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NIALL N JONES presents - *• AsTheyWriistBroke •* - at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 - *• AsTheyWriistBroke •* - NIALL N JONES 5-5:50 pm Saturday, October 19, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP A recitation on turbulence and beauty and heartbreak. Much more and less a postlude than a prelude, or simply an inter... a refraction of performance's troublesome ghosts. Much more and less than a flamboyant flash, something other than vast material weight even though I can't catch no man Hangin' out at a discotheque But I believe in the boogie Oh, but the boogie don't believe in me ! ! ! ! He wanders around, as if to finish setting up .. “You ready?” AN OUTCAST TO BE CAST OUT They might be talking to himself. Acts as if he were alone, moving equipment, listening to his music. MUSE ICK CUT But he also calls out light and sound cues to suit shifting moods. REPEAT*NOISES/ Occasionally, he dances. He drags, it sounds heavy. crashes.symbols jackhammer chatter clanging He slips, and he bumps “...as if I’d lost my center of gravity.” (Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes) They smile ... < : • |\ 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). Niall Jones is an artist, performer and teacher based in New York City. Niall works within a constellation of curiosities, obsessions and practices that move across dance, performance, sound, text, photography and video. Niall constructs immersive, liminal sites that attend to the sensual, collective registers of fiction, dis/order, dis/placement, and in/completeness. Recent performance works by Niall include: Sis Minor , in Fall (2018) at Abrons Arts Center, New York, NY; Fantasies in Low Fade (2019) at the Chocolate Factory, New York, NY; A Work for Others (2021) at The Kitchen @ Queenslab, New York, NY; Open Studio (2021) at MoMA PS1, Queens, NY; In the Efforts of Time (2022) at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart, DE; dark de luxe: a mess for body, shadow, and other rogue im/materials (2022) at Jack Art Center, Brooklyn, NY; a n u n r e a l (2022) at The Shed, New York, NY; C O M P R E S S I O N (2022) at Performance Space New York, NY; Hahaha (2023) as part of the School for Temporary Liveness, Vol. 3, in Philadelphia; and JohnsonJaxxxonJefferson (2024) at Danspace Project, New York, NY. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone is an acoustic hyperpop folk opera about death, sex, God, gender, utopia and the end of the world. Co-creators/Performers: Philip Santos Schaffer, syd island, and Andy Boyd The piece centers on the Publick Universal Friend, an American mystic who had a vision in 1776 in which they were told by two angels to preach the word of God. From the moment of their vision on, the newly reborn PUF refused to use gendered pronouns or presentation, and when asked what gender PUF was, would simply reply “I am that I am.” Room, Room, Room, combines rituals from the 18th century Quaker meetinghouse to the contemporary club, using the story of PUF to reflect on our own experiences as embodied souls in 21st century America. While problematizing the American vision of utopia, we aim to invoke a temporary genderless/genderful? utopia with our audience (even if just for a second). PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone Friend of Friend Theater, Multimedia, Music English 1 hour 8:00PM EST Friday, October 20, 2023 The Brick, 579 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone is an acoustic hyperpop folk opera about death, sex, God, gender, utopia and the end of the world. Co-creators/Performers: Philip Santos Schaffer, syd island, and Andy Boyd The piece centers on the Publick Universal Friend, an American mystic who had a vision in 1776 in which they were told by two angels to preach the word of God. From the moment of their vision on, the newly reborn PUF refused to use gendered pronouns or presentation, and when asked what gender PUF was, would simply reply “I am that I am.” Room, Room, Room, combines rituals from the 18th century Quaker meetinghouse to the contemporary club, using the story of PUF to reflect on our own experiences as embodied souls in 21st century America. While problematizing the American vision of utopia, we aim to invoke a temporary genderless/genderful? utopia with our audience (even if just for a second). produced by The Brick This project was developed in part by The Assembly’s Deceleration Lab. We would like to thank Dr. Scott Larson for discussing this project with us. Additional special thanks: University Settlement, Emma Rivera, Kai Song Nichols Content / Trigger Description: cw: discussions of transphobia, death, America, colonial violence, AW: projections, loud-ish music Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA at Columbia University. His plays include The Trade Federation, or, Let’s Explore Globalization Through the Star Wars Prequels (Otherworld Theatre, IRT), Occupy Prescott (Theater in Asylum at Jalopy Theatre), and Three Scenes in the Life of a Trotskyist (forthcoming in Spring 2024). He also releases music as Andy the Giant and posts cartoons on Instagram at andyjboyd. The Trade Federation is published by NoPassport Press and his chapbook of short plays Lil’ Sweetums is published by Bottlecap Press. syd island (they/them) is a queer vocal and performing artist based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. they have a BA in Music from Brown University and are a graduate of Arizona School for the Arts. syd performs and collaborates with Pioneers Go East Collective in My Name’sound, most recently as a Resident Artist 3.0 at BAM in 2023, as well as in BRIClab in 2022. alongside co-creators Andy Boyd and Philip Santos Schaffer, syd developed Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone as a part of The Assembly’s 2022 Deceleration Lab. syd has collaborated on several incarnations of Devotion Devotion by Lydia Mokdessi and Jason Bartell at The Exponential Festival (2020), Crossroads at Judson Memorial Church (2021), and The Brick (2022). in 2019, syd performed in Mae May’s softboarding: medium shred at Roulette Intermedium. in addition to performing in experimental theater and dance, they sing choral and plainchant sacred music at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Park Slope. Philip Santos Schaffer is a playmaker creating interactive performances in intimate and unconventional settings. Their work has been seen in bathtubs across the country, listened to over the phone, and found in a series of living rooms (as well as appearing in more conventional spaces). Philip’s work deals with politics, pop culture, intimacy and empathy through participation, humor, music, and more. They have been an Artist in Residence at University Settlement, part of The Assembly’s Deceleration Lab, and a MORE Art Engaged Artist Fellow. Philip has a BFA in Directing from Hofstra University and an MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University. Philip is 1/5 of the creative team behind WalkUpArts, which they co-founded in 2015. www.philipsantosschaffer.com Image design by syd island @fri3ndoffri3nd, @andyjboyd, @welikephilip, @syd.island Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Beck Holden 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 The Captive Stage Beck Holden By Published on March 22, 2016 Download Article as PDF The Captive Stage: Performance and the Proslavery Imagination of the Antebellum North . By Douglas A. Jones, Jr. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance series. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2014. Pp. 218. In common American parlance, the word “slavery” tends to be inseparable from the specific institution of chattel slavery in the antebellum South. Astute scholars and critics have, however, worked to draw attention to the ways in which different, less overtly brutal systems may also deserve the name of “slavery” for the ways in which they limit the access people of color have to political agency while relying heavily upon the ongoing presence of minority groups within that system. In The Captive Stage: Performance and the Proslavery Imagination of the Antebellum North , Douglas A. Jones, Jr. reveals how a variety of white northern antebellum performances, ranging from the respectable (lectures and portraiture) to the popular (minstrelsy, plays, broadsides, and sideshows), served to undermine black claims to American citizenship. In doing so, he deftly traces the intensifying white insistence upon black subjugation that drove the northern black intelligentsia from advocating full integration in the 1790s to calls for insurrection and emigration by the 1840s and 1850s. Jones grounds his conception of the northern proslavery imagination in one of Frederick Douglass’s speeches from 1848, in which Douglass discusses the systemic oppression faced by blacks in the North, making them, in his words, “in many respects… slaves of the community” (1). It is this idea of community slavery that shapes Jones’s book; noting that northerners generally abhorred chattel slavery but also considered blacks inferior, he explains: A complex series of assumptions, ideals, and logics . . . deemed African Americans . . . unfit for equal participation in the polity, while . . . ideally suited to serve the personal and collective interests of their white counterparts. In other words, northerners cultivated a proslavery imagination with which to maintain and, over time, widen the gulf between black freedom and full black inclusion. (1-2) He makes a convincing case that this insistence upon black subordination and subjugation points to an essentially proslavery northern psyche. This premise provides a firm base for Jones’s exploration of black antebellum political performances and the white performances that tried to eclipse them. Each chapter of The Captive Stage demonstrates a thorough understanding of its specific historical moment and careful archival research, and Jones’s arguments are consistently clear and convincing. He also demonstrates great breadth in his theoretical influences, smoothly drawing on writers ranging from Plato to Charles S. Pierce to Daphne Brooks over the course of the book; his foremost influence, however, may be Saidiya Hartman, to whom he turns repeatedly in several chapters. Jones’s first chapter shows how the deferential stage negroes in John Murdock’s plays and the mangled dialect of the popular “Bobalition” broadsides sought to render the politically active northern black laughable, at a time when black organizations were using parades and elegant oration to assert their claims to political integration and American citizenship. Next, Jones contests the recent scholarly trend of seeking progressive potential in early minstrelsy, directly challenging W.T. Lhamon, David Cockrell, and other scholars who claim that early minstrelsy privileged class over race and created a working-class alliance across the color line. Jones points out that early minstrels such as Thomas “Daddy” Rice gave openly proslavery speeches after performances and argues that the popular rhetoric regarding the struggles of the white working class in fact hinges heavily upon white supremacy. Jones’s entry into the scholarly debate over minstrelsy is skillfully wrought and highly convincing. Chapter three examines several ways in which George Washington, the slave-owning father of the nation, functioned to justify the continuation of slavery in the northern imagination; this is the chapter in which Jones offers the widest range of examples, including reverent interactions between slaves and images of Washington in popular plays, depictions of slaves in portraits of Washington, and P.T. Barnum’s exhibition of Joice Heth as Washington’s 161-year-old former wetnurse. Jones’s research on Heth in particular breaks intriguing ground, as he focuses upon Barnum’s increasing emphasis upon his ownership of Heth as a slave as the years went on, arguing compellingly that this points to a desire by Barnum’s northern patrons to join him and Washington in wielding the dominating gaze of the slaveholder. Jones’s next chapter looks at a trend he dubs “romantic racialism,” where a branch of white northerners insisted that blacks were simply different from whites, but not necessarily wholesale inferior. Jones reveals, however, how the traits that romantic racialists focused upon, such as docility and innocence, served to shape an imagined society in which blacks required the guidance of whites and still took subordinate roles to whites, buttressing his argument by examining the resistance of white Garrisonian abolitionists to the rise in black insurrectionist rhetoric in the 1840s and by analyzing the black characters from the popular temperance drama Aunt Dinah’s Pledge . His final chapter examines black abolitionist lecturer William Wells Brown and his escape-from-slavery melodrama The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom . After first charting the relationships among Brown’s earlier narration of his own escape, melodrama as a genre, and the expectations of white audiences, Jones argues that Brown’s play was shaped by the northern proslavery imagination such that it prevented him from imagining a life in the north for his protagonists after their flight from slavery. Although fans of Brown may find this position unpalatable, Jones’s argument is subtle and expertly-woven, a useful contribution to scholarship on Brown that must be taken seriously. Jones’s book is a skillful blend of historical context and performance analysis that serves to complicate our understanding of political performance culture in the antebellum North. By excavating and examining the ways in which northerners imagined black subjugation as a necessity, he both invites America to examine some of its oft-overlooked past sins and helps to reveal some of the history that underpins the systemic racial iniquities that persist today. This book offers a useful methodological model for early-career scholars, while its contents promise to prove highly valuable to scholars wrestling with questions of race and political performance, whether on stage or off. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Beck Holden Tufts 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 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.

The fellowships provide theatre and performance scholars the opportunity to conduct research in New York City for a period of 3 to 6 months. Fellows are given individual work spaces in the Segal Center offices at the Graduate Center CUNY Visiting Scholars Program 2025 GLOBAL VISITING SCHOLARS PROGRAM Marvin Carlson Fellowships Call for Applications The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY is currently accepting applications for its 2025 Global Visiting Scholars Program. Ten scholars of theatre and performance who are currently working outside of the United States will be awarded our new Marvin Carlson Fellowships. This diverse group of fellows will represent communities from a range of geographical areas, including but not limited to Africa; East, South, and South-East Asia; Oceania; Eastern and Central Europe; the Americas; the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Overview The fellowships provide theatre and performance scholars the opportunity to conduct research in New York City for a period of 3 to 6 months. Fellows are given individual work spaces in the Segal Center offices at the Graduate Center CUNY, access to libraries and archives across New York City, and opportunities to share their work in a community setting through monthly salons with other fellows, faculty, and students from the Graduate Center's PhD program in Theatre and Performance. The fellowships do not include financial support from the Segal Center. Fellows are expected to secure their own resources to remain in New York City for the length of their fellowship. Visas, if needed, are processed through the Graduate Center CUNY in accordance with US State Department requirements. These requirements include proof of financial security in the form of bank statements, proof of health insurance as well as documentation of current residency.* Scholars will not be able to teach or enroll in courses at any university while in residence. Application We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. For consideration please submit the following materials via email for review. • One sentence description of project • Name and address of host institution • A 500- to 1000-word project proposal • An academic CV • A writing sample in English Please submit applications and queries to to: segalglobalscholars@gmail.com Email application materials in a single PDF. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Response time: 2-3 months. *Important: For those requiring a visa, the estimated amount of monthly financial resources each fellow is expected to have is $2,000 per month for a single person, $2,500 for a family. In addition, scholars must have $100,000 in medical insurance for each illness or accident, not to exceed a $500 deductible for each illness or accident; $50,000 for evacuation on medical emergency; and $25,000 for repatriation of remains in the event of death. For more information on the visa requirements of the CUNY Visiting Research Scholars Program, see: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/provosts-office/visiting-research-scholars .

Dora Arreola Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 26 2 Visit Journal Homepage Transgenero Performance: Gender and Transformation in Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders Dora Arreola By Published on May 30, 2014 Download Article as PDF Mujeres en Ritual: An Invitation to Transgress There are many ways to perceive Tijuana: as the first corner of México, or the last, or as the doorway to Latinoamerica, or to los Estados Unidos.1 I grew up in the hills above the city, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the San Diego skyline, watching the border patrol cars and helicopters chasing migrants who were trying to cross to the USA, every day. The border was literally in my back yard, in my face—a horrible stretch of rusting metal, leftover from the first US Gulf War and recycled in México as a fence to stop the perceived infiltration of Latinos into the United States. As a child, this non-metaphorical, very concrete border fence reminded me every day that I was considered inferior, poor, dirty, criminal, that I was not wanted, that I could not cross. As an artist, as I grew, that fence invited me to transgress. The border between Tijuana, B.C. (México) and San Diego, California (US) is the most frequently crossed border in the world, with an estimated 300,000 legal crossings per day. As described by anthropologist and folklorist Maribel Alvarez, the border includes: Millions of workers essential to the economic machines of North American agriculture, tourism, and industry: farm workers, low-tech labor, dishwashers, gardeners, maids . . . but [it's] also a military machine of low-intensity conflict: Homeland Security helicopters, Border Patrol agents, infrared cameras, detention centers, books of regulations . . . Violence and death are dimensions of everyday life in the border.2 In addition to non-sanctioned border crossings, these deaths include feminicide,3 the trafficking of women in the sex trade and labor, as well as deaths related to untenable working conditions and toxic illnesses caused by pollution from maquiladoras.4 Tijuana's maquiladora industries and sexual tourism industries are among the largest in the world—both predominantly controlled by men, but fueled by the exploitation of (predominantly) women workers. All of this systematically diminishes the image of Mexican women in the global imagination, and thereby normalizes and renders violence against us permissible in a region where every woman is potentially seen as a “puta.” The stigmatization of my identity, as a woman and Tijuanense, also invited me to transgress. In November 1999, I founded a company with a group of women artists from the community, as a response and resistance to the systematic oppression of women at the México-US border—a way oftransforming the perception of women, as well as our perceptions of ourselves, from object to subject. Our first production was titled Mujeres en Ritual (Women in Ritual), which became our name. After nearly three years as a participant in Jerzy Grotowski's WorkCenter in Pontadera, Italy, I had returned to México with a deep desire to investigate and create theatre from the roots of my own culture.5 With grounding in traditional dances and rituals of México, Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro developed a rigorous training process, drawing from three techniques that complement each other and sustain the concept of precise movement: Suzuki Technique, Butoh, and the theatre tradition of Jerzy Grotowski (specifically “Objective Drama” and “Art as a Vehicle” phases). The intention of embodied practice is to eradicate the vestiges of oppression in the bodies of women. The physical training process liberates blocks in the body and voice to allow greater levels of expressivity—which often means breaking silences, and confronting or expressing our traumas. It helps us deconstruct conventional stereotypes of femininity, to perform strength and agency. Mujeres en Ritual de-objectifies women of the border region by demystifying our desires—by breaking myths that, as women of color, we choose oppressive systems, or “like it like that,” or want to be in positions in which we are dominated. Through our creations, we disrupt stereotypes and false perceptions to expose the systematic exploitation of women. In our creative process, we explore the sources of creativity, ritual structures, the “internal pulse” and the creation of actions (as described by Thomas Richards).6 We work from the impulse of the performer that comes before the manifestation of an expression or movement. Impulses have no gender, and are not confined by realism. This is significant because to break the paradigms of traditional Western theatre, and the Euro-American concept of realism (which has dominated theatre since the mid-1800s, and typically re-inscribes a 'reality' created and controlled by men) is to break the social constructions of gender and representation, and to begin a process of decolonizing our creativity. Thus, interdisciplinarity is profoundly important in the work of Mujeres en Ritual. We often devise our own texts, re-interpret plays, or use no text at all; we employ poetry and prose, narrative and abstraction, evolving our aesthetic through a seamless exploration of diverse forms. We do not subscribe to divisions or categories of form, discipline, or genre, which create artificial “borders” between human modes of expression. Further, the company pushes the boundaries of sexuality and gender representation by performing a spectrum of identities, including male, female and transgendered characters. When women perform male characters (an act historically considered “deviant”), several things happen: catharsis, parody, political commentary, and discovery of the freedom of transgressing assigned gender roles or taboo gender expressions. Our practice, then, becomes an embodied testament to the performativity of gender, as described by Judith Butler: The various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis . . . Gender reality is performative which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed.7 Theatre critic Sergio Rommel8 describes the work of Mujeres en Ritual as fitting “in the frame of hybrid and trans-genre traditions,” such that the company's “transgression of borders in multiple ways” constitutes a form of transgenero performance—meaning both transgender and trans-genre. In an attempt to provide a deeper understanding of transgenero performance, and its aesthetic and political significance, this chapter explores in detail the creation and production of one of our representative works, Fronteras Desviadas, or Deviant Borders, with special attention to how transgeneridad is manifested in those processes. Because Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders involved collaboration with US-based, Arab American writer and performer Andrea Assaf, this exploration also reveals the complexities of such border-crossing collaborations between queer women of color from two very different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.9 Devising Fronteras Desviadas: The Creative Process Figure 1., Andrea Assaf and Dora Arreola perform in Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders, Tijuana, Mexico, 2005. Photo by Mercedes Romero. In 2004, Mujeres en Ritual sought to explore these issues from multiple points of view, to arrive at a more complex perception of the experiences of women on both sides of the national and cultural borders that join/divide México and the United States. Our goal was to create new work that deconstructs dominant images of the women of Tijuana, to stage representations that were not condescending, illustrative, simplistic, stereotypical, or didactic. We began with research and site visits to uncover the history and conditions of the region (most of which were very familiar to me, but previously unknown to Assaf). When we first conceived of the project, we began with the theme of “women's bodies at the border,” not knowing where it might lead us. We knew we wanted to