Even in the process of writing this article, we return again. Remembering text messages we forgot we had sent, making notes for our next stage of development. BECCA (I still want Jared to add the shehecheyanu into that scene). JARED (I will). BECCA These conversations ground us because there’s always something new to uncover. JARED If chevruta is three voices, our process contains even more: playwright, dramaturg, director, cast, characters, script, research, prayer, Torah, and Talmud. If Jewish text, ancient and unchanging, contains such multitudes, we must listen to all possibilities as a new work finds its voice. To give a script agency is to understand that it will never actually be finished… BECCA …but it is always where it’s supposed to be. JARED Jewish values tell us that we too are not finished and that growth is a lifelong process. BECCA As the spiral continues to deepen, may we delight in moments of synchronicity and express gratitude for moments of divergence. JARED & BECCA As this article concludes, we invite you to bring yourself into our chevruta practice. In doing so you join us in community and together we begin again. References [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahfrishberg/dominatrixes-orthodox-jewish-haredi-kink-bdsm-brooklyn [2] Milder, Rabbi Larry. “Wherever You Go There’s Always Someone Jewish.” [3] Levy, Becca. Text message to Jared Sprowls. 23 Jan. 2022. [4] Proehl, Goeffrey. Towards a Dramaturgical Sensibility: Landscape and Journey . Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008. [5] Sprowls, Jared. Text message to Becca Levy. 30 Jan. 2022. [6] This text study and my learnings on chevruta come from Becca’s time with the Jewish Studio Project . She has been participating in the Jewish Studio Process, a Jewish art-making and text study practice, with them since May 2020 and is currently part of their Creative Facilitator Training Cohort. [7] Allen, Rabbi Adina. “The Kernel of the Yet-to-Come.” My Jewish Learning , 21 Oct. 2022, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-kernel-of-the-yet-to-come/amp/ . Footnotes About The Author(s) BECCA LEVY is an arts educator and theatre artist who facilitates educational programs and theatrical productions that center community, celebrate culture, and foster creativity for people of all ages. Becca worked as a teaching artist, arts program manager, and stage manager in Chicago after earning her BFA in Stage Management from Western Michigan University. Currently studying for an MFA in Theatre for Youth and Community at Arizona State University, her praxis explores the relationship between creativity and values, drawing from many years of work and play in Jewish arts programming and theatre teaching artistry. www.beccaglevy.com JARED RUBIN SPROWLS is a Chicago-based playwright currently in Tempe, Arizona pursuing an MFA in Dramatic Writing at Arizona State University. His work has been produced Off-Broadway through the Araca Project, as well as at Northwestern University and the Skokie Theatre. He is a 2018 O’Neill NPC Semi-finalist and has been a part of Available Light’s Next Stage Initiative, the New Coordinates’ Writers’ Room 6.0, and Jackalope Theatre’s Playwrights Lab. He is a project-based staff member with Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training. He holds a B.A. with Honors in Theatre from Northwestern 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 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.

Peter Zazzali Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 28 1 Visit Journal Homepage Star Struck!: The Phenomenological Affect of Celebrity on Broadway Peter Zazzali By Published on March 22, 2016 Download Article as PDF During the spring of 2013, Nora Ephron’s play Lucky Guy played to sold out houses recouping its producers’ initial investment of $3.6 million after a mere eight weeks, a remarkable feat for a Broadway drama. Whereas most successes on the Great White Way are splashy musicals with high production values (think Wicked and The Lion King ) so-called “straight plays” usually operate at a financial loss as part of a comparatively short run. Lucky Guy , however, was an exception in that Ephron’s play grossed over $1 million weekly while earning Tony Award nominations for its director, playwright, and most significantly, its leading actor: Tom Hanks. [1] Like Ephron, Hanks had never worked on Broadway prior to Lucky Guy , or anywhere else of note in the theatre, thereby begging the question: how can two relative novices of the stage achieve such critical acclaim and financial success on their first try? I argue that the reason for this is Hanks’s celebrity. With symbolic capital that included two Academy Awards and roles in Hollywood hits such as Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Hanks’s involvement ensured that Lucky Guy would find and affect its audience. As Guy Debord states in his seminal work, The Society of the Spectacle , celebrity is a “commodity [that] attains the total occupation of social life,” [2] a conceit that speaks to the fetishization of movie stars like Hanks who try their hand at stage acting. But what gets lost in this negotiation between celebrity film star and theatre artist? What causes the commodified frenzy that defines the relationship between an actor and his audience, a connection whose ramifications are as significant artistically as they are socio-economically? What is the spectator’s state of consciousness in this phenomenal exchange? Ultimately, what does society’s fascination with celebrity mean for theatre as an art form? This article positions celebrity as a socially induced phenomenon that causes regressive perceptions of stage acting, and by extension, the art of theatre. Relying on a combination of cultural materialism and modern psychology, I will examine the phenomenological connection between celebrity actors and their adoring “stage” audience. Thus, I argue the festishization of a celebrity such as Hanks produces a viable, if imagined, relationship between a “star” and his audience, a negotiation that has reductive implications for the art of the stage actor. Celebrity actors are directly associated with film and television, insofar as their image is distributed and consumed en masse towards forging familiarity with the public. Indeed, the term familiarity shares the same etymological root as “fame” and is a benchmark for becoming a celebrity. In fact, fame and celebrity are mutually inclusive concepts resulting from exposure through the media. From Facebook and Twitter to television and the Internet, today’s cultural consumer has unprecedented access to the lives and careers of famous people. [3] As such, a social phenomenon has ensued in which the fascination of celebrities becomes a self-fulfilling practice with consumers craving and following mediatized narratives that create and perpetuate household names. With respect to actors, again, film and television especially apply to this dynamic. While stage performers have occasionally garnered fame throughout theatre history, its scope and measure pale by comparison to film and TV stars today. Whereas the likes of Edwin Forrest and the Lunts, for example, were celebrities in their respective chronological contexts, they simply did not attract the worldwide attention that today’s film and TV icons do. Thus, on-camera performance mediums in conjunction with mass media are the root and cause of an actor’s fame and celebrity formation. Being famous and being skilled in one’s artistic craft as an actor, however, are not necessarily inclusive considerations. It would seem rather easy to identify the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise as celebrities, for example, but a different matter altogether to recognize them as trained actors. Like Hanks, neither attended drama school or received any formal education in acting. Instead, they had fortunate career “breaks” as young men and have since burnished their fame starring in blockbusters such as The Terminator and Mission Impossible —movies that could hardly be considered demonstrations of virtuosic acting, insofar as the material is largely driven by action-packed plotlines, special affects, and two-dimensional characterizations, thereby calling for a performance style that lends more to a personality type than a skilled artist. To borrow again from Debord, it is sheer spectacle. As such, a celebrity is needed to complete the branding and distributional appeal of the film. Of course there are film and television productions with gifted performers. Yet on-camera acting is decidedly different from the stage, where an actor must possess the physical, vocal, and emotional heft to render a performance with size and presence worthy of arresting the audience’s attention for lengthy periods of time. There are after all no second takes when acting onstage. On-camera performance, however, requires an authenticity that is not needed for the stage. The adage “the camera does not lie” is a truism in that film/TV acting is steeped in verisimilitude, whereas the stage actor renders a theatricalized illusion of reality. Acting for the camera and onstage are distinct practices that require separate and select skills. It is no different from distinguishing the qualifications between a musical theatre actor and one who specializes in Shakespeare, or, to reference another field altogether, it can be likened to the difference between a violinist and a trumpet player—both are musicians, but neither would be expected to handle the other’s instrument with the same skill as their primary métier. To be sure, I am not arguing that theatre acting is superior to on-camera performance, but rather, that it requires a specialized skillset that takes years of training and experience to master. The expectation that someone who has not been onstage for decades (as was the case with Hanks) can convincingly and compellingly render a major role seems remote. While a fine and accomplished film actor, Hanks was at best under-qualified to hold the stage for two hours, as noted by the New York Times’ Ben Brantley who meekly described his performance as “honorable.” [4] Celebrity can be understood in a number of ways. First, it is a social phenomenon in which the structures and institutions of a given culture are determining factors. For example, in Europe a football star like Luis Suarez is well known to the general public, given the continent’s passion for the sport, but in the US he is hardly a household name because we are comparably disinterested in professional soccer. On the other hand, some celebrities have a scope of recognition that is worldwide: Madonna, Muhammad Ali, and Barack Obama, to name a few. With respect to the latter, the symbiotic relationship of celebrity and fame comes into play, insofar as global leaders—for reasons that are both intended and not—receive media attention that provides them the same widespread idolatry (and criticism) as those in the more commonly celebretized spheres of sport and entertainment. The current phenomenon of Donald Trump’s pursuit of the US presidency supports this point in that he wields his celebrity to generate media attention and dominate his opponents: as the Wall Street Journal reports, Trump is “sucking the oxygen” out of the campaign. [5] Despite the fact that he has never held public office and refuses to offer a single policy plan of substance, as of this writing he continues to lead in every national and state poll. Thus, his celebrity and media coverage can be seen as the signature reason for his popularity among prospective Republican primary voters. The second distinguishing aspect of celebrity is what Robert van Krieken calls “the economics of attention,” or the ways in which the “intersection between culture and commerce” become endeavors of capital exchange. [6] The grist of this process is the invocation and distribution of a highly visible image that serves as a branding mechanism for the purpose of generating economic, cultural, political, and/or symbolic capital. Here too Trump provides an excellent example in that his brand, and by extension, the capital it garners on behalf of his campaign and the media outlets that cover him is significant. Likewise, an actor is valued for his brand as defined by fame and notoriety, characteristics that do not necessarily equate with his artistry. As this article endeavors to demonstrate, an actor’s status in the entertainment industry is commensurate with his prestige and sociopolitical status. [7] His worth to a given production often comes down to how much attention he can bring to it, a value that is determined symbolically. Therefore, celebrity can be understood as a form of symbolic capital that lends recognition, credit, and legitimacy to a project’s exchange value . Consequently, the “buzz” and “charisma” that a revered celebrity such as Hanks brings to a theatrical production has unmistakable economic implications. In addition to providing credibility to Ephron’s play, his status as a famous, Academy Award-winning star assured producers that Lucky Guy had a chance of being that rare Broadway drama that turns a profit. What does this dynamic mean for the US theatre, and more specifically, the aesthetic of American stage acting? To the extent that producers are intent on treating their production as a commercial endeavor, we will continue to see celebrities such as Hanks appearing in roles and contexts for which they are under-qualified. For all his remarkable accomplishments in film and television, Hanks is unproven and untrained as a stage actor. Casting him in a major part on Broadway, a venue that is itself considered the apotheosis of US theatre, sends a clear message that an actor is valued not so much for his craft, but rather, the attention that he can bring a project vis-à-vis his celebrity. The New York Times drama critic, Charles Isherwood, makes this very point in his article, “Stage Acting: It’s Nice Work if You Can Afford It”: Big movie and television stars are the mega-corporations of the acting profession, and they seem to be acquiring an increasing measure of the industry’s rewards, leaving less for the vast number of fameless actors…. If performers’ attractiveness and fame are what studios and even theaters want to buy and market, talent and experience naturally become commodities with lesser or no value.[8] The film and television industry has come to determine the casting practices of the US theatre. Though the example of Hanks pertains to Broadway, where Hollywood stars amass cultural capital by burnishing their resumes with stage credits, the US not-for-profit theatre is also prone to the commodified underpinnings of the celebrity society. In addition to landing the occasional household name to tread their boards, regional theatres from San Diego to Chicago consistently ape the production practices of the commercial theatre, as indicated by American Theatre magazine, which reports that thirteen of the fourteen “most-produced” plays appearing on US stages in 2013 were either done “On” or Off-Broadway. [9] US actors are incentivized to become celebrities, or at least to pursue work in the sectors of the profession that supplement the celebrity society: film and television. Indeed, having a stage career is generally unfeasible today. Whereas forty years ago an actor could work year-round as part of a resident company at a regional theatre, today he must look to film and television to make a living. [10] Unfortunately, the mid-1970s and early-1980s witnessed a downturn in the US economy and a generational change of artistic directors, inauspicious developments that caused regional theatres to disband their resident companies and cast on a show-by-show basis. This trend has persisted ever since. For example, the accomplished actor Jay O. Sanders claims that having a theatre career today is “totally impractical” and admits being forced to seek employment in the entertainment industry for his livelihood: My goal has been to make it work so I can do the great classics and new plays on stage. I’ve done over 100 films, but I don’t think of them as my career. I am forced to diversify my work to make the money to support what I love and am trained to do.