Theater Center Research Articles

Shakespeare on the American Yiddish stage

professional Yiddish theatre started in 1876 in Eastern Europe, and with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, masses of Eastern European Jews began moving westward, and New York -Manhattan's Bowery and Second Avenue - soon became the world's centre of Yiddish theatre. At first the Yiddish repertoire revolved around comedies, operettas and melodramas, but by the early 1890s America's Yiddish actors were wild about Shakespeare. In this study, Joel Berkowitz constructs the history of this theatrical culture. The Jewish King Lear of 1892 was a sensation. year 1893 saw the beginning of a bevy of Yiddish versions of Hamlet; that year also saw the first Yiddish production of Othello. Romeo and Juliet inspired a wide variety of treatments. The Merchant of Venice was the first Shakespeare play published in Yiddish, and Jacob Adler received rave reviews as Shylock on Broadway in both 1903 and 1905. Berkowitz focuses on these five plays in his five chapters. His introduction provides an orientation to the Yiddish theatre district in New York as well as the larger picture of Shakespearean production and the American theatre scene, and his conclusion summarizes the significance of Shakespeare's plays in Yiddish culture.

The nature of commitment: Vincenzo Gonzaga's patronage strategies in the wake of the fall of Ferrara

By the end of duke Vincenzo Gonzaga's reign in 1612, he had created in Mantua a unique and unrivalled centre of music theatre. The Mantuan musical and theatrical scene in the first decades of the seventeenth century eclipsed the metamorphic grandeur of the Medici and Valois courts with an aesthetic intensity born of Virgilian pastoralism and the rhetorical immediacy of the Heroides. Virgilian pastoral combined with the educational system established at Ferrara by Guarino Guarini to create a style of theatre that reached outside the bounds of static Olympian tableaux to enact living, coherent plots wherein shepherds, shepherdesses, and lovers expressed the limits of human emotion. The integration of music, rhetoric, and drama in Mantuan spectacles — an integration that came to fruition only in compositions of the seconda practica, where the dramatic moment governed the sound of the music as well as the words — resulted from the unique conf luence of people whom Vincenzo Gonzaga drew to his court in the wake of the devolution of Ferrara. By making citizens of his prized actors and musicians, Vincenzo Gonzaga established the historic moment in which the creation of a radically new style of music theatre could unfold.

The Double Legacy of <em>Arbeit Macht Frei</em>

Israeli nonfiction film has sought, in the past decade, to come to terms with the Shoah and survivor experience through the personal testimonial film, emanating from the second and third generations of Israelis born after the Shoah. One such film, Asher Tlalim's Don't Touch My Holocaust (1994), whose conception had given rise to German filmmaker Andres Veiel's 1993 film for German television, Balagan (Chaos), recounts the work of the experimental troupe of the Acre Theater Center in creating Arbeit macht frei fun toitland Europa, a five-hour, semi-improvised stage performance devoted to survivor experience in Israel and its relation to the unresolved cultural and political tensions within Israeli society and between Israelis and Palestinians. Examination of the play and the two films yields rich insights into a process Marianne Hirsch has characterized as "postmemory," mediated not through recollection but through imaginative investment and creation.

The Double Legacy of Arbeit Macht Frei

Israeli nonfiction film has sought, in the past decade, to come to terms with the Shoah and survivor experience through the personal testimonial film, emanating from the second and third generations of Israelis born after the Shoah. One such film, Asher Tlalim's Don't Touch My Holocaust (1994), whose conception had given rise to German filmmaker Andres Veiel's 1993 film for German television, Balagan (Chaos), recounts the work of the experimental troupe of the Acre Theater Center in creating Arbeit macht frei fun toitland Europa, a five-hour, semi-improvised stage performance devoted to survivor experience in Israel and its relation to the unresolved cultural and political tensions within Israeli society and between Israelis and Palestinians. Examination of the play and the two films yields rich insights into a process Marianne Hirsch has characterized as postmemory, mediated not through recollection but through imaginative investment and creation.