investigate the maquiladoras, and the Ciudad Industrial where most of the factories are located. Our first step was to participate in an Environmental Justice Tour10 of communities affected by the pollution from the maquiladoras, and to investigate the inhumane conditions for women workers. As we journeyed deeper into our research, however, the connections to, and immensity of, the sexual tourism industry began to overwhelm our thoughts. Amidst an ocean of information in Border Studies, news and media archives in Tijuana and San Diego, and in the internet, we found a particularly valuable resource in Tijuana La Horrible: Entre la historia y el mito, by Mexican writer Humberto Félix Berumen. He exposes the founding of Tijuana by Americans in 1916 as an adult entertainment center for US tourists, and the creation of its border as a state apparatus to regulate the flow of US citizens in to México in the era of Prohibition. He describes in detail how the association of Tijuana with sex, drugs, “deviance” and illegality (the “Leyenda Negra” as it's called in México) was not only constructed in the US imagination, but also promoted by American casino owners to attract their own people as consumers. Félix Berumen further explains how this legend persists: People have a stigmatized image of Tijuana, as it can be perceived through radio, literature, film, written press, television, songs and many other discourses (oral, visual and written). That image is a social creation and a collective image formed by the syncretic amalgamation of platitudes, legends, stereotypes, prejudices, sociograms and clichés . . . Tijuana is a city-symbol, the emblem, by definition, of perversion and vice. A myth that has been revealed with a great capacity to renew itself continually.11 But rarely is there an acknowledgement of US responsibility in creating the political and economic conditions that make this image, and the markets it relies upon, flourish; rarely is there any accountability for the exploitation and violence that accompanies these markets. The Zona Norte, the commercial sex zone of Tijuana, continues from its American origins as the most active “red zone” in México—a country in which sex work is officially illegal, except for “zones of tolerance” where tourism is valued above even the “morality” laws (under which individuals exhibiting “homosexual behavior” can still be arrested, in states such as Baja California). Poverty, lack of opportunity and trafficking force thousands of women, children and transgendered people into sex work. As José Esteban Muñoz described in Disidentifications: Late capitalism represents the dwindling of possibilities for the racialized working class. Under such hegemony, women of color compete over low-wage positions within the shrinking service economy. Individuals who reject this constrained field of possibility often choose to survive by entering alternative economies involving sex work or the drug trade . . . [This] move into the illicit coliseum represents a dystopic vision of what the continuation of late capitalism will mean for Latinas and other people of color.12 In 2004, there were more than 8,000 registered sex workers in the Zona Norte alone (an area of about four square city blocks), and likely hundreds more who were not registered. Today, the bars and prostíbulos of the Zona Norte are owned by Mexican, American and multi-national owners, as are the maquiladoras. Empirical research was equally important to our process, which included site visits to the Zona Norte13 to observe the dynamics of gender exploitation, particularly with US tourists filling the bars and alleys. This history, along with its contemporary reality and the ways in which it implicates the United States, had to inform our work. Our creative explorations began with a series of community-based workshops with women on both sides of the border, a process that ultimately generated text for the performance. Andrea Assaf brought a writing process to the workshops rooted in methodologies from the US community-based arts movement; I brought improvisations, movement composition, and physical vocabulary techniques that Mujeres en Ritual had developed through the years. The workshops alternated writing or storytelling exercises (depending on the literacy level of the participants), with movement and dialogue. This interweaving of approaches led us to design a means of shared facilitation and methodologies for community collaboration. We replicated this process in three very different locations. A group of women artists in Tijuana, including Mujeres en Ritual company members and independent artists, met in studios and cafes to explore our three central prompts: Soy mujer cuando . . . /When do I experience myself as “woman”? What is deviance? and What is on “the other side”?14 Next, we worked with a community in crisis, named after activist leader Maclovio Rojas: Maclovio Rojas is a community of maquiladora workers halfway between Tijuana & Tecate, México. As part of the NAFTA process, the Mexican constitution was modified and poor families began to be forced from their ejido lands. A few defiant communities, including Maclovio Rojas, resisted. Maclovio happens to now sit on prime industrial real estate, sandwiched between maquiladoras who very much want their land. The Mexican state has [made] many attempts to evict them.15 There, we held a Story Circle16 in La Casa de la Mujer (the women's center) focused on the question, “Soy Mujer Cuando?” The third group was in San Ysidro, California, just across the US border. At a community development agency, Casa Familiar, we worked with a “Parenting Class” for convicted parents whose children had been taken away by the state (all Mexican or Latina mothers, except for one Mexican father who was there with his wife). With this group, we explored the notion of “deviance,” particularly from cultural and state norms in the context of the criminalization of recent immigrants. The results were texts and phrases of movement charged with meaning, intensity and complexity that reflected the life experiences and visions of women in these communities. At the end of each workshop, we invited participants to contribute their writing, stories or movement phrases, if they wished, to the creative process of developing a script and movement score for the performance. Every single participant chose to donate his or her work to the project. Through a process of multiple translations,17 from Spanish to English and back again, Assaf then edited the texts into collective poems, rich with abstraction, symbolism and metaphor, layered with double meanings and the women’s surprising encounters with atrocity. These voices were often contradictory, and yet we felt it was important to keep the multiplicity. The following is an excerpt of the “Soy Mujer Cuando” series that illustrates this aesthetic of overlapping realities, which privileges the bilingual listener/reader: Soy mujer cuando me lanzo como colibrí, y entiendo cuan corta la distancia a la muerte. I am a woman when I spin infinity Soy mujer cuando giro al infinito y me desvío . . . and deviate . . . Soy mujer cuando cruzo las piernas. I am a woman when I cross my legs. Soy mujer cuando atravieso el miedo. I am a woman when I confront desire. I am a woman when I cannot speak, Soy mujer cuando siento mis sueños and my reflection brings me to myself Soy mujer cuando siento mis sueños once and once again. I am a woman when I am hit. I am a woman when I attend a man. I am a woman of breasts and vagina fucking and washing, cooking and cleaning cogiendo y lavando, cocinando y limpiando fucking and washing, cooking and cleaning Soy mujer . . . when I pass through fear Soy mujer. . . when I feel my dreams Soy mujer . . . when I vibrate with joy for nothing more than being alive18 In tandem with the community-based process, I began studio explorations to develop a movement vocabulary for the piece. My challenge was to uncover the appropriate aesthetic forms, as if they were sleeping, or waiting for a means of expression to emerge. As the director, I chose to focus on popular rituals that women are expected to pass through, from birth to death—such as quinceañeras, weddings and funerals—which gave us a structure for the journey of the play. Ritual is a complicated source. Rituals can be oppressive or transformative. They can be male-centered, and function in society to reinforce patriarchy; or they can invert social roles, gender norms, and so-called “morality.” On the other hand, ritual is also a form of performance that is pre-colonial, often circular, and highly symbolic. It can create an open, holistic, participatory space, or even a radical separatist space. With Mujeres en Ritual, we identify and deconstruct rituals that perpetuate the oppression of women, and explore inversions, such as casting women in traditionally male roles.19 This creative interrogation, subversion, and embracing of ritual—this process of deconstruction and (re)invention—is central to our aesthetic. I decided to create these ritual representations as independent vignettes, without trying to tell a story, utilizing celebrations well-known in Mexican culture but transposing them to the socially deviant contexts of exploitation, prostitution and feminicide. The most certain choice was to select vignettes that could link the three themes of the writing—what it means to be a woman, deviance, and what is on “the other side”—with the history of Tijuana. The workshops gave me many images and metaphors to draw from: transformation (transition, passing); rites of passage, journeys; doors, borders, thresholds; trespassing, transgression; and death. Although there was no explicit narrative, I took as a base concept the journey of a woman who travels from South to North, with the intent of crossing to the United States; but when she must find work in Tijuana, she is drawn into this liminal zone of the border, the Zona Norte. The actions and choreographies, developed with the company, sustained the metaphors of transgression and transformation throughout the play. The poems were then layered in to the movement composition, as live and recorded text. Parallel to the journey of the women, Andrea Assaf wrote the character of “El Chamuco” from found text on the internet, as an examination of the male gaze, and popular US perceptions of Tijuana women. As Octavio Paz describes in El laberinto de la soledad, “Americans have not looked for a México in México; they have looked for their obsessions, enthusiasms, phobias, hopes, interests—and these are what they have found.”20 Based on research into actual English language websites promoting sexual tourism to Tijuana, Assaf created the fictional site “sex-mex-chilitas.com” and its virtual-turned-flesh tour guide, Hank Screwell III, a.k.a. “El Chamuco” (which is Mexican slang for the devil). This character is not a pimp himself, but claims to be a self-made millionaire who capitalizes on the commercial sex industry via the web, and markets his services to English-speaking tourists. In globalization's commercial arena of intersecting webs, both geographic (such as human trafficking rings) and virtual, identities are continually reinvented in order to escape accountability, while male desire and illegal consumption are normalized. As Chandra Talpade Mohanty points out in Feminism Without Borders: In each of these webs, racialized ideologies of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality play a role in constructing the legitimate consumer, worker, and manager. Meanwhile, the psychic and social disenfranchisement and impoverishment of women continues. Women's bodies and labor are used to consolidate global dreams, desires, and ideologies of success and the good life in unprecedented ways.21 The objective of juxtaposing El Chamuco with the women's voices was to establish a discourse of the double realities of the border, and to implicate US responsibility in the conditions and exploitation of women in this region. Figure 2., Raquel Almazan performs “El Chamuco” while the two women dancers are played by Maria Vale and Dora Arreola. New WORLD Theatre’s Summer Play Lab., Amherst College, 2005. Photo by Ed Cohen. El Chamuco was the final element to be integrated into the sequence of scenes, creating a narrative bridge, and at the same time, a rupture—a continual interruption of the women's journey. He conducts the audience, his “clients,” on a trip through the Zona Norte, creating, apparently, a double spectacle: two different “shows” simultaneously, with two different relationships to time and space—one the passage of a life cycle, the other a passage from night to day. Dialogue does not exist in the conventional sense; there is no one defined relationship between the women characters, but many relationships that are constantly changing (as in dance). In the beginning of the play, their encounters are not by choice, only coincidences that propel them forward. One initiates, or prepares the way for the other to advance, or they pass each other. Chamuco’s actions, in moments, coincide with actions in the women’s structure, without a direct relationship to the characters. In other moments, an encounter occurs, which startles them. Alternating between these two “worlds” brought us to an aesthetic of syncretism and juxtaposition, a collision of diverse cultural elements and political realities. In the mise-en-scene, we utilized various icons of Mexican and American cultures: a disco ball, the National Hymn of México, America the Beautiful sung by Elvis Presley, Disney’s It’s a Small World, a Mexican Quinceañera waltz, the traditional Wedding March, and signs used in Catholic ceremonies. With Chamuco, US icons emerge, through characterization and costume choices: a rock star, a corporate executive, a televangelist, a mafioso. An immobile, unchanging set of pink-sequined curtains (as one might find in a strip club or drag bar) transports us to various spaces. Objects in the performance are used in multiple ways to create different contexts—a kind of over-use or recycling that suggests a maximum economy in sharp contrast to the excess of production in maquiladora zones that renders human bodies disposable, just as the sex industry renders women’s bodies, and body parts, disposable. This idea is explicitly manifested in the scene we called, alternately, the “Quinceañera/ Maquiladora Waltz” or the “Pink Piñata/Paso Cruzado.” As the women performers emerge from a table dance grotesque, they place the enormous plastic body parts (buttocks and “bras with prosthetic painted breasts”22) that they were wearing in yellow plastic bags. These bags, which most Mexicans from Baja California will immediately recognize as coming from the local grocery superstore chain, Calimax, are emblazoned with the logo, “Has la cuenta, y date cuenta!”23 The music of a traditional Quinceañera celebration begins, as an announcer's voice introduces the young woman of the day: ANNOUNCER: Ahora, recibamos con un fuerte aplauso, a la quinceañera! Ella, que hoy a llegado a la edad de las promesas e ilusiones. Ha dejado de ser niña, para ser mujer. Ella celebra sus quince primaveras. presentandose ante la sociedad . . . y ante las maquiladoras!24 What begins as a seemingly normal introduction to a “coming out” party for the belle of the ball suddenly becomes her unsuspecting introduction into the world of maquiladoras. The movements of the dancers become increasingly mechanical, and at the same time deathly, as the announcer proudly proclaims the long list of multinational companies that actually have factories in Tijuana. As the list continues, seemingly endlessly, to the tune of the waltz, a poem by Assaf is overlaid to further complicate, and illuminate, the meaning of the scene: When the little dyed– blonde girl piñata in the pink dress bursts open, what falls from the cavity? a thousand nude plastic babies 5000 used condoms 100 tamarind candies covered in chili champagne and confetti cigarette butts wet thumping organs chilis rellenos border patrol military rifles vaginal fluids 30,000 widgets some used car parts a blue baby blanket contaminated water bright yellow lines the moon and the ocean and herself as a child in that same pink dress . . .25 As these multiple texts overlap and collide, one dancer lifts the other and continues the steps of the waltz, while the suspended dancer, legs spread-eagle, looks off in the distance with the blank stare of someone already dying inside. The announcer concludes triumphantly, “que la esperan con los brazos abiertos!”26In this universe of juxtaposition, unseen “gentlemen” are the owners and promoters of “businesses,” and invisible accomplices in a world of death and impunity, sustained by both countries. The bodies of young women are thrust into these global markets, even before they've had an opportunity to assert their own adult consciousness. Figure 3., Dora Arreola lifts Maria Vale in the “Quinceañera/Maquiladora Waltz” at New WORLD Theatre’s Summer Play Lab., Amherst College, 2005. Photo by Ed Cohen The journey of the play thus becomes a journey to voice and agency, in which only an encounter of queer possibility, of deviance from the norm, lights the way out of patriarchal oppression. In the final image of the performance, the women connect in a moment of intimacy, at last arriving at a true encuentro, a possibility of transgression, and begin to transform their pain into hope, together.27 The Complications of Cross-border Collaboration What is on the other side? is the contradiction of this side a subaltern river. un río subterraneo. Just the old with a new dress – the masquerade of contemporaneity. El pájaro está en otro lado, pero las plumas caen aquí where little of me donde un poco de mí . . . remains. . . . permanece.28 As Rosa Linda Fregoso suggests in “Gender, Multiculturalism and the Missionary Position in the Borderlands,”29 the political position of México in relation to the US is one of submission to a “masculinist colonial fantasy that authorizes and privileges the white man's access to brown female bodies.” México itself is feminized as the “bottom” that must submit to the US position of domination. How, then, is it possible for artists from the United States and México to collaborate equitably? Does this power relationship change if the two subjects in question are both woman-identified? Mohanty states that “Sisterhood”—or, to queer this metaphor a bit, perhaps partnership—“cannot be assumed on the basis of gender; it must be forged in concrete historical and political practice and analysis . . . Feminist discourses, critical and liberatory in intent, are not thereby exempt from inscription in their internal power relations.”30 One might argue, as Marxist Jazz scholar and poet Fred Moten has, that equitable cross-racial collaboration is impossible given the brutal inequities of our shared global histories. Yet creating—which is to say, inventing and constructing—equitable processes, and means of working together in mutual support, is in fact central to the project of feminist activism by women of color. As artists, we are constantly inventing new structures. Our approach was to confront the inherent power relationships in the creative process, and invert them in relation to patterns of historical disempowerment. For example, the director is generally the most powerful collaborator in the artistic process, having the final decision in the ultimate representation of images on stage. For this collaboration, therefore, it was significant that I—a Mexicana from the border region—was the director of the performance. Assaf's texts, informed by a community-based process, were approached as raw material in the construction of a world on stage. As professional artists conducting workshops in marginalized communities, we also had to be conscious of power dynamics, and to be very clear about our practices and intentions. As Butler advises in “The Question of Social Transformation:” Feminists as well must ask whether the 'representation' of the poor, the indigenous and the radically disenfranchised . . . is a patronizing and colonizing effort, or whether it seeks to somehow avow the conditions of translation that make it possible, avow the power and privilege of the intellectual, avow the links in history and culture that make an encounter between poverty, for instance, and . . . writing possible.31 I believed it was important for us not to engage in “missionary art” or anthropological study, but rather to create a means of genuine collaboration with other women of color. “Missionary art” enters with the idea of wanting to “save” communities, a fundamentally paternalistic approach; while “anthropological” art positions the artist as a falsely objective observer or “expert,” and usually creates a situation of appropriation. As facilitators, instead, we were full participants in the creative process, opening spaces by sharing our own experiences and stories of violence. We were collaborating with other women in order to journey back into our own histories and reveal the complexity of multiple oppressions together. For example, I was born in a marginalized community, and grew up in poverty. My family migrated to the border region when I was very young, and lived for many years in a precarious position. When I was only thirteen years old, I tried to get a job in a maquiladora, because it was the only way I knew to get money, but I was not able to sustain the work. I then worked in a restaurant in the Zona Norte, as a waitress and dishwasher, until I was fifteen. Assaf came from a history of domestic violence, and was exploring her voice as an Arab American artist in the post-9/11 climate, in which mobility and border crossing had dramatically changed. We were not there to speak for others, but to work together to tell a collective story. Mohanty discusses the ways in which scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Norma Alarcon, Honor Ford-Smith, and Doris Sommer have challenged liberal humanist notions of subjectivity: In different ways, their analyses foreground questions of memory, experience, knowledge, history, consciousness, and agency in the creation of narratives of the (collective) self. They suggest a conceptualization of agency that is multiple and often contradictory but always anchored in the history of specific struggles. It is a notion of agency that works not through the logic of identification, but through the logic of opposition.32 This notion of the logic of opposition emerged as an implicit organizing principle in the aesthetic of our work, and in the collaboration process for creating Fronteras Desviadas. This meant we had to confront the complex power dynamics in our own relationships—our own internalized racism, Euro/US-centrism, classism, and fears about sexual violence. We had to be willing to implicate each other and ourselves in the expression of what we found. While the writers Mohanty mentions may emphasize the multiple subject (and an ethic of multiplicity is certainly present in our aesthetic), our experience of the environments we were investigating, and of ourselves as women in those environments, was perhaps more aligned with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's conception of the fractured subject. The journey of creating the play was, for us, a journey of acknowledging, re-membering, and perhaps healing those fractures, within ourselves and within the group. Working from a post-colonial and feminist perspective, the creative process strengthens our capacity for connection, for building relationships across the perceived borders of class, race, national, and sexual identity. “We should not think,” as Butler cautions, “that this transit is smooth, since it takes place via a rupture in representation itself . . . what emerges from this translation, however, is a political vision that maintains . . . the possibilities of long-term global survival.”33 Audiences & Impact: Deviant Becomings After premiering with a tour to four cities in Baja California, the first English-dominant version of Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders was presented in Amherst, Massachusetts by New WORLD Theater (Summer Play Lab 2005). Comparative literature scholar Kanchuka Dharmasiri wrote a review that highlighted the question of cultural translation. Noting that the concept of “the other side” is relative to where one stands, she wrote: Some of [the women's] culturally specific gestures remained incomprehensible to audience members who were not familiar with Mexican rituals . . . [H]ow can a director make the audience comprehend culturally specific signs in live theatre? How does a play based on a particular socio-cultural milieu translate to a different context? . . . Or, does this space (which is not immediately decipherable) become a necessity in a process that is intent on creating awareness of a different cultural and socio-political condition?34 While the bilingual script interchanged lines of Spanish and English in the women’s text, the Chamuco was predominantly in one language, depending on the country in which we were performing. Presenting the show to audiences in diverse places—some geographically far from the political, socio-economic and cultural situations in which the work was created—required a process of cultural translation as well as linguistic. In México, actress Maria Vale interpreted El Chamuco as a Mexican American from California, thereby implicating men of color in their participation in the exploitation of Mexican