Apocalyptic narratives, based on fears and fantasies about the end of the world and the destruction of humanity, often turn on a character’s success or failure in producing or protecting a child. In such dramas, the survival of a child represents humanity’s hope for the future, and characters go to […]
Tamara L. Smith/ In the wake of the attacks of September 11, Americans of Middle Eastern heritage experienced a sudden and dramatic change in how their ethnicities were perceived. As comedian and activist Dean Obeidallah explained, “On September 10, I went to bed white, and woke up Arab.”[1] Once comfortable […]
Vanessa Campagna/ We must strive, in the face of the here and now’s totalizing rendering of reality, to think and feel a then and there. . . . Queerness is essentially about the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on potentiality for another world.[1] José Esteban Muñoz […]
Ariel Nereson/ In 2007 the Ravinia Festival of Chicago commissioned the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (BTJ/AZ) to create a work for inclusion in their 2009 bicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.[1] In the process of creating the bicentennial work, Fondly Do We Hope . . . Fervently Do […]
Karen Bowdre/ Ida Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) is well known as an anti-lynching advocate and activist, but she is less well known for her involvement with the theatre. In this essay, I argue that she played an instrumental role in creating new attitudes concerning the theatre and artistic expression. She engaged in […]
The value of interdisciplinary inquiry in the study of American drama and theatre has been persuasively established, so much so that it is virtually a commonplace. Scholars working in the field today routinely draw on work from the humanities, from the social sciences, from ecobiology and cognitive science and any […]
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 […]
In 1970 Judith Anderson, doyenne of the classical American stage, fulfilled a long-held desire to play the title role in Hamlet. Employing a heavily cut text and minimalist setting, the production relied on the power of voice to illuminate Shakespeare’s poetry. Yet most viewers were unable to see past Anderson’s […]
In summer 2002, the paths of war crisscrossed American public discourse. The war in Afghanistan had continued for over half a year, and the Bush Administration was beginning to lay the groundwork of lies and misinformation that would form the justification for invading Iraq. Meanwhile, Naomi Wallace led a group […]
The horizon is a border that cannot be crossed. “Beyond the horizon” is thus a meaningful locution only in the language of metaphor, where, like “the end of the rainbow,” it beckons and mocks, promising delight and abundance even as it emphasizes limitation.1 Eugene O’Neill’s Robert Mayo, poet manqué and […]
Alan Schneider, one of the most important American directors of the twentieth century, was know for being a “playwright’s director.” He believed it was his responsibility to interpret the script as a faithful representation of the playwright’s intent. For this reason, so many major playwrights [ . . . ]
“People are products of the time in which they came of age. I know that to be true. In my plays these women are very much of their times.” — Wendy Wasserstein. Most scholarship and critical studies on the dramatic works of Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), during her lifetime and after […]
In May 2011, Marc Masterson departed Actors Theatre of Louisville for a similar position as the artistic director of South Coast Repertory Theater in San Diego. Reportedly, he initially offered to remain and assist with the search for a replacement, but his proposal was not accepted as the leadership of […]
In 1879, nineteen-year-old Pauline Hopkins’s musical slave drama, The Underground Railroad, flopped. Reviews panned the production, suggesting the plagiaristic knock-off of Joseph Bradford’s Out of Bondage “lacked interest and was devoid of plot.” Audiences noted the lackluster performances, asserting “the company can’t sing like the Hyers sisters” (the pioneering African […]
As a black blackface entertainer and influential international star, Bert Williams has held a continuous fascination for theatre historians, in large part because Williams signifies the contradictions of blackface as much as he lived the history of African American minstrelsy. His work with George Walker starting in the 1890s, groundbreaking […]