Editorial

Tours, remounts and co-productions constitute an increasing percentage of theatrical activity in Canada, cutting across traditional distinctions between commercial and not-for-profit theatre, professional, educational and “community” theatre, even regional, Regional, national and international theatrical production. At one end of the scale, large-scale commercial producers such as David Mirvish are remounting, co-producing and touring such successful shows as The Drawer Boy, Two Pianos, Four Hands and Zaidie’s Shoes, shows that have emerged from small, not-for-profit play-development houses such as Theatre Passe Muraille and Tarragon, or are arranging co-productions in advance with subsidized classical rep companies such as Soulpepper. In the mid-range, branch-plant “Regional” theatres such as the Vancouver Playhouse, Manitoba Theatre Centre and the National Arts Centre are meeting their budgets and fulfilling their mandates by collaborating on productions that are too big for one theatre to take on alone. From another angle, independent not-for-profit production companies such as Autumn Leaf Performance, da da kamera and Ex Machina are funding their work in advance by soliciting co-productions (leading to international tours) with companies, conglomerates and festivals across the country and overseas. Even small-scale, lowercase “regional” companies such as Nova Scotia’s Mulgrave Road Theatre and Theatre Antigonish are getting into the act by providing development opportunities to artists from elsewhere for the creation of new work while simultaneously enhancing the range of experiences available to their own audiences. Community theatres and summer festivals have also hopped on the co-production bandwagon: if you missed the show last week in Port Dover, you might catch it next week at another port down the road.

A Checklist of Books By and About Canadian Artists in The Performing Arts / Un Répertoire de Publications Sur ou Par les Artistes Canadians Dans les Arts Scenique

This ‘checklist' of 248 books emerged out of a casual conversation with Martha Henry, while we were working together in 1998 on a production of The Crucible for the Manitoba Theatre Centre. Martha decried the paucity of books about Canadian performing artists, while I countered that we were now producing more and more every year. People, rather than theatres or analytic studies of drama, are the main focus of the checklist. I realize, as well, that there are several doubtful titles (books on Boris Karloff, Tyrone Guthrie and Henry Miller, for example), and purely theatrical readers may chafe at the inclusion of musicians, dancers, skaters, and bandleaders, but I was interested in documenting as many entertainment personalities as possible with viable Canadian connections. A section on unpublished works-in-progress is also included. There are bound to be errors and omissions in this preliminary (and primarily English) catalogue, and I would welcome corrections and/or additions at my e-mail address:david.gardner@utoronto.ca

Using village theatre to increase knowledge about eclampsia in Bangladesh.

To assess the impact of a theatre based educational initiative on the knowledge and attitudes to eclampsia and its treatment in a rural Bangladeshi village. An established theatre company, Theatre Centre for Social Development, performed scenarios regarding eclamptic pregnant women to a diverse audience of village observers. Before the performance 15 men and 15 women were randomly selected from the audience and asked a series of questions regarding eclampsia. After the performance the series of questions were repeated to the same people. The plays were enthusiastically received by the villagers. The level of knowledge of the villagers interviewed increased significantly after seeing the two plays. The intervention successfully raised both the awareness of eclampsia and the level of knowledge of effective treatments for eclampsia. Village theatre has shown the potential to be a very effective tool in Bangladeshi rural society.

On the Streets with Cobblestone Youth Troupe: A Dossier

Mixed Company is a Canadian Centre of Theatre of the Oppressed and an established popular theatre company since 1983.1 Based in Toronto, this not-for-profit theatre is a member of the Toronto Theatre Alliance and the Theatre for Young Audiences Association of Ontario. In addition to our regular professional season, Mixed Company also works with communities and individuals to develop options, alternatives and solutions to key social issues through an interactive dramatic process. Mixed Company’s mandate is to use theatre as a tool for social change, and to this end we blend the work of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed with the teachings of the Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society to create a unique style of Forum Theatre. The utilization of these “Sweet Medicine” teachings has been approved by the elders of the Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Growth of Professional Theatre in Vancouver, 1963-1999