women. In the United States, however, as performed by a Latina actress, Raquel Almazan, the character became a Texan, with the particular inflections, tones and expressions of men from that state—which had a different political resonance, given that the performance was touring during the presidency of George W. Bush. Different publics may have recognized different symbols and icons, as well as the rituals and cultural elements particular to each country. Even though Dharmasiri raised these questions of legibility, she did acknowledge that the post-show discussions, even in Amherst, stimulated community dialogue on sex trafficking, locally as well as globally: Arreola and Assaf perceive the performance as a form of activism, to create awareness among the spectators about the situation in Tijuana . . . While problematizing the dichotomy (here/there, self/other), the play likewise questions the political power structures that continue to oppress and exploit certain groups of people . . . The play made spectators question and think. It opened up a space to discuss issues related to contemporary political power and how they affect the lives of women on a global level.35 The use of abstraction and symbolism, as well as a kind of farce that pushes hyper-realism to absurdism, creates a political theater that is not narrative or didactic, and gives audiences the work of interpretation. The audience is called to make sense out of juxtaposed realities in which power is constructed, gained, and deconstructed in vastly different ways. Further, in Fronteras Desviadas, the audience is cast in multiple ways—in one reality as male, and in another reality as female—and left to reconcile the constant, unpredictable shifting between those polarized identifications. With Chamuco, the audience is cast as a group of male “johns” or clients, implicating all present as silent participants in a system of misogyny and exploitation. In the movement structure, the woman-identified characters cast the audience as women (as in the women-only workshops in which the texts were created). Meaning is realized in the audience’s perception of, not only what they have seen, but also who they are. In North Carolina, where we performed excerpts of Deviant Borders at the Alternate ROOTS Annual Meeting for artists and activists, the piece sparked a heated debate about agency in sex work. A queer audience member from San Francisco argued for a more “sex positive” vision. Another audience member countered, “This performance is not about sex, it's about exploitation.” In this way, we were able to facilitate a deeper dialogue about the various contexts of sex work, and the extent to which agency exists with regard to class and location, as well as to differentiate between voluntary sex work and human trafficking. In a very different context, in Managua, Nicaragua, a review in La Prensa celebrated both the unusual aesthetic strategies and the audience impact of the play, particularly regarding the power of embodied knowledge and expression: The International Festival of Theater [presented by Teatro Justo Rufino Garay] brought us a unique play this time. Fronteras Desviadas . . . left the public impacted. A rare mix of dreamscapes and allegories teaches us more than any research essay on prostitution in Tijuana, México . . . There are objects with phallic dimensions, reminiscent of copulation, receptacles as an allegory for the vagina, and very surprising solutions for visualizing the world of the brothels . . . The play is a denunciation of the complicity of the authorities that ignore what happens behind the curtains in the red zone of Tijuana, where prostitution reigns and tourists are received with open arms in every sex bar, where [men] haggle the price of the feminine body.36 While critics affirmed the clarity of the play's intention, it is important to raise the question of activism, and where its true impact lies. Certainly work of this nature raises awareness of political issues. In this way, performances can support the work of local organizers in engaging concerned constituents and mobilizing for action. On an individual level, perhaps, the deepest impact is found among the women who actually participated in the creative process, including those who identify as artists, and those who participated as community members. This is the arena in which we bear witness to actual transformation, on a deeply personal level. The women of Casa de la Mujer in Maclovio Rojas, for example, attended the performance at the Autonomous University of Baja California in Tecate (January 2005). By working with organizers from their community, we were able to arrange transportation and tickets for them to attend. Many of them had likely never been to a university, and had never seen their stories spoken or represented on stage. After the performance, they gathered with us to reflect on their experience. This simple act created some small measure of access, by beginning a relationship between an academic institution and a community in crisis only a few miles from their campus. This project also began a multi-year relationship between Maclovia Rojas and Mujeres en Ritual. Perhaps more importantly, it left the participants with the experience, perhaps for the first time, that their stories were of value, were worth listening to, and had a place in the public sphere. In the classic womanist text This Bridge Called My Back, Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga described embodied theory in this way: A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives—our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings—all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity. Here we attempt to bridge the contradictions in our experience . . . We do this bridging by naming ourselves and by telling our stories in our own words . . . This is how our theory develops.37 By speaking a story that has never been told before, by embodying an experience for which words are not sufficient, by seeing oneself represented on stage for the first time, or allowing oneself as a performer to break the taboos of gender representation on stage for the first time—these are the intimate locations where voice and agency begin to manifest. These are the ruptures in the status quo, where possibilities emerge through “deviance” from the norm. And once lived, they can never be forgotten. Transgeneridad and The Question of Social Transformation Theatre critic Sergio Rommel has described the work of Mujeres en Ritual as fitting within “the frame of hybrid and trans-genre traditions.”38 Writing specifically of Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders, he has argued that “the transgression of borders in multiple ways (transgeneridad) is not only the central theme of the play, but at the same time the most effective vehicle for reassigning meaning to all the elements and signs of the performance . . . the same phrases contain an additional charge [double meaning] that in some way alludes to the theatre of protest . . . theatre-dance, anglo-latina . . . Spanish-English . . . sexual diversity (heterosexuality-homosexuality-bisexuality) . . . geographic borders. Like this, successively, other frontiers are deviated or transgressed throughout the performance.”39 Rommel's 2008 analysis led us to understand and articulate the work of Mujeres en Ritual in a new way—as transgenero performance. In Undoing Gender, Judith Butler asks, “Is the symbolic eligible for social intervention?”40 Yet this is precisely what artists do: performance and cultural production work to intervene in the symbolic, by working in the imaginary and subconscious realms, and creating alternative identifications. Even Butler asserts that “Fantasy structures relationality, and it comes into play in the stylization of embodiment itself.”41 As one might ask about the efficacy of symbolic interventions with regard to gender, the same could be asked of the “Leyenda Negra” and the real-life conditions of Tijuana. Is social intervention possible? “What operates at the level of cultural fantasy,” Butler writes, “is not finally dissociable from the ways in which material life is organized.”42 Fronteras Desviadas is one of these interventions, or in Butler’s words, “moments where the binary system of gender is disputed and challenged, where the coherence of the categories are put into question, and where the very social life of gender turns out to be malleable and transformable.”43 Transgenero performance opens spaces for symbolic intervention, not only in the binary of gender, but also the binary of the Tijuana vice/American virtue. Like gender, and the “Leyenda Negra” of Tijuana, the United States’ image of itself as “the greatest country in the world” is reinforced by its own “incessant and panicked” repetition, in the way that Butler describes heterosexuality: “That [it] is always in the act of elaborating itself is evidence that it is perpetually at risk, that it ‘knows’ its own possibility of becoming undone.”44 Trangeneridad, then, enters into the political field “by not only making us question what is real, and what has to be, but by showing us how contemporary notions of reality can be questioned, and new modes of reality instituted.”45 If we can imagine—moreover, embody—these new modes of reality, and envision how they might be instituted, perhaps we could transform the conditions that exist for women, and woman-identified people, at the most frequently crossed border in the world. --------- Dora Arreola is the founder and artistic director of Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro and currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of South Florida. Arreola has more than twenty years of professional experience as a theater director, choreographer and performer. She has taught, directed and performed in México, United States, Nicaragua, Canada, Poland and India. She was a participant at Grotowski’s Workcenter in Pontedera, Italy (1987-89), and holds a MFA in Directing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Arreola has received grants and commissions from the Ford Foundation, Cultural Contact, National Performance Network (NPN), and more. --------- [1] With special thanks to Andrea Assaf for assistance with translation and contributions to the English version of this essay. [2] Maribel Álvarez, “The Border is . . .” (Guest lecture presented in New WORLD Theater's “Knowledge for Power” series, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, July 2006). [3] The term “feminicide” here refers to the over 900 unprosecuted cases of female homicide in Juárez, Mexico, which has come to be understood as a gender-based genocide of women. Although there are precedents for the use of the term “femicide” in English dating back to 1801, Mexican anthropologist and feminist Marcela Lagarde coined the term feminicidio in 2004, to include “the impunity with which these crimes are typically treated in Latin America.” [4] Maquiladoras are factories or manufacturing operations, generally unregulated and owned by multinational corporations, in so-called “Free Trade” zones in México, which were created in 1994 by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As of 2012, it's estimated that more than 3000 maquiladoras line the US-México border, with 937 located in the state of Baja California; estimates range from 560-800 in greater Tijuana. [5] Virginie Magnat, in Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women, discusses my work in the lineage of Grotowski: “Arreola, who [has] chosen to research [her] own cultural heritage, provide[s] non-European role models for this younger generation of women . . . in the post Grotowski era . . . creative research influenced by his legacy will mostly likely expand in unforeseen directions well beyond its European lineage . . . the modalities of such expansion are already operational in women’s current creative research, precisely because the latter focuses on performance processes open to change and transformation . . . these artists support an alternative performance paradigm in which cultural, traditional and ritual practices significantly contribute.”(New York: Routledge, 2014), 165. [6] Thomas Richards, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions (New York: Routledge, 1995). [7] Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” in Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre, ed. Sue-Ellen Case (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 273-275. [8] Sergio RommelAlfonsoGuzmánis a theatre scholar and President of CAESA, the Council for the Accreditation of Higher Education in the Arts, México (at the time of printing), as well as a former Dean of the School of the Arts, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California(UABC), Mexicali. This is a translation of Rommel's Texto maroma y representación: escritos sobre teatro (Mexicali: UABC, 2008), which I will later return to for further discussion. [9] The creation of Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders was supported by Contacto Cultural (US-México Foundation for Culture), which allowed Andrea Assaf to be an artist-in-residence with Mujeres en Ritual Danza Teatro in 2004. [10] The June 2004 tour, organized by the Environmental Health Coalition, a leader in the environmental justice movement based in National City, California, included the communities of Colonia Chilpancingo, Colonia Murua and Nueva Esperanza, adjacent to Tijuana's largest Maquiladora industrial complex. www.environmentalhealth.org . [11] Humberto Félix Berumen, Tijuana la horrible: Entre la historia y el mito (Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 2003). Quote translated by Dora Arreola and Andrea Assaf. [12] José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers Of Color And The Performance Of Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1999), 187. [13] We did talk with some sex workers in the Zona Norte, and invited them to participate in interviews for the project; however, even when they expressed initial interest or enthusiasm, they did not show up for the interviews. Our assessment is that the conditions of their work are so dangerous, that they either were not allowed or dared not risk participating. Pimps and owners are the sector of this economy that no one talks about, and research is virtually non-existent. [14] Assaf was fascinated by the Mexican expression “el otro lado” as slang for the United States; she was interested in exploring the multiple meanings of “the other side” and “crossing” in both cultures, with reference to the border, gender, and death. [15] “Border issues incl. Maclovio Rojas press accounts,” 2002, http://www.sjcite.info/maclovio.html (accessed 5 April 2014). [16] Story Circles here refers to the community-based methodology developed by the Free Southern Theatre and Junebug Productions. [17] Tijuana-based poet Laura Jáuregui assisted Assaf with the translations. [18] Andrea Assaf, “Soy mujer cuando” (#1), Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders (unpublished script, 2005). [19] I am currently developing a performance based on the Dance of the Deer, which is traditionally performed by men only. I first performed this work as a solo, “Yo, Rumores Silencio” based on Telares (o el olvido) by Fabiola Ruiz, at the Grotowski Institute in 2009, and am developing it into full-length ensemble work. [20] Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la solidad (México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989). [21] Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 5th edition 2006), 147. [22] As described in a review by Inés Izquierdo Miller, “Una funcion impactante,” La Prensa: El Diario de los Nicaraguenses (Managua, Nicaragua: Septemer 28, 2006). [23] This phrase, literally, means “count how much/many, and become aware!” In its original marketing context, this slogan suggests that if you count how much money you save at Calimax, you'll always want to shop there. However, in the context of the performance, our intention was to signify the consumption of women's body parts, while suggesting that if one were to count how many women were being exploited and murdered, in Tijuana and Juarez for example, there would be no choice but to be conscious of the urgency of the political situation. [24] Translation: “And now, let us receive with strong applause, the belle [celebrating her 15th birthday]! She, today, has arrived to the age of promises and illusions. She has left behind being a child, to be a woman. She celebrates her 15th spring. We present her to society . . . And to the Maquiladoras!” (Assaf, unpublished script, 2005). [25] Ibid. [26] Translation: “We await her with open arms!” (Ibid.) [27] For a video clip of Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders, visit https://vimeo.com/channels/doraarreola. [28] Andrea Assaf, “Que hay en el otro lado?” (#1), Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders (unpublished script, 2005). [29] Rosa Linda Fregoso, meXicana encounters: The making of Social Identities on the Borderlands (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003). [30] Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders, 24 and 108. [31] Judith Butler, “The Question of Social Transformation,” Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004), 229. [32] Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders, 82. [33] Butler, “The Question of Social Transformation,” 229-30. [34] Kanchuka Dharmisiri, “What is on the Other Side?,”The Organization of Graduate Students in Comparative Literature (OGSCL) Newsletter, Fall 2005, 6. [35] Ibid. [36]Inés Izquierdo Miller, “Una función impactante,” La Prensa: El Diario de los Nicaragüenses (Managua, Nicaragua: La Prensa, September 28, 2006). Translation by Dora Arreola. [37] Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga, “Entering the Lives of Others: Theory in the Flesh,” in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 2nd edition(New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983), 23. [38] Sergio Rommel Alfonso Guzmán, Texto maroma y representación: escritos sobre teatro (Mexicali: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, 2008). Quotes translated by Dora Arreola and Andrea Assaf. [39] Ibid. [40] Butler, “The Question of Social Transformation,” 213. [41] Ibid., 217. Emphasis mine. [42] Ibid., 214. [43] Ibid., 216. [44] Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” in Diana Fuss, ed., Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories(London: Routledge, 1991), 23. [45] Butler, “The Question of Social Transformation,”217. ----------- The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 26, Number 2 (Spring 2014) Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Guest Editor: Cheryl Black (University of Missouri) With the ATDS Editorial Board: Noreen C. Barnes (Virginia Commonwealth University), Nicole Berkin (CUNY Graduate Center), Johan Callens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Jonathan Chambers (Bowling Green State University), Dorothy Chansky (Texas Tech University), James Fisher (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Anne Fletcher (Southern Illinois University), Felicia Londré (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Kim Marra (University of Iowa ), Judith A. Sebesta (The College for All Texans Foundation), Jonathan Shandell (Arcadia University), LaRonika Thomas (University of Maryland), Harvey Young (Northwestern University) Managing Editor: Ugoran Prasad Editorial Assistant: Andrew Goldberg Circulation Manager: Janet Werther Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Frank Hentschker, Executive Director Marvin Carlson, Director of Publications Rebecca Sheahan, Managing Director References Footnotes About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue The Border that Beckons and Mocks: Conrad, Failure, and Irony in O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon Alternative Transnationals: Naomi Wallace and Cross-Cultural Performances Transgenero Performance: Gender and Transformation in Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders Crossing Genre, Age and Gender: Judith Anderson as Hamlet YoungGiftedandFat: Performing Transweight Identities Hot Pursuit: Researching Across the Theatre/Film Border Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

I believe in free speech. I believe in harm reduction. This is a true story. A warped confessional. A failed stand-up set. A radically self-critical interrogation of Gen Z's relationship to censorship and AIDS media. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE The Curator James La Bella Theater, Performance Art English 30 Minutes 4:30PM EST Thursday, October 12, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All I believe in free speech. I believe in harm reduction. This is a true story. A warped confessional. A failed stand-up set. A radically self-critical interrogation of Gen Z's relationship to censorship and AIDS media. Content / Trigger Description: Discussions of violence, grooming, sexual acts, HIV/AIDS James La Bella is a writer and dramaturg who creates text and performance. His writing has recently been seen onstage at Life World, WNYC's Greene Space, The Brick, The Kraine, Art Bar + Cafe and in print in The Washington Square Review. He was a 2023 Lambda Playwriting Fellow and a 2023 Clubbed Thumb producing fellow. James is currently on staff at Playwrights Horizons as a reader and under commission from The Civilians. He'd like to revive The Brady Bunch Variety Hour someday. Jameslabella.com Jameslabella.com, @james.la.bella Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 20, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria By Alex Lefevre Published: July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF The Puzzle is a new original musical with music and lyrics by Alex Lefevre, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University and libretto by Marybeth Berry, Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of South Carolina: Lancaster and received its European premiere in the Spoleto Festival in Spoleto, Italy as a part of the La MaMa Spoleto Open curated by La MaMa Umbria International in June 2025. The musical debuted in a developmental reading at Coastal Carolina University as a part of their new works series in May 2024. This production in Spoleto, Italy marked the first fully staged production of the musical. The Puzzle takes place in Berlin, Maryland and tells the story of Jenna Adams, her mother Nanette, her six-year-old son Jake, and his two aunts Erica and Susan. In the opening number, “One Day”, the characters go through their daily routines until Jake’s father and Jenna’s husband, Scott, is killed in a car crash. Jake, overwhelmed by grief, is unresponsive until Jenna creates a song to accompany an old puzzle of Scott’s which serves as a breakthrough for the young boy. Nanette, the town busybody, sets up Jenna on a blind date with Taylor, a florist new to town. All goes well until Nanette suddenly bursts into their date and proclaims that her dog Mitzi has been injured by one of Jake’s puzzle pieces striking her in the eye. As a result, Nanette throws the puzzle in the trash, sending Jenna and Taylor on a date in the dumpster to successfully retrieve it. At the town’s fall festival, Jake begins to play the puzzle song by ear at the keyboard which Jenna attributes to the musical ability of her late husband and seeing it as a sign to move on. Through the course of the song “I Can Teach You”, Jenna and Susan convince Erica to teach piano lessons to Jake and over a decade passes highlighting major events including Taylor’s proposal to Jenna, the death of Mitzi, and Jake’s acceptance into NYU. At the end of Act I, it is revealed that Susan will be taking Jake to New York City and moving there herself as a part of a separation from Erica. Act II begins with a married Taylor and Jenna now working together at the flower shop and Jenna sharing a secret passion: writing children’s books. Jake, a sophomore music major at NYU, is unsure that he wants to continue studying music as he feels he is living in the shadow of his deceased father. Susan travels with Jake to Maryland for spring break and is served divorce papers by Erica. At an explosive family dinner, chaos ensues when the impending divorce is revealed to the family along with Jake’s plan to take a gap year in Africa. Erica and Jenna storm out with Susan and Jake following behind. Susan takes responsibility for leaving and the couple vow to find a way forward, while Jake apologizes to Jenna who gives her unconditional love to her son. In the final scene, five years have passed, and Jake is now married with a child on the way. Erica and Susan are living in New York together, Jenna is a successful writer, Taylor has hired a new store manager, and Nanette has tragically passed away. Susan speaks at the opening of her latest art exhibit based on her family, gathered in support, entitled “The Puzzle”. Marybeth Berry and I began writing The Puzzle in January of 2021. COVID-19 had crippled the theatre industry, and the world, and writing this show became our creative escape. We would meet weekly on Zoom to work and create weekly writing goals. We would start by discussing the characters and what we would ideally like to happen during a scene. The next meeting, we would read through the newly written scene, and I would choose moments that I felt would “sing” and began work on crafting a song. As our show is entitled