Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal

Radical Black Theatre in the New Deal PDF

Author: Kate Dossett

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2020-01-29

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1469654431

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Between 1935 and 1939, the United States government paid out-of-work artists to write, act, and stage theatre as part of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal job relief program. In segregated "Negro Units" set up under the FTP, African American artists took on theatre work usually reserved for whites, staged black versions of "white" classics, and developed radical new dramas. In this fresh history of the FTP Negro Units, Kate Dossett examines what she calls the black performance community—a broad network of actors, dramatists, audiences, critics, and community activists—who made and remade black theatre manuscripts for the Negro Units and other theatre companies from New York to Seattle. Tracing how African American playwrights and troupes developed these manuscripts and how they were then contested, revised, and reinterpreted, Dossett argues that these texts constitute an archive of black agency, and understanding their history allows us to consider black dramas on their own terms. The cultural and intellectual labor of black theatre artists was at the heart of radical politics in 1930s America, and their work became an important battleground in a turbulent decade.

The American Theatre Wing, an Oral History

The American Theatre Wing, an Oral History PDF

Author: Patrick Pacheco

Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781495092435

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(Applause Books). In 1943, a wounded soldier aided by a cane limped into the Stage Door Canteen, the American Theatre Wing's fabled New York club created to entertain the Allied forces. Two hours later, he was said to have left with a spring in his step and without the cane. This "miracle" is recounted in the lavish new book, The American Theatre Wing, an Oral History: 100 Years, 100 Voices, 100 Million Miracles . The other 999,999 miracles are more commonplace, if no less remarkable, told by the impassioned artists and theater advocates who created and sustained this preeminent theatrical organization founded in 1917. While the American Theatre Wing is best known as the founder of the Tony Awards, its mission is also dedicated to preserving the past, celebrating the present, and fostering the future of American theater by developing educational programs and distributing national grants and awards each year to performers and theater companies. The organization also recently took under its wing the irreverent OBIE awards, the top honors for off-Broadway that has become a dynamic pipeline for Broadway. This coffee-table book, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the American Theatre Wing, is a fascinating cornucopia of untold lore and never-before-seen photos as prismatic and unexpected as the theater itself. The oral history traces the American Theatre Wing as a defender of the country's most romantic ideals through two world wars, presciently establishing an interracial policy at the Stage Door Canteen despite being denounced from the well of the United States Senate. In succeeding decades the ATW has burnished those ideals through its unflagging support of artists from Broadway, Off Broadway, and regional theater many of whom vividly tell their own stories in the book, including Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Harold Prince, Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The Play that Changed My Life

The Play that Changed My Life PDF

Author: Benjamin A. Hodges

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781557837400

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(Applause Books). What was the play that changed your life? What was the play that inspired you; that showed you something entirely new; that was so thrilling or surprising, breathtaking or poignant, that you were never the same? Nineteen of today's most gifted playwrights respond in this most revealing and personal book, published by Applause Books and presented by the American Theatre Wing, founder of The Tony Awards. From Edward Albee's 1935 visit to New York's Hippodrome Theatre to see Jimmy Durante (and an elephant) in Rodgers and Hart's Jumbo, to Diana Son's twelfth-grade field trip in 1983 to see Diane Venora play Hamlet at The Public Theater, from David Henry Hwang's seminal San Francisco encounter with Equus to a young Beth Henley's epiphany after seeing her mother in a "Green Bean Man costume," The Play That Changed My Life offers readers a unique peek into the theatrical influences of some of the nation's most important dramatists. The book is filled with tributes, memories, anecdotes and other insights that connect past to present and make this volume an instant "must have" for anyone who adores the theatre. Also in the book are pieces by David Auburn, Jon Robin Baitz, Nilo Cruz, Christopher Durang, Charles Fuller, A. R. Gurney, Tina Howe, David Ives, Donald Margulies, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sarah Ruhl, John Patrick Shanley, Regina Taylor, and Doug Wright, as well as an introduction by Paula Vogel. All together, the playwrights featured here have won more than 40 Tony Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, Obies, and MacArthur genius grants.

The Cambridge History of American Theatre

The Cambridge History of American Theatre PDF

Author: Don B. Wilmeth

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1998-02-28

Total Pages: 554

ISBN-13: 9780521472043

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The Cambridge History of American Theatre is an authoritative and wide-ranging history of American theatre in all its dimensions, from theatre building to play writing, directors, performers, and designers. Engaging the theatre as a performance art, a cultural institution, and a fact of American social and political life, the History recognizes changing styles of presentation and performance and addresses the economic context that conditions the drama presented. The History approaches its subject with a full awareness of relevant developments in literary criticism, cultural analysis, and performance theory. At the same time, it is designed to be an accessible, challenging narrative. Volume One deals with the colonial inceptions of American theatre through the post-Civil War period: the European antecedents, the New World influences of the French and Spanish colonists, and the development of uniquely American traditions in tandem with the emergence of national identity.

Performing America

Performing America PDF

Author: J. Ellen Gainor

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780472087921

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DIVHow theatrical representations of the U.S. have shaped national identity /div

A History of Hispanic Theatre in the United States

A History of Hispanic Theatre in the United States PDF

Author: Nicolás Kanellos

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2014-02-19

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0292761562

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Hispanic theatre flourished in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century until the beginning of the Second World War—a fact that few theatre historians know. A History of Hispanic Theatre in the United States: Origins to 1940 is the very first study of this rich tradition, filled with details about plays, authors, artists, companies, houses, directors, and theatrical circuits. Sixteen years of research in public and private archives in the United States, Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico inform this study. In addition, Kanellos located former performers and playwrights, forgotten scripts, and old photographs to bring the life and vitality of live theatre to his text. He organizes the book around the cities where Hispanic theatre was particularly active, including Los Angeles, San Antonio, New York, and Tampa, as well as cities on the touring circuit, such as Laredo, El Paso, Tucson, and San Francisco. Kanellos charts the major achievements of Hispanic theatre in each city—playwriting in Los Angeles, vaudeville and tent theatre in San Antonio, Cuban/Spanish theatre in Tampa, and pan-Hispanism in New York—as well as the individual careers of several actors, writers, and directors. And he uncovers many gaps in the record—reminders that despite its popularity, Hispanic theatre was often undervalued and unrecorded.

Angels in the American Theater

Angels in the American Theater PDF

Author: Robert A Schanke

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780809327478

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Composed of sixteen essays and fifteen illustrations, Angels in the American Theater explores not only how donors became angels but also their backgrounds, motivations, policies, limitations, support, and successes and failures.

The Chinese Lady

The Chinese Lady PDF

Author: Lloyd Suh

Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 0822239906

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Afong Moy is fourteen years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, THE CHINESE LADY is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.