[11] It is not only the remuneration of on-camera employment that benefits actors like Sanders, but the symbolic credibility that comes with working on a high profile project. The economics of attention could not be clearer. If an actor can appear with celebrities in major Hollywood films—a feat Sanders has repeatedly achieved—he advances his professional legitimacy, a crucial characteristic in winning future employment. This sociocultural paradigm has serious ramifications for acting as an art form and the ways in which it is perceived. The symbolic value of celebrity manifests through a spectator’s intangible connection to certain thoughts, affects, and most significantly, feelings that are caused by—yet otherwise divorced from—the object (person) being fetishized. The Western Marxist Theodor Adorno articulates this phenomenal exchange in describing the fetishization of music. He argues that singers or instrumentalists are valued not for their ability to express a given composition, but for the ways in which they are marketed publicly: “For all contemporary musical life is dominated by the commodity form; the last pre-capitalist residues have been eliminated.” [12] Adorno goes on to depict the “fetish character” of music as a schism between the musician and the listener, as identified by the artist’s detachment from the materials of his labor. He uses NBC’s radio broadcasts of the celebrity conductor Arturo Toscanini to exemplify how radio and television detach the artist from the musical composition. [13] Both the artist and listener measure the cultural product’s value by its symbolic worth, which in this instance pertains to Toscanini’s prestige. At no point in the production and reception of the NBC broadcast is there a tangible connection between Toscanini, his musicianship, and the listener/consumer. Instead, the dynamic of cultural production, distribution, and consumption is defined by the fetishization of Toscanini as “the world’s best composer,” thereby rendering both him and his work commodities that adhere to what Adorno terms the “culture industry.” [14] Adorno claims the fetishization of singers also occurs at the expense of their artistry: “Musical fetishism takes possession of the public valuation of singing voices.” [15] The singer’s technical virtuosity and craft is eclipsed once he is mediated as a marketable commodity whose image and music fit the formula for success, which, again, is synonymous with the singer’s exchange value, a criterion determined by his status as a celebrity. We can see this socially induced phenomenon in today’s pop artists in that their image operates as a material good for mass consumption at the expense of vocal technique or musicality. From Justin Bieber to Lady Gaga, celebrity singers seem more intent on creating and safeguarding their image than enhancing whatever musicianship they might have. Gaga’s formulaic music, for example, is accompanied by her outlandish costumes and highly contrived iconoclasm, a strategy that is clearly advancing her brand according to starcount.com, which anoints her the world’s most famous person. [16] A similar case could be made of her predecessor, Madonna, whose “success,” as pop culture scholar John Fiske asserts, was “due at least as much to her videos and her personality as her music.” [17] In tracing Madonna’s fame to her socially constructed image, Fiske reminds us that her first album, Madonna (1983), was initially a commercial failure and that it was not until she made the video “Lucky Star” that her career began to take off. [18] The basis for this breakthrough, he argues, was to use mass media to deploy mythical signifiers to evoke a sexually empowered figure towards rendering Madonna a pop icon for adolescent girls and gay men, both of whom comprised her fan base during much of the 1980s. As Lady Gaga would do years later, Madonna represented a “fine example of the capitalist pop industry at work” and established a singing career that had little to with “what she sounded like.” [19] As such, both would-be artists exemplify what Adorno refers to as “the star principle.” [20] Adorno’s contemporary and colleague, Walter Benjamin, explains how the mass production and distribution of cultural goods as images causes artists to be alienated from their audience. Echoing Adorno’s concern for the social role of art during a time of unprecedented advancements in technology, Benjamin uses the actor to differentiate what he terms “cult” and “exhibition” values relative to theatre and film. In the case of the former, he argues stage acting possesses an aura that must be experienced live between the actor and his audience. This exchange can be likened to Jerzy Grotowski’s theorization and practice of “Poor Theatre,” an aesthetic devoid of spectacle and marked by the direct, ephemeral, and “holy encounter” defining the actor/spectator relationship. [21] Contrarily, film acting represents exhibition value, which can be synonymously understood as exchange value deriving from the technological mediation of art into objects that are reproduced en masse . Thus, a film actor’s celebrity is directly proportionate to the distribution and consumption of his image. Benjamin depicts this dynamic as the spectator “identifying with the camera,” or more specifically the image emanating from it, thereby causing the same schism between an artwork and its beholder that Adorno describes in the commodification of music. [22] The irony to this phenomenon is when a celebrity does theatre. When an actor of Hanks’s stature appears onstage, it begs the question: is the audience responding to Hanks the celebrity or the character he is representing? Are they there to see Ephron’s play, or are they star-struck spectators arriving to see a celebrity in the flesh strut his stuff? While it would be impossible to exactly know what an audience’s collective intention is for seeing a given production, we can apply what the philosopher/psychiatrist collaborators Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari term the philosophy of desire to analyze the consciousness of said audience in the context of the celebrity society. Some psychiatrists and social scientists suggest that the phenomenon of fandom is para-social in that a beholder forms a fictional bond with a celebrity. This connection exists in degrees ranging from causal followers to an obsessed worshiper. In both instances, an individual idolizes celebrities according to how his/her “consciousness is structured and organized in a particular way.” [23] These points of connection can pertain to a range of self-identifying characteristics, such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and personal ideals. One’s sense of self and belonging in the world are reinforced through an imagined relationship with a complete stranger. Thus, the production and distribution of celebrities through and within the various media constituting the entertainment industry can be seen as a grand marketing ploy intended to appeal to intended audiences. This practice is obvious in advertising campaigns, for example, where celebrity endorsements are made according to the buyer being targeted. The commercial theatre operates this way too, which explains why actors are cast in leading roles not because they are experienced stage performers but rather, because they have the star power, the symbolic capital, to appeal to a certain consumer base. Indeed, America’s crème de le crème of theatre, Broadway, has been deploying this strategy for decades: Madonna’s appearance in David Mamet’s Speed the Plow had teens flocking to the theatres in 1988, just as Sean P. Diddy Combs and Daniel Radcliffe would respectively do on behalf of A Raisin in the Sun (2004) and Equus (2007). Though the celebrification process exists in part at the level of the individual fan, it must be seen as a social phenomenon to understand its role in the commodification of US theatre and acting. As such, desire plays a significant role in the formation and sustaining of a given celebrity and how he can be utilized to market a theatrical production. At the core of classical theories of psychiatry is the concept of desire as per the parental/child relationship that then gets transferred onto another individual, usually a romantic partner. When considering this paradigm in the social sphere, desire must be seen as an abstraction, which in the context of capitalism means commodities, be they material possessions or symbols; the latter of course could be conceived as a celebrity. In this way desire is understood as the social unconscious constructing and conditioning consciousness vis-à-vis an imagined relationship with a famous person. This relationship varies according to the degree of emotional investment on the part of any given beholder, yet even for the more casual fan some form of socially induced phenomenon is at stake. Nothing is formed exclusively at the personal level. Raymond Williams refers to such a process as structures of feeling where “there is frequent tension between the received interpretation [a beholder’s fantasy] and practical experience,” otherwise understood as reality. [24] His theory suggests a social experience like an art movement or the idolization of an individual that takes on an unconscious presence within a certain cultural context, within which an individual’s perceptions of an object and/or experience becomes subsumed by the collective, thereby creating a “structure of feeling” that has significant implications along social lines. In the case of celebrities, dominant forms of social understanding jointly create and potentially sustain a person’s fame. The construction of Tom Hanks as a cultural icon proves as much. Since Hanks began amassing symbolic value for his cinematic achievements, especially dating back to his Academy Award winning work in Forrest Gump (1994), his prestige has continued to grow in US popular culture. His numerous starring roles in Hollywood blockbusters, his work as a producer of films and television programs, and as mentioned at the outset of the article, his debut on Broadway in a work penned by an unproven playwright—a project that would never have been produced had it not been for Hanks and his symbolic capital—all demonstrate the process and ramifications of celebrity formation. Desire is at the heart of the social unconscious and can be seen as the primary source of celebrity formation. As such, it can be likened to Adorno’s critique of the fetishization of cultural goods in that society at large succumbs to the trappings of the culture industry in ways that remain largely undetectable. Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of desire can further illuminate the formation and function of celebrity. Though their overarching argument is to locate desire as a catalyst for political revolution, their paradigm can also apply to the social unconscious’s role in the celebrification process. Deleuze and Guattari argue that human desire exists at the level of the unconscious and is the catalyst for production in a capitalist society. Claiming that desire is constantly “striving [to] become more” by “becoming other [or] different,” they define it as a “force composed” of abstract machines that become manifest in an individual’s conscious and unconscious perception of social codes operating at the level of his thoughts, emotions, and corporeal experience. [25] The abstract machine, or force, functions as a sociocultural phenomenon dictating the course and content of material production, within which the psychological and the social are closely linked. The process of celebrification mobilizes a collective desire towards commodifying a given object for consumption: the star. Unlike standard material goods, however, the celebrity’s value to a consumer is intangible. Whereas one could purchase a stylish article of clothing or a fancy car to satisfy one’s consumer needs, purchasing a ticket to see a celebrity in a Broadway show provides the buyer the ontological experience he seeks: seeing a famous person in the flesh. To crudely borrow from Shakespeare, “the play is [NOT] the thing,” but rather, being in close proximity to the object of desire, the celebrity, is what prevails. [26] Driven by the social unconscious, the doting patron buys his ticket to have an experience that he desires to be as “real” as it is unique. However, these characteristics in the context of performance are antithetical and merely a psychological ruse existing at the social level. Adorno’s schematization of mass culture makes this case in stating that the “difference between culture and practical life disappear.” [27] The beauty of an aesthetic given to the realm of the imagination and uniqueness regresses to what Adorno terms “empirical reality,” a pedestrian experience defined by “doing what everyone else does.” [28] In fact, there is nothing unique whatsoever about seeing a celebrity up close in a performance; quite the contrary, it is merely a socially induced product of mass culture masquerading as something special. Adorno addresses the issue of an artwork’s uniqueness relative to “empirical reality” by referring to the “spiritual essence” of the former, and can therein apply to stage acting and theatre. [29] Comparing aesthetic beauty to a fireworks display, he depicts art as a transcendent experience that can be identified as an “apparition.” [30] The apparition implies a spirituality that causes a phenomenological effect that is evanescent—evanescence reconceived as “liveness” is of course a distinguishing characteristic of theatre. Ultimately, Adorno does not use the term “spirit” in an ethereal manner, but addresses it relative to an artwork’s form. In arguing that “the spirit of artworks is bound up with their form,” he defines it as a sensual affect that is the product of a given piece’s constituent elements. [31] Contrary to supernatural associations with the term, Adorno describes spirit as an artwork’s “vital” and “substantial” essence, and not “a thin abstract layer hovering above” the selfsame work. [32] It is affective, if phenomenal, and the result of a process that can be objectively measured. Identifying art as jointly spiritual and tangible, Adorno dialectically analyzes the dynamic between a work’s phenomenal affect and its material form, which he terms its “thing-like” dimensions; in the case of the stage actor this would be the expressivity of his body, voice, emotions, and imagination. [33] The work’s spirit is thus generated by the artwork’s material form for the purpose of transcending that very form. While the artwork’s spirit is its defining attribute, it is created through a process that is contingent on the work’s constitutive elements, such as the dialectical connection between the sounds of a sonata relative to its paginal composition, or actors mediating a scripted drama into a character. It is near impossible, however, for a celebrity to achieve spiritualization in a theatrical performance. No matter how skilled he might be, the celebrity actor’s fame ultimately becomes his undoing in that the audience is likelier to be conscious of his personality at the expense of the character he portrays. In fact, there are some celebrities who have been trained for the stage and are quite gifted as such—Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, to name a few. Indeed, these three actors were the headliners for the New York Shakespeare Festival’s critically acclaimed production of The Seagull in 2001. Nonetheless, their familiarity to the average audience member compromised the significant criterion of losing themselves in the role, a point the headline of the New York Times review inadvertently underscored: “Streep meets Chekhov, Up in Central Park.” [34] The issue is not Ben Brantley’s praise for these three actors, which was consistent with nearly every critical account of their performances, but that their familiarity to the average spectator superseded the characters they played, and as Michael Quinn’s semiotic analysis of celebrity actors suggests: “exceeded the needs of the fiction [by] keeping them from disappearing entirely into the acting figure of the drama.” [35] Writing in 1990, Quinn’s prescient observation has never been more fully realized in US theatre. Today’s audiences are distracted by their preconceived perceptions of a celebrity’s personal life and/or former projects to the point of not being capable of “accepting” his performance at face value. [36] Moreover, this subliminal ghosting of a given performance is abetted by a show’s branding, as producers attempt to capitalize on the name recognition of their star performer(s). Unfortunately, the actor’s actual work gets lost in the exchange. The presence of the celebrity actor therefore has a potentially regressive effect on the theatrical production. To the extent that the performer takes attention away from the production, he can be seen as little more than a distraction, the source of which, again, comes from the social unconscious desire to be in the presence of someone famous. While it is altogether possible that some audience members can overlook these types of distractions, most cannot, as Ben Brantley suggests in his review of Julia Roberts in David Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain (2006): The startling conclusion of most of the critics seems to be that the Oscar-winning actress who can command $20 million for a role in Hollywood actually cannot act very well at all. At least, not when her audience is a flesh-and-bone one, rather than a sympathetic lens.[37] Brantley tellingly summarizes how Roberts’s celebrity dominated the production at the expense of Greenberg’s play: One of the three stars of the Broadway revival of Three Days of Rain, which opened last night at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, is Julia Roberts, who is making her big-time theatrical debut…. There is no way that this show is not going to be all about Julia…. Ms. Roberts is the sole reason this limited-run revival has become the most coveted ticket in town.