The Puzzle , we attempted to shine the light equally on our different characters so that it was a true ensemble piece with each one of the characters representing a piece of our figurative puzzle. In the words of librettist Marybeth Berry, “It had been years of laboring to create the characters, the relationship dynamics and ultimately the story. Similar to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, The Puzzle focuses on life, loss, grief, love pain, triumph and survival. We can all see ourselves in this piece and we can all relate to a character, relationship, or simple moment because, in the words of the show, ‘it’s often in the mundane that we find the momentous.’” Songs and scenes were constantly being tweaked but by the start of 2024, we had a strong working draft of the libretto and score. Coastal Carolina University selects a new musical every May to be developed as a reading in their New Works Series and The Puzzle was honored to be the selection for 2024. Adam Pelty, Associate Professor of Theatre, helmed the reading as the director and Micah Young was the Music Director. Through the course of one week of rehearsals, new songs and scenes were implemented and seeds of ideas for the Spoleto production were planted. In the original CCU reading, the character of Scott had already passed as we started our prologue. Pelty suggested that there would be great power if the audience could experience the death first-hand. After being accepted into the Spoleto Festival, a new opening number was written with the car crash and funeral embedded in the opening number. While the original lyrics of the opening number “One Day” were kept for the start with each of the characters describing their everyday routines, it now ends after the funeral with the characters singing lines like “One Day is just like the others until one day it’s not” and “One day I will wash his coffee mug, right now I can’t put it away”. For the production in Spoleto, three new songs were implemented as well as significant cuts to the book to streamline our storytelling. While The Puzzle runs two hours and 30 minutes including a fifteen-minute intermission, with our Friday night Spoleto performance starting at 9:30pm, ensuring that we were maintaining our running time was essential. Reflecting on the process of putting up this production, Shelby Sessler who played Erica says “Watching pieces get moved, added, and cut from the reading to the production itself was fascinating to watch. We were experimenting with how each scene read even up to our opening to find the right tone to tell the story. It felt like a whirlwind of creativity.” There was no better place to experience this whirlwind than La MaMa Umbria. Full Cast of The Puzzle La MaMa Umbria is described on their website as a “non-profit cultural center and artist residence founded in 1990 by legendary theatre pioneer, Ellen Stewart.” Even with seeing all the photos available online, nothing can prepare one for the sheer beauty of this remarkable theatre space. Lisa Neal Baker who played the role Nanette shares “Every time we would return from an outing or a day of work, it felt like we were walking back into a serene fairytale- flowers blooming, birds chirping, butterflies everywhere with majestic mountains as your backdrop. With only eight days to come together to put this incredibly touching story together, having the calm, quiet serenity of La MaMa made it that much easier to focus, create and develop our characters and how their individual stories touched each other.” Actor Zach Hathaway, who played Jake, had previously performed at La MaMa Umbria in another production with Marybeth Berry. He states “Returning to La MaMa Umbria for the second time has been an incredibly special and fulfilling experience. There’s something truly magical about being in a space so deeply committed to nurturing artists and celebrating the craft of performance. Ever since my first time here three years ago, I’ve longed to return to that creative atmosphere, where collaboration and artistic exploration are at the heart of everything.” The staff of La MaMa Umbria ensured that our experience would be a positive one. They welcomed us with open arms, provided phenomenal meals with ingredients often plucked out of their on-site garden, and even splashed our bus with buckets of water as we pulled out of their driveway as a symbol of safe travel and hopefully an eventual return. Kenley Juback, who played Susan, echoes this sentiment: “Not only is the scenery irrevocably beautiful but so are the people. The love, friendship and artistry that finds you here from the La Mama Umbria staff is rare.” In fact, our performances of The Puzzle were filled with staff from La MaMa Umbria who came to support our work and promote new musical theatre. Known primarily for producing experimental theatre, La MaMa Umbria embraced our show in an astounding way. Director Jason Trucco, who was also in residence at La MaMa Umbria with us stated “I think the most experimental thing that can be done at an experimental theatre today is a Broadway musical.” Performing in a festival brings its own set of unique challenges, especially when it comes to the technical aspects of performance. In order to create the different locations, present in The Puzzle , we decided to turn to projections to set the scenes in addition to basic set pieces. According to Hans Boeschen, our stage manager and technical director, “The idea of projections arose from the challenge of visualizing the final scene which reveals an art gallery. The idea of this gallery installment is so unique that a projection was really our only option to capture the symbolism and heart of the moment. Using various A.I. tools, I worked to create backgrounds that not only helped identify the setting, but, hopefully, reflected the aspects of the characters and underlying themes of the book.” The use of A.I to create backgrounds was not a simple process as rarely did the computer outputs match what we as a team had in mind artistically. However, there were some happy accidents that occurred in the creation of the projections. Boeschen explains “Unintended interpretations from the computer could lead to some interesting deeper symbology. For example, Susan’s character struggles to connect with her art early in the production. I had asked A.I. to include blank canvases lying against the wall. Instead, it gave me an image where all the canvases were turned away and all we saw were their backs, almost as though Susan couldn’t bear to look at them.” The final projection of Susan’s art gallery display proved be the most difficult. No matter how precise the description we provided the computer, it could not produce anything with the necessary heart to culminate our piece. In the end, it was the original paintings of our cast member Shelby Sessler who played Erica, that we were able to scan into the computer to create the final images of Susan’s art instillation. Even with a simplified set, transitions between scenes still proved to be a challenge. We initially had our actors dragging tables and chairs from backstage before and after every number. Not only did this prove to be laborious, but also time consuming. Director Jared McNeill, also in residence at La MaMa Umbria, came to one of our early runs and provided the suggestion that we leave the set pieces on the side of the stage and allow our audience to see the actors putting together the set as they would put together the pieces of a puzzle. This brilliant suggestion not only helped us to facilitate our transitions in a more efficient way, but it also aided in our storytelling. Our actors began to see the transitions not just as necessary stage business but as extensions of their characters. Actor Alex Cowsert who played Taylor says “It was important for me to continue the story forward when assisting with scene transitions by remaining in the correct time period for the show. For example, if I was helping with a transition in the second act, I wanted to keep my older Taylor’s glasses on so it wouldn’t seem I was ‘out of character’.” Being at La MaMa Umbria allowed us as a creative team to get input from international directors like Jason Trucco and Jared McNeill. Their creative questions and ideas sparked many conversations about the next iteration of this musical for which we as authors are incredibly grateful. Kenley Juback performs “Something To Fix” The final piece of the puzzle of any theatrical work is always the audience, which in the case of this production, was Italian. While there is a song with a chorus in Italian, “Bambola Mia”, The Puzzle is a musical that is performed in English. Adriana Garbagnati, part of the La Mama Umbria family and an enormous supporter of our show, suggested that we write a synopsis of the show and provide copies to the audience much as one would receive at an opera. Blaize Berry, son to librettist Marybeth Berry and technical assistant for the production, wrote a thorough synopsis of the show that I then translated into Italian. Though most of our audience had a basic facility with English, the synopsis proved to be useful as we noted many of our audience members following along as the show progressed. Even with the added challenge of the show being performed in English, our audiences were still able to be moved by the show as was evidenced by the sniffles and tears present during our run. Librettist Marybeth Berry states “The themes in this show resonate with all walks of life and all cultures. The language barrier taught us that our show has more to offer than just entertainment. It touches others deeply and profoundly. Audience members recognized their own loved ones and own life experiences in our creation. It was a gift that transcends all typical barriers because of its simplicity.” Katie Gatch and Alex Cowsert perform “Dumpster Diving” The Puzzle has had an incredible journey from our living rooms in South Carolina on Zoom to the stage of La MaMa Umbria as a part of the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Actor Katie Gatch who played Jenna, said that working on a production of a new musical “felt like a door popping into existence in front of me, the threshold uncrossed, and I get to be the one to see what’s on the other side.” With the support of La MaMa Umbria, we certainly were able to see what’s on the other side, and it was thrilling. Writing and producing a new musical is a complicated process, but one that is ultimately highly rewarding. After this run, The Puzzle , or Il Puzzle as it was called in Italy, has only just begun to have its pieces assembled. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Alex Lefevre (composer/lyricist The Puzzle) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC. He has played on Broadway in the orchestras of Aladdin, Anastasia, Beetlejuice, Cats, Newsies , and White Christmas , along with work Off-Broadway including The Fantasticks and Avenue Q and on national tour with Anastasia, Hairspray, and Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano . An avid proponent of new musicals, Lefevre has music directed productions in both the New York Musical Theatre Festival and New York Fringe Festival as well as at 54 Below, The York Theatre Company, Primary Stages, and Ars Nova. As a composer, his work has been featured in the NEO Concert at the York Theatre Company celebrating New, Emerging, and Outstanding musical theatre writers as well as in the San Diego Fringe Festival, the Scranton Fringe Festival, the New Works Series at Coastal Carolina University and La MaMa Umbria. For the past three years, Lefevre has served as an opera coach for Varna International both in the United States and Italy, working on Mozart’s Don Giovanni , Puccini’s Suor Angelica , and Weill’s Street Scene . European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The 2025 Festival International New Drama (FIND) at Berlin Schaubühne Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 20 Willem Dafoe in conversation with Theater der Zeit The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria Varna Summer International Theatre Festival Mary Said What She Said The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Duende and Showbiz: A Theatrical Odyssey Through Spain’s Soul Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

This event will take place in the Art History Screening Room in GC CUNY from Wednesday, October 11 to Saturday, October 14, everyday from 3pm to 8:30pm EST. Imagine that the American Theater is dead, or Downtown at any rate is dead, or both, or maybe no one can find the body but it's probably dead, anyway there was definitely a crime, or series of crimes; the place is a mess, and someone has watered down the whisky. You are a detective, or a prime witness, or a culprit, or all of the above, and you have been invited to contribute to one of those great evidence or murder boards/crazy walls they have on cop shows...sometimes in the stationhouse, sometimes in the serial killer lair... bring your questions, your theories, your schemes, your accusations, your confessions, your factoids, your manias; bring your hard won diagnosis, bring your intricately worked out solutions. We will supply: index cards, felt tips, crayons, red string. PRELUDE Festival 2023 INTERVIEW Murder Room - Day 4 Anne Washburn, Many Others including, perhaps, yourself. Theater, Other, Discussion, Multimedia English 5 min - 55 min, your choice. 3:00PM to 8:30PM EST Saturday, October 14, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Sign Up to Contribute This event will take place in the Art History Screening Room in GC CUNY from Wednesday, October 11 to Saturday, October 14, everyday from 3pm to 8:30pm EST. Imagine that the American Theater is dead, or Downtown at any rate is dead, or both, or maybe no one can find the body but it's probably dead, anyway there was definitely a crime, or series of crimes; the place is a mess, and someone has watered down the whisky. You are a detective, or a prime witness, or a culprit, or all of the above, and you have been invited to contribute to one of those great evidence or murder boards/crazy walls they have on cop shows...sometimes in the stationhouse, sometimes in the serial killer lair... bring your questions, your theories, your schemes, your accusations, your confessions, your factoids, your manias; bring your hard won diagnosis, bring your intricately worked out solutions. We will supply: index cards, felt tips, crayons, red string. This room has received material support from Playwrights Horizons, and New Georges, with numerous numerous contributors throughout the field. Content / Trigger Description: Anne Washburn is a playwright whose works include 10 out of 12, Antlia Pneumatica, Apparition, The Communist Dracula Pageant, A Devil At Noon, I Have Loved Strangers, The Internationalist, The Ladies, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Mr. Burns, Shipwreck, The Small, and transadaptations of Euripides' Orestes & Iphigenia in Aulis. Her work has premiered with 13P, Actors Theater of Louisville, the Almeida, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Folger, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Two River Theater Company, Vineyard Theater and Woolly Mammoth. Other contributors include: playwrights, box office personnel, artistic directors, literary managers, actors, designers, program directors, development directors, producers, interns, audience members, stage managers, directors. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

By Abdelkader Alloula, Jalila Baccar, Fatima Gallaire, Tayeb Saddiki | A collection of dramatic texts from the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa. < 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 Four Plays from North Africa Abdelkader Alloula, Jalila Baccar, Fatima Gallaire, Tayeb Saddiki Download PDF As the rich tradition of modern Arabic theatre has recently begun to be recognized by the Western theatre community, an important area within that tradition is still under-represented in existing anthologies and scholarship, and that is the drama from the Northwest of Africa, the region known in Arabic as the Maghreb. We hope that this first English collection of drama from this region will stimulate further interest in the varied and stimulating theatre begin produced here. It engages, in a fascinating and original way, with such important current issues as the struggle for the rights of women and workers, post-colonial tensions between Maghreb and Europe, and the challenges faced in Europe by immigrants from the Arab world. Plays contained in this collection include: The Veil by Abdelkader Alloula (Algeria) Araberlin by Jalila Baccar (Tunisia) House of Wives by Fatima Gallaire (Algeria) The Folies Berbers by Tayeb Saddiki (Morocco) Edited with an Introduction by Marvin Carlson Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

IT'S A PARTY!! presents Prelude 2024 Closing Party at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Prelude 2024 Closing Party IT'S A PARTY!! 9pm Sunday, October 20, 2024 The Tank, 312 West 36th Street RSVP Join us to celebrate Prelude with a closing party at The Tank! Additional details to be announced soon. 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). Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

Jocelyn L. Buckner Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 32 2 Visit Journal Homepage Introduction: Local Acts: Performing Communities, Performing Americas Jocelyn L. Buckner By Published on May 23, 2020 Download Article as PDF This American Theatre and Drama Society special issue of JADT features four essays that explore what “local” performance means across very different community contexts. Throughout the Americas, communities generate and are informed by performance in ways that reveal, challenge, and strengthen shared understanding about the identity of the local. Performance plays a role in articulating a collective representation of self not only to local residents, but perhaps also to communities outside the realm of the art work’s place of origin. The call for papers for this issue was inspired in part by Jan Cohen-Cruz’s L ocal Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States [1] . Cohen-Cruz explains that in community-based productions, members of a community are “a primary source of the text, possibly of performers as well, and definitely a goodly portion of the audience … Community-based performance relies on artists guiding the creation of original work or material adapted to, and with people with a primary relationship to the content, not necessarily to the craft” (2). This special issue builds upon Cohen-Cruz’s work to further explore the significance and influence of local and community-based performances, both past and present, across the Americas.This collection not only illuminates performance practices in specific locales by particular constituents; it also creates connections between studies of community performance and other methodologies and theories of theatre and performance studies. The five authors featured here consider performances in artistic residencies, immigrant communities, localized eco-tourism, and indigenous-language theatre. These pieces highlight culturally specific work generated at the local level, advance the argument for studies focused on performance tuned to community rather than commercial appeal, and draw correlations to larger social and artistic phenomena in the process. In “The Architecture of Local Performance: Stages of the Taliesin Fellowship,” Claudia Wilsch Case explores the local and regional impact of performances by members of Frank Lloyd Wright’s residential apprenticeship program. The Taliesin Fellowship encouraged its participants in a range of creative endeavors. Its amateur public performances developed into a popular attraction for local residents hungry for artistic experiences. Case provides detailed analysis of the apprentices’ early concerts and skits alongside film screenings from the 1930s, tracing the development of physical movement pieces inspired by Eastern mystic Georges Gurdjieff in the 1950s which, by the 1960s, had evolved into original dance dramas written and choreographed by Wright’s daughter, Iovanna Lloyd Wright. Case argues that the performances occurring at Taliesin and Taliesin West from the 1930s to the 1970s exemplified the Fellowship’s role in remapping the American cultural landscape. By privileging work developed locally, rather than dispatched from larger cultural centers such as New York, Case illustrates how the Taliesin Fellowship cultivated area audiences’ appreciation for locally crafted performances, reinforcing community ties while also priming them for the US regional theatre movement. Sarah Campbell advocates for a multi-faceted approach to studying Maya theatre in the Yucatán peninsula, arguing that it is often perceived as insignificant due to how it has been treated in scholarship. In “’La conjura de Xinum’ and Language Revitalization: Understanding Maya Agency through Theatre” Campbell considers Maya language theatre as an “art world,” defined as a system of interconnected participants determining the reception and influencing the significance of a piece of art. She highlights how dialogues surrounding Maya identity reflect the ways external alliances intersect with community members and organizations that produce theatre, resulting in varying valuations of this work. To illustrate her point, Campbell provides a compelling argument for considering the context for and ensuing local and critical responses to a community-based performance in Tihosuco, Quintana Roo, Mexico, called “La conjura de Xinum.” Campbell makes the case that one should not dismiss the play as simply a fringe act by a community theatre troupe in rural Mexico; instead, the performance exposes the agency of Maya artists in promoting language and cultural revitalization. By illustrating the interconnected nature of artists, audiences, and scholars/critics, Campbell illuminates the roles of respective participants and their influence on the creation, perception, and valuation of Maya language theatre, both in the community from which it emerges and beyond. In “Exploring the History and Implications of Toxicity through St. Louis: Performance Artist Allana Ross and the ‘Toxic Mound Tours,’” Rachel E. Bauer and Kristen M. Kalz employ performance studies to examine how Ross privileges place, environment, and history in her performance, revealing the long term effects of environmental contamination and its consequences for residents living adjacent to the five stops on her Toxic Mound Tour. By featuring several spaces whose contamination dates back to WWII and Cold War era weapons production, Bauer and Kalz argue that Ross’s tour educates ecotourists on the environmental and health risks that the St. Louis community has assumed in the interest of national safety, thereby rewriting the local history of these spaces and their legacy for today’s community. Sharing their experience as ecotourists in their own community, Bauer and Kalz underscore the significance of featuring place as event to reveal how disparate individuals are linked through a deeper understanding of community spaces and a collective awareness of belonging. Arnab Banerji’s critical analysis of New Brunswick, New Jersey’s South Asian Theatre Festival (SATF) defines the dynamics of the festival’s shared creative community and the immigrant community’s efforts to affirm itself as a major American subculture. In “Finding Home in the World Stage: Critical Creative Citizenship and the 13th South Asian Theatre Festival 2018,” Banerji asserts that the artists involved in the festival are not only celebrating their culture of origin, but also delineating its relationship with their new home culture here in the United States. While the SATF might at first glance be regarded as simply a public performance of plays, Banerji’s analysis of the audience’s engagement with the works, the mindful curation of festival content, and the cultural sensitivity given to the production of the festival, reveals the complex dynamics of immigration and integration at play on stage and in the audience for these performances. Through examining the SATF as a site for individuals of the South Asian diaspora to assert their cultural citizenship as well as an opportunity to perform acts of creative citizenship, Banerji illustrates how these artists appeal to an audience that does not necessarily conform to geographic, linguistic, and socio-cultural boundaries. Banerji’s piece contributes to the growing field of scholarship on South Asian American performance as well as local acts. As much as theatre and academic communities often privilege “professional” nationally and internationally recognized centers of cultural production, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing closure of virtually all productions and performance venues well into 2020 and beyond, has revealed how much we actually rely on local resources and artists for a sense of connection to one another and to ourselves. During these unprecedented times, what so many of us are searching for – and missing desperately – is the reassurance that comes from connection to community. Theatre has survived centuries of crises – from plagues, to world wars, to economic collapses. With each threat, theatre has always managed to realign with the needs of the audience, sometimes by relocating, whether that be to the outskirts of town