The Canada Council congratulated itself on a decade of growth in its 1961/62 annual report. In ten years, Mark Czarnecki summarized, “huge strides . . . had been taken, among them the founding of Stratford Festival in 1953 and the establishment of Winnipeg’s Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1958” (35). Similarly, Tom Henighan, in Ideas of North, asserts, “after the Massey-Levesque Report, the creation of the Canada Council, and the founding of the Stratford Festival, all in the 1950’s, Canadian professional theatre began to come of age” (42). Vancouver saw neither strides nor a coming of age. The fifties in the city saw the death of Everyman, the birth and death of Totem, the forming of Floliday (theatre for young audiences) and, a little later, the death of Theatre under the Stars.

Tony van Bridge. Also In the Cast: The Memoirs of Tony van Bridge

During rehearsals for the Manitoba Theatre Centre's 1998 production of The Crucible, Martha Henry and I had a lively discussion about the enshrining of Canadian entertainment personalities in books. Martha deplored that we had so few, "Maybe 20." And I countered, "We're doing better" and came up with a list of 50, drawn from memory. Remembering that conversation, I went to my library today and was startled to discover that I actually have (or know about) not 50, but 154 Canadian biographical works! Are we losing some of that doleful reticence? Or, in answer to Denis Johnston's provocative editorial query in A 1001 First Nights, are there really some famous Canadian actors after all?

Toronto Playwrights Union of Canada and Playwrights Canada Press: A Profile

In the late 1960s, Canada’s regional theatres – those established by the federal government to celebrate the 1967 Centennial – had a general reputation for offering few opportunities for Canadian work to appear. Artistic directors of these houses tended to be primarily European-born – Christopher Newton at Theatre Calgary and Heiner Piller at Neptune Theatre, for example – and were inclined to produce remounted Broadway hits and musicals or popular foreign-stage classics. Theatre companies like Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre, Winnipeg’s Manitoba Theatre Centre and Nova Scotia’s Neptune Theatre were ostensibly created to present Canadian theatre, but the repertories broadened and playbills often told a different story, listing productions by Shaw, Miller, Wilde, Chekhov and Shakespeare with the rare Canadian play. As a result, there was virtually no space on our regional stages for new Canadian works and little interest on the part of Artistic Directors to actively search out and develop this genre.

The Wines of Tuscany

The Wines of Tuscany was first produced by the Playwrights’ Theatre Centre, in co-production with Wild Excursions Performance, as part of the 1996 New Play Festival at Performance Works on Granville Island in Vancouver. The text, direction and choreography were by Conrad Alexandrowicz. The cast was Shawn Macdonald and Shaun Phillips. Costume and set design were by Catherine Hahn, lighting design by Del Surjik, sound design by Conrad Alexandrowicz and Ron Samworth. The stage manager was Mary Kavanagh. Special thanks to Sylvia Alexandrowicz for financial support that made the production possible and to Donna Spencer, who produced the piece twice subsequently at the Firehall Arts Centre.

Kicked

Kicked was first produced at the Theatre Centre’s Free-4-All Festival in January 1993. Special thanks to the Theatre Centre for its continued support of this show. It was subsequently produced by The Hugh Bris Co. at the Toronto Fringe Festival in July 1996, stage managed by Laura Astwood; at Tarragon Theatre Extra Space by The Hugh Bris Co., 16 to 28 September 1997, with lighting designed by Bonnie Beecher; at the Artrage Festival in Perth, Australia, 8 to 19 October 1997; at the Uno Festival, Victoria, B.C., 26 to 29 March 1998; at the Blyth Festival in August of 1998; in London, Ontario, at the Grand Theatre in October 1998; and in Ottawa at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in March 1999. A television version was created by Sleeping Giant Productions and shown on Bravo! as part of its Spoken Art Series. Brian Quirt was director and dramaturg for all productions.