[38] The source of the theatrical production, Three Days of Rain , is overcome by the forces of socially manifested desire in which the material good, seeing Roberts perform live, becomes the selling point. While one might argue that casting Roberts has the benefit of widening the audience to include those who would not otherwise go to the theatre, her appearance onstage has reductive implications for US acting, and moreover, the role of art in society. The desire undergirding our social unconscious gives rise to the spectacle of celebrity, thereby causing society to consume a person’s image en masse at the expense of the actress’s work and the play in which she appears. The allure of Roberts in affect displaces her acting, and moreover, redefines the theatrical experience in her image. The irony of course is unmistakable in that Roberts’s fame negates any chance the audience will be capable of encountering her performance in the context of Three Days of Rain . Guy Debord argues that technologically generated spectacle formulates the phenomenon of celebrity. Similar to Benjamin’s description of an artwork’s “exhibition value,” Debord posits spectacles—and the images that constitute them—as “signs of the ruling production” that signify how people should live their lives. [39] Adorno makes a similar case in discussing the harmful effects of film and television, insofar as both mediums uphold potentially damaging and “nefarious” social stereotypes by evoking a “pseudo-reality” at the expense of a dialectical analysis of society, or put more simply, film and television tend to privilege conformity and discourage critical analysis. [40] The on-camera actor therefore feeds into a system of signs that simultaneously shapes and reinforces the “banal” status quo by offering cultural consumers “pseudo-enjoyment.” [41] Celebrity performers are particularly influential in this process, as Debord notes: The celebrity, the spectacular representation of a living human being, embodies this banality by embodying the image of a possible role. Being a star means specializing in the seemingly lived; the star is the object of identification[42] Celebrity actors are therefore dominated by and contribute to society’s commodification of cultural goods, in which artistry loses its uniqueness and “everything” becomes “mediated by images” that separate people from themselves and others in favor of conforming to the capitalist social order. [43] Debord identifies the regression of fetishizing artistic goods for mass consumption, thereby reducing them to commodities that displace tangible human interaction. [44] The social unconscious is very much at play in this dynamic, as people unwittingly are led by desire in responding to technologically generated images and thus “the commodity attains the total occupation of social life.” [45] The acquisition of commodities relies on a process of “spectacular representation” that is marked by the peddling of sameness under the guise of autonomy, as the hocking of reproductions—such as an actor’s image—masquerades as “the real thing.” [46] The culture industry is at the center of this process, which in the case of acting can best be seen in the trappings of Hollywood, thereby causing what Adorno terms the “deaestheticization of art.” [47] The spectacular grip of celebrity on the American theatre persists. Every production of the 2013/14 Broadway season had at least one famous person among its ranks, a fact underscored by the commensurate Tony Awards telecast, when celebrities such as Samuel L. Jackson and Lucy Liu presented honors to the likes of Bryan Cranston (HBO’s Breaking Bad ) and Neil Patrick Harris ( How I Met Your Mother ). Guest appearances by Sting and Jennifer Hudson further demonstrated this practice. In Hudson’s case, she was pitching a song from the musical version of the hit film Finding Neverland , which was playing at the American Repertory Theatre at the time and later opened on Broadway that ensuing fall. It is ironic, however, that Hudson was hired solely for the Tony telecast and was never in the production. Other Hollywood stars that graced Broadway stages that season included Glenn Close ( A Delicate Balance ), Bradley Cooper ( The Elephant Man ), and Hugh Jackman ( The River ). Trying to bank on the symbolic capital of Hollywood, the Tony Awards telecast also featured Kevin Bacon, Rosie O’Donnell, Tina Fey, and Ethan Hawke, among numerous others. Perhaps the most incongruous star to appear was the iconic Clint Eastwood, who was so out of sorts that he butchered the name of the venerable stage director Darko Tresnjak and mistook the final titular word in the drama The Cripple of Innishman for “Irishman.” Two rather perplexing errors, given that Eastwood had the seemingly simple charge of merely reading the teleprompter and contents of the winning envelope, a two-minute action that a little bit of rehearsal could have adequately prepared him to execute. Unfortunately, the show was live and he had no chance to cut his flawed performance in favor of a second take. Perhaps the larger question is: Why was Eastwood presenting in the first place? He is not a theatre professional, a fact made all the more apparent by his bungled presentation. During the same telecast Rosie O’Donnell recalled her youth to describe how she first fell in love with theatre: “Hollywood was vague and an illusion, but Broadway was real.” Her privileging of “reality” can be read with unintended irony in that the illusory and imaginative essence of theatre, especially as it pertains to the work of actors, is often displaced by the spectacle of celebrity; theatre’s embracement of reality is—to borrow from Adorno—of the empirical or pedestrian variety, thereby discounting any chance to achieve a product steeped in wonder, spirit, and shared celebration. The unconscious desire of theatregoers—a drive that is socially induced—is projected onto the figure of the celebrity, whose presence therein is filtered through her image, which has been produced, distributed and consumed through the mass media. The object of desire is therefore not the play, its actors, or the theatrical event, but the star performer and her symbolic worth to an audience of doting fans. It is a phenomenon owed to the fetishized forces of capitalism and has precious little to with stage acting or the aesthetic of theatre. References [1] Adam Hetrick, “Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy , Starring Tom Hanks, Ends Broadway Run, July 3 rd ,” Playbill.com , http://www.playbill.com/news/article/179720-Nora-Ephrons-Lucky-Guy-Starring-Tom-Hanks-Ends-Broadway-Run-July-3 (accessed 15 January 2014). [2] Guy DeBord, The Society of the Spectacle (Detroit, MI: Black and Red, 1983), sec. 42. [3] For more on the cultural consumption of celebrities, see Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, Starstruck: the Business of Celebrity (New York: Faber and Faber, 2010); and Daniel Herwitz, The Star as Icon: Celebrity in the Age of Mass Consumption (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). [4] Ben Brantley, “Old-School Newsman, After Deadline: Tom Hanks in ‘Lucky Guy’ at the Broadhurst Theatre,” New York Times , 1 April 2013. [5] Ben Zimmer, “‘Oxygen Out of the Room’: From Clever Cause to Cliché,” The Wall Street Journal , 31 July 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/oxygen-out-of-the-room-from-clever-clause-to-cliche-1438366552 (accessed 4 January 2016). [6] Robert van Krieken, Celebrity Society (New York: Routledge, 2012), 53. [7] For a useful analysis of the role of symbolic capital in determining the value of cultural goods, see Pierre Bourdieu, “The Market of Symbolic Goods,” in The Field of Cultural Production (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 112-41. [8] Charles Isherwood, “Stage Acting: It’s Nice Work If You Can Afford It,” New York Times , 15 January 2006. [9] “Season Preview,” American Theatre , October 2013. [10] Steven DiPaola, “The 2012-2013 Theatrical Season Report,” Equity News (December 2013). [11] Jay O. Sanders, interview with author, 31 August 2013. Sanders received his training from the professional acting program at the State University of New York at Purchase during the 1970s. [12] Theodor Adorno, “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening,” in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture (New York: Routledge, 1991): 37-38. Also, see Marx, Capital , vol. 1, chap. 1, sec. 4, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.” [13] Ibid., 35. [14] Ibid. [15] Ibid. , 36. [16] According to starcount.com, a site that uses Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube to measure a celebrity’s popularity, Lady Gaga has over 30 million fans. This site identifies her as the most popular individual in the US. http://www.starcount.com/all-platforms/Worldwide/Musician (accessed 12 July 2015). [17] John Fiske, “Madonna,” in Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies , ed. James L. Machor and Philip Goldstein (New York: Routledge, 2001), 246. [18] Ibid. [19] Ibid., 246-47. [20] Adorno, “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening,” 35. [21] Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre (New York: Routledge, 2002), 55-60. [22] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations (New York: Shocken Books, 1978), 220. [23] van Krieken, Celebrity Society, 73. [24] Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 130-31. [25] Phillip Goodchild, Delueze and Guattari: An Introduction to the Politics of Desire (London: SAGE Publications, 1996), 44-45. [26] Hamlet, ed., Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (New York: Arden Shakespeare, 2014), 2.2.566. Reference is to act, scene, and line. [27] Adorno, “The Schema of Mass Culture,” in The Culture Industry , 61. [28] Ibid. [29] Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 78-94. [30] Ibid., 85. [31] Ibid., 89. [32] Ibid., 88-90. [33] Ibid., 86-87. [34] Ben Brantley, “Streep Meets Chekhov, Up in Central Park,” New York Times , 13 August 2001. [35] Michael Quinn, “Celebrity and the Semiotics of Acting,” New Theatre Quarterly 6, no. 22 (May 1990): 154. [36] Ibid, 155. [37] Quoted in David Usborne, “Critics Rain Insults on Julia Roberts’s Broadway Debut,” The Independent , 22 April 2006 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/critics-rain-insults-on-julia-roberts-broadway-debut-475125.html (accessed 15 July 2015). [38] Ben Brantley, “Enough Said About ‘Three Days of Rain.’ Let’s Talk About Julia Roberts!” New York Times , 20 April 2006, http://theater.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/theater/reviews/20rain.html (accessed 28 March 2011). [39] Debord, Society of the Spectacle , sec. 7. [40] Theodor Adorno, “How to Look at Television,” in The Culture Industry , ed. J.M. Bernstein (New York: Routledge, 1991), 158, 171. [41] Debord, Society of the Spectacle , sec. 59. [42] Ibid., sec. 60. [43] Ibid., secs. 1, 4. [44] Ibid., sec. 36. [45] Ibid., sec. 42. [46] Ibid., sec. 60. [47] Adorno, Aesthetic Theory , 16. Footnotes About The Author(s) Dr. Peter Zazzali is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of Kansas. A specialist in actor training and the sociology of theatre, his work has appeared in Theatre Topics , PAJ , and The European Legacy , among other peer-reviewed journals. In April of 2016, Routledge will release his book: Acting in the Academy: The History of Professional Actor Training in US Higher Education . Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Editorial Comment New Directions in Dramatic and Theatrical Theory: The Emerging Discipline of Performance Philosophy Changes, Constants, Constraints: African American Theatre History Scholarship Reflections: Fifty Years of Chicano/Latino Theatre Strangers Onstage: Asia, America, Theatre, and Performance Transgressive Engagements: The Here and Now of Queer Theatre Scholarship Thinking about Temporality and Theatre Musical Theatre Studies “Re-righting” Finland’s Winter War: Robert E. Sherwood’s There Shall Be No Night[s] Star Struck!: The Phenomenological Affect of Celebrity on Broadway Performing Anti-slavery American Tragedian Murder Most Queer The Captive Stage Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Khalid Y. Long and Le’Mil Eiland 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 100 Years of Du Bois: “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art” Khalid Y. Long and Le’Mil Eiland By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is regarded for his astute sociological insights into black life, as reflected in his various publications. His philosophical interventions, through publications such as The Souls of Black Folks (1903), the theory of double consciousness, and the concept of the Talented Tenth—among many others—enrich the sociological, political, and intellectual histories worldwide. His community leadership with organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) and circulation of N.A.A.C.P.’s The Crisis magazine wed his scholarly investments with the Black public intellectual tradition. Negro drama, as it was termed at the time Du Bois wrote, was a particular means of reframing the perception of Black people in America. In July 1926, Du Bois published his essay “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre: The Story of a Little Theatre Movement.” In it, he codified his vision for “four fundamental principles” of a “real Negro Theatre”: it must be about Black life, written by Black authors, performed for Black audiences, and situated within Black communities. These principles challenged prevailing theatrical norms and directly confronted the commercialization and racial gatekeeping of the broader American stage. According to Tejumola Olaniyan, Du Bois’s manifesto “challenged the reigning fashion of ‘Negro Theater’” written and packaged by whites, and also the idea of audience and related theatrical success defined merely commercially, within the asphyxiating parameters of Broadway” ( Scars of Conquest/Masks of Resistance 21). Later that year in October, Du Bois published a second critical article titled “Criteria of Negro Art” in which he insisted that “all Art [i.e., true art] is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists ... I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.” 1 By establishing himself as a progenitor of a Black aesthetic centered on the social responsibility of Black art, especially during the height of the New Negro period, Du Bois would inspire theatre scholars, critics, educators, and playwrights to consider the role and function of theatre in the decades that followed.  Du Bois’s activism and scholarship offer an opportunity to center the conditions of Black life and the afterlives of the New Negro era. Although Du Bois died on August 27, 1963, his words continue to illuminate and resonate with artists, scholars, and activists today. For example, Clark Atlanta University and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution online newspaper recently reenvisioned Du Bois’s “Exhibit of American Negroes.” In 1900, at the World’s Fair in Paris, Du Bois, along with Daniel Murray and Thomas J. Calloway, compiled photographs of Black people and visual data in the wake of the Civil War. In 2026, the university’s exhibit and the Atlanta newspaper reproduced images from the exhibit alongside contemporary photographs of Black folks and current racial demographics. These photographs, alongside sociological data, visualize and collapse the boundaries between art and sociology. We’d argue that theatre, during the turn of the twentieth century and today, also stitches these two disciplines together as a continuation of Du Bois’s cultural investments.  Du Bois’s four principles on Negro theatre are arguably the most significant and often cited assertion that this theatre is “About us, By us, For us, and Near us.” Du Bois’s proposition repositions caricatures as subjects, passive spectators as playwrights and performers, displaced voyeurs as patrons, and distant destinations for neighborhood establishments. We’d be remiss to ignore the repetition of “us” as a rhetorical device. About us . Du Bois is situating himself in a relationship with the reader(s) to affirm community. By us . Du Bois challenges American individualism in favor of collective participation. For us . Du Bois hailed Black communities with his ideologies on race. Near us . Du Bois acknowledges the importance of shared space, proximity, and immediacy. About us . Du Bois reiterates his priority: the souls of black folks. As the Crisis magazine began the 1920s with a monthly circulation of over 100,000 copies, more than a citation for publication, Du Bois penned an edict on Black theatre. Du Bois offers us, as editors and contributors, and you, as readers, a moment to consider the space between 1926 and today. While some of Du Bois’s evocations are firmly rooted in the early twentieth century, much of his work redirects our attention to pressing concerns for Black theatre today. Although we focus on Du Bois, we also position his works as mediators alongside Alain Locke, Thomas Montgomery Gregory, and countless contributors and patrons of Black theatre and drama in the 1920s. Unlike several of his contemporaries, including Locke and Gregory, Du Bois held a more radical Black philosophy, recognizing the potential of theatre and drama to reshape perceptions of Black people in America. There have been many shifts since Du Bois wrote in 1926. Just as Negro has been refashioned in title and subjectivity to African American and Black, theatrical genres, sensibilities, and genealogies have shifted and multiplied as well. Race and propaganda drama propelled an urgent response to minstrelsy, as post-Black drama built on and pressed beyond the Black Arts Movement. In 1926, Du Bois advocated for a regional theatre movement, through the Krigwa Players’ Little Negro Theatre, to expand across the nation. After over five decades since the end of the Great Migration, when approximately six million people moved across multiple regional destinations to develop a national culture, we can investigate the profile of Black theatre across America. Returning 100 years later to this essential figure and these vital archival documents, this special issue of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre  marks the centenary publication of Du Bois’s “Principles of a Real Negro Theatre” and “Criteria of Negro Art.” Across a range of essays, the authors revisit Du Bois’s foundational works and recognize them as theoretical interventions that continue to shape our understanding of Black performance, aesthetics, and cultural politics. Contending with how Du Bois’s essays reverberate today, the articles in this special issue focus on the enduring insistence of his call for art as a bold cultural intervention against an entrenched supremacist order and its pervasive norms. Isaiah Matthew Wooden opens this special issue with his essay, “‘One Great and Fine Mode of Expression’: On W. E. B. Du Bois and the Exigencies of Black Drama and Theatre.” Focusing on Du Bois’s resignation from the Krigwa Players and his lifelong reflections on theatre, Wooden reconsiders Du Bois not only as a critic of Black representation but also as a devoted practitioner and theorist of Black drama. Through archival letters, manifestos, and essays, Wooden traces how Du Bois understood drama as a vital mode of collective expression grounded in shared memory and struggle. In her essay, “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Krigwa Little Negro Theatre Movement in Harlem and Beyond,” Kirsten Lee argues that Du Bois envisioned Black theatre not as a localized Harlem phenomenon but as a movement shaped by the demographic and cultural shifts of the Great Migration. Drawing on archival research, the essay shows how the Krigwa model fostered cross-regional collaboration and the development of Black artistic communities across the United States. Kellen Hoxworth’s “An Expansive ‘Us’: W.E.B. Du Bois’s ‘Pan-Negro’ Theatrical Vision” reexamines Du Bois’s theatrical philosophy by placing it within a broader pan-Africanist and internationalist framework. Through close readings of  The Star of Ethiopia  and of Du Bois’s intellectual influence on figures such as Lorraine Hansberry and Alice Childress, the essay shows how his work articulates a transnational conception of Black identity and performance, arguing that Du Bois’s theatre constructs an “expansive us” that bridges Black American experiences with global Black histories and political struggles. In “It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s  The Talented Tenth, ” Kristyl D. Tift examines the evolution and limitations of Du Bois’s “Talented Tenth” theory through a reading of Richard Wesley’s play  The Talented Tenth . Tift highlights Wesley’s engagement with intra-racial class tensions and generational divides. In doing so, she traces Du Bois’s ideological shift from elite-driven racial uplift to a more collective, institutional vision of Black cultural production. Ultimately, Tift positions the play as both a dramatization and a revision of Du Boisian thought, revealing the enduring complexities of race, class, and aspiration. In Jonathan Shandell’s “Reflections on Fundamental Principles,” he revisits Du Bois’s foundational manifesto on Black theatre. Shandell argues that Du Bois’s formulation—“About us, By us, For us, Near us”—remains a vital analytic framework for understanding the historical and contemporary trajectories of Black theatre. The essay foregrounds the collaborative and communal dimensions of theatrical production, emphasizing the centrality of Black audiences and the spatial politics of performance. At the same time, Shandell interrogates the scholar’s positionality, especially his own, in relation to Du Bois’s conception of “us,” ultimately proposingan expanded, more inclusive revelatory perspective. Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green closes this special edition with her article, “Teaching August Wilson in an Age of Democratic Decline: Du Boisian Imperatives and Black Pedagogy Across Campus and Community.” Drawing on Du Bois’s philosophies and August Wilson’s dramaturgy, Green examines the tensions of teaching Wilson’s American Century Cycle at a predominantly white institution. The essay traces how Du Bois’s principles inspired her to extend Wilson’s work beyond the university into a community-based Freedom School model rooted in mutual aid, intergenerational learning, and Black cultural inheritance. As we look back on the contents of this special issue, we must acknowledge the peculiar position of Black drama and theatre in 2026. Black theatre is currently sandwiched between national accomplishments—such as the recent recognition of numerous Black playwrights and artists with industry accolades like the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in America and The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre (Tony Awards)—and a conservative shift in which discussions of race, even in theatre spaces, are framed as culturally adversarial. As a continuation of Du Boisian thought in dialogue with August Wilson’s “The Ground on Which I Stand” and Suzan-Lori Parks’ “New Black Math,” we must contend with the current condition of Black theatre in America NOW . We need a cultural response to inequities in funding streams and institutional support for theatre artists, scholars, and Black brick-and-mortar theatre buildings. We need strategies to address labor precarity and the underrecognized, undercompensated racial labor within performance and educational spaces. We require, in addition to representation, that Black theatre cultural producers have autonomy across the various stages of production to advocate for Black artists and contributors as active participants and partners (not just witnesses and patrons). We desire and deserve sustained dialogue about how Black theatre is taken up, especially by predominantly white educational and industry institutions that, due to power imbalances, continue to shape theatrical training and production practices in ways that can inadvertently diminish the integrity and continuity of our vibrant theatrical traditions. The articles in this special issue take up that charge in distinct yet resonant and imaginative ways, tracing lineages, interrogating institutions, and imagining alternative modes of practice, critique, and sustainability. Together, the authors remind us that Black theatre has never been merely reflective but integral—actively shaping the conditions of its existence. As such, this special issue stands not only as a commemoration but also as a continuation of Du Bois’s call to think and build through the arts. References 1 “The Criteria of Negro Art” was originally presented as an address at the NAACP’s annual conference held in Chicago in June 1926. Footnotes About The Author(s) Khalid Y. Long is the Associate Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. His books include Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance: Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity (Methuen Drama) and August Wilson in Context (Cambridge University Press). He has published in several journals and edited scholarly collections, including  Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre, and Performance; tBTR: the Black Theatre Review; The Journal of American Drama and Theatre (JADT);   Modern Drama ;  Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism; Theatre Topics; Theatre Journal; Theatre, and several edited collections. A freelance dramaturg, he has collaborated with numerous theaters nationwide, partnering with a wide array of theater artists.  Le’Mil L. Eiland is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History at Illinois State University. Eiland is the Director of Graduate Studies and Program Head for the Theatre Studies programs at Illinois State University. Eiland is currently working on his first manuscript, The Black Archives: Fugitive Historiographies . As an interdisciplinary scholar, he studies and researches at the intersections of black cultural production, theatre history, and performance theory. He has publications with the Black Theatre Review , with upcoming publications in the American Theatre magazine and Theatre History Studies . He is a director and movement-based theatre artist whose work centers poetic text, physical storytelling, and imaginative staging. Eiland’s assistant directing credits include the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and the American Players Theatre. As a director, his recent projects include Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Red by John Logan. 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.

Watch In-I In Motion by Juliette Binoche at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2026. In 2007, French actress Juliette Binoche and British dancer-choreographer Akram Khan stepped away from their established careers to embark on a bold artistic experiment. Over six months, they co-created In-I, an intense, boundary-pushing performance they would go on to stage 100 times around the world. Today, Juliette Binoche returns to that intimate journey. From the first spark of inspiration to the final applause, she retraces the emotional and creative arc of a singular collaboration. Drawing on dozens of hours of previously unseen footage, she reflects, as a filmmaker, on the nature of artistic creation, the vulnerability and exhilaration of taking risks, and the personal transformation they demand. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents In-I In Motion Juliette Binoche At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2026 Screening Information This film will be screened on May 30, at 5:45 PM, at The Segal Theatre Center RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. Country France Language French, English Running Time 125 minutes Year of Release 2026 About The Film In 2007, French actress Juliette Binoche and British dancer-choreographer Akram Khan stepped away from their established careers to embark on a bold artistic experiment. Over six months, they co-created In-I, an intense, boundary-pushing performance they would go on to stage 100 times around the world. Today, Juliette Binoche returns to that intimate journey. From the first spark of inspiration to the final applause, she retraces the emotional and creative arc of a singular collaboration. Drawing on dozens of hours of previously unseen footage, she reflects, as a filmmaker, on the nature of artistic creation, the vulnerability and exhilaration of taking risks, and the personal transformation they demand. CAST Juliette Binoche Actress Akram Kahn Dancer CREW A film by Juliette Binoche Cinematography Marion Stalens Production Sébastien de Fonseca Music Philip Sheppard Editing Sophie Brunet, Sophie Mandonnet Sound Mix Éric Tisserand Sound Editor Arnaud Rolland, Emmanuel Angrand Colour-grading Yov Moor, Elie Akoka Post Production Eugénie Deplus, Thomas Jaubert Production MIAO PRODUCTIONS In coproduction with YGGDRASIL Ola Strøm LÉGER PRODUCTION Solène Léger In collaboration with BABEL LABEL Co., Ltd. MEGUMI With the support of KERING TEMPIO FONDATION BNP PARIBAS International Sales mk2 Films © 2025 MIAO PRODUCTIONS About The Artist(s) Juliette Binoche was born in Paris. She loves travelling like someone who might have come from the four corners of the earth. In her blood run Polish, Brazilian and Flemish platelets. As a child, she loved making things, crafting, tinkering even. She brought her hands together, believed in the happiness of living, in saving snails, in warming up cold dolls. And then, to play was to escape. Escape from the loneliness of boarding schools, from recurring nightmares, creating moments of joy in playgrounds, in the pitch-black night of dormitories. At the age of four, she preferred whispering games to sleep. Her fragmented family brought her closer to angels. High up in the sky, like Dumbo, she no doubt chose her father and mother, who bathed in the world of the arts. With them, she lived at the heart of creative love. Her father’s theatrical tours awakened in her the desire for itinerant sharing. As a teenager, her cheeks aflame, Juliette had a band of friends with whom she performed theatre in the countryside with her mother: Jean-Philippe, Francine, Florence and Isabelle. But life meant she had to leave behind the valleys of Loir-et-Cher, the fruit trees, and the long evenings under immense sunsets. The nostalgia of that countryside, with its nourishing quality, became a touchstone throughout her life. Moving to Paris, baccalauréat in hand, she began theatre classes with Jean-Pierre Martino at 17 and Véra Gregh at 18. They helped her break down her will, to make room for silence, for another kind of openness. Casting after casting, hoping to fulfil her dream of becoming an actress, she was chosen to play her first major role in Rendez-vous by André Téchiné — a provocative, solitary film. The Cannes Festival became the palace of her public consecration, where the spiral of her life took flight. Her instinctive path through global creation has given Juliette Binoche a singular aura among filmmakers of a borderless constellation: Michael Haneke (Austria), David Cronenberg and Abel Ferrara (United States), Olivier Assayas, Leos Carax and Claire Denis (France), Amos Gitaï (Israel), Naomi Kawase and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Japan), Krzysztof Kieślowski (Poland), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Taiwan), Trân Anh Hùng (Vietnam), Abbas Kiarostami (Iran)… Crowned with the most prestigious awards (Academy Awards, BAFTA, César, Best Actress prizes at Cannes, Berlin and Venice…), Juliette Binoche does not, however, seek virtuosity. She prefers a mysterious link between her inner world and the desire to give of herself, perhaps encouraged, as Louis Malle noted after Damage, by “the love affair between her and the camera, a presence and an intensity that are staggering.” The great range of her performances in Bruno Dumont’s films — from austerity (Camille Claudel, 1915) to burlesque (Slack Bay) — illustrates her taste for freedom and her courage in constantly questioning herself in the fire of her performances. She seemed destined for an uncompromising auteur cinema when Jean-Luc Godard spotted her in 1984 for Hail Mary, but Juliette Binoche was unafraid to venture elsewhere: Godzilla by Gareth Edwards or Ghost in the Shell by Rupert Sanders, which she says she chose as a wink to her children. The success of Anthony Minghella’s nine-Oscar-winning The English Patient, along with Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat, established Juliette Binoche as a truly international actress, recognised worldwide. Yet her need for renewal in her creations always drives her further towards freedom. Her shifts and turns make her elusive. She takes her destiny into her own hands in cinema as well as theatre (Andrei Konchalovsky, Ivo Van Hove, Wajdi Mouawad), devotes herself to music (It’s Worth Living with Alexandre Tharaud), to poetry as to painting (Portraits In-Eyes, published by Place des Victoires), to dance (In-I with Akram Khan) and, most recently, to directing her first documentary film In-I In Motion (2025). Get in touch with the artist(s) tiphaine@miaoproductions.fr and follow them on social media Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2026 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here

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

Watch The Black Rider by Theo Janssen & Ralph Quinke at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2026. This documentary chronicles the creation of The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, the celebrated theatrical collaboration between Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, and William S. Burroughs. The production, adapted from August Apel's supernatural short story "Der Freischütz" — which was made famous in the operatic tradition by Friedrich Kind and Carl Maria von Weber's 1821 opera — premiered on March 31, 1990, at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany. Wilson directed and designed; Burroughs wrote the book; Waits composed the music and lyrics. The story centers on Wilhelm, a young file clerk in love with Käthchen, whose father will permit the marriage only to a skilled hunter. Desperate, Wilhelm makes a Faustian pact with Pegleg — the Devil — for magic bullets, with catastrophic consequences. The work is dark, expressionistic, and sung largely in English, with spoken dialogue in German, drawing on the aesthetic traditions of German Expressionism and the Theater of the Absurd while filtering them through the distinct visions of all three collaborators. Janssen and Quinke's film follows the production from rehearsals in September 1989 through to the opening night, providing rare behind-the-scenes access to Wilson, Waits, and Burroughs at work. The documentary includes extended interviews with all three artists alongside rehearsal footage and excerpts from the premiere performance — making it one of the most complete records of Wilson's creative process in collaboration, and an invaluable document of a singular meeting of artistic minds. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents The Black Rider Theo Janssen & Ralph Quinke At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2026 Screening Information This film will be screened on May 31 at 8:00 PM, at Anthology Film Archives RSVP Please note that these screenings are ticketed and require prior registration at the Anthology Film Archives website. Country Germany Language English, German Running Time 120 minutes Year of Release 1990 About The Film This documentary chronicles the creation of The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, the celebrated theatrical collaboration between Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, and William S. Burroughs. The production, adapted from August Apel's supernatural short story "Der Freischütz" — which was made famous in the operatic tradition by Friedrich Kind and Carl Maria von Weber's 1821 opera — premiered on March 31, 1990, at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany. Wilson directed and designed; Burroughs wrote the book; Waits composed the music and lyrics. The story centers on Wilhelm, a young file clerk in love with Käthchen, whose father will permit the marriage only to a skilled hunter. Desperate, Wilhelm makes a Faustian pact with Pegleg — the Devil — for magic bullets, with catastrophic consequences. The work is dark, expressionistic, and sung largely in English, with spoken dialogue in German, drawing on the aesthetic traditions of German Expressionism and the Theater of the Absurd while filtering them through the distinct visions of all three collaborators. Janssen and Quinke's film follows the production from rehearsals in September 1989 through to the opening night, providing rare behind-the-scenes access to Wilson, Waits, and Burroughs at work. The documentary includes extended interviews with all three artists alongside rehearsal footage and excerpts from the premiere performance — making it one of the most complete records of Wilson's creative process in collaboration, and an invaluable document of a singular meeting of artistic minds. Directors: Theo Janssen, Ralph Quinke Production: Thalia Theater, Hamburg Featuring: Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs About The Artist(s) Theo Janssen and Ralph Quinke are German filmmakers who documented the landmark 1990 theatrical production of The Black Rider at the Thalia Theater Hamburg. Their film captures the creative collaboration between Robert Wilson, Tom Waits, and William S. Burroughs in extensive detail, from early rehearsals to opening night, and remains the primary documentary record of one of the defining avant-garde theater productions of the late 20th century. Get in touch with the artist(s) and follow them on social media Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2026 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here