or to cyberspace, and often by reframing the definition of “local” and where, how, and through whom artistic communities coalesce. The sphere of community held by theatrical performance is proving elastic in the age of the coronavirus, expanding to circle the globe and welcome audiences around the world who are hungrily streaming professionally produced, pre-recorded theatrical content online. Simultaneously, theatre has compressed to include synchronous, intimate, devised Zoom performances for audiences of one who have isolated themselves at home and are desperate for personal, human connection. By reimagining the parameters of production and participation by both artists and audiences, theatre and its communities will not only survive, but it will reinvent itself and its relevance to those looking for themselves and for a sense of belonging. This issue goes to press in the wake of ongoing violence against people of color, specifically the anti-Black violence evidenced in the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmuad Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, and many others, alongside the subsequent violence perpetrated against those peacefully protesting their deaths. The idea of community, at the local and national level, is being tested once again. Theatre artists and scholars are uniquely positioned to reflect on systemic prejudices, which are also manifest in the theatre industry at large. As scholars/artists/citizens we have an obligation to aid in the development of new community models both within our industry and at the local level that are committed to supporting and participating in anti-racist protests, pedagogy, and productions; honoring and mourning the lives of those who have been lost; amplifying voices of the marginalized and silenced; and advocating for messages of allyship, equity, and inclusion. Theatre must help heal and build community and I encourage you to find ways to participate in and support this work. As uncertainty and possibility simultaneously loom in the future of theatre and performance, this issue serves as an example of work yet to be done to herald the role of theatre and performance in defining and preserving community at the local level throughout the Americas. This issue was made possible by the support of Lisa Jackson-Schebetta, President of the American Theatre and Drama Society; the stewardship of JADT editors Naomi Stubbs and James Wilson and managing editor Jessica Applebaum; the dedication of members of our Editorial Board who contributed their time and expertise to fostering these essays; and the keen eye of editorial assistant Zach Dailey. I wish readers health and safety in these extraordinary times, and hope this scholarship inspires others to consider their relationship to local acts within their own communities. Editorial Board for Special Issue Dorothy Chansky Mark Cosdon La Donna Pie Forsgren Khalid Long Laura MacDonald Derek Miller Hillary E. Miller Heather S. Nathans Diego Villada References [1] Jan Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States , (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 2. Footnotes About The Author(s) Jocelyn L. Buckner is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Chapman University in Orange, California. She is the editor of A Critical Companion to Lynn Nottage (Routledge), and a former book review editor and managing editor for Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism . She has published articles and reviews in African American Review , American Studies Journal , Ecumenica Journal , Journal of American Drama and Theatre , HowlRound , Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , Popular Entertainment Studies , Theatre History Studies , Theatre Journal , Theatre Survey, and Theatre Topics , as well as book chapters in the collections Performing Dream Homes: Theater and the Spatial Politics of the Domestic Sphere and Food and Theatre on the World Stage , and over a dozen entries in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Stage Actors and Acting . Buckner is also the resident dramaturg of The Chance Theater in Anaheim, CA, and has collaborated with other theatres including South Coast Repertory Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Native Voices at the Autry, as well as London’s Donmar Warehouse and Theatre 503. She is the Vice President of the American Theatre and Drama Society. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography Introduction: Local Acts: Performing Communities, Performing Americas The Architecture of Local Performance: Stages of the Taliesin Fellowship “La conjura de Xinum” and Language Revitalization: Understanding Maya Agency through Theatre Exploring the History and Implications of Toxicity through St. Louis: Performance Artist Allana Ross and the “Toxic Mound Tours” Finding Home in the World Stage: Critical Creative Citizenship and the 13th South Asian Theatre Festival 2018 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Watch Peak Hour in the House by Blue Ka Wing at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2025. 《Peak Hour in the house》 illustrates a solitary woman who, while "enjoying" her private space, faces sudden surges of anxiety and learns to coexist with them. In the midnight, she enjoys her me-time, savoring moments of solitude. However, this is precisely when the hidden anxieties within her are most likely to visit. In the stillness of the night, the doorbell rings, akin to a nightmare striking during peaceful sleep. Gradually, she attempts to unveil her body like a diary, page by page. She uncovers not only the chaotic thoughts in her brain but also the internal organs carrying her personal history. The accumulated impurities over the years require her to untangle and digest them herself. By courageously confronting the sources of her anxiety and becoming someone capable of embracing negative energy, she gains the strength to make positive changes. Official selection of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - FIFTH WALL FEST Edition V (New Manila, Philippines) - Brighton Screendance Festival 2024 (Brighton, United Kingdom) - Together We Dance ! A 30-Year Journey: Dance Film Nights - PLUS by Hong Kong Dance Alliance (Hong Kong) - FIELDS by The Place and Studio Wayne McGregor (London, United Kingdom) - SHAPE 2 (Atlanta, USA) - The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China) - The 43rd International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) (Québec, Canada) - Online platform ARTS.FILMS (Québec, Canada) - Cinedans FEST '25 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - 2025 92NY Future Dance Festival (New York, United States) Award of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - Special Mentions from The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China). The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents Peak Hour in the House At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2025 A film by Blue Ka Wing Screening Information This film will be screened in-person at The Segal Centre on Saturday May 17th at 11am (as part of the Short Film program) and also be available to watch online on the festival website till June 8th 2025. RSVP Please note there is limited seating available for in-person screenings at The Segal Centre, which are offered on a first-come first-serve basis. You may RSVP above to get a reminder about the Segal Film Festival in your inbox. Country United Kingdom Language No Dialogue Running Time 7:19 minutes Year of Release 2024 About The Film 《Peak Hour in the house》 illustrates a solitary woman who, while "enjoying" her private space, faces sudden surges of anxiety and learns to coexist with them. In the midnight, she enjoys her me-time, savoring moments of solitude. However, this is precisely when the hidden anxieties within her are most likely to visit. In the stillness of the night, the doorbell rings, akin to a nightmare striking during peaceful sleep. Gradually, she attempts to unveil her body like a diary, page by page. She uncovers not only the chaotic thoughts in her brain but also the internal organs carrying her personal history. The accumulated impurities over the years require her to untangle and digest them herself. By courageously confronting the sources of her anxiety and becoming someone capable of embracing negative energy, she gains the strength to make positive changes. Official selection of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - FIFTH WALL FEST Edition V (New Manila, Philippines) - Brighton Screendance Festival 2024 (Brighton, United Kingdom) - Together We Dance ! A 30-Year Journey: Dance Film Nights - PLUS by Hong Kong Dance Alliance (Hong Kong) - FIELDS by The Place and Studio Wayne McGregor (London, United Kingdom) - SHAPE 2 (Atlanta, USA) - The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China) - The 43rd International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) (Québec, Canada) - Online platform ARTS.FILMS (Québec, Canada) - Cinedans FEST '25 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - 2025 92NY Future Dance Festival (New York, United States) Award of 《Peak Hour in the House》 - Special Mentions from The 5th Edition of the ROLLOUT Dance Film Festival (Macao, China) About The Artist(s) https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Gegq0SmwG6MQfWj7imX2CZ5cSxTaZsU/edit Get in touch with the artist(s) bluekawing＠hotmail.com and follow them on social media https://www.facebook.com/bluekawing/, https://www.instagram.com/bluekawing/, https://www.youtube.com/@danzrainbow 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

Megan Stahl Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 37 2 Visit Journal Homepage Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists. Michael Malek Najjar. Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2021; Pp. xvi + 237. Megan Stahl By Published on July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF For over a decade, Michael Malek Najjar has been one of the most accomplished and prolific scholars of Middle Eastern American theatre. His latest monograph, Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists , seems a natural extension of his earlier publications on the subject, as it further expands the creative and academic profile of theatrical work generated by Middle Eastern diasporic artists in the United States and Canada. As with much of his previous scholarship, Najjar’s research is grounded in archival materials, interviews, and first-hand observations of productions, the analyses of which are presented in an approachable manner that makes the book suitable for academic and non-academic audiences alike. Through a detailed, incisive exploration encompassing an ambitious slate of plays, theatre companies, and artist testimonies, Najjar assertively positions Middle Eastern American theatre as its own genre—one that is nuanced, multi-faceted, and well deserving of a place in the contemporary theatrical canon. The book’s Introduction effectively synthesizes the complex historical and geopolitical web that surrounds the ancestral homelands of Middle Eastern American theatre practitioners, emphasizing for readers the fallacy of trying to impose any kind of homogenous collective identity on its diasporic populations. Myriad religions, cultures, and countries exist under the umbrella of “the Middle East” which, as Najjar notes, is a term that “carries tremendous cultural baggage that includes colonialism, Orientalism, and perverse notions of the region that have been perpetuated through scholarship, popular entertainment, and the arts” (3). The extreme diversity inherent in the broader Middle Eastern American identity extends to the theatrical output of its artistic diaspora. As such, Najjar argues that the concept of polyculturalism is a more apt framework with which to approach the genre. In contrast to multiculturalism, which is predicated upon the notion of cultures as fixed and indelibly disconnected, polyculturalism recognizes that “people descend from multiple lineages” and celebrates the ways in which “cultures influence one another over time” (11). This reframing not only challenges reductive categorizations, but also affirms the fluid, intersecting identities that are reflected in Middle Eastern American theatre today. The following chapters of the book explore the cultural production of Middle Eastern American theatremakers through this lens of polyculturalism, with a particular emphasis on the work of Arab, Jewish, Turkish, and Iranian American artists. Najjar begins with a chapter that chronicles the endeavors of sixteen production companies in the United States devoted to supporting work of the Middle Eastern diaspora. While this portion of the volume feels rather encyclopedic due to its organizational style, Najjar provides an easily digestible history of the origins of each company, including brief descriptions of representative productions that illustrate the impressive breadth of performance styles offered—from stand-up comedy to Yiddish theatre to plays that star a male actor in drag as a Lebanese matriarch. Najjar makes a point of noting that most of the organizations listed “have produced these works on the stage despite the lack of funding, resources, and personnel” (41), emphasizing the ongoing challenges and chronic underfunding of Middle Eastern American theatre. Najjar organizes the subsequent five chapters thematically, devoting each section to an analysis of a common dramaturgical thread across several plays. The first, “Return to the Homeland Plays,” explores performances that chronicle their creators’ complex journeys to and from their ancestral homelands. While the narrative in each of these plays largely centers on the renegotiation of its creator’s hyphenated identity during the pilgrimage, in production these pieces also function as pedagogical opportunities for American spectators. By sharing their deeply personal accounts, these artists are “translating their experiences for audiences who they believe should know more about what is being done, both political and militarily, in the Middle East, in their name” (72). Four of the five plays investigated in this chapter are solo shows performed by the playwrights which, though not a commonality investigated directly by Najjar, would be a compelling addition to the chapter’s overall assertion that personal theatrical testimony can serve as a powerful political intervention. In contrast to the exploration of familial homelands in Chapter 2, the following two chapters shift focus to life in the Americas. Chapter 3, “Persecution Plays,” examines how Middle Eastern American playwrights address governmental and social persecution in the United States. Najjar effectively situates his chosen texts within the broader landscape of political theatre, highlighting how theatre serves as a means of resistance in the face of extreme discrimination and violence. The subsequent chapter, “Diaspora Plays,” also delves into the complexities of transnational identities, but through a more personal lens. Works such as Heather Raffo’s Noura and Jason Sherman’s Reading Hebron reflect the tensions of navigating American and Canadian society, respectively, while maintaining connections to ancestral homelands. These two chapters are particularly strong in their discussions of how the selected plays blur the boundaries between personal and political, local and global, in ways that resonate deeply with diasporic populations. While there is similar overlap between the narrative of focus of the plays discussed in Chapter 6, “Conflict,” and those in the preceding Chapter 5, “Plays Set in the Homeland,” Najjar’s specific attention to works that address the Israel-Palestine conflict in both chapters feels both remarkably prescient and newly profound. In Chapter 5, Najjar investigates narratives that depict the reality of life in the Middle East as people navigate the strain of war, displacement, and political unrest. “This reimagining of a lost homeland or of a homeland that is being destroyed, occupied, or under siege is,” he asserts, “an attempt by these playwrights to reclaim a lost history or heritage” (131). Chapter 6 engages with the conflicts themselves, paying particular focus to the Israel-Palestine conflict and its position with a lineage of other global struggles. These two chapters underscore how Middle Eastern American playwrights use theatre to challenge dominant perspectives and foster deeper understanding of often-misunderstood conflicts. This theme is carried through the two brief concluding sections of the volume, one of which charts the founding of the Middle Eastern North African Theatre Makers Alliance (MENATMA) in 2019, and the other presents critical perspectives from current directors and leaders in the field. In the Preface to his volume, Najjar makes a point to note that his primary goal in publishing this book is to introduce the work of Middle Eastern American theatre artists to the world “in the hopes that these plays will receive more scholarship, publishing, funding, and productions in the future” (xv). Given the funding freezes impacting the arts and the full-scale attacks on projects that promote diversity and inclusion in 2025, Najjar’s desire for artistic parity seems even more aspirational than when this book was first published in 2021. However, this manuscript is a testament to the resilience and innovation of Middle Eastern American theatre artists in the twenty-first century, and it provides a crucial intervention for scholars and practitioners committed to exploring its continued transformations. This book will undoubtedly serve as a foundational text for those interested in theatre, diaspora studies, and cultural representation in the performing arts. References Footnotes About The Author(s) MEGAN STAHL is an Associate Professor of Theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where her teaching and research focus on plays of the MENASA diaspora, musical theatre, and feminist theatre. Her work has been published in Studies in Musical Theatre , Theatre Journal , Theater Annual , and Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , as well as in the edited volume (M)Other Perspectives: Staging Motherhood in 21st Century North American Theatre & Performance . She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies from Tufts 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 Censorship/Public Censure and Performance Today: Special Issue Introduction Remembering Censorship in the World Premiere of Seán O’Casey’s The Drums of Father Ned: Lafayette, Indiana, 1959 The Stage as Networked Battleground: Dissent and Censorship in Contemporary Canadian Theatre and Performance Censor/Censure: A Roundtable Which of These Are Censorship? The Divide Between Prior Restraint and Soft Censorship How Can an Artist Respond to Censorship? The Dilemma That Faces Contemporary Creatives in the UK The LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project: A Roundtable Conversation Life is Drag: Documenting Spectacle as Resistance An Interview with Rachel Rampleman Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists. Michael Malek Najjar. Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2021; Pp. xvi + 237. Lessons from Our Students: Meditations on Performance Pedagogy. Stacey Cabaj and Andrea Odinov. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 126 Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene. Angenette Spalink. Studies in Theatre, Ecology, and Performance Series, no. 3. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 116. Fauci and Kramer Our Town Frankenstein Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 20, 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. By Steve Earnest Published: July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF Cover Photo provided by DARUM Ranging from restagings of historical dance pieces to AI driven work as well as completely new works and interpretations of classical works by top level world directors, the 62nd Annual Berliner Theatertreffen presented productions that displayed the incredible variety of the contemporary German stage. The “Ten Remarkable Productions” considered several levels of reality; three productions considered artificial intelligence, many could have been considered musical works, several others were driven by language, and all were defined by strong, clear directorial styles. As has been the case during the recent history of the festival, top level world directors and highly developed, company-driven works contribute to the success of the Theatertreffen; the 2025 version provided exceptional insight into the solid artistic environment that dominates the landscape of the current German and especially Berlin stage. Despite the numerous cuts to funding and occasional pessimism expressed, the German Stage has once again responded with historically significant work and the future of the Theatertreffen only looks to be more positive. Unfortunately, given the nature of production scheduling in 2025 it was nearly impossible to see all ten productions live. Thankfully, at least three were available to watch on German Television (3SAT) for much of the Summer, and the number of performances and availability of theatre spaces had diminished somewhat. Most of the productions featured in the 2025 Theatertreffen have been considered in this review, however it may be that one or more will be featured in a later article due to viewing difficulties. Sancta Susanna was banned at its 1921 planned premiere at Stuttgart Opera due to its insinuation of lewd subject matter according to historical archives. Paul Hindemith’s 1920 opera considers the sexual awakening of a nun; the original libretto includes a scene that calls for the nun to take off her habit and stand naked in front of the collective in order to display her need and desire for sexual engagement. Fast forward 100 years to Mecklenburg, Germany, where Sancta had its 21st Century premiere. Directed by Florentina Holzinger, an artist known for her productions displaying naked female bodies, the work featured an entire stage full of naked women for the bulk of the performance and provided incredible commentary on the historical issues dealt with in the text as well as the state of the contemporary church, religion and the world in general for that matter. Sancta , staging by Florentina Holzinger. Photo by Nicole Marianna Wytyczak. Holzinger’s work was incredibly well conceived and executed; it served as an incredible landmark for the German stage in the boldness of the creation of an original aesthetic – the reverence of the naked female form. While it was conceived at the Mecklenburgish’s Straatstheater, the legacy of Holzinger, an Austrian dancer/choreographer, has been at the Berliner Volksbühne and her work, better than any other contemporary director at the festival, seemed to embody that tradition of Frank Castorf and the incredible aesthetic and unparalleled “edginess” that was characteristic of Castorf at the Volksbühne. Because the work played in the theatre, there was an amazing fit between the challenges of the SANCTA, the elements of production previously realized on the Volksbühne stage, the nature of the way that the material was presented and the use of onstage as well as offstage and pre-taped video sequences. The single set included numerous challenging areas; basically, a stage “obstacle course,” because, in addition to the multimedia elements such as a multiple screens as well as actors holding cameras and recording onstage action, the elements of both a climbing wall as well as a competitive ramped skating velodrome were included into the stage design. All of those elements were complemented by a singularly unique device that is currently apparently unnamed. I have reached out to numerous sources and no one can provide a name to the amazing piece of machinery that consisted of an approximately twelve foot high solid base obelisk shaped figure that had a single working arm capable of lifting and displaying both very heavy as well as very light objects with incredible clarity and dexterity. Something of a robot-figure, the device was used throughout the production, lifting humans, small objects and numerous elements required by Holzinger’s telling of this miraculous story. The video elements were outstanding and included live time, onstage taping of numerous elements in addition to pretaped and historical video sequences. Characteristic of many previous Castorf works, the element of an arriving figure into the theatre via a video stream was utilized; however in this case the character of Jesus was realized as arriving late to the performance. Captured in a live time video sequence the scene was played by the incredible German actress Annina Machaz and after her arrival onstage she engaged in an elaborate onstage discussion with the audience, driven by the delivery of a comical sequence of events that resulted in a number of hilarious, comic scenes that also involved many of the naked women already onstage. The work also directed its attention to numerous actual stories of physical abuse and sexual activity (rape, physical groping, adultery) within the church. These were presented as “confessionals” utilizing the multimedia environment and several previously taped scenes were also included. Sancta , staging by Florentina Holzinger. Photo by Nicole Marianna Wytyczak. The work included so many incredible scenes it would be a difficult task to