Social Unwest: An Interview with Harry Gamboa, Jr.

Social Unwest: An Interview with Harry Gamboa, Jr C. Ondine Chavoya (bio) Every time I got off the bus—I lose my identity and spend the rest of the day trying not to find it. The personal void is overwhelmed by the impersonal vacuum of social unwest which splatters the environment like a bad choice of colors. 1 To the extent that the inhabitant of the (post)modern city is no longer a subject apart from his or her performances, the border between self and city has become fluid—the city as experienced by a subject which is itself the product of urban experience, a decentered subject which can neither fully identify with nor fully dissociate from the signs which constitute the city. 2 Los Angeles is a complex example of urban diffusion. Cultures and ways of life criss-cross one another like a maddened freeway system that has artificial exits. The tremendous pressure for survival is felt in excessive amounts amongst certain fragments of the city’s population. Collisions in values, attitudes, and images are inherent to the high velocity of change in the self perception of these various groups. A lack of public awareness to the degree of such cultural transformations stems from the limited flow of information that has filtered through the established mass media. The media’s hit and run attitude has generally relegated the influence by Chicanos on Los Angeles to that of a phantom culture. 3 [End Page 55] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Rite of Overpass, conceptual video written and directed by Harry Gamboa Jr. Pictured: Fabiola Torres (left) and Jesus “Chuy” Torres. ©1998, Harry Gamboa, Jr. Los Angeles native Harry Gamboa Jr. has been chronicling, documenting, and interpreting the heterogeneity of everyday life in Los Angeles for over twenty-five years in a variety of performance and visual media. A writer, photographer, performance and video artist, Gamboa traverses media like a high velocity vehicle on a maddened freeway system. Since 1971, Gamboa has been producing “conceptual art in urban form.” 4 What characterizes the diversity of his work, rather than media, technique, or presentation, is Gamboa’s attention to the specific geographies of Los Angeles. For Gamboa, the “urban desert” of Los Angeles is a physical and ideological locus where aesthetic, cultural, and political concerns intersect and often collide. This extensive body of multimedia production offers a unique perspective on the cultural landscape of Los Angeles. From its blind alleys, Gamboa pushes the discursive and ideological city limits; his work distorts and exacerbates the violence, anxiety, and hyper-real absurdity of contemporary urbanity in the heteropolis. In his work, Gamboa emphasizes the transitory moments and contingent situations that implicitly manifest the multiple ways in which the city is lived and experienced. He describes his cast of characters as barrio stars: “the elite of the obscure” and “survivors on the periphery.” Placed in situations before the camera, their performances demonstrate how the space of Los Angeles is conceptually perceived, situationally mapped, and its dominant narratives negotiated and contested. Gamboa’s video work defiantly pokes at the blind eye of objectivity while cleaning out the keyhole for the cultural voyeur. To this end, he has produced over thirty videos including: Vaporz (1984), Baby Kake (1984), El Mundo L.A.: Humberto Sandoval, Actor (1992), Loner with a Gun (1994), At Fault (1994), Mañanamania (1994), L.A. Familia (1993), No Pyramid Parts 1–5 (1997), and Rite of Overpass (1998). His videos have screened at The Museum of Modern Art, 1995 Whitney Biennial, Primera Muestra de Video Latinoamericano Barcelona, and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark. Showcased in numerous surveys of contemporary Latin American photography, his still photography has been exhibited in Cuba, Germany, Spain, Mexico City, and the Smithsonian Institution’s travelling exhibition “American Voices: Latino Photographers in the United States” organized by FotoFest in 1997. [End Page 56] He has produced several plays for both radio and stage, including Orphans of Modernism (1984), Hasta la Blah Blah (1984), Jetter’s Jinx (1985, Los Angeles Theater Center), Ismania (1987, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), and Ignore the Dents (1990, L.A. Festival). Artquetexture (1998), his most recent multimedia performance, premiered at...