By Claudio Tolcachir, Jean Graham-Jones | Collection of plays from Claudio Tolcachir’s Timbre 4 company based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. < 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 Timbre 4: Two Plays by Claudio Tolcachir Claudio Tolcachir, Jean Graham-Jones Download PDF Claudio Tolcachir’s Timbre 4 is one of the most exciting companies to emerge from Buenos Aires’s vibrant contemporary theatre scene. The Coleman Family Omission and Third Wing, the two plays that put Timbre 4 on the international map, are translated here into English for the first time. Edited by Jean Graham-Jones Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Kristyl D. Tift 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 It Was All a Dream: Shifting Du Boisian Notions in Richard Wesley’s The Talented Tenth Kristyl D. Tift By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF In “Criteria of Negro Art” (1926), W.E.B. Du Bois identifies what he called the “new stirrings” among young Black people of the time—“stirrings of the beginning of a new appreciation of joy, of a new desire to create, of a new will to be, as though in this morning of group life we had awakened from some sleep that at once dimly mourns the past and dreams a splendid future.” 1 Du Bois’s valuation of joy, creativity, consciousness, and futurity echoes the creative vibrancy and urgency happening during the Harlem Renaissance. Believing in the potential of younger generations of Black folk to use Art to establish the humanity and brilliance of the “race,” Du Bois, here, expands his research as a sociologist of African American life and culture to activism. Manning Marable notes that, after publishing The Philadelphia Negro in 1899—a first-of-its-kind sociological study of Black Philadelphians living in the Seventh Ward between 1896 and 1897—Du Bois “was especially convinced that careful sociological measurement, combined with a proper cultural and historical understanding of a social group, could lead to the construction of a social agenda for reform.” 2 In the groundbreaking study, Du Bois determines the need for Black communal “reform” based on his observations of a large section of the population who had limited or no access to decent wages, jobs, food, housing, sanitary living conditions, and education. These bleak outcomes, which directly resulted from American slavery and the failed Reconstruction era, required interventions. In "The Talented Tenth" (1903), Du Bois proposed a solution: encourage the Black middle class to take responsibility for helping lower-class Blacks become upwardly mobile (through hiring Black labor, for example). He believed that a new generation of educated Black elites, a group he called The Talented Tenth, would lead the race to full civil rights. Du Bois imagined that 10% of African Americans who excelled academically, socially, economically, and artistically were the chosen ones whose collective intellectual contributions, cultural production, and leadership would function holistically as an armor of resistance to systemic racism in the U.S. Theoretically, the emergence and institutionalization of the “tenth” would help not only those less privileged to become liberated, but it would liberate the entire community. While this call to action was notable for its emphasis on the moral duty and obligation of the middle class, it ignored the alluring benefits and exclusionary politics of capitalism, which reinforced the very class hierarchies that Du Bois identified as obstacles to racial uplift in his early studies. As Marable writes, “The Talented Tenth theory was a strategy to win democracy for all Black Americans. The burden of struggle resided upon those of the race best prepared, educationally and economically, to lead that fight.” 3 The problem with this theory is that while the “burden” seems a light load to carry for those with class privilege, for racialized people the load is still quite heavy regardless of class, and the weight can breed self-righteousness, self-loathing, and resentment that only deepens intraracial divisions. The African American class conundrum is one that generations of playwrights have explored at length in the theatre, 4 including Richard Wesley, who, having studied under Owen Dodson at Howard University, began his professional career at New Lafayette Theatre in the early 1970s under the mentorship of Ed Bullins. A number of Wesley’s plays, including The Mighty Gents (1978) and The Talented Tenth (1989), document the promise and disillusionment of Black American dreams—not only because of White racism but, more remarkably, because of intraracial class breakdowns. His works magnify the elusive pleasures and lingering anxieties and regret often associated with performances of superiority and dominance. The Talented Tenth recognizes, as Du Bois himself eventually did, the inherent classist assumptions and practical limitations of Black elitism. In this essay, I am concerned with Du Bois’s shift from the individualized theory of the “tenth” to an institutional conceptualization of “Negro Art”. 5 Reading Wesley’s The Talented Tenth , set in the 1990s, I explore the playwright’s use of dreams and memories as reflections of and responses to Du Bois’s shifting ideas about what constitutes Black advocacy, activism, and excellence. 6 In The Talented Tenth , the curtain rises on a beach in Negril, Jamaica. Bernard, a man in his forties, stands off to the side as his wife, Pam, and their three friends, Marvin, Ron, and Rowena—all of whom are former Howard University classmates—relax in the sun. Bernard is daydreaming about his first job interview with Mr. Griggs, who is in his fifties and the owner of a radio station. The daydream, which is shown onstage, takes place in the 1960s. The dialogue begins easily, with the two connecting over a mutual acquaintance, before quickly shifting into more direct speech (similar to a grilling rather than an interview). Their exchange, thereafter, exemplifies the kind of miscommunication that can occur between those of differing generations; it also captures the tension of the nationwide racial and political upheaval of that turbulent time. Griggs—a World War II veteran-turned-businessman—has achieved success through hard work, whereas Bernard has only recently graduated from Howard and is at the start of his career in business. While Bernard aspires to Griggs’ level of success, the older man is grumpy and condescending with a temperament that suggests that whether or not the young man gets the job, achieving and maintaining a spot in the mythical “tenth” will not (and should not, according to Griggs) be easy. Griggs holds the keys to the metaphorical gate between Bernard and his first job, but it is important to note that, although respectful, Bernard is not docile (a fact that leads him and Griggs to disagree on the direction of the radio station in the years that follow). Bernard has an activist past, including participating in protests as a college student and embracing a pan-Africanist worldview, which was strengthened by his relationship with his then-girlfriend, Habiba. After graduation, the general expectation was for him to secure a “good” job and put his radicalism aside for the betterment of the race. By doing this, he sacrifices his dream for Du Bois’s dream, which, as Zachary R. Williams summarizes it, was for “college-educated blacks to become race men and women [and] lead the race to social equality.” 7 Bernard represents a new wave of young, educated Black people invested in individualism and capitalism. 8 To Griggs’ annoyance, the young man has his sights set on the fruits of his labor (i.e., “[making] lots of money” and spending it) rather than the labor necessary to make money that would serve the needs of the company and, proximally, the needs of the race. To Griggs, young people of Bernard’s generation have a “duty” and “responsibility” to suffer and struggle for the next generations, just as he has. He instructs: It’s the first seven generations after slavery that will suffer the most. They’re the ones who have nothing to look forward to except struggle. They’re the ones who have to bear the pain, make the sacrifices, and fight the battles that have to be fought and won. Your trouble will always come when you begin to think that you deserve a good time; when you begin to think the world is your oyster. You’re generation number six, Mr. Evans. Your grandchildren can have the good time. 9 Griggs articulates a logic and ethic not uncommon among his generation, for whom lifetimes of sacrifice have resulted in more freedoms for their children than they were afforded. This strategy is reminiscent of Robin D. G. Kelley’s “freedom dreaming,” 10 which is, essentially, imagining liberty and justice through a love for the collective that exists beyond the boundaries of what is possible realistically and politically. The discourse on Black freedom through acts of dreaming and speculation is not new in Black Studies, but scholars such as Jayna Brown, reading Frantz Fanon, have discussed such acts in the context of utopia. Brown defines Black utopia as “the moments when those of us untethered from the hope of rights, recognition, or redress here on earth celebrate ourselves as elements in a cosmic effluvium.” 11 Embracing the present as a radical temporality, Brown writes, “In fact, I don’t think utopia needs hope at all. Hope yearns for a future. Instead, we dream in place, in situ, in medias res, in layers, in dimensional frequencies.” 12 It is within a dimensional frequency that nods toward the future but is situated in a past adjacent to the present that opposing Black male-centered utopic ideologies touch discursively in Bernard’s paradisaic dreamscape. Bernard and Griggs both have dreams rooted in economic success; however, Griggs’ dream is Blacker than it is green. Economics, for him, is a way to amass power that will inevitably advance Black people. Griggs is doggedly focused on racial uplift through ownership rather than what he reads as Bernard’s pursuit of economic gain for selfish reasons. This is a subtle yet important nuance: the men are similar, yet their generational positionalities leave them dreaming slightly different dreams, imagining slightly different realities, and pursuing those realities in slightly different ways. It is from this marginal difference that Griggs harshly scrutinizes Bernard. The tail end of the scene reveals Griggs’ paternalistic posturing for what it is: a performance meant to arouse obedience. The end of the scene is a reflective imagining, an annotation of sorts, in which Bernard tells Griggs that his words that day “frightened [him].” Griggs replies simply, “I know.” Then, Bernard admits, “I’ve been frightened ever since.” 13 The surrealism of this moment allows the two men to be honest, even vulnerable, with one another without being intimate or even present together. It is no coincidence that Bernard’s fear and Griggs’ intent are made evident in a daydream; it is a calmer frequency in which to tell the truth. Further, neither of them discusses affect or emotions in the realistic scenes between them that follow. Instead, those scenes are mostly centered on business discussions related to the radio station. As the scene shifts back to Bernard’s contemporary reality with his wife and friends on the beach, it is clear that he is at a crossroads directly shaped by his race, age, class, and gender. That first interview lingers in Bernard’s mind, and it is interesting that at a time and place when he should be relaxing and enjoying his money and leisure time, the memory of it haunts him. Bernard yearns for something missing or lost in his life—something reflective of the downside of assuming a class positionality “above” rather than “alongside” one’s people. Of the Bernards of the world who “now found themselves in their forties and successfully integrated into the American dream,” Wesley observes the material reality—the “spacious homes, the requisite expensive cars, overseas vacations, excellent pension packages, and political connections” 14 —that still leave them desiring something they relinquished to acquire the people, places, and things that keep them occupied, sedated, and blind to the needs of the collective. Wesley’s dramatic inquiry into what happened to the young activists of the 60s who shifted their talents in an alternative direction exposes a Talented Tenth whose roots in Black working-class communities were at best leggy. Reflecting on Du Bois’s idealistic dream of the “tenth” and his subsequent shift away from it, Wesley writes, “Realizing almost immediately how elitist this idea appeared, Du Bois abandoned it and never sought to promote it.” 15 This is a truth that, according to Joy James in Transcending the Talented Tenth (2013), is often underacknowledged. “Race memory,” James writes, “misleads as it fails to recall that the greatest promoter of black elite agency became, in time, its most severe critic.” 16 After the opening daydream ends, Wesley depicts this Du Boisian course correction through a sequence of stressful encounters that lead Bernard to a crisis point in his personal and professional lives. Bernard’s life has been an experiment in intraracial “double consciousness” which has manifested as class and color trouble. Understanding the complexities of double consciousness within the race, Wesley explores colorism in the love triangle between Bernard’s light-skinned wife, Pam, his dark-skinned former girlfriend, Habiba, and his dark-skinned mistress, Tanya. 17 Habiba is a memory that never materializes, yet she is very present. She represents a missed opportunity for Bernard to pursue a life and career path rooted in Black liberation and Black cultural practices of love and activism. He idealizes Habiba, lamenting what could have been had they not split up. Despite this, he applies principles of the Black Power Movement to his work at the radio station to positive effect. As Griggs’ partner, he does not have the power to make major decisions about the company’s direction, but he anticipates that his hard work over the years will lead Griggs to give him ownership of the company. Although it is never explicitly stated, ownership, to Bernard, is the consolation prize for carrying future generations on his shoulders. Griggs, however, intends to sell the company to a communications conglomerate called Pegasus International—a move which sparks frustration and resentment. Bernard believes this conglomerate will take advantage of his programming work in centering Black voices and music, which has, to this point, grown the station’s listenership. Although he has the option to continue as an employee, the buyout will likely disrupt the radio station's “controversial” aesthetic and other political elements that make it culturally Black. On top of this betrayal, his marriage to Pam and extramarital relationship with Tanya are crumbling under the weight of his ambition, apathy, and self-centeredness. Wesley’s play is Du Bois’s Talented Tenth theory in practice, and Bernard’s life is the foremost case study. The women in the play, especially Tanya and Pam, play supporting roles, representing Bernard’s desire and ambition. Wesley, highlighting their importance, gives them space to speak in monologues inserted between scenes or self-reflective moments within scenes; this is the only way their voices and perspectives are relayed without Bernard as their filter. When they speak, it becomes clear that they are successful, intelligent women defined by their proximity to a man and his dreams. Tanya, a journalist who graduated from Spelman College and Columbia University, grew up in a working-class family. While she fills the ever-present void of Habiba (in complexion only), it is clear by her incessant requests for Bernard to leave his wife that she is the anti-Habiba—she does not have the strength to leave him although she communicates a multitude of reasons why she should. Reading like Savannah in Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale , she considers herself to be a “woman of substance” rather than a “popular” woman (like Pam), which leads me to determine that Tanya is not fighting for Bernard, she is fighting against Pam—a placeholder for light-skinned women—who, in Tanya’s experience, have not had to be of substance to get the guy of their dreams. Patience, she believes, is the attribute that will make her the victor, overall; however, she does not factor in the other “other woman”—Habiba—as a potential obstacle. Pam, however, is well aware that Habiba (the memory of her) is both of their competition. Pam and Bernard’s marriage has always been more about optics than love. From a colorist perspective, she was the more pragmatic choice for a wife instead of a dark-skinned woman like Habiba or Tanya—a fact that Bernard never denies (because he cannot). Aesthetically, Pam exists in harmony with the quintessential picture of the African American family that he was sold; that is, the elitist imagining of Du Bois’s notion. In a conversation with Tanya, who is pressuring Bernard to decide between her and Pam, he reveals that his achievements—running a radio station, heading a household, being respected by his cadre of middle-class friends, and even having a loving girlfriend outside of his marriage—are unfulfilling. He admits, “Now, it’s all these years later and I’m scared and I’m angry because I want to change my life and do some things I’ve never had a chance to do. But, if I do I could hurt my wife and my children and everyone who depends on me, so I stay where I am and I dream. But I don’t dare act .” 