list them all. However, during one sequence an actress “stood in” for the role of Jesus each evening of the three TT performances and an actual small scale operation took place. Apparently, during each performance a surgical procedure took place with each of the three actresses having a very small portion of their skin surgically removed and the entire process revealed on camera. The small, circular portion of skin was then actually fried live on stage in a small pan with the same video process recounting that as well. Later, the small fried piece of flesh was used to demonstrate the biblical phrase “this is my flesh..” More than any work I have seen at the Volksbühne in over 20 years, the work managed to forward the amazing aesthetic developed by Castorf and to really push the limits of theatrical production. The result was an amazing work that, in the spirit of Artaud, shook audience members to the very core of their being. Sancta established Holzinger as one of Europe’s most sought after directors. Unser Deutschlandmärchen was a Theatertreffen selection to celebrate the substantial Turkish community and the story of their long history in Germany. Based on the novel by Dinçer Güçyeter with dramaturgy and direction by Hakan Savas Mican the work had been produced by Gorki Theater as part of the 2023-2024 season. The setting of the piece was in Cologne, and involved the lifetime of a family from Turkey that had relocated to Germany and it involved a period of time through the 1980s and 1990s that involved the family’s life in Germany. Their view of Germany came from the standpoint of being immigrants to the country, and was central to the story yet the style of the work, somewhat Brechtian in form. Several musical numbers, most of which did not really advance the plot, were included in the show and the onstage band of five musicians played an important part in the production. The flow of the action and the telling of the story of the Turkish immigrants was the key element of the production and the goal was quite obviously to utilize a very audience friendly manner in which to make it happen. Many musical numbers in a somewhat concert style were included. The work utilized a Brechtian/concert style format and slides emphasized key chronological times during the family’s life in Germany. At the point when the story landed in 1999, having begun in the early 1980s, a musical number entitled “I Want More Hard Rock” was sung by the the work really highlighted the family struggles of immigrants and the difficulties that so many Turkish migrants to Germany had endured. The work should be considered a musical, and utilized many original as well as popular interpolated Turkish songs into the story. The work was a rock music revue and featured numerous individual performers and musical scenes that developed the story of the Turkish family and their struggles while living in Germany. The work begins and ends with letters from Dinçer to his mother and ends in the same format. The supporting elements of the Gorki Theatre made sure that the performance was given the strongest theatrical system. The production was extremely well realized and easily figured into the “Ten Remarkable Productions” as a representative production. Sesede Terziyan in Unser Deutschlandmärchen . Photo by Ute Langkafel Another nominated work that came from the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg (an incredibly rare occurrence) included Bernarda Alba’s Haus directed by Katie Mitchell. The Lorca original included numerous scenes of tension and implied violence as the dominating matriarch of the established Spanish family was intent on preserving the “honor” of her deceased father and the legacy that he had established. Mitchell’s world for the play recounted the 2002 case of the Tuchol family in Riverside, California, where the father and mother managed to quarantine a family of four girls until many were in their mid-late 30’s and had never had any meaningful contact with the outside world. Mitchell’s world as created for Bernarda Alba was unrelenting; the four daughters were allowed no contact with the outside world; groceries were delivered to the house to prevent them from leaving the house and the girls spent much of their time in a group sewing room where they made all of their own clothing. The guider of the oppression, played by Julia Wieninger was unrelenting in her portrayal of the controlling and incredibly violent matriarch that held her daughters captive for many of their formative years. Mitchell’s directorial style naturally pushed the world to its extreme and the world became a complete prison. The stage design, beautifully realized by Alex Eales allowed both the stage (and eventual) film audience to realize the individual scenes of distress and horror that were part of the house that had been created by Bernarda Alba. Mitchell’s reimagination of the text included a world of several male characters who lurked outside attempting to interact with the four beautiful daughters of Alba. This element was made possible due to the Eale’s “doll house” design that allowed the audience to see characters in multiple spaces simultaneously. It was particularly effective near the end when numerous violent actions took place in separate rooms; as Adele, Linn Reuse’s spectacular suicide scene was then countered by a group mass suicide as all of the daughters, with the exception of Amanda who managed to escape, were forced to take a deadly dosage of Fentanyl. The horrific ending to the story was “classic Katie Mitchell” and, as is typical of her work, managed to clearly define the Lorca classic into the contemporary world. Simultaneous scenes in Bernarda Alba’s Haus , as staged by Katie Mitchell. Photos by Thomas Aurin. Double Serpent is Sam Max’s fantasy play that presents a male dominated world devoid of any female influence and explores the reality of that oppressive environment in something of a video game style. Directed by established German director Ersan Mondtag and commissioned by the Hessisches Stadtsheater Wiesbaden who realized the work of the newly emerged New York based artist, the staging was guided by a movement style driven by a specific soundtrack so that many of the character’s movements were underscored by carefully timed sound or musical details, such as a walking steps or other repeated movements. The storyline centered around Connor, a young man and Felix, an established movie producer. However, so many other issues emerge as time is fractured in the work and Felix returns to his past where a game called “Double Serpent” was played for a short time on computers prior to it’s being banned. It was there that he played the game with his imaginary friend “Eric,” but a much larger issue emerged later in the work as it was revealed that at some point Felix drugged him and harvested his organs for use for some undisclosed reason. Clearly the work was realized in a highly surreal manner and seemed to come from the standpoint of a dream where many events occurred but often the events were unrelated and did not often make sense in a concrete manner. There was one scene where Felix asked Connor to stand mid stage and a chorus of four naked men facing upstage stood in front of him around a “hot tub” – the intent was a group sex act directed toward Connor to be watched by Felix but the scene was not played out to fruition. Double Serpent dealt with numerous issues related to nightclub and party culture. The use of K (short for Ketamin, a popular party drug) was referenced throughout the play. According to the writer Max the story is based in the world of teens who consistently engage in the world of online gaming and interaction. Also the ideas of masculinity were explored - Max correctly noted that typically male driven stories leaned into the world of thriller or even horror stories. This work explored a highly controlled world where the politics and ruling authority was gauged in another manner. The staging of Max’s imaginary world presented the many combined elements of a (perhaps) toxic male driven society, and the results were an emotionless, physically driven world that exhibited pure male power and control. Sam Max’s Double Serpent . Photo by Thomas Aurin. End of Life was a performance installation created by DARUM (Vienna, Austria) and written, conceived and directed by Victoria Halper and Kai Kröschoe. Engagement with this virtual production was both a difficult and emotionally demanding challenge. Given a specific time by the Festspielhaus staff, audience members were instructed to arrive early and to prepare for a virtual experience of approximately two hours. Once taken into space, each audience member was given a headset that basically removed them from their physical world and placed them into an environment that engaged them visually with a virtual world where they would occasionally be required to move, bend down and occasionally lean, but mostly just required to be present in a standing position. The nature of the story that developed led into a discussion about many elements: the future of humanity, our concern for the sanctity of life, and the nature of how we view the prolonging of life. Audience engagement in End of Life . Photo taken (with permission) by author. Central to that discussion was the case of a young woman named Lisa with whom each audience member was taken on a journey with. There were many stops along the way and choices were given to each audience participant in order to craft an individualized journey. The virtual world created by the production team was incredibly well realized, thus the nomination as one of the best performance experiences in the German world for 2024-2025. Produced in Vienna the work provided those who were able to experience the work with a once in a lifetime experience. As an audience member you were engaged with some difficult situations, encountered some scary characters and were taken on an amazing journey that is very unique and, in the end, quite beautiful. One’s journey with Lisa was genuinely personal, and the conversations seemed uniquely authentic. On many occasions the participant was alone with Lisa and her conversations and reactions were stunningly realistic. The production truly revealed the both wonderful but also horrifying realities afforded by the virtual world. Participants were forewarned about the physical demands of the production and there were drinks and food items available as participants finished the performance due to the potential physical reactions involved. End of Life, by Vienna-based DARUM. Audience members engaged. Photo provided by DARUM. Frau Carrar’s Rifles , produced by Residenztheater München was presented in the Probebühne, the smaller, more intimate space of the Berliner Festspielehaus. Directed by Luise Voight, Brecht’s play deals with a group of immigrants living in a war zone during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The work is generally considered to be an adaptation of John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea and in Brecht’s script focuses on Teresa Carrar who is seeking to protect her children during the difficult war times. The production aesthetic emulated a black and white 1930s movie, as the characters utilized dark costumes and white face makeup and the setting consisted of a single whitewashed room that included black and white furniture. The overall sense of the work was that of old cinema; however, the work primarily focused on the delivery of the text. In the case of this work it suffered from a reliance on the Brecht text to speak to a contemporary audience. The work was played in a very direct and filmic style and fell extremely flat on the night I saw it. Sadly, the work did not reveal a great deal of action so the static nature of the dialogue along with the lack of consistent movement and action made the work feel tedious. The visual style was an impressive element and the performers of the Residenztheater are always among the best of the German speaking stage. Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg’s Die Machine Oder: Über Allen Gipfeln ist Ruh (sometimes translated as Time Machine) was conceived by French playwright/novelist George Perec and utilized Goethe’s famous poem “Wanderers Nachtlied” as the central focus of an AI driven experiment that revealed on the stage the working process behind a computer’s interpretation of a classic literary work and the many processes that differentiate the human analysis of words and semantic sequences to the analysis of those same sequences by a non-human AI based group of sources. Featuring five actors who emulated the nature of computer-like reactions and analysis of the poem, the performers, led by a supreme guiding force, were all involved in the consistent analysis, interpretation and (sometimes) negotiation of the meaning and relevance of particular words. The staging of the work, brilliantly arranged by director Anita Vulesica ultimately realized an incredible “machine-like” work and the actors movement’s, delivery and focus were all driven by their place in the machine. Discussions consisted of the analysis of grammar, the usage of certain words as well as an even further analysis of the usage of the number of vowels in a sequence of words. The main purpose was comedic but did reveal some very pertinent ideas about inconsistencies in written language (the work was directed towards both German and English) but the real comedic moments were revealed in both the spoken German text and the projected English subtitles. It was clear that the comedy was actually present in both languages, which is not always true. The real strength of this work lay in the precise timing and physical movement of the actors who truly engaged with the machine-like concept of the work, which looked back to the world of Expressionism and works like From Morn to Midnight and Machinal . Expressionist staging in Die Machine . Photo by Eike Walkenhorst Sadly, Ja, Nichts ist OK would be the final work of director Rene Pollesche at the Volksbühne Am Rosa Luxembourg Platz. Pollesche had just taken over at Berlin’s great public stage as Indendant following the turbulent years after the ousting of Frank Castorf, the longtime leader of one of Berlin and Germany’s great historic theatre companies. Pollesche died just after the mounting of the work, which was apparently somewhat autobiographical and revealed some of the many issues the theatre director, devisor, and writer had been dealing with during his many decades career on the German stage. The work was primarily a one man show that featured long-time collaborator Fabian Henrich’s, in a work that featured discussions and arguments among a number non present flatmates – questions that defined human existence such as Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” speech that was quoted. The text was a stream of consciousness work that was often directed at the audience with the assistance of a hand-held microphone. As the sole performer, Henrich often took moments to speak directly to the audience about his personal and life issues and to engage in live comic banter with the audience; a few smaller and supernumerary characters eventually appeared as the performance concluded with numerous figures from his past joining him on stage. In the spirit of the Volksbühne it was clear that these individuals were not trained performers but random individuals brought onstage for the work’s short ending each evening. The most striking element of the production was the setting. A classic Volksbühne setting with a revolve, the onstage house included a small swimming pool and could be rotated in 360 degree format to reveal the home interior as well. With the addition of a rock band (typical at the Volksbühne) the underscoring of the physical action of the piece, which was much more prominent than the use of language in the work, was a unifying element of production of this primarily movement based work. The work included an onstage pool (common in Volksbühne productions) and in several scenes Henrich took very violent falls into the pool to indicate various moments in his life and story. Photo provided by the author. One of the most anticipated and best received works was Pina Bausch’s masterpiece Kontakthof: Reflections of 1978 , restaged by her longtime assistant Meryl Tankard and utilizing numerous company members from her many decades career as a choreographer. Numerous individuals stood outside with signs requesting an opportunity to witness the work live as all three Theatertreffen performances were totally sold out. However, it was possible to see the work in an upstairs overflow environment at the Festspielhaus. Having seen it the night before, I was so hypnotized and attracted by the work that I was willing to pay for an overflow ticket to see it a second time. There was not a comparable work that I have seen at the Theatertreffen to match the incredible aesthetic and nostalgic feel that this work was able to produce. The work was performed in a classic Bausch setting – an open space that looked like a cross between a classroom dance space and a space where people who lived in a retirement community might meet and gather. It was an open space with a number of chairs lined up around the walls of the space but it also had a small, curtained stage directly upstage center, which made it appear to be something of a community performance space. Utilizing both frontal and rear screens for projection of video and images, the performers, incredibly seasoned European and American professional dancers aged from 62 – 80, physically recreated the scenes staged by Bausch in 1978, Thankfully, the staging was not unusually technically challenging from a professional dancer’s standpoint, and the scenes all took place in a community setting among young people attending a general social gathering. Simplicity, pedestrian style and repetition were defining elements of the work, and numerous key repeated gestures really drove the style; in a singular sequence these consisted of a smile to the audience, rotation of the hands in the front of the body, and then hands placed on either side of the head. This was done in a repeated fashion for at least 15 minutes during one sequence and the nature of repetition and the matching of the live performers with video sequences was mesmerizing. The real beauty of the work was the story told of the past experience and the incredible nostalgia of the moments shared among the individuals who lived the experiences of the time. The time was portrayed as one of a beautiful world when people were happy and life was grand; however, it was a clearly male dominated world and Bausch’s original staging reveals many of the unpleasant elements like the incredible loneliness of the female characters and times when they were treated with disrespect or even groped by the male figures. The music was unparalleled; classic music from the 1920’s in Germany revealed a time of great hope and prosperity, and featured traditional songs from Berlin swing era composers like Ralph Bernatzky and Leo Monossen whose “Im Rosengarten von der Plata” and other classic Berlin tango-like musical numbers were used. The connection between the younger characters in black and white video on the numerous screens contrasted with the much older live dancers who matched or complemented the visual dance scenes and the result was a high degree of artistry. The fact that these seasoned dance individuals revisited this world and presented it to a contemporary audience made the work something of a masterpiece to be seen once in a lifetime, and, amazingly, it met that challenge. Just before the intermission of each production, the actors came and sat before the audience, each delivering a short speech about themselves and their career, focusing on some trivial aspect of life such as Lutz Förster who stated “each day my wife gets up and makes me breakfast and I wash the dishes.” Kontakthof: Echoes of 1978 was a defining work of the 2025 Theatertreffen as it sought to explore multiple times and places utilizing a variety of means to transport audiences into both past and future spaces of reality. Cast of Kontakthof: Echoes of 1978 . Photo by Ursula Kaufmann. The 2025 Theatertreffen was both a festival of the exploration of new means of production as well as one that included and reimagined the past. Diverse and innovative voices were realized throughout the festival, and the work of numerous directors, performers, designers, other artistic figures, and theatre companies once again brought forth many ideas and theatrical forms that expanded the possibilities of the world stage. Numerous individuals were recognized at the Festival’s completion: Carmen Steinart was given the Alfred-Kerr-Acting-Award for her performance in BLUTBUCH (not reviewed here), Christopher Rüping received the Theatre-Award-Berlin and the 3sat Award was given to Anita Vulesica. Consistently, the German stage drives world theatre in terms of content/ literary material as well as its display of technical innovation through many mediated sources. The Theatertreffen remains a treasure that presents the most prolific theatre production that the German speaking world has to offer. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Steve Earnest is a Professor of Theatre at Coastal Carolina University . He was a Fulbright Scholar in Nanjing, China during the 2019 – 2020 academic year where he taught and directed works in Shakespeare and Musical Theatre. A member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, he has worked professionally as an actor with Performance Riverside, The Burt Reynolds Theatre, The Jupiter Theatre, Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Summerfest and the Riverside Theatre of Vero Beach, among others. Film credits include Bloody Homecoming , Suicide Note and Miami Vice . His professional directing credits include Big River , Singin’ in the Rain and Meet Me in St. Louis at the Palm Canyon Theatre in Palm Springs, Musicale at Whitehall 06 at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach and Much Ado About Nothing with the Mountain Brook Shakespeare Festival. Numer ous publications include a book, The State Acting Academy of East Berlin , published in 1999 by Mellen Press, a book chapter in Performer Training, published by Harwood Press, and a number of articles and reviews in academic journals and periodicals including Theatre Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, Western European Stages, The Journal of Beckett Studies and Backstage West . He has taught Acting, Movement, Dance, and Theatre History/Literature at California State University, San Bernardino, the University of West Georgia , the University of Montevallo and Palm Beach Atlantic University. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Miami, FL. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents The 2025 Festival International New Drama (FIND) at Berlin Schaubühne Editor's Statement - European Stages Volume 20 Willem Dafoe in conversation with Theater der Zeit The Puzzle: A new musical in the Spoleto Festival, Italy presented by La MaMa Umbria Varna Summer International Theatre Festival Mary Said What She Said The 62nd Berliner Theatertreffen: Stories and Theatrical Spaces That Realize the Past, Present and Future. Interview with Walter Bart (Artistic Leader, Wunderbaum Collective & Director, Die Hundekot-Attacke) from the 2024 Berliner Theatertreffen Duende and Showbiz: A Theatrical Odyssey Through Spain’s Soul Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

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By Frank Hentschker, Jane House | A story of basic and perverse family dynamics, the play is an all-female human comedy in three acts. < 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 1: The Origin of the World Frank Hentschker, Jane House Download PDF The Origin of the World: Interior Conversation Piece by Lucia Calamaro. Edited by Frank Hentschker. Translated by Jane House. A story of basic and perverse family dynamics, the play is an all-female human comedy in three acts. The Mother Daria lives with her Daughter Federica among bulky modern appliances, godlike monumental figures; they confront reality as they eat, chat, and get dressed. Sometimes other characters in the family constellation, such as the Analyst, join them. The womb of domestic life is staged in chapters, which lead not towards an ending but towards an origin. The play portrays the indifference, rage, and helplessness of those who live with depression. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

By Saviana Stanescu, Daniel Gerould. | The first anthology of new Romanian drama published in the United States < 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 roMANIA after 2000 Saviana Stanescu, Daniel Gerould. Download PDF Five New Romanian Plays The first anthology of new Romanian drama published in the United States and introduces American readers to compelling playwrights and plays that address resonant issues of a post-totalitarian society on its way toward democracy and a new European identity. Stop The Tempo by Gianina Carbunariu Romania, Kiss Me by Bogdan Georgescu Vitamins by Vera Ion Romania 21 by Stefan Peca Waxing Wet by Saviana Stanescu Edited by Saviana Stanescu and Daniel Gerould. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