South Asian Theatre in Toronto

For most aspiring thespians in Canada, Toronto is the place to be. Montreal may be home to the National Theatre School, but Toronto is where artists flock for work. Boasting more than 10 000 live shows in the past year, Canada’s most populous city is the third largest theatre centre in the English-speaking world, after New York and London.

On Stage

'"é3Sí£(í&JUDITHFISHER STAGE?=^ "^^fine«'J University There's bound to be an adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL playing at a theatre near you, but because most of them close before the end of December 1997, Tve not included many. But I have included several productions in major U.S. cities, should you be travelling south during the upcoming conference season. CANADA: SASKATCHEWAN Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens Globe Theatre, Regina· 18 - 30 April 1998 · A new adaptation by Richard Ouzounian. UNITED STATES: ASHLAND Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov Oregon Shakespeare Festival· 22 April - 31 October 1998 · ATLANTA Candida by George Bernard Shaw Actor's Express·20 February - 5 April 1998 · The Turn of the Screw by Henry James· 24 April - 31 May 1998 · Actor's Express Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher. CHICAGO The Seagull by Anton Chekov Josephine Louis Theatre, Northwestern University · 24 April - 3 May 1998 · This production by the Theatre Department ofthe University is being presented as part of the international conference "Chekov in Performance" to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Moscow Art Theatre's first production. DALLAS An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Dallas Theatre Centre· 14 January - 8 February 1998 · 300 Victorian Review NEW YORK Jekyll and Hyde Plymouth Theatre, NYC· still running · This musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel by Leslie Bricusse and Frank Wildhorn, directed by Robin Phillips, now stars Robert Cuccioli, Linda Eder and Christine Noll. A Flea in Her Ear by George Feydeau Roundabout Theatre, NYC· 1 1 February - 3 May 1998 · Adapted by Jean-Marie Beset: translated by Mark OOonnell. Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw Irish Repertory, NYC 7"Ae Heiress by Henry James Syracuse Stage, Syracuse Adapted by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. PHILADELPHIA Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen Arden Theatre Company SAN FRANCISCO Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller American Conservatory Theatre SEATTLE Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Bathhouse Theatre Adapted by Gale Fury Childs. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde Seattle Repertory Theatre • opened 24 November 1997 · - 27 February - 8 March 1998 · • 22 January - 8 March 1998 ·¦26 March -26 April 1998· 21 April -31 May 1998·¦ 7 March - 12 April 1998 · ENGLAND: LONDON Oliver by Lionel Bart London Palladium· still running · This musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel now stars Jim Dale as Fagin. The Magistrate by Arthur Wing Pinero Savoy Theatre Stars Ian Richardson.¦ opened 9 December 1997 · On Stage301 An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen Olivier, Royal National Theatre· until 22 January 1998 · Adapted by Christopher Hampton, designed by John Napier, starring Sir Ian McKellan. Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand Lyric Theatre· opened 27 November 1997 · A new version by Anthony Burgess, starring Anthony Sher. Little Eyotf by Henrik Ibsen The Pit, Barbican Centre· until 7 February 1998 · Royal Shakespeare Company's production, directed by Adrian Noble. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Springfield Theatre, Bounds Green road· until 1 1 January 1998 · David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Greenwich Theatre· until 24 January 1998 · ...

Ideals and Risks: An Interview with Steven Schipper

Steven Schipper is the artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre. This interview took place in the MTC offices in Winnipeg in the Spring of 1996.

NONE IS TOO MANY

Jason Sherman was born in Montreal in 1962, the seventh of eight sons . He graduated from York University’s Creative Writing Program in 1985 and, that same year, founded What Publishing which produced what, a literary magazine which he edited from 1985-1990. While Sherman is probably best known for his rapid achievement of acclaim as a dramatist, his venture with what marks his alternate career as a journalist whose reviews, essays and interviews which have appeared not only in the journal he edited, but in The Globe and Mail, Canadian Theatre Review, Theatrum, among others . In addition, Sherman edited two anthologies for Coach House Press: Canadian Brash (1991) and Solo (1993.) A prolific writer, Sherman’ s League of Nathans was produced by Orange Dog/Theatre Passe Muraille in 1992; Three in the Back, Two ill the Head, a 1994 co-production of Necessary Angel, Tarragon Theatre and the National Art s Centre, was honoured with a Governor General’s Award in 1995. The Retreat was mounted by Tarragon Theatre in 1996. Reading Hebron was produced by Factory Theatre in 1996, and None is Too Many was produced by Winnipeg’s Jewish Theatre and the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1997. He writes the dramatic series PMO heard monthly on CBC’S Morning side and This Morning. He has been a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre since 1992.

The Arts for Art's Sake

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsGEORGE C. WhiteGeorge C. White is founder and chairman of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in New York. Louise L. Duncan is his assistant.

Non-Traditional Casting (an Open Letter)

Dear Members of the American Theater Community, can continue to publish articles and special editions of magazines and write books; continue to have panel discussions, symposia, Colloquial and conferences; continue to air radio and television programs; continue to defend theses and doctoral dissertations; continue to debate and participate in one-on-one encounters; continue examining the and varied complexities of race, diversity, and inclusion in the arts in America. But at some point we have to stop talking. At some point we have to realize that the issue ain't that deep. When will that time occur? When? Either you actively participate in changing the American artistic landscape or you don't. Either you come out of the closet of your own racism and face it, or you wait for it to trip you up in yet another embarrassing moment, followed by media attention, controversy, and tacky apology, I'm sorry that revealed to you just how racist am--an apology everyone knows is less than sincere. no longer desire to lunch and discuss the possibilities of working in theaters that have for years excluded me and other ethnic artists. have been wined and dined from Maine to California, Washington to Florida. How much white wine can one drink? Why do artistic and managing directors, educators, producers, and other decision makers love to talk about the changes they are making in their theaters and institutions? Isn't it action that we have come to accept as the driving force of good theater--action, not talk? Why has it taken so long for these so-called artistic leaders to identify and implement the actions they should take? Stubbornness? Lack of creativity? Unconscious racism? Lack of dedication to their public expressions of commitment to change? Fear? Why is it certain theater companies can only identify one or two ethnic directors and designers to work in their theaters? Usually one per season! Why does the hiring of this ethnic director preclude the hiring of others? Why is s/he hired to direct or design only the ethnically specific work? Is it a question of willful ignorance of the talent pool or finding one's level of comfort with an ethnic artist? Is it a belief that ethnic artists are not capable of creating beyond their own ethnicity? Is the black artist, the ethnic artist still being perceived monolithically--under the assumption that the one that is hired knows, and can express, the desires and urges of and for the entire race? Or are we being blacklisted because we continue to ask difficult, uncomfortable questions, to name names? We have our black/ethnic director that we work with; we know his/her work. have been told this by many artistic directors or their representatives from the Denver Theatre Center and Berkeley Rep to the American Conservatory Theater and far too many theaters in between. Why has the Roundabout Theatre hired one African American director in the last ten years--Hal Scott, director of the critically acclaimed twenty-fifth anniversary production of A Raisin in the Sun? Did Charles Fuller truly have his finger on the pulse and thoughts of white America when he wrote in the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Solider's Play the unforgettable truth expressed by the liberal-thinking, sincere, non-racist white Captain, I just can't used to it .... being in charge just doesn't look right on Negroes? Surely artistic directors can take time to get to know, the work of the black and ethnic directors, playwrights, designers, and stage managers they consistently overlook. It seems that they do take the time for white artists. Many young white theater artists are immediately offered inclusion and acceptance (and, later, promotions) no matter how limited their experience--a practice most egregious on Broadway. Black and ethnic stage managers, for example, are rarely hired; and if they are, it is usually for black or ethnic productions. …