18 Standing and dreaming alone while afraid is where we find Bernard at the beginning of the play and, although he appears in control, he remains in that state psychologically and emotionally. In this embodiment, he appears stuck in stillness on the sidelines as life moves around him; however, he has options. He can remain still or move forward, but he seems to be waiting for the right decision to occur to him or for someone else to make it for him. What is clear is that he is tired of gauging his choices by society’s metric. While Tanya’s concern is whether he loves her more than Pam, Bernard is on the precipice of making choices in his business and personal lives that put the security and respectability of those he is responsible for, even Tanya, at risk. As “talented” as he is, he is too human and too fallible to live up to unattainable standards. Thus, he stands and he dreams, evaluating his past in the present. The best decision eventually occurs to him. In fact, he divorces his wife and ends his relationship with Tanya. Some weight is lifted off of his shoulders, and he acts on his dreams by devising a plan to buy the radio station. In the final scene, parroting his interview with Griggs, Bernard interviews a “young man”—his son—“the seventh generation since slavery”—for a position at the station. The scene is similar to the first but, instead of completely reproducing the toxic dynamics between his younger self and Griggs, Bernard infuses hope in the conversation. Nearly verbatim, he repeats Griggs’ diatribe about generations, history, passivity, race, and struggle. As was his experience, the content of this monologue “scares” the young man. Then, Bernard follows up with a directive to dampen his son’s fear and help him take actionable steps forward—“Well, don’t be scared, young blood. Just be ready.” 19 This resolution is a full circle moment in which Bernard is now the empowered mentor; however, instead of playing Griggs’ role, he has taken the useful lessons he learned from him and adjusted them slightly, leaving room for a new generation to move. The Talented Tenth demonstrates how the theory that inspired it is handicapped by elitism and a lack of attention to the nuances of the intraracial politics that sometimes complicate Black American dreams. Be that as it may, a debt of gratitude is owed to W.E.B . Du Bois, the foremost Black intellectual of the twentieth century, for proposing an idea that has become a catalyst in dramatic narratives dating as far back as Theodore Ward’s Big White Fog (1938), Abram Hill's On Strivers Row (1939), and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959). It is difficult to imagine what the substance of Black Theatre would be without Du Bois’s polarizing concept. The Talented Tenth and contemporary plays that painstakingly scrutinize the inner workings and interpersonal impact of class on Black individuals and communities make clear that the discourse is as significant now as it was when Du Bois was most prolific. The Talented Tenth , as I read it, is more dream than theory. The century-old quandary of how best to cultivate and employ Black talent to elevate Black people is always already followed by unending ellipses that those of us within the collective, however privileged, must interpret and redefine as we progress between points along the margins of a surreal society…to the center…and back… References 1 W.E.B. Du Bois, Criteria of Negro Art (Crisis Publishing Company, 1926), 2. 2 Marable, Manning, W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (Boston: Twayne, 1986), 26. 3 Emphasis mine. Marable, 51. 4 Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates (2022), Lynn Nottage’s Sweat (2017), Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop (2009), Lydia R. Diamond’s Stick Fly (2008), Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman (2002), George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum (1986), Charlie L. Russell’s Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), Ed Bullins’s Clara’s Ole Man (1965), Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman (1964), Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), and Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind (1955) are but a few plays featuring Black characters wrestling with intraracial class conflicts. 5 Du Bois proposed the “talented tenth” theory at the turn of the twentieth century (known as The Progressive Era) during which time social and political reform were on the rise, while his Negro Theatre concept was unveiled in The Crisis during the Harlem Renaissance. 6 The point of this essay, as in the play, is not to criticize Du Bois or his early notion, but to unpack a mindset in Black society that continues to hinder the racial progress that he and many other thought leaders since have only dreamed of. 7 Zachery R. Williams, In Search of the Talented Tenth: Howard University Public Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Race, 1926-1970, 1st ed (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2009), 17. 8 In 2006, as a graduate student studying at The New School/Actors Studio Drama School, I published a passionate essay that evinced my concern about the state of Black Theatre in the hands of Generation X and cuspy Millennials like myself. What I observed was a desire by twentysomething artists of my generation to assimilate to White Theater standards rather than familiarizing themselves with, valuing, and performing essential plays in the Black theatrical canon. It is validating to read Wesley’s play and interview transcripts in which he discusses a similar social phenomenon among his generation. See Kristyl D. Tift, “Black Theatre in the Hands of Generation X” (Bronx: Black Masks, 2006). 9 Richard Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology ( Milwaukee: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books , 2015), 174. 10 See Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002). 11 Jayna Brown, Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 1-2. 12 Jayna Brown, Black Utopias , 1. 13 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 174. 14 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 168-69. 15 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 171-72. 16 Joy James, Transcending the Talented Tenth : Black Leaders and American Intellectuals (London: Routledge, 2013), 28: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315022383 . 17 For more on the function of colorism in The Talented Tenth ideology before and after Du Bois, see Ronald E. Hall’s “The Du Boisian Talented Tenth: Reviewing and Assessing Mulatto Colorism in the Post-Du Boisian Era” (78-95) in Journal of African American Studies 24, 1 (2020): https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-019-09457-3 . 18 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 186. 19 Wesley, The Richard Wesley Play Anthology , 219. Footnotes About The Author(s) Kristyl D. Tift is a performing artist, writer, director, educator, and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema, Media Arts, and Theatre at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include African Diaspora theatre and film, queer-feminist performance, theatre for social change, and performance theory. Her essay “Making  Colors : A Black Queer Feminist Experiment in Solo Performance” is published in  Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Care, Community, Change . An article in  Theatre History Studies  is forthcoming. Other publications include articles and book reviews in  the Black Theatre Review,   Frontiers ,  Theatre Journal,  and the  Journal of American Drama and Theatre . Tift’s book,  A Conditional Embrace: Black Queer Feminism in Performance , is in production with The Ohio State University Press. 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.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 17 Spring 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre By Tiran Manucharya Published: May 12, 2025 Download Article as PDF Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre . By Amina ElHalawani. London and New York: Routledge, 2024; pp. 170 + x. Reviewed by Tiran Manucharyan Amina ElHalawani’s monograph Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre is a detailed study of the transformative potential of theatre in the political development of a country through the examples of intersections between theatre and politics in Egyptian and Irish contexts. Clearly, an essential inspiration for the author is the unique place of the play Waiting for Godot (1952) by the Irish-born playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1959) in Egyptian theatre tradition. A notable example of Beckett’s influence in Egypt is the frequent comparison, including by ElHalawani, of one of the country’s most influential plays, The Farfurs (1964, Al-Farafir ) by Yusuf Idris (1927-1991), with Beckett’s masterpiece. References to Beckettian characters and scenes are abundant in the work of many of Idris’s compatriots of his time, some of whose work is incorporated into ElHalawani’s study. Today, too, Beckett’s work continues to speak to issues within Egyptian society, evidenced by the periodic revisits to his plays on Egyptian stages. The 2015 production of Waiting for Godot , directed by Ahmed Sobhi, or the 2024 production of Endgame (1957), directed by El-Saeed Qabil, both on the stage of Cairo’s E-Taliaa Theatre, are only a couple of such examples. This significant and ongoing influence of Beckett on Egyptian theatre indicates that the topic of ElHalawani’s monograph has the potential to make a timely and pertinent contribution to the study of Egyptian theatre. ElHalawani’s take on Beckett’s work is in line with the almost canonized perception of it among Egyptian playwrights and directors, interpreting Waiting for Godot as a play that turns theatre into “the arena in which rebellion is not only suggested but performed” (90). In this stance, the author is inspired by the highly prominent Egyptian playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim’s (1898-1987) experiments with the Theatre of the Absurd, in which life is depicted “as constant struggle” (75), and Michael Y. Bennett’s reading of Waiting for Godot as “a recast myth of Sisyphus” (76). Building on this standpoint, ElHalawani’s book narrates a convincing history of direct and indirect dialogue between the Irish and Egyptian theatres of rebellion. The monograph incorporates comparative analyses of the work of a handful of Egyptian and Irish playwrights. Egyptian theatre is represented with plays by Tawfiq al-Hakim, Mikhail Roman (1924-1973), Yusuf Idris, and Salah Abdul-Saboor (1931-1981), and Irish theatre with those by Brian Friel (1929-2015), Frank McGuinness (b. 1953), Christina Reid (1942-2015), and Samuel Beckett. Given the significant development and influence of Beckett’s work beyond Irish shores, the inclusion of his work in the scope of a book, which discusses specific national theatres, with a stress on the word ‘national’, is a bold decision by ElHalawani. Yet this is well argued: it is an attempt “to complicate the relation between the centre and periphery exactly through such ambiguous figures [i.e. Beckett and William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)]” (11). The study strongly emphasises the belief in theatre’s potential to “effect change” (5). As ElHalawani clarifies, her book “presents a gesture of reading global modernist texts in local contexts, which gives way to new approaches of understanding complex moments of social change entangled within global histories of colonialism and decolonization” (12). The book opens with the story of the Irish playwright and theatre manager Lady Augusta Gregory’s (1852-1932) visit to Cairo, and her acquaintance with and admiration for the Egyptian nationalist Ahmed ʿUrabi, the leader of the 1879-1882 revolt in Egypt against the political leadership of Egypt and British and French control of the country. As the author states, Lady Gregory and Yeats’ project of national theatre has been inspirational for similar endeavors among Egyptian cultural practitioners. In her introduction, the author specifically mentions the most prominent examples of such attempts in Egyptian theatre, undertaken by al-Hakim and Idris. She highlights al-Hakim’s emphasis on how indigenous Egyptian cultural forms were redefined by modernist cultural movements of the time. At almost fifty pages, Chapter One is the longest chapter of the book and makes up one third of it. Such length is necessary to provide the reader with the socio-political context to justify the comparative discussion of Irish and Egyptian theatres. Here, ElHalawani elaborates further on the development of cultural nationalism in Irish cultural production and Yeats’ involvement in it. The author stresses the difference between colonialist nationalism, which looks at “local cultures [of those colonized] as unworthy, primitive and backward”, and the nationalism of liberation movements, which attempt “to reassert themselves and the right of their nations to self-government” (23). In her analyses, ElHalawani incorporates references to and discussions of a wide range of examples from Egyptian and Irish literature, music, and theatre, placing the developments in theatre within the framework of the wider socio-political context and trends in the cultural production of the two nations. Among others, one of the most interesting sections in this chapter is that concerned with the involvement of women practitioners in the theatre scenes in Egypt and Ireland. The section starts by reflecting on the Egyptian playwright and director Laila Soliman’s (b. 1981) 2016 play Zig Zag , which returns to the attack carried out by the British army on an Egyptian village called Nazlit al-Shubak in 1919 and to the stories of the women raped by British soldiers during this attack. ElHalawani interrogates the absence of these women’s stories from Egyptian nationalist discourse—and their availability only in the archives of the British Foreign Office—as underscoring “issues of women’s rights and citizenship” (39). The author draws a parallel with the Irish director and playwright Louise Lowe’s 2011 play Laundry which revisits the infamous Magdalene Laundries, focusing on “the violence and oppression the women and children [in them] went through not only at the hands of the British Empire but even more painfully under the rule of the Irish Free State” (39). As she suggests, the disappearance of women’s narratives and names from the canonical narratives in history “brings to the forefront the question of the missing female names from the theatre canon itself” (41). The next three chapters analyze the key texts chosen by the author for her study. Chapter Three focuses on Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , al-Hakim’s Fate of a Cockroach (1965, Masir Sursar ) and Roman’s The New Arrival (1965, Al-Wafid ). Through this selection of plays, the author aims to investigate the Egyptian playwrights’ interpretation of Beckettian absurdist tradition. According to ElHalawani, the Egyptian writers approached the Theatre of the Absurd as a mode that allowed them to perform rebellion in an era of gradually growing disillusionment during the 1960s, which contrasted to the atmosphere of euphoria and hope that the 1952 revolution brought to Egypt in the previous decade. The overarching argument that ElHalawani develops is that the shared “sense of despair in an existing world order” in these plays does not equate to “a despair in life itself” and does not deny “the possibility for man to give it new form.” Moreover, according to ElHalawani, interpreting them as performances of rebellion inside the theatre suggests that “a sense of contagious collectivity pushes for a new world order to be negotiated” (90). In Chapter Three, the discussion is driven by ElHalawani’s attention to the self-reflexive quality of Idris’s The Farfurs , Friel’s Faith Healer (1980), and McGuinness’ Carthaginians (1988). The self-referential quality of these plays, as ElHalawani explains, allows her “to examine the vision of three overtly committed writers concerning [the] transformative nature of the performative act and the different ways in which it can be achieved” (92). Engaging with Idris’s masterpiece, ElHalawani revisits one of the central, almost eternal, questions in Egyptian theatre, which concerns its form and content: what makes theatre Egyptian? This question has long perturbed Egyptian theatre circles, most prominently since the 1960s thanks to al-Hakim’s and Idris’s preoccupations, but arguably since its beginnings in the second half of the nineteenth century. As ElHalawani concludes, Idris’s play is in fact “a complex hybridity” that is “inspired by Western theories of theatre without denying its own authenticity as an Egyptian play” (94). ElHalawani’s conclusion regarding its content follows the same logic, suggesting that in it “the local is made global and then is reduced back to its specificity” (100). What unites these plays, according to the author, is that, through their self-reflexive essence, they enabled the playwrights to reflect on how they saw the role and the responsibility of theatre “to react to the past and present” and to “shape the future” (116). In Chapter Four, engaging with Reid’s Did You Hear the One About the Irishman…? (1985), Abdul-Saboor’s Musafir Layl (1969, Night Traveller ), and Beckett’s Catastrophe (1982), ElHalawani investigates “the correlational dynamics involved in performing oppression and revolt”, considering theatre’s power to turn its audiences into “a communal force” (119). The author argues that in these plays the playwrights are united in prioritizing “a more politically active audience” (121). As she explains, through their liminal quality and by breaking boundaries these plays bring reality and imagination together, turning theatre into “a space in which transformations are possible and where people can redeem their agency”. She goes on to conclude that the outcome is the transformation of theatre into “an interactive endeavour,” which empowers “the audience’s agency both in the theatre and in the public sphere” (137). As well as being a thorough study of the key texts from Irish and Egyptian theatre traditions, ElHalawani’s monograph is a rare example of scholarly writing with an engaging narration. This is enriched by the author’s inclusion of various theatre-related anecdotes, such as Lady Gregory’s above-mentioned encounter with ʿUrabi or Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s (in power 1954-1970) involvement in a school production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar . Thus, a valuable addition to the scholarship for researchers and students engaged with theatre, comparative literature, and the intersections between arts and politics, ElHalawani’s book can also attract readers curious about Irish and Egyptian theatres and the role of theatre in the resistance movements of the two nations. Lastly, the appendix of the book provides those who teach or study Egyptian theatre in English with much anticipated first translations of Idris’s opening remarks to The Farfurs and al-Hakim’s introduction to his Qalibu-na al-masrahi (1967, Our Form of Theatre ), a book in which the playwright manifested his vision of how a truly Egyptian theatre could develop. As a final note, I would like to highlight the recently rekindled encouraging interest of English language publishers in Egyptian and Arab theatre in general. One hopes this will result in additional publications on the subject, since—despite its not very long documented history—theatre in the Arabic language has produced a huge number of brilliant texts, many of which may help us to make sense of some of the crises we witness today, not only in the region but also beyond it. Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Tiran Manucharyan is a Lecturer in Arabic at the School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews. Tiran holds a PhD in Arabic from the same university. His thesis looked at politically and socially engaged Egyptian theatre in the second half of the 20th and in the early 21st century. Published in 2024, his first monograph, titled Of Kings and Clowns: Leadership in Contemporary Egyptian Theatre since 1967 , builds on his PhD thesis, focusing on the work of the Egyptian playwrights Yusuf Idris, Mohamed Abul-ʿEla El-Salamouny, Lenin El-Ramly, and Fathia El-ʿAssal. Tiran is currently working on a British Academy-funded project devoted to the work of late-twentieth-century Egyptian women playwrights. 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 O Lord! By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi Mothers Challenging the Divine: Ali Al-Zaidi’s Ya Rab! The 31st Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. September 1-11, 2024. ARTIFICIAL HEART. By Mohammad Basha and Firas Farrah. LEILI & MAJNUN. Written and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian SHAHADAT (THE TESTIMONIES) Adapted by Fouad Teymour Review: TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF GAZA: THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

The Theatre Project is home to more than 25,000 images from around the world and covering over 3,000 years of theatre history. You will find each image in the collection has a descriptive title, along with information about its period and country. Images can be browsed by collection as well with groupings including categories such as scenography, actors, etc. Theatre Image Collection Welcome to the CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Project. The Theatre Project is home to more than 25,000 images from around the world and covering over 3,000 years of theatre history. You will find each image in the collection has a descriptive title, along with information about its period and country. Images can be browsed by collection as well with groupings including categories such as scenography, actors, etc. For more than 30 years it has been maintained by Distinguished Professor Marvin Carlson and his students as an important resource for those looking for the visual materials that are a crucial part of theatrical research. Starting in December of 2012, the CUNY Graduate Center Theatre Project moved to the open source software Omeka to increase accessibility and searchability of the many images and to make uploading and cataloging of the images easier. This transition also brought the image database under the auspices of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center's digital initiatives. The source is available for many images and a citation for each image is also provided on the item view page. Please note the collection is password protected and those interested need to get in touch to receive the login details. For queries related to database access, content and image collection, please write to Prof. Marvin Carlson at mcarlson@gc.cuny.edu or Frank Hentscher at fhentschker@gc.cuny.edu Visit Collection

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By Daria Deflorian, Antonio Tagliarini, Maria Galante, Michele Santeramo, Allison Eikerenkoetter, Jane House, Frank Hentschker | This collection features an anthology of three contemporary plays from Italy. < Back More Information & Order Details To order this publication, please contact us at mestc@gc.cuny.edu or find it on Amazon. New Plays from Italy Vol 2: Three Plays Daria Deflorian, Antonio Tagliarini, Maria Galante, Michele Santeramo, Allison Eikerenkoetter, Jane House, Frank Hentschker Download PDF This collection features an anthology of three contemporary plays from Italy. We Decided to Go Because We Don’t Want to Be a Burden to You by Daria Deflorian & Antonio Tagliarini. Edited by Frank Hentschker. Translated by Maria Galante. “We realized that we are a weight to the state, doctors, pharmacists and society. So we decided we’ll be off, to spare you further worry. You’ll save our four pensions and you’ll live better.” The play takes place in a suburban apartment where the women have just takentheir “sleeping” pills. A reflection on suicide not as an existential act, but as an extreme political act. Is there an altruistic suicide? The Healer by Michele Santeramo Edited by Frank Hentschker. Translated by Allison Eikerenkoetter. A drunken nearly blind old healer, with an intellectual son waiting to surpass him, attempts to heal an injured boxer, a pregnant woman, and a childless couple by bringing them together, making them relate in strange circumstances on a set where doors open and close on mysterious waiting rooms. The Neighbors by Fausto Paravidino Edited by Frank Hentschker. Translated by Jane House. He is alone in the apartment. He hears some footsteps coming from the landing. Trying not to make a sound, he looks through the spyhole. He tells Greta when she comes home that he saw the neighbors. How were they? He cannot tell, seeing is not understanding, but he is scared. Why? Who knows? This is a play about our fears, real and imagined, about ourselves and the other, about neighbors near and far, about war. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

L. Bailey McDaniel 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 Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation. Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. L. Bailey McDaniel By Published on May 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation . Julius B. Fleming Jr. New York: New York University Press, 2022; Pp. 301. Julius B. Fleming Jr.’s Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation is an invaluable contribution to, among other fields, civil rights historiography, theatre studies, Black performance studies, and African American history. With painstaking documentation supporting shrewd analyses, Fleming maintains that the Civil Rights Movement was more than a fight for social justice, but additionally a conflict over temporality—a battle whose victors often violently decide(d) who must wait, for how long, and under what threat. Fleming provides an important rethinking of civil rights studies by locating Black theatre and performance as central to “the cultural and political fronts” of the movement (2). Including but also moving beyond understandings of performance as an abstracted concept encompassing marches, speeches, sit-ins, or media, Black Patience reveals how Black theatre functioned as an effective instrument with which artists and activists redefined a racialized notion of time, a framework shaped by the anti-Black projects of white supremacy. Rather than a neutral backdrop to history, Fleming’s construct of racialized time denotes deferral, delay, and gradualism, a chronology that dictates a “waiting” that is “weaponized as a technology of anti[B]lack violence and civic exclusion” (1). 1 Fleming’s central claim is that the Civil Rights Movement’s focus on immediacy — a theoretical and acted-upon notion of “Freedom Now” — is more than just a demand for equality and justice; it is a direct confrontation with a white supremacist temporal order he terms “[B]lack patience.” The ecology of [B]lack patience encompasses the long history of enforced waiting, deference, and all forms of endured suffering imposed on Black bodies from the Middle Passage to twenty-first-century Liberals’ calls for moderation. Black patience warrants attention, Fleming writes, because “the overriding ambition that drives the racial project of black patience is its singular desire for Black people to suffer, and to do so without complaint” (241). Black Patience confidently demonstrates how Black theatre achieved victories in the Civil Rights Movement’s (contingent and incomplete) battle by staging “now” not as a stagnant passage to an always-deferred future, but an immediate place to act, without waiting, and without patience. Working deeply across broad archives, Fleming considers Black theatre and cultural production across diverse geographies and theatrical spaces illuminating how Black theatre enabled civil rights audiences to feel political time differently and — at its best — cultivated collective action. Among the valuable sources included in his archive are the Free Southern Theater; works from Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Alice Childress, Douglas Turner Ward, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, and Duke Ellington; and ephemera such as programs, oral histories, and reviews. Fleming’s Introduction establishes the book’s terminology and its multi-disciplinary stakes while unpacking a compelling methodology. He begins with an examination of Fannie Lou Hamer’s inspiring response to a 1964 performance of Waiting for Godot, during which “Hamer and . . . the actors used the body in performance to unsettle modernity’s racialized logics of waiting” (3). Fleming invokes a crucial theatrical moment that crystallizes the book’s arguments: anti-Blackness functions through forcible delay, and the theatre acts as a critical tool for rejecting white supremacist sanctions of Black patience. Chapter One effectively reframes the Emancipation Proclamation’s one-hundred-year anniversary as a temporal and political battleground. Investigating Emancipation’s centennial, Fleming argues that the 1963 commemorations revealed the white supremacist preference for deferral. Relying on a rich body of evidence that includes presidential speeches, pageants, and theatrical works, this chapter demonstrates how the centennial simultaneously 1) proclaimed freedom and 2) demanded Black restraint. In exposing this contradiction, Fleming argues that civil rights activism must be understood as a struggle over time itself . Building on his historicization of Emancipation as incomplete and temporally deferred, Fleming's second chapter performs a compelling case study in its examination of the Free Southern Theatre (FST) and productions across the south. Founded in 1963, the FST performed in churches, fields, and community centers under dangerous conditions of state and civilian surveillance/threat. Fleming reveals how the FST effectively redrew the spatial and temporal map of the Civil Rights Movement by bringing theatre directly into organizing spaces. He further outlines the ways that the FST productively reduced the space between art and activism in ways that presaged the political work of the Black Arts Movement that would follow and, as a result, enabled audiences to inhabit a revolutionary present. This chapter also provides a meaningful meditation on Fleming’s understanding of Afro-presentism . Alongside the call for “freedom now,” Afro-presentism concretizes a “refusal to accede to the temporal demands of [B]lack patience” (26). Fleming points out that “far from a cure-all for the violences of [B]lack patience,” Afro-presentism instead conjures “seizing and enjoying the good life in the here and now, knowing that in the context of anti-[B]lackness the future is always a zone of precarity” (128). Fleming impressively complicates his established analyses of racialized time with his third chapter, asking us to consider whose time counts more than others. Providing a needed intervention into queer temporalities within civil rights scholarship, Chapter Three rightly maintains that the temporal politics of the Civil Rights Movement cannot be separated from gender, sexuality, and embodied desire. With its consideration of Baraka and Paul Carter Harrison, among others, Fleming demonstrates how queer temporalities disrupted the respectability scripts that more typically accompanied anti-Black/white supremacist appeals for patience. Considering how desire, vulnerability, and intimacy potentially complicate, if not intensify, the (hoped for) immediacy of liberation, this chapter expands the archive of civil rights performance beyond heteronormative narratives. Turning to the “territory of erotic desire,” Fleming recognizes “that [B]lack patience not only engenders anti-Blackness but also (re)produces the cultural and political logic of heteropatriarchy” (133). Insightfully contrasting theater with photography and television, Chapter Four argues that the present tense of theatre can productively disrupt the (false/misleading) narratives of gradual progress that visual documentation can unintentionally reinforce. In addition to its stunning contribution to theorizations of racialized feeling, theatre, and visual culture, this chapter also identifies a parallel phenomenon to Black patience taking place as Black people are urged to be patient: white impatience — a tetchy temporal intolerance that can be seen in white critical reception, photography, and spectatorship. Fleming successfully maps the ways that white publics express irritation, fatigue, or hostility toward Black demands for immediacy. Or, as Fleming savvily explains, by reframing “the problem of race” as “a problem of whiteness,” Black theatre artists “recalibrated the visual economy of the Civil Right movement . . . and shift[ed] their audiences’ gazes from injured [B]lack bodies to white people” (37). Alongside its consideration of Hansberry, Baldwin, Childress, and Ward, this chapter reveals how Civil Rights theatre made racialized affect visually legible while it simultaneously critiqued the policing function of white impatience. With a performance analysis previously applied to live theater in earlier chapters, Black Patience 's final chapter examines the performance of waiting in live political events such as sit-ins. This (productively) strategic waiting seizes back temporal control and weaponizes the (deferred) time meant to discipline, exclude, and control Black bodies. With this pivot, Fleming maintains, Black protest effectively transformed patience into a consciously-employed, tactical practice during sitins, freedom songs, and jailins. This determinedly-invoked patience converts the notion of waiting into a mode of pressure and endurance that exposes the anti-Black violence of statemandated, white supremacist delay. In pointing out how activists also weaponized stillness/duration to force public confrontation with anti-Black racism, Fleming’s final chapter re-presents Black patience as performance that can both dismantle and repurpose temporal categories off the stage as well as on. Black Patience skillfully reframes the Civil Rights Movement as a performance-driven struggle over time, a struggle shaped by questions of how long equality and justice will take and how demands for patience (if not enforced waiting) work as tools in a white supremacist control of time. Challenging historiography that heavily credits civil rights momentum to photography and television, Fleming instead foregrounds the liveness, risk, and collective spectatorship of live performance as powerful engines driving political feeling and action. The book’s successful theoretical synthesis of dramaturgy, theatre history, geography, affect, and temporal theory offers a model for studying performance within social movements that will benefit educators, their syllabi, and scholars far beyond theatre or civil rights studies. Footnotes: 1. Throughout this review I capitalize the word “Black” when it refers to the culture, history, and people of a shared racial identity, as opposed to a color; any changes to Fleming’s original are noted with brackets. References Footnotes About The Author(s) L. BAILEY MCDANIEL is an Associate Professor at Oakland University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses from anti-racist and anticolonialist contexts. Her pedagogy and scholarship focus on African-American drama and performance, while also considering intersectional explorations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and (dis)abilities. Her first book (Re)Constructing Maternal Performance in Twentieth-Century American Drama (Palgrave Macmillan) explores the discursive and material intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and performances of motherhood in US Drama. Her second book (in progress) investigates the furtive interconnectedness of trauma, resilience, and recovery as explored in African-American performance. 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.