Nicole Hodges Persley and Heather S. Nathans Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 33 2 Visit Journal Homepage Introduction to "Milestones in Black Theatre" Nicole Hodges Persley and Heather S. Nathans By Published on May 11, 2021 Download Article as PDF This special issue of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre was initially envisioned as a celebration of the inimitable Errol Hill’s contributions to Black Theatre in American history. Hill’s centennial asks us to reflect on the long history of American performance and the impact of Black lives on the American theater. Errol Hill did not revise American theater history by making it more “inclusive.” He challenged the systemic racism of American theater by providing evidence of a thriving Black arts practice that helped to shape the foundations of American theatrical traditions from musical theater to dance. However, when colleagues from the American Theatre and Drama Society, the Black Theatre Association, and the Black Theatre Network began developing this issue, we were all reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We did not have the theater to help us process this international trauma and loss. Theaters around the world were shuttered indefinitely due to pandemic lockdowns and quarantines. ATHE’s 2020 conference was supposed to take place in Detroit, Michigan, one of the country’s most densely populated Black cities. Instead that summer found us mourning and grappling with death and darkness via Zoom. Facing our limitations, fragilities, anger, and discontents, we attempted to make sense of what we were experiencing as a collective of theater-makers while paying close attention to the racially specific atrocities the pandemic and perpetual climate of anti-blackness did to our Black and Brown colleagues and friends. While we formulated this issue, we watched the ongoing international public protests in response to the murder of George Floyd. The daily theatrical loop of trauma and death streaming onto our phones, tablets, televisions, and Zoom screens felt unbearable. By August of 2020, an unconscionable number of Americans had lost their lives to COVID-19 with those numbers disproportionately representing deaths in Black and Brown communities. At the same time, international audiences witnessed the unrelenting barrage of anti-Black deaths including Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain. As every day seemed to bring a deluge of fresh pain or disaster, colleagues from across ATDS, BTA, and BTN came together to support a group of scholars whose work documents Black Theatre’s histories of resistance, pride, courage, and triumph. Working on this special issue of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre celebrating “Milestones in Black Theatre” has opened up opportunities to reimagine the parameters of the field. It has also highlighted the inadequacy of one journal issue to represent all of the extraordinary accomplishments and developments in Black Theatre Studies. Rather than curating a more traditional journal format with four or five articles, we deliberately broke open the structure to encourage short thought pieces, manifestos, explorations of new work, interviews, roundtable discussions, and reimaginings of familiar material. We also sought to represent a broad swath of scholars in Black Theatre — both well-established voices and those newer to the conversation. Additionally, we developed a Spotify playlist to accompany the issue (available at: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6GVG9zV2bK1JC9Xn1kzhS6?si=9ea0067b0eb1409d ). This playlist invites readers into a sonic landscape as an alternate methodology and archive. It asks how we can think through milestones and approaches in new and unfamiliar ways? We hope that it will inspire you to add songs or to curate your own lists around your research. We launch the issue with a series of interviews from award-winning scholars and leaders, including Harry Elam, David Krasner, E. Patrick Johnson, Bernth Lindfors, Sandra Richards, Sandra Shannon, and Harvey Young. Their numerous contributions to Black Theatre Studies adorn many of our bookshelves and grace our syllabi. Each of these scholars in turn hailed a host of new voices—marking the rise of successive generations in the field and those are included in a section entitled “Afterviews.” A cluster of articles from Elizabeth Cizmar, Baron Kelly, Khalid Long, and Nathaniel Nesmith offers new insights into histories of Black artists, including Glenda Dickerson, Earle Hyman, Elaine Jackson, Ernie McLintock, Frederick O’Neal. A pair of short essays by Michelle Cowin Gibbs and Eric Glover presents contrasting interpretations of Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes’s The Mule Bone . Two manifesto-style pieces from Omiyemi Green and Lisa Thompson confront assumptions about career trajectories in Black Theatre and the academy, Black Theatre pedagogy, and the particular challenges Black women have faced in the field. Another cluster of essays by Bernth Lindfors, Olga Sanchez Saltveit, and Isaiah Wooden prompts readers to expand their theoretical and methodological lenses, including rethinking familiar documentary sources, boundaries between Black and Latinx theater, and how scholars can mine the archive for previously undiscovered treasures. We close the articles section with a roundtable discussion that reflects on the role of the artist-scholar in the current moment. It looks back on the legacy of earlier artist-scholars, including Errol Hill, and it also asks how contemporary artist-scholars imagine their legacies. We invite readers to envision new possibilities that will not be measured only against what we have now. The issue closes with a special selection of book reviews focusing on new directions in Black Theatre, compiled by JADT Book Review Editor Maya Roth, as well as a list of the Errol Hill Award-winning books and articles over the past twenty-three years. The Errol Hill Award, launched in 1997, recognizes, “outstanding scholarship in African American theater, drama, and/or performance studies, as demonstrated in the form of a published book-length project (monograph or essay collection) or scholarly article” ( astr.org ). We hope that this special issue will prompt debate and will also invite those just beginning their work in Black Theatre into the field. We also hope that it will serve as a useful benchmark for the historical moment in which we find ourselves. References Footnotes About The Author(s) NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY Associate Professor, University of Kansas HEATHER S. NATHANS Professor, Tufts University Editorial Board: Guest Editors: Nicole Hodges Persley and Heather S. Nathans Guest Editorial Team for this issue: Mark Cosdon, Stephanie Engel, La Donna Forsgren, Javier Hurtado, Mia Levenson, Khalid Long, Derek Miller, Monica White Ndounou, Scot Reese Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Co-Managing Editor: Casey Berner Co-Managing Editor: Hui Peng Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction to "Milestones in Black Theatre" Prologue to the Issue and a Thank-you to Errol Hill Earle Hyman and Frederick O’Neal: Ideals for the Embodiment of Artistic Truth Newly Discovered Biographical Sources on Ira Aldridge Subversive Inclusion: Ernie McClintock’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble 1991: Original Broadway Production of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston's Antimusical Mule Bone Is Presented A Documentary Milestone: Revisiting Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement A Return to 1987: Glenda Dickerson’s Black Feminist Intervention Dancing on the Slash: Choreographing a Life as a Black Feminist Artist/Scholar Playing the Dozens: Towards a Black Feminist Dramaturgy in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston Guadalís Del Carmen: Strategies for Hemispheric Liberation “Ògún Yè Mo Yè!” Pathways for institutionalizing Black Theater pedagogy and production at historically white universities Interviews and Afterviews on “Milestones in Black Theatre” Talking About a Revolutionary Praxis: A Conversation with Black Women Artist-Scholars in the Wake of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter Tarell Alvin McCraney: Theater, Performance, and Collaboration. Sharrell D. Luckett, David Román, and Isaiah Matthew Wooden, eds. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020; Pp. 252. Casting A Movement: The Welcome Table Initiative. Claire Syler and Daniel Banks, eds. New York: Routledge, 2019; Pp. 266. The Theatre of August Wilson. Alan Nadel. Metuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London; New York: Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Collections, 2018; Pp. 224. Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future. James Shapiro. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. Pp. 221. The Theatre of Eugene O’Neill: American Modernism on the World Stage. Kurt Eisen. Methuen Drama Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2017; Pp 242 + xiv. Errol Hill Award Winners 1997-2020 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 19, Fall, 2024 Volume Visit Journal Homepage 2024 Report from London and Berlin By Dan Poston Published: November 25, 2024 Download Article as PDF Covid pushed many people out of the theatre, but in Germany, at least, it was not just Covid. For several years before, regular theatregoers had begun to complain of a stagnation in the theatre. The once-innovative “post-dramatic” directorial styles that had drawn international crowds to German theatres and festivals in the late 20th and early 21st centuries had grown standard, rote. Visitors and young people who had only seen realist, dramatic theatre before could still experience the revelation of intelligent, well- theorized, post-everything theatrical aesthetics in their first attendance at a theatre in Berlin. But after a while, the experience devolved into just another yelling actor in a dark, minimalist room interrupted occasionally by heavy intermittent electronic music instead of scene changes. Yet more cycles of Brecht Kabuki or a Castorf stage flooded with orange balls pouring out of cupboards did not seem to cut through the deadening sense of nothing-new. In Germany as in many parts of the world, theatregoers had quietly retreated even before the pandemic into their living rooms and bedrooms, where innovation took the form of a new abundance and diversity of streaming films and series available on demand. General historians will likely focus on how the pandemic created a newly mediatized society, but for many of us, the ready, mass obedience to strict public- health guidelines during the pandemic was also a result of so many of us having lost our connection to in-person institutions and events: we were already increasingly sitting at home, anyway, waiting for something, well, dramatic. Although I had continued to attend theatrical productions on a limited basis, as available, during the pandemic period, I experienced the desire for a renewal of theatregoing on a post-pandemic trip to London in Fall 2023. In short, I was surprised to feel again like a bored tourist, longing to have some contact to Shakespeare, to live Culture. It was professionally necessary, anyway, since I was writing and teaching about the Bard, so I booked a ticket at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe in Southwark. I had been reading early modern travelers’ accounts of going to theatre, and this proved a helpful way to frame my walk across the Thames, embracing rather than snobbishly shirking from an authentic, new tourist impulse. Why, after all, should the dramatic tourist theatre be any less interesting than the intellectual theatre of Berlin, the conceit of theory to one side? The audience in the lobby was an appealing, sociable group of highly educated tourists, vibrant evening celebrants, and people working in theatre or culture, a familiar scene. The ushers led us into the closed round Jacobean winter theatre—modelled after Blackfriars —with an admirable mixture of routine professional friendliness and vigilance. They stood watch at each entrance of the auditorium throughout the entire show, adding an energy to the spectacle. I could not decide if their vigilance had to do with pride and excitement about working in such a London institution during peak-rent neoliberalism, or if it had been impressed upon them how easily even this modern wooden theatre might accidentally burn up with everyone inside if the wax candle lighting went somehow awry. I decided it was probably both, though I am sure the Globe complex has a formidable sprinkler and fire-prevention system in place. I noted the relief of feeling safe from yelling actors here, a fact which I associated with some small distance from the War in Eastern Europe, and I gave myself what felt like almost scandalous permission to look forward to hearing what some traditionally trained Shakespearean actors would do with a classic text. My only hesitation, which had nearly prevented me from buying tickets, was that the text to be performed was not Shakespearean at all but rather Ibsen’s Ghosts . O n second and third thought, however, this bit of anachronistic meditation on theatrical ghosts seemed peculiarly, teasingly smart, a way of making something new in a well-established, historicist tourist venue. The production, in this sense, turned out to be entirely satisfying, a validation of director Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production concept and the Globe’s artistic direction under Michelle Terry, who has begun to widen the productions staged there beyond texts from the early modern period. The stage candelabra lighting ritual, performed by the actors, immediately established the conversation between the Shakespearean stage’s essential anti-realism and Ibsen’s conventional drama of servants and bourgeois rulers behaving as if they really are captured in the four walls of an established house. Seeing the faces of other audience members in-the-round doubled for the gaze of the Shakespearean theatre on its later cousin, 19th-century picture-box realism. This effect was emphasized by the production’s backdrop: a large, square mirror, reminiscent equally of a cheap bordello as of the hard regime of tightened neoclassical control in Versailles’ 17th-century mirror room. The stage was otherwise bare, though covered by a large, long-shag burgundy rug on which the artist-son, Osvald (compellingly played by Stuart Thompson), lay and seemed to dream much of the action of the evening, as if himself gazing back on or hallucinating theatre history from a plastic technicolor simulacrum of the 1970s. Rosanna Vize’s highly effective set and costume designs gave strong visual support to the production’s well-crafted and subtle play with multiple historical ages of avant-garde production and fraught relations with realism. Osvald’s costume—a faux-fur sweater jacket over a plain white undershirt and light boxer shorts—featured a faded, elaborate floral pattern that evoked Renaissance court doublets and beast masquerading, at the same time as gesturing towards a slipperiness between much more antique figurations of the satyr and contemporary, neo-bohemian, art-world fashion. This still minimalist aesthetic of allowing-the-ghosts-in, this conversation with the gaze of various historical theatres and the avant-garde, was captured by one of the opening gestures of the play when Osvald, before lying down for his reverie, lit a real cigarette on stage. The smell of that cigarette lingering throughout the intermission-less Ibsen drama participated in an already well-entrenched 21st-century performance tradition of smoking actors critically reminding us of the suspiciously sanitary odor of our own mega-liberated time. It also quickly established the play’s driving allegory of an artist understanding his “rebellion” as a sociologically forced exile, about which he previously—as the supposed hero of a happy family non-drama—had been kept effectively and relatively brutally in the dark. The acting was accomplished with intelligence and spirited handiwork. The mother, Helene, played by Hattie Morahan (known for her award-winning turn as Nora in a 2012 production of A Doll’s House ), dominated the dark bare stage. Her nervous tight stage business became increasingly legible, in the exposed allegory of the play, as a 19th- century effort to keep artists and their next-generation representations away from the corruption of society’s actual making, while at the same time seducing them just enough into a torpidly incestual drama to prevent what would otherwise be their disastrous free relation to the state and the servant classes. European Realism became for the duration of the play a moment within the Shakespearean theatre’s long, shuffling repertoire. The English Renaissance theatre was opened again as a laboratory for contemplating the extended human transhistorical in both directions, past and future. With exquisite scenic minimalism and the speed of a sharply cut and knit-together text (clocking in at 100 minutes), Hill-Gibbins’ Ghosts staged the artist’s paradoxical epiphany about his own exile from the actual primal scene of Realism: the intentionally guarded, representational inaccessibility of the driving truths and negotiations of society’s actual practical, historical construction and business deals. Realism became in the Shakespearean gaze a ma nufactured narcissistic ghost-machine, the previously glimpsed netherworld of entrances from a backstage now blocked—not by a façade with necessary doors but more essentially by a supposedly endlessly revelatory mirror, a very basic but entirely effective installation mimicking Louis XIV’s mechanism of virtual social surveillance while displaying how easily and cheaply such a mechanism could be constructed, at will, via mass, industrial production. By foregoing bourgeois furniture and historicism in favor of lightly suggestive long-historical minimalism and the surreal, visual centering of the fantasizing artist, the production opened the bare allegorical dimensions of the play and its meditation on what the artist and ultimately art can be, if anything other than ghosts among ghosts. Productions at the Sam Wanamaker are dominated by the tourist desire to visit Shakespeare’s original site of creation. This production seized this reality and dealt with it not as an impediment to original creation but as a critical tool for showing the artist’s relation to theatre vis-à-vis one of the most famous, classic plays meditating on just this theme. In Ibsens’ Ghosts , the will of the young painter, returned as the prodigal son from art school in Paris, to create a new mirror for his time, society, and family is fatally and ironically mixed up with his art education being a doomed escape, arranged by his mother’s financial management, from the disease and corruption that he is otherwise due to inherit from his father. This meditation on artistic abyss and generational juncture at the center of Ibsen’s realist dramatic career functions like a theatre-historical Verfremdungseffekt. Paradoxically, it brings the audience nearer to contact with the floor and room of modern artistic creation and exposes that site’s (childlike) separation from society—the artist’s ambivalent inheritance of society’s own will to erase its hidden bad deals—even as the artist thus captured attempts to critically represent society. Ibsens’s Ghosts at the Sam Wanamaker, in short, fulfilled the tourist wish to approach the Shakespearean ghost by demonstrating the realism of a transhistorical, always returning artistic dilemma only contingently attached to a period’s furniture or wallpaper. If the double-binds of bourgeois false consciousness was Ibsen’s pet theme, Hill-Gibbins’ production used the Shakespearean gaze to more fully unearth the less historically bound, allegorical dimension of the drama. Sitting as it were in the presence of one of the larger, shaping ghosts of Shakespeare’s theatre, Queen Elizabeth I, audience members read Ibsen’s play about uncanny revenants differently. Helene haunts Helen, and vice versa, beauty in her maternal capacity becoming the controlling, tragic demi-goddess on which the play ruminates. Regine (the household maid who lights the lights and is destined to be the artist’s muse before it is revealed she is his half-sister) doubles for the state in the fantasy that beauty will make the state its servant, rather than both being the servants of other, baser powers-that-be. The artist as the pure liberated heir of beauty is doomed by his actual mixed heritage, the same construction that blocks his potentially monstrous love affair with the state. Fated to be an impotent mental invalid, a quasi-universal, de-historicized ghost-heir about whom the realist world will tell some seemingly objective history, the Shakespeare-like, authorial artist-ghost of this production attempted to break the double-bind of realism by thrusting the representation of his own compositional dreaming on stage. With the Shakespearean theatre came the loosened historical gazes of other theatres, including those most ancient and our own most contemporary, the recurring self-reflective moment of an artist attempting to create a theatre both freed and captured autotrophically again by its ghostly colleagues. When Helene, unable to repress the ghosts she has attempted to keep at bay along with the corruption of the family’s past and present, declares in Act 2 that “there are ghosts everywhere,” the actress seemed to show her seeing us, too, seeing ourselves as images in the mirror. The audience was appropriately riveted, as energized as our kind sentinels at the doorways, who then ushered us out with the assurance of professionals knowingly relieved again that the theatre did not entirely burn down, despite its one slight violation of code, that anti-Zeitgeist cigarette. Laios. Photo © Mark Brenner When I walked after the play north across the Millenium Bridge over the Thames that night, I decided to continue this new engagement with the theatre as a returning tourist. In May, I was able to secure several tickets for productions at the annual Theatertreffen in Berlin, where most of the jury-invited shows continue to sell out within the first hours of tickets becoming available. These used to be named the ten “best” productions of the year in German-speaking countries, but now they are simply called ten “remarkable” productions since few of us working in culture and the arts today want to be burdened with assigning hierarchies to works (see the essay on the Berlin Theatertreffen elsewhere in this iss ue.) One of the most buzzy productions of this year’sfestival was Falk Richter’s autofictional, family history play The Silence , which had been selling out at the Schaubühne since its November premier, but I was unable to get a ticket for that show using the ordinary purchase system. As it was, my first show at the festival was Yael Ronen and Shlomi Shaban’s Bucket List , which was staged away from the festival theatre (the Berliner Festspiele) at the Schaubühne, where it had been playing since it opened in December. The playwright and director Yael Ronen has been a fixture of Berlin theatre since 2009, when her Israeli-Palestinian-German ensemble comedy Third Generation, about the conflicts in the Middle East, debuted at the Schaubühne. For more than a decade, her dark, humane, and funny comedies have been a steady part of the repertoire at the Maxim Gorki Theatre; three of her plays were invited to previous Theatertreffen editions, including her 2021 “almost-a-musical” Slippery Slope , which was also co-created with Schaban. Shortly before arriving at the full theatre, I realized that the Theatertreffen premiere of Bucket List had been scheduled to take place on Yom HaShoah, the annual day of remembranc e for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and for Jewish heroism and resistance to Nazism. The date, May 9, was also exactly six months after the play’s premiere, and in the space of that half-year, the cultural atmosphere in Berlin, as in many cities around the world, had changed significantly. The December premiere had been met with anti-Israel protests and heightened security at the Schaubühne. In the days following the October 7 terrorist attack of Hamas against Israeli civilians, the Gorki had cancelled performances of Ronen’s The Situation (Theatertreffen 2016), a piece that centered around a Berlin-Neukölln language class and Syrian, Jewish-Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli, and Palestinian dialogue. The Gorki’s statement at the time took a nuanced but decided stance supporting Israel in response to the recent atrocities and ongoing (still ongoing) hostage situation. Six months after the premiere, when many people in the auditorium were returning to see Bucket List for a second or even a third time, Berlin was particularly charged by a series of relatively small, international and local student and general protests against Israel’s conduct in the ongoing war between it and H amas. Many of those protests had featured anti-Semitic slogans, occupied lecture halls, and even violence against Jewish individuals and institutions. Later in the month, a scandal would erupt when the President of the Technische Universität Berlin, Geraldine Rauch, liked several tweets with anti-Semitic content and then fought successfully to keep her job atop one of the city’s most important universities. It was, in short, an out-of-the-ordinary time for the Theatertreffen premiere of a play by two Israeli artists that meditated on the trauma of October 7, a world of increasing war, division, and terror, and the schizogenic, über-normality of ongoing, clever, smartphone-set sociality with its boring-stressful, rapid- change “turn to the left, turn to the right,” mass shock-therapy choreography (to quote one of the production’s central musical numbers.) Sitting in the theatre, I had a moment of deja-vu taking me back to the previous years’ Theatertreffen, when I saw the Ukrainian director Andriy May’s Putinprozess, a play that delved into the personal experiences of theatre-makers forced to flee from war as their theatres became bomb shelters and targets. Here again with Bucket List the reality of war and the suffering of its many victims flooded the cultural space. There ought to be a German or French word for the basic ambivalence of even highly engaged cultural consumers towards the transformation of cultural spaces into war-time spaces of activism, trauma coping, and refuge. Whatever that useful, important, healthy, dangerous, callous, or irresponsible Kriegsunterdrückungsgestalt might actually be named, it could be felt—again, ambivalently—in the audience just as it was complexly thematized in both productions, a year apart: a reminder of our world’s increased exposure to new, lethal conflagrations over that interval of time. The mood had decidedly shifted, partially, of course, due to the different historical responsibilities involved in the Ukrainian/Russian versus the Israeli/Hamas/Palestinian conflict. Whereas in the previous year, the instinct for both repression and bold certainty seemed stronger in the audience, the audience for Bucket List seemed sadder, more troubled, and more wary. Bucket List. Photo © David Baltzer Bucket List has a loose, impressionistic narrative about a patient who remembers waking up on a Saturday with his world having fallen apart, a thoroughgoing sense of alienation from self and the previously known life-scene. His name, surfacing uncertainly and somewhat robotically out of the second musical number (a darkly hilarious pastiche derived from the “Bobby” opening number of Company ), is Robert, but the scien ce-fiction context leaves open if anything about “Robert” and “his” memories are real at all or simply a postmodern, perhaps personalized insertion of “normal” memories into an otherwise mostly erased psyche. That is to say, the main plot conceit is that Robert is an imperfectly compliant recipient of a new, thorough happy-memory-replacement therapy developed by the overdrivenly neoliberal health-care firm, Zeitgeist, which hopes to profit from an accelerating PTSD pandemic. The acted-out personal memories, which largely comprise the show, might thus belong to those more painful memories to which Robert still clings in order to give his now lonely identity dramatic coherence and context. But the “sad” memories thus displayed seem troublingly not-painful-enough, framed as they are by the diagnosis of PTSD and the visually surrounding, abstracted evidence of unutterable, mass violence. Perhaps, the darker subtext of the productions suggests, even these ultimately bittersweet, sentimental moments of personal anguish are a strategic part of Zeitgeist’s functional brainwashing. In the clinical language of the attending doctor characters: suffering may be pathological when the technology to erase it exists, but a little bit of disorderly, remembered suffering may help melancholic loser-consumers (as Robert is specified) more wary of Zeitgeist to still feel human, a perhaps important factor in their tolerance of the prescribed therapy. The doubling, ensemble aes thetic of Bucket List —with its four engaging actors (Ruth Rosenfeld, Damian Rebgetz, Carolin Haupt, and Christopher Nell) d ressed in black and fluidly trading roles and observer positions—leaves open, like much of Ronen’s work, the extent to which material used in the show is autobiographical, and to whose specific autobiography it belongs. The basic sequential, episodic narrative of individual departures, losses, and partial returns stages different but emotionally and intellectually intertwined moments of breakage: adolescent rebellion, the end of a first love relationship, the long split of a mature marriage, the recovered memory of an early sexual trauma, and a mid-life individual breakup with reality. That latter breakup takes place as “Robert” undergoes a process akin to “mindfulness meets lobotomy” in which the promise of Zeitgeist begins to be realized: “in the very near future, the act of remembering will become a choice.” Reality continues to phone-stalk Robert and the ensemble, and the traumas of Saturday, October 7th, 2023, and its (ongoing) aftermath blend with other known and unknown traumas via crucial moments of marked linguistic slipperiness and generally suggestive scenic elements. The minimalist, abstract set, designed by Magda Willi, looked similar to an Apple Store installation, dominated by clean, white, pseudo-humanely rounded shapes and simple architectures for basic, flexible staging and (product) interaction. The symmetrical, bulky wh ite background module of this corporate-like display structure featured two large holes vaguely suggestive of eye pupils. There, in silent projection, slightly abstracted images of war intermittently accompanied the split-screen jazz-rock-opera d rama of formerly mundane, now privileged, romance. From the side of the stage, a three-person band provided the varying rhythms and catchy Broadway sound for what the opening number suggested was the irresistible, childlike offering of war’s singing. The virtuoso, musical coolness of the band was centered in a memorable number featuring the guitarist (Thomas Moked Blum) singing the part of a BBC correspondent reluctantly taking a break from a cocaine-fueled love affair to report on hundreds of adults and children being killed, raped, and abducted, before returning home to his pleasure pad like a good professional, “not such a bad day” after all. Anguish, the cheerful cruelty of economic coercion and enforced agreeability in still- buffered milieus, the questions of how to create, live, react, and grieve responsibly culminated in the final number. The anonymous articles of light white clothing falling from the rafters throughout the play littered the stage. Crumpled on the floor, they represented Robert’s left-behind memories, the ghosts of the ungraspable real dead from James Joyce to the Holocaust to today’s latest non-headlines, and the discarded drafts of a writer, as Robert finally sang, trying to pass on hope without simply contaminating another page: through failure, neglect, limitation, selfishness, inability, forgetfulness and inattention—the same negatives that created the possibilities and inevitability of imagination. The aesthetic was high, humane postmodernism, the moment of the postmodern that never took decisive hold because the internet changed everything. This was the moment, now “precious,” when there was to have been a return to the idea of progressive understanding of what it was to be (universally) human via the recognized, shared experience of becoming diversely what we all were, in the midst of plastic chaos. C’est la vie. Ronen, Shaban, and the ensemble showed and mourned a generational aesthetic that has become an impossibility when there are much more urgent and serious processes and concerns at stake. In her laudatio after the show (a speech that this year replaced the ordinary audience talk-back), Carolin Emcke described her experience of this Theatertreffen premiere, a half year after the original premiere, as a kind of looking back through a snow globe at both the estranged recent past and the world-picture of childhood and earlier life. The internet, after all, performs an entirely different world- picture, one that has finally put the ambiguously emerging fence up between this aesthetic age and that of postmodernism, when the individual for all its subjectivization was still operative as the crucial center of discernment. The internet, that corporate never- endingly blank-staring, data collecting Zeitgeist, has a different, eusocial teleology, decidedly towards the hive mind and what that mind wants to articulate, or manage through aesthetics. Macbeth. Photo © Armin Smailovic If Bucket List survives—as it should—in an anthology somewhere, it ought to be read as a paragon of just-human honesty. In the theatre that night, the play was alive in a different manner. The audience’s applause was complicated, indiscernible, and consciously so: tepid, non-committal, or serious, it reflected as well as the play and players on stage did (although less bravely) the inability of art to break through the forcefields of caution and concern that are both refuge from and perpetuators of our new scenes of war, loneliness, and capture. I, for one, as I believed we all in that audience felt poignantly as isolated ones, believe that powerlessness is not a critique of works like Bucket List but a confessed limitation of art essentially in the face of bad politics. When Ronen appeared on stage after the show to accept the recognition given by the Theatertreffen producers, she wore a glamorous green, sparkling robe, the stunning color in contrast to the white set, black-clad actors, and the white, anonymous garments that had drifted down during the 75-minute piece from near some invisible heaven, to be picked up and used by the actors in recreations of remembered scenes. In one of the most poignant and funny episodes of the play, “Clara” (Carolin Haupt) had donned a fallen white dress and re-enacted a scene of childhood ballet training, dancing ever more vigorously as her teacher (Ruth Rosenfeld) admonished her to gesture with her left leg: “the other left!”, the teacher continued to correct her, until Clara gave up in frustration, unable to correct a mistake she was not making. The color of Ronen’s robe that evening reminded us of the difficulty of saying which is the correct way to grieve, to be active, to do honor to the dead and the living: through the pale seriousness of representation, through the postmodern exposure of so many crumpled-up unread drafts of history littering the theatre floor as the floor and waste bucket of the writer’s studio and bedroom, or through the recovered, inherited, and willed exuberance of individuality, hope, complexity, even ironic glamour that was and is a thread of the happiness with which those victims of human violence live and lived through or did their best to live through it all? The audience seemed to share an understanding that we have no real right left leg left to stand on, in any case. The next show I attended, back at the Festspiele main theatre, was for me—as for many attendees—the highlight of a superb festival. Lina Beckmann (Germany’s 2011, 2022, and 2024 Actress of the Year) open ed Laios unassumingly, charmingly, as if giving a pre- theatre talk to acquaint the audience with the classical context s of the play they were about to see. A short, open question-and-answer session about the knowledge of Greek myth that we were bringing to our spectatorship segued seamlessly into one of the most beguiling, memorable dramatic monologues I have ever witnessed. In a 90-minute, true tour-de-force, the equally unassuming and breath-taking Beckmann donned masks, applied makeup, and performed virtuoso stretches of dialogue, narrative, alternative narrative, and commentary, all with a historically deep yet satisfyingly contemporary perspective on the myth she was relating. Making use of an “antique” hurdy gurdy in place of an aulos, Beckmann dove into the complex, queer biography of Oedipus’ usually brushed-over father, gripping the audience with expertly mixed light humor, tragic pathos, postmodern alienation, Butoh aesthetics, and archeological enactment. The simple bare set design by Johannes Schütz displayed an array of props and reconstructed ancient masks, fitting for Beckman’s marathon-like, two-hour performance, which rarely failed to be imbued with a sympathetic, humane spirit even as she changed registers of acting and narration with world-class finesse, endurance, conviction, and irony. A particularly effective, minimalist element of the staging was the use of what seemed to be a negative, live, back-projection system to occasionally create glowing “positive” white shadows of foregrounded props and human figures on the darkened stage backdrop. Annete ter Meulen provided the lighting design, Wicke Naujoks the costume design, and Sybille Meier the dramaturgy for a show sparkling with carefully interwoven, intricately non-distracting historical, political, and pop-cultural references and ornamentation. A feeling of relief and gratitude swelled in the audience for Karin Beier’s masterfully directed production. Theatre was back. We had forgotten. Beckmann’s performance used the full range of human voice, spirit, emotion, knowledge, and craft. It was tasteful, almost perfectly modulated. Perhaps three-quarters through there was a feeling of too-much, some repetition to be cut—perhaps the species was lost hopelessly in the spin-cycle of senseless, layered myth—but this was caught by the astonishing speed of the abrupt end, leaving ringing in the air the pathos-laden recognition question asked equally suddenly by the classical texts to their contemporary audiences, by both Laios and Oedipus to each other as unknown father and son, and by the actress to herself and all of us really living in that room—in a symmetry with the lighthearted, informal opening of the play: “ Bist du das?”, “Are you that?” Here was a production again that understood the grain of the voice, the thousand variations of quiet and rhythm, for example. Individual moments—Beckmann’s uncanny coughing prophecy as the oracle in a late-night snack café or her brief embodiment of the sphinx—were enough to justify anyone’s return to theatre spectatorship; no film or image or reading could match the layered, immersive, physical understanding of the Sphinx and the Pythia that this live experience granted its audience. More impressive, in a way, was to be in the audience and feel that all of this was mutually appreciated, that theatre’s return—a novel and progressively incremental cultural achievement—was being greeted and appreciated collectively by a sensitive, living, packed audience, alive to subtlety, in historical agreement about how much of the useless noise (polemics, false honesty, and all that) could be supplanted by complex, understandable rendering. Roland Schimmelpfennig’s poetic text—part 2 of the 2023, five-part Beier-Schimmelpfennig Thebes series, ANTHROPOLIS , created at the Hamburg Deutsches Schauspielhaus— performed a new archeological layer of classical reception. We gave Beckmann seven enthusiastic standing ovations, the applause itself only ending out of the humane impulse to give the actress a chance to rest and recover after such an act, to disappear again with our gratitude into her life. Walking out of the theatre back onto the street in the crowd, the feeling was palpable: art had changed the season. The city buzzed and hovered again in the talk, reflective social silence, and enlivened eyes and ears of the groups lingering, coalescing, and dispersing into a hopeful evening. After the previous two experiences, I entered my last Theatertreffen production of the year suffering from the curse of high expectations. The veteran Dutch director Johan Simons’ Macbeth production had been marketed as a revelation of Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy as a meta-comedy. What this meant in practice was that most of the speed, quick-pivoting nuance, and dizzying altitude variations of Shakespeare’s text were suppressed in favor of slapstick and elastic improvisation. The very long production (3 hours and 20 minutes) from the Schauspielhaus Bochum featured three talented, decorated actors sitting in what looked like a bare, well-lit, not well-kept modern neoclassical bath or decrepit sanatorium spa environment (stage design by Nadja Sofie Eller). There was plenty of irony, reference, and momentary pastiche to unpack, and the full insider audience had the intellectual chops to do so. But there was also a lot of time to think again about the invocation of the old writing advice never to set a short story in a bathtub. In sum, the audience witnessed a lengthy production of Waiting for Godot set to the text of Macbeth , as if we were invited to the long eternal life of the three witches, occasionally painfully acting out the script (or not), changing and condensing roles, waiting for something that would never come, waiting in that sense primarily for an authentic impulse to do something, embarrassed when that thing was active, heroic, violent, or requiring movement. A smart but long and intricately created satire produced at the audience’s expense is a puzzle to critique, like a meal of fine morsels that ironically deconstructs taste and dramatic expectation beyond all simplicity, action, and brevity. Ghosts. Photo © Marc Brenner About a quarter of the audience chose to take their seats on the smart side of things, but many in the audience used the long time of watching actors play smart theatre games on stage to look around the room and wonder if we were required to admire the emperor’s new clothes, 124 years after Ubu Roi , let alone more than four centuries since audiences first took in James I’s accension and Macbeth . Boos were reported in the intermission. For all its brilliant performative quotations, the production might have benefitted from borrowing the concept of the most famous Macbeth production of the century so far. Adding Punchdrunk’s 2011 Sleep No More into the comic world of the citational production—inviting the audience to wander and enter into the active game-playing of the actors—would have enlivened the piece; more precisely, as it was, it felt like the audience was cast as regressive, back-in-time, pre-2011 certainly. The use of a standard picture-box proscenium stage and a standard darkened auditorium felt here like an act of cruelty, creating an artificial sense of a fixed, conservative bourgeois theatre where most of the audience would have been relieved to experience anything more truly experimental. In an exception that proved the rule, one of the most memorable, humorous, and gripping moments of the production—when the three actors sat at a table open to the audience in front of the curtain for the feast scene—performed this gesture of openness. The acting, as an extended study of relational improv, was memorable, almost never naturalistic, and thickly layered over the much- daggered text. Marina Galic, Jens Harzer, and Stefan Hunstein fluidly played all the characters in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Simons’ casting and dramaturgy indeed innovatively and critically exposed the play’s structure of doubling and tripling in a sophisticated, meta-comical fashion. Galic took on the meta-role of the driving second (as Lady Macbeth, Banquo, and the Macduffs) to her real-life spouse, the much celebrated, Iffland-Ring-wearing Harzer as the king (Macbeth, Duncan, and Malcom). With Hunstein as the comically weirdest of the weird sisters, sometimes joining the pair in extended, bizarre make-out sessions, the impressive acting trio created many memorable, sparkling, insightful moments in the productions’ often revelatory, though drawn-out reduction sauce. I walked home that evening from this year’s Theatertreffen, then, ambivalent, wondering if the trend towards supposed insider productions and the decadent professionalization of the audience would continue (getting its second life after the pandemic) or if the new truly green sprouts of complex, generous, humane cultural achievement would be sustained and allowed, well, to flower. In the conversations afterwards, it struck me that critics and audience members downplayed a significant, surprising “return” of the German theatre towards a literary, new-author’s theatre: amidst the praise for productions like Bucket List and Laios , the writing was only minimally mentioned. Given the high and impressive production values from the other artists an d arts involved in making great theatre, that might be understandable. But it would be dishonest to not add the corrective that these productions also featured texts that deserve to be read and studied, that buoyed the performances and scenic designs and assemblages also on display. Just as Shakespeare, the outsider poet from Stratford, composed plays that we know drew much of their compelling material from the spectacular genius of ensemble—from the extraordinary talents of actors, architects, politicians, and impresario-businesspeople—a remarkable new generation of playwrights in Germany are sneaking their play texts like ghosts through the cracked mirror side-stage doors of a post-literary theatrum mundi. As superstitious as we might be, it would be a shame if we contemporaries again largely failed to remark upon them. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Dan Poston is an Assistant Professor in English and Comparative Literature at the University of Tübingen. His intellectual biography of the quintessential public taste-maker Joseph Addison was published by the University of Virginia Press in December 2024. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Between Dark Aesthetics and Repetition: Reflections on the Theatre of the Bulgarian Director Veselka Kuncheva and Her Two Newest Productions Hecuba Provokes Catharsis and Compassion in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (W)here comes the sun? Avignon 78, 2024. Imagining Possible Worlds and Celebrating Multiple Languages and Cultures Report from Basel International Theatre Festival in Pilsen 2024 or The Human Beings and Their Place in Society SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL … SPIRITUAL, VISCERAL, VISUAL …SHAKESPEARE AS YOU LIKE IT. IN CRAIOVA, ROMANIA, FOR 30 YEARS NOW Fine art in confined spaces 2024 Report from London and Berlin Berlin’s “Ten Remarkable Productions” Take the Stage in the 61st Berliner Theatertreffen. A Problematic Classic: Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, at Home and Abroad Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

By Cory Tamler | An experiment in writing about performance from the conviction that our entire beings (thoughtbodies) make theory and politics. < Back More Information & Order Details Publication date: December 2022 Hardcover, 179 pages, 5.25 x 8.3 inches ISBN: 9781953892072 Design by Rafal Kosakowski Retail price: $25 Published by special arrangement with the Laboratory for Social Choreography To order this book, click here (https://forms.gle/HXqK4N87HDCNbbJE6) or email corytamler@gmail.com . Available for in-person purchase: Unnameable Books and Quimby’s (Brooklyn), b_books (Berlin). A Permanent Parliament: Notes on Social Choreography Cory Tamler Download PDF A work of social choreography. A training ground for the imagination. A psychedelic experience without substances. A technology for cleaning social relations. A proposal for embodied civic duty. A journey into the realer real that gives back to the real—as if it were possible to bring an object from the dream world into waking life. A lifeboat. Over the past decade, at least a thousand people (among them philosophers, office workers, professional dancers, scientists, students, artists, and the author-editor of this book) have participated in Parliament sessions from Athens to NYC. For all its potency, Parliament resists being written about, starting from any attempt to describe what it is. It resists authorship too. Choreographer and artist Michael Kliën prefers to say he discovered it, or wished for it, from within “a felt urgency that things are just not sustainable.” In this book, Parliament writes out of itself. Artist and writer Cory Tamler holds the container, editing together her memories of her own experiences as a participant, excerpts from conversations with Kliën and from his personal archive, theoretical propositions for the way Parliament could go to work in the world, and reflections from other participants in Parliament over the years. An annotated bibliography makes visible the framework of ideas—from art and choreography to systems theory and political theory—within which Parliament sits. This text is an experiment in writing about performance from the conviction that our entire beings (thoughtbodies) make theory and politics. It is meant for readers who, whether familiar or unfamiliar with Parliament, are interested in how the social is formed and in bodies as key agents in its formation. Contributors: Michael Kliën with Catherine Cabeen, Mallory Catlett, Blythe Davis, Barbara Dickinson, Jeffrey Gormly, Floor Grootenhuis, Frank Hentschker, Vitoria Kotsalou, Steve Valk, Shuntaro Yoshida. Explore Other Books To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. See All Books

An exploration of mobility, disability, & bags. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Watch Me Walk Anne Gridley Theater, Performance Art, Other English 30 minutes 6:00PM EST Thursday, October 12, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All An exploration of mobility, disability, & bags. Content / Trigger Description: Warning: I am a cripple with a gimp rising and my walk is not a character choice. 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. Instagram @gridlock2001 Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on