Watch Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera by Mark Obenhaus at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2026. Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera is a documentary record of the landmark 1984 revival of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's groundbreaking opera Einstein on the Beach, staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was the first time since the original 1976 production — which premiered at the Avignon Festival and played the Metropolitan Opera — that the two principal creators had reunited to restage this tradition-breaking work. Director Mark Obenhaus provides intimate access to both artists: Glass discusses the opera's radical musical structure, its rejection of conventional narrative arc, and the challenge of hearing music that transforms continuously rather than repeating in recognizable patterns. Wilson reflects on his visual approach to the production, his use of light and geometric form, and the relationship between duration, stillness, and theatrical time. The film weaves these interviews with footage from rehearsals and the actual performances, giving viewers a rare window into the preparation of a work that had already reshaped the landscape of contemporary opera and performance. Considered an essential document for anyone interested in the evolution of the performing arts in the 20th century, the film makes the case — through the evidence of the work itself — for why Einstein on the Beach remains one of the defining achievements of American avant-garde culture. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera Mark Obenhaus At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2026 Screening Information This film will be screened on May 29 at 6:45 PM, and June 4 at 9:00 PM, at Anthology Film Archives RSVP Country United States Language English Running Time 58 minutes Year of Release 1984 About The Film Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera is a documentary record of the landmark 1984 revival of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass's groundbreaking opera Einstein on the Beach, staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was the first time since the original 1976 production — which premiered at the Avignon Festival and played the Metropolitan Opera — that the two principal creators had reunited to restage this tradition-breaking work. Director Mark Obenhaus provides intimate access to both artists: Glass discusses the opera's radical musical structure, its rejection of conventional narrative arc, and the challenge of hearing music that transforms continuously rather than repeating in recognizable patterns. Wilson reflects on his visual approach to the production, his use of light and geometric form, and the relationship between duration, stillness, and theatrical time. The film weaves these interviews with footage from rehearsals and the actual performances, giving viewers a rare window into the preparation of a work that had already reshaped the landscape of contemporary opera and performance. Considered an essential document for anyone interested in the evolution of the performing arts in the 20th century, the film makes the case — through the evidence of the work itself — for why Einstein on the Beach remains one of the defining achievements of American avant-garde culture. Director: Mark Obenhaus Producer: Chris Ann Verges Original Music: Philip Glass About The Artist(s) Mark Obenhaus is a leading producer, director, and writer of documentary film and television. His work spans more than four decades and has been recognized with five national Emmy Awards, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, the Writers Guild of America Award, the British Press Guild Documentary Award, and numerous other honors. Obenhaus began his career producing cinema vérité documentaries and working with director Bob Fosse on commercial projects. He went on to produce six programs for the PBS series Frontline, two of which — Abortion Clinic and Living Below the Line — won Emmy Awards. For PBS Great Performances he produced and directed two celebrated music documentaries: Miles Ahead: The Music of Miles Davis and Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera. For The American Experience he produced and directed The World That Moses Built and Mr. Sears Catalog. From 1991 onward Obenhaus held a long association with ABC News, serving as senior producer of Day One and going on to produce major specials including Dangerous World: The Kennedy Years, The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy (a co-production with the BBC), and UFOs: Seeing Is Believing with Peter Jennings. He also served as senior producer of the landmark twelve-hour series The Century with Peter Jennings. His feature documentary Steep, about extreme mountain skiing, premiered at the Tribeca and Telluride Film Festivals and was released theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics. His most recent film, Cover-Up (2025), co-directed with Laura Poitras and examining investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, won the Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary at the Hamptons International Film Festival and received a Directors Guild of America nomination. Get in touch with the artist(s) and follow them on social media Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2026 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here

By Daniel Gerould | A volume of previously uncollected writings by Daniel Gerould from Comparative Literature, Modern Drama, PAJ, TDR, SEEP, yale/theater and other journals. < 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 Quick Change Daniel Gerould Download PDF 28 Theatre Essays and 4 Plays in Translation A volume of previously uncollected writings by Daniel Gerould from Comparative Literature, Modern Drama, PAJ, TDR, SEEP, yale/theater and other journals. Quick Change includes essays about Polish, Russian and French theatre, theories of melodrama and comedy, historical and medical simulations, Symbolist drama, erotic puppet theatre, comédie rosse at the Grand Guignol, Witkacy’s Doubles, Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Mrożek, Battleship Potemkin, and other topics. Translations include Andrzej Bursa’s Count Cagliostro’s Animals, Henry Monnier‘s The Student and the Tart, and Oscar Méténier‘s Little Bugger and Meat-Ticket. Foreword by Richard Schechner Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Jan Fabre | Seven works from the Flemish-Dutch theatre artist Jan Fabre. < 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 Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake Jan Fabre Download PDF Seven Works for the Theatre Flemish-Dutch theatre artist Jan Fabre is considered one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his day. Over the past twenty-five years, he has produced works as a performance artist, theatre maker, choreographer, opera maker, playwright, and visual artist. Fabre, born in Belgium, is a total theater artist: writer, director, designer, and choreographer. “I am a mistake because I have too much desire more compelling even than hunger.” Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, Emilio Williams | This selection of plays offers insight into the evolution of Spanish art and culture in the context of the country’s current situation. < 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 New Plays from Spain Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, Emilio Williams Download PDF Eight Works by Seven Playwrights Spanish theatre has experienced a remarkable renaissance in recent years. On the occasion of the 2013 PEN World Voices Festival in New York, eight plays by seven Spanish playwrights were brought together by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, the Spanish Consulate in New York, Fundación Autor, and the Instituto Cervantes for a two-day festival of readings and discussion at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY. Representing the most innovative and respected voices working in contemporary Spanish theatre, this selection of plays offers insight into the evolution of Spanish art and culture in the context of the country’s current situation. This anthology, published on the occasion of these readings, brings together the voices of Ernesto Caballero, Guillem Clua, Cristina Colmena, Mar Gómez Glez, Borja Ortiz de Gondra, Alfredo Sanzol, and Emilio Williams. Presented together, these plays represent the rich and varied landscape of contemporary Spanish theatre. Three of the eight plays included in this volume appear in both Spanish and English, and may therefore serve as a study in translation for artists, scholars, and translators. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Watch ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED by Claudia Müller at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. Child prodigy, scandalous author, traitor to the fatherland, feminist, fashion lover, communist, language terrorist, rebel, enfant terrible, nest fouler, brilliant, vulnerable artist. Claudia Müller's film about Elfriede Jelinek, who in 2004 was the first German speaking female writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, focuses on her artistic approach to language. ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED is a multi-layered, associative film portrait, full of contradictions; it approaches the linguistic montage technique of the artist from her very own close perspective. (production note) “Look at me NOW!” says Elfriede Jelinek at the beginning of ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED. She holds a piece of paper up to the camera, which she lowers briefly to reveal her face. On the paper is an arithmetic problem that explains the image onscreen. It is an arrangement that forces us to read – or rather, we read in order to see – and Jelinek writes in order to be seen. Seeing, in the sense of recognizing. Jelinek is shown on the move, in Vienna and other cities, in different decades. The journey begins with the Nobel Prize – Jelinek was the first Austrian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature – and works its way along specific themes that characterize the author’s work. Filmmaker Claudia Müller has made a name for herself with documentaries about such diverse personalities as Jenny Holzer, Shirin Neshat, VALIE EXPORT, and Helmut Lang. Here she works with her cinematographer Christine A. Maier with enthusiasm and aplomb, arranging current recordings and archive materials by, with, and about Jelinek into a portrait of the author. The range of the material is astonishing and manages to surprise again and again with something hitherto unknown. Müller and editor Mechthild Barth repeatedly opt for outtakes and peripheral materials, which allows us to enjoy film clips of Jelinek with her dog, for example, or holding a stack of prize money. They are images that offer resistance to the public image that is determined by a very different set of attributes. Texts read off-screen (by Stefanie Reinsperger and Sandra Hüller, among others) and material relating to dramatic events in contemporary Austrian history (such as the assassination of four Roma in Oberwart in 1995 and the massacre in Rechnitz in March 1945) complement the multi-layered collage of historical and contemporary materials. “... Everything has really been said,” Jelinek states towards the end. The author no longer appears in public nor explains anything. While Claudia Müller concentrates entirely on Jelinek’s work and thus her language, Müller’s film now gives us the opportunity to see – and to understand beyond one-dimensional causalities. (Sylvia Szely) The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Claudia Müller Theater, Documentary This film will be screened in-person on May 18th. About The Film Country Germany, Austria Language German Running Time 96 minutes Year of Release 2022 Child prodigy, scandalous author, traitor to the fatherland, feminist, fashion lover, communist, language terrorist, rebel, enfant terrible, nest fouler, brilliant, vulnerable artist. Claudia Müller's film about Elfriede Jelinek, who in 2004 was the first German speaking female writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, focuses on her artistic approach to language. ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED is a multi-layered, associative film portrait, full of contradictions; it approaches the linguistic montage technique of the artist from her very own close perspective. (production note) “Look at me NOW!” says Elfriede Jelinek at the beginning of ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED. She holds a piece of paper up to the camera, which she lowers briefly to reveal her face. On the paper is an arithmetic problem that explains the image onscreen. It is an arrangement that forces us to read – or rather, we read in order to see – and Jelinek writes in order to be seen. Seeing, in the sense of recognizing. Jelinek is shown on the move, in Vienna and other cities, in different decades. The journey begins with the Nobel Prize – Jelinek was the first Austrian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature – and works its way along specific themes that characterize the author’s work. Filmmaker Claudia Müller has made a name for herself with documentaries about such diverse personalities as Jenny Holzer, Shirin Neshat, VALIE EXPORT, and Helmut Lang. Here she works with her cinematographer Christine A. Maier with enthusiasm and aplomb, arranging current recordings and archive materials by, with, and about Jelinek into a portrait of the author. The range of the material is astonishing and manages to surprise again and again with something hitherto unknown. Müller and editor Mechthild Barth repeatedly opt for outtakes and peripheral materials, which allows us to enjoy film clips of Jelinek with her dog, for example, or holding a stack of prize money. They are images that offer resistance to the public image that is determined by a very different set of attributes. Texts read off-screen (by Stefanie Reinsperger and Sandra Hüller, among others) and material relating to dramatic events in contemporary Austrian history (such as the assassination of four Roma in Oberwart in 1995 and the massacre in Rechnitz in March 1945) complement the multi-layered collage of historical and contemporary materials. “... Everything has really been said,” Jelinek states towards the end. The author no longer appears in public nor explains anything. While Claudia Müller concentrates entirely on Jelinek’s work and thus her language, Müller’s film now gives us the opportunity to see – and to understand beyond one-dimensional causalities. (Sylvia Szely) Director Claudia Müller Cinematography Christine A. Maier Composer Eva Jantschitsch Editing Mechthild Barth Sound Design Johannes Schmelzer-Ziringer Dramaturgical Advisor Brigitte Landes Narrator Ilse Ritter, Sophie Rois, Stefanie Reinsperger, Sandra Hüller, Martin Wuttke, Maren Kroymann Production Martina Haubrich, CALA Film, Claudia Wohlgenannt, Plan C Film Production Manager Hanne Lassl Participant Elfriede Jelinek Supported by Filmförderung der BKM (Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien), Arte, BR, DFFF, ÖFI - Österreichisches Filminstitut, Filmfonds Wien, FISA Filmstandort Austria, ORF Archival Research ORF Silvia Heimader About The Artist(s) Claudia Müller, born in 1964, is a German documentary filmmaker based in Berlin. She is known for her several excellent film portraits dedicated especially to international female artists. Müller has a profound knowledge of production and theory of contemporary art, as well as an intimate insight of the art scene; during almost three decades she has built up connections with artists all over the world. After her studies of German Literature, Journalism and Arts at Universities in Berlin and Cologne she worked with Peter Greenaway and Krzystof Zanoussi. Since 1991 she has been an independent television journalist and director, making numerous film documentaries. She founded her own production company PHLOX Films in 2007 (www.phlox-films.de ) Claudia Müller is particularly interested in the visual arts, with films presenting the work of artists such as Jenny Holzer (2009), Shirin Neshat (2010), Cindy Sherman (2009), Kiki Smith (2014), VALIE EXPORT (2015), Katharina Grosse (2020), Heidi Bucher (2021) as well as writer and theater director Hans Neuenfels (2011) and designer and artist Helmut Lang (2015). With her ongoing landmark documentary series Women Artists Claudia Müller has featured Katharina Grosse, Annette Messager, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Monica Bonvicini, Tatiana Trouvé, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. More than 80 female artists from varied geographical and cultural contexts have been represented in this comprehensive project. Her work has contributed to the ongoing debate on identity, gender, sexuality, feminism, female esthetics, and the visibility of women in the arts. The DVD was published by Walther König Publisher (2019). Her latest documentary series project, Art in the Desert, was broadcasted on Arte in 2019. Müller currently finished a feature-length documentary on the Austrian Nobel Prize winning writer, Elfriede Jelinek. Get in touch with the artist(s) dietmar@sixpackfilm.com and follow them on social media https://sixpackfilm.com/en/catalogue/filmmaker/7082/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

Watch Reas by Lola Arias at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but she was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was arrested for swindling and started a rock band in jail. Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long-term inmates or newly admitted: in this hybrid musical, they all re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison.. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Reas At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Lola Arias Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, NY 10003) on Sunday May 18th at 3pm. RSVP Please note this film has a ticketed entry and is being screened at Anthology Film Archive. Click on the button above to visit the AFA website to reserve your seats. Country Argentina, Germany, Switzerland Language Spanish Running Time 82 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film Yoseli has a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower on her back and has always wanted to travel, but she was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. Nacho is a trans man who was arrested for swindling and started a rock band in jail. Gentle or rough, blonde or shaved, cis or trans, long-term inmates or newly admitted: in this hybrid musical, they all re-enact their lives in a Buenos Aires prison. About The Artist(s) Lola Arias is a writer, theatre and film director and performer. She collaborates with people from different backgrounds (war veterans, former communists, Bulgarian children, etc.) in theatre, literature, music, film and art projects. Her productions play with the overlap zones between reality and fiction. Get in touch with the artist(s) N/A and follow them on social media @gema.films, @madavenuepr Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2025 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss Bila Burba Duiren Wagua JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film PACI JULIETTE ROUDET Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã Reas Lola Arias The Jacket Mathijs Poppe Pidikwe Caroline Monnet Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls Theater of War Oleh Halaidych Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse