Theatre Association Research Articles

Introduction to the 2014 ATHE Bruce Kirle memorial emerging scholars papers in Music Theatre/Dance

Abstract Since Bruce Kirle’s death in 2007, the Music Theatre and Dance Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education has sponsored the competitive Bruce Kirle Memorial Emerging Scholars panel in Music Theatre/Dance at its annual conference. Each year, the winning panelists present their work at the ATHE Conference that was held this year in Scottsdale, Arizona, in July 2014. This year’s panelists, Janet Werther, Hannah Adamy and Alison Walls, presented their papers in Arizona, and have revised them for publication as articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. Mary Jo Lodge, the respondent to the papers at the ATHE Conference, introduces them in this short article.

Performance and the Writing Life: A Conversation with Bonnie Marranca

The New York-based writer and editor Bonnie Marranca has a unique voice in modern American arts and letters. As a writer she has championed the experimental tradition in theatre and performance for more than 35 years. As an essayist she has consistently explored form, in relation to artistic experiment. In the late fall of 2011 I recorded a talk with her, during the course of a long afternoon at her downtown apartment close to the Hudson River. The occasion was prompted by the imminent publication of the 100th issue of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, as well as by the Excellence in Editing Award for Sustained Achievement which had been recently given to her by ATHE [Association for Theatre in Higher Education]. The interview explores connections within her work and considers the way in which it has developed in conversation with artists in and around New York, bringing to light her continuing interest in spirituality, ecology and modernism, the cross connections between the avant-garde and popular culture in America, and her interests in writing, voice and the essay.

Current views on periodontitis and its theatrical association with coronary heart disease

Current views on periodontitis and its theatrical association with coronary heart disease

Introduction: Drama and Philosophy 2.0

In his prefatory note to A Study of the Drama, from 1910, Brander Matthews lists philosophy as one of four primary categories to be used in assessing the merits of any playscript (v). His use of the term is essentially vernacular: philosophy, in his explanation, encompasses “a message of high importance” and a “vision of human life” (217). Yet the usage is significant. At the time Matthews was writing, drama had not yet secured wide acceptance as an art form with a capacity for speculative investigation and was just as likely to be seen as an intellectually bankrupt mode of entertainment. Matthews’s suggestion that philosophy might have anything at all to do with the drama was largely a rebuke to these aspersions. “To many of us the drama gives merely unthinking amusement in the playhouse,” he concedes, in The Development of the Drama (3). But, almost tentatively, he adds, “To some its chief quality is that it enables them to disentangle the philosophy of the dramatist himself” (3). If Matthews’s writings are largely archived and forgotten today, his place in the history of drama scholarship is surely still pertinent. He held the first collegiate appointment in dramatic literature in the United States, and he took it as part of the purpose of his position to justify the standing of the material he was tasked to study. That the drama might have some capacity for and inclination toward philosophy was an essential part of that validation. The subject of the present issue of Modern Drama is one that would have been familiar to Matthews and tomany of the earliest professional scholars of modern drama: a consideration of the relationship between drama and philosophy. It is a subfield that, in recent years, has experienced something of a renaissance. There have been dedicated sessions on theatre and philosophy at several of the most recent conferences of the American Society for Theatre Research, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and other scholarly organizations, in many cases supported by standing interest groups. A new professional organization with the name of Performance Philosophy was started in the United Kingdom in 2012 and held its inaugural conference in

‘The law has no conscience’: The cultural construction of justice and the reception of Awara in China

Abstract In 1955 members of the Indian People’s Theater Association, a group closely associated with the Communist Party of India, travelled to China as part of a cultural exchange between the two countries following the state level meeting between Zhou Enlai and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954. Their visit saw an ‘Indian film week’ in which Hindi films were screened throughout China, most notably the 1951 Raj Kapoor film Awara, remembered fondly by many Chinese growing up in the later 1970s–early 1980s Reform period as Liulangzhe. This article situates Awara in the history of Chinese cinema, as a leftist text that depicted a fellow third world nation also engaged in constructing an alternative to the western experience of modernity.

Forcing Prison Doors: Socio-cultural Mission of Dr Bhupen Hazarika

Dr Bhupen Hazarika (1926–2011), a musician, lyricist, folklorist, dramatist, film-producer/director, columnist and journalist from the Indian state of Assam will be remembered for his extraordinary contribution to the world of Indian folklore in general and modern Assamese (a trans-ethnic linguistic and cultural community of India) music in particular. In him, the modern Assamese music finds its highest culmination. Dedicated to the wave of left-progressive cultural movement steered by the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA) in the early phase of his creative cultural journey, Dr Hazarika was greatly influenced by the wave of the nationalist and regional aspirations in the state of Assam particularly during the long Assam movement (1979–85). Throughout his life, Dr Hazarika cherished the values of modernity, humanity, secularism and composite culture. He remains as the most dominant cultural ‘icon’ for most of the twentieth century, and also the early part of the twenty-first century Assam. The present article is an attempt to explore the musical journey of Dr Bhupen Hazarika with special focus on his social and philosophical mission.

Introduction

Introduction E. Bert Wallace The title of this volume is a bit of a compromise. Many, some with good reason, are rather repulsed by the word "religion." Visions of hidden agendas, of proselytizers and fundamentalists of various stripes, loom. "Spirituality" was briefly considered and quickly discarded. In the end, in lieu of another word, "ritual" was added to broaden the call. Whether or not theatre arose from ritual or religion or both, from prehistory to the present there have been clear and vital connections among the three. My own comingling of religion and theatre has been both vocational and avocational. Because I majored in theatre in college, I was oft en called upon to "put a little skit together" for various church occasions as a student and into my adulthood. For many years, I've been associated with Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA), an organization that has greatly encouraged my scholarship, theatrical practice, and faith. And I'm currently the chair of the Religion and Theatre Committee for SETC and the head of the Drama & Christian Ministry Program at Campbell University, where I continue to write and direct plays in which religion, or ritual, or faith is enacted on the stage. The topic for my second volume as editor of Theatre Symposium flowed naturally from my own scholarship and creative work. I was delighted that Dr. Tom F. Driver agreed to serve as our keynote speaker and conference respondent. His lifetime of work exactly coincides with our threefold focus. His address on the opening night of the conference is printed in this volume. We all sat enthralled; several attendees told me that his was the best keynote address they'd ever heard. Dr. Driver graciously attended all the sessions and held a conference response and discussion at the end of the event. [End Page 5] As I hoped, our topic drew a wide variety of scholars. Of course, not every paper can be published (for a variety of reasons), but the presented papers not published here deserve some mention. Bradley Stephenson (University of Missouri-Columbia) drew on his experiences as a fraternity pledge to discuss initiation rituals; Chris Peck (Baylor University) presented a case study about a conservative audience response to a controversial play; Joan Lazarus (University of Texas-Austin) spoke on religion and spirituality in secondary theatre education; Eric Kildow (Coastal Carolina Community College) drew parallels between Puritan and Platonic anti-theatrical prejudice; Karen Polit (University of Heidelberg) spoke on her fieldwork with tribal ritual in the Himalayas; Amanda Sweeney (University of Chicago) explored how religion dramatizes the divine; and Erin Hopkins (New York University) and Brenna Nicely (University of Central Florida) presented separately on historical Christmas pageants. Several presenters at this year's conference included performance as part of their presentation. In particular, Greg Carr (whose paper is printed here) enacted the call-and-response and "whoops" of the traditional black preacher that his paper discussed, greatly enhancing the audience's understanding. Another honored guest, Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) president Dr. William Doan, performed as well; excerpts of Bill's performances are printed at the end of this volume. I must give special thanks to Andy Belser of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, our host school. Andy was immensely helpful from the moment I approached him about having the conference at Wilmington. Thanks also go to former editors Phil Hill, J. K. Curry, and Scott Phillips for all their help and support; former editor Paul Castagno of UNC-W, who was my graduate advisor at the University of Alabama and very supportive of this conference; Betsey Baun, Quiana Clark-Roland, and all the staff at the SETC central office for their support; Dan Waterman, Debbie Upton, Crissie Johnson, and the staff of the University of Alabama Press; Trey Morehouse, our tireless student worker who drove us all over Wilmington; Becky Jurius, my student assistant at Campbell University; Ran Whitley, Georgia Martin, and all my supportive colleagues at Campbell; and, most importantly, Kelley, Peter, and Betsy Wallace. My family has been almost unbelievably supportive of all the effort it has taken to organize two conferences and get two volumes to press. My thanks—and all...

My Life in Jewish Theatre: A Coming-Out Story

Kayla Gordon looks back at almost 15 years of working in Jewish Theatre. She discusses her involvement with the Governor General’s Award-winning play Tangled Souls, a theatre piece developed with young people from Winnipeg and Norway House. She also reflects on her work as Artistic Director of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, Executive Director of the Association for Jewish Theatre, and her more recent role as Artistic Director of Winnipeg Studio Theatre. Along the way, she considers the future of Jewish theatre in Canada and the importance of reaching new audiences.

Performance Studies in Canada

Performance Studies in Canada Natalie Alvarez Performance studies—variously described as a trans-, inter-, anti-, post-, and pre-disciplinary field of inquiry—came to prominence in the academy in the 1970s. Its originary narratives (in the eastern US, at least) often centre on the collaboration of anthropologist Victor Turner and NYU’s Richard Schechner who wanted to free performance from its derivative relation to the dramatic text (the quaint “string quartet of the 21st century,” Schechner declared [8]1) and turn instead to an investigation of performance as both a mode of inquiry and an object of study. Performance studies was positioned as a “new paradigm,” an optic, and a method of analyzing culture as constituted by performances, practices that are embodied, enacted, hailed, and asserted. But performance studies also offered a way of thinking about performance as an epistemology and a way of knowing,2 one that circumvented a Eurocentric understanding of knowledge as housed in texts toward an understanding of how embodied practices are themselves vehicles of knowledge, history, and cultural memory. When framed as an epistemology, performance studies’ “origins” may more appropriately lie, anachronistically, not at NYU but in pre-colonial indigenous traditions and practices, as both Jill Carter and Susan Bennett’s pieces in these pages remind us.3 Performance studies’ contested status as a discipline is largely due to the diversity of its methods, aims, and subjects of study, which move across the disciplinary boundaries of sociology, anthropology, linguistics, visual arts, and philosophy, to name a few. One would think that its disciplinary inclusiveness would make it a very attractive and viable enterprise in Canadian universities, which often try to differentiate themselves on the basis of new and exciting initiatives in “interdisciplinarity.” But as the pieces in this Views and Reviews section address, performance studies has had little uptake and support by both universities and funding bodies in Canada. What accounts for this limited traction? Does performance studies exist as a field in Canada and if so, what are the contours and characteristics of its discursive practices within our national borders—borders that the field itself belies? This issue’s Views and Reviews reprises, and continues, a conversation initiated by a plenary panel on performance studies in Canada, organized by Laura Levin and Lisa Wolford Wylam, at the sixteenth annual Performance Studies international conference held in Toronto in June 2010. Jill Carter joins panelists Susan Bennett, Erin Hurley, Naila Keleta-Mae, and Ric Knowles to ask after the [End Page 73] state of the discipline in Canada from distinct vantage points, reminding us of how “the history of a discipline changes depending upon where one decides to begin” and “how such investigations can only be done with an awareness of the contingent, slippery, and decidedly contextual nature of knowledge formation” (Jackson 10). I turn the page over to Laura Levin who, as panel chair, begins the conversation and sets the stage for the views that follow. Notes 1. Richard Schechner made this infamous remark during a keynote panel at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education in 1992. His comments were later printed in TDR. See Schechner. 2. I am alluding here to Dwight Conquergood’s invocation of performance “as a way of knowing” in his “Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research,” TDR 46.2 (2002): 145–156. 3. For an incisive overview of performance studies as both a methodology and an epistemology, particularly in the context of indigenous performance in the Americas, see the first chapter of Diana Taylor’s The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (London: Duke UP, 2003). Works Cited Jackson, Shannon. Professing Performance: Theatre in the Academy From Philology to Performativity. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print. Google Scholar Schechner, Richard. “A New Paradigm for Theatre in the Academy,” TDR 36.4 (1992): 7–10. Google Scholar Copyright © 2012 University of Toronto Press Inc

Introduction to bruce Kirle Memorial Panel debut papers in music–theatre–dance

In 2007, the distinguished scholar of musical theatre Bruce Kirle died unexpectedly. In tribute to his contribution to this field of scholarship, the music–theatre–dance focus group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) established a competition for new scholars researching in the field. This is now the fourth season in which three prize-winning entries to this competition have been presented both as conference papers (at the 2012 ATHE Conference in Washington, DC) and as written articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. Elizabeth Wollman, respondent to the papers at the ATHE Conference, introduces them in this short preamble.

Malaysian Theatre Resources

This bibliography presents a selection of materials in English about Malaysian theatre, with an emphasis on modern drama. Included are articles, chapters in books, encyclopedia entries, DVDs, books, Malay plays translated into English, English-language plays, and additional resources. This material was initially prepared for the Association for Asian Performance roundtable titled “Current Resources for Teaching Asian Theatre— An Evaluation” at the 2004 Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference in Toronto. The listing was updated in 2011.

Introduction to Bruce Kirle Memorial Panel debut papers in music-theatre-dance

In 2007, the distinguished scholar of musical theatre Bruce Kirle died unexpectedly. In tribute to his contribution to this field of scholarship, the Music-Theatre-Dance focus group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) established a competition for new scholars researching in the field. This is now the third season in which three prize-winning entries to this competition have been presented both as conference papers (at the 2011 ATHE conference in Chicago), and as written articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. David Savran, respondent to the papers at the ATHE conference, introduces them in this short preamble.

Being Contemporary

Being Contemporary

‘A Temporarily Vanished Civilisation’: Ice Cream, Confectionery and Wartime Cinema-Going

The editorial page of The Times on 22 November 1944 contained the following breathless passage: Many a heart must have leapt up at the news, as at a rainbow in the sky, must have felt this one litt...

Measurable Progress? Teaching Artsworkers to Assess and Articulate the Impact of Their Work

The National Cultural Policy Discussion Paper—drafted to assist the Australian Government in developing the first national Cultural Policy since Creative Nation nearly two decades ago—envisages a future in which arts, cultural and creative activities directly support the development of an inclusive, innovative and productive Australia. "The policy," it says, "will be based on an understanding that a creative nation produces a more inclusive society and a more expressive and confident citizenry by encouraging our ability to express, describe and share our diverse experiences—with each other and with the world" (Australian Government 3). Even a cursory reading of this Discussion Paper makes it clear that the question of impact—in aesthetic, cultural and economic terms—is central to the Government's agenda in developing a new Cultural Policy. Hand-in-hand with the notion of impact comes the process of measurement of progress. The Discussion Paper notes that progress "must be measurable, and the Government will invest in ways to assess the impact that the National Cultural Policy has on society and the economy" (11). If progress must be measurable, this raises questions about what arts, cultural and creative workers do, whether it is worth it, and whether they could be doing it better. In effect, the Discussion Paper pushes artsworkers ever closer to a climate in which they have to be skilled not just at making work, but at making the impact of this work clear to stakeholders. The Government in its plans for Australia's cultural future, is clearly most supportive of artsworkers who can do this, and the scholars, educators and employers who can best train the artsworkers of the future to do this.

Debating Radical Cinema: A History of the Film Society Movement in India

AbstractThis paper offers a history of the creation and development of film societies in India from 1947 to 1980. Members of the film society movement consisted of important Indian film directors such as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Shyam Benegal, Basu Chatterji, Mani Kaul, G. Aravindan, Kumar Shahani, Adoor Gopalkrishnan, and Mrinal Sen, as well as film enthusiasts, numbering about 100,000 by 1980. The movement, confined though it was to members who considered themselves film aficionados, was propelled by debates similar to those that animated left-oriented cultural movements which originated in late colonial India, namely, the Progressive Writers Association in 1936, and the Indian People's Theatre Association in 1942. By looking at the film society movement as an early and sustained attempt at civil-social organization in postcolonial India, this paper highlights the two distinct definitions of ‘good cinema’—from an aesthetically sophisticated product to a radical political text—that were debated during the time of the movement.

Theatre and citizenship: the history of a practice

1. Introduction: citizenship and theatre 2. Athens: democracy and chorality - The Frogs - Plato and Aristotle 3. Florence, Rome and Machiavelli: Machiavelli's political works - Cicero - Terence's Andria - The Mandrake and the Society of the Trowel - 'The Sunflower' in a politician's garden - coda: Goldoni, Ayckbourn and the comic genre 4. From Coventry to London: Christian fraternity - the Weavers' Pageant in Coventry - Elizabethan London: Shakespeare and Heywood - John Milton and revolutionary tragedy 5. Geneva: Rousseau versus Voltaire: Geneva - Rousseau - The Letter to d'Alembert - the battle for a public theatre - conclusion: two ideals 6. Paris and the French Revolution: Brutus and the active citizen audience - tragedy as a school for citizens: the career of M. J. Chenier - the revolutionary festival - Diderot and bourgeois realism 7. The people, the folk, and the modern public sphere: collectivism in pre-war Germany - the Indian People's Theatre Association - in search of the public sphere Epilogue: Washington's monuments to citizenship.

Care Divas by PETA

Philippine Educational Theater Association’s Care Divas, a musical that revolves around the friendship/s between Filipino contract caregivers in intifada-infested Israel, wraps heavy themes of displacement, frustration and loss with song-and-dance. And with sauciness, thanks to the five protagonists who moonlight as drag queens.

Early eighteenth-century performance historiography: Problems and possibilities

ABSTRACTThis article was first presented as a paper to the History and Historiography Working Group of the Theatre and Performance Research Association in 2009. It responds to a discussion of the archive and repertoire (Taylor 2003) by considering how these ideas might be applied to scholarship on early eighteenth-century performance. In the first part, the article considers the ways in which a focus upon a particular body of archival evidence, the dramatic text, has shaped scholarship in the field. In the second part, the article suggests ways in which a renewed awareness of the repertoire, of embodied performance, might open up new directions in scholarship on the early eighteenth-century actress, as well as challenging prevailing discourses.

Introduction to Bruce Kirle Memorial Panel debut papers in music-theatre-dance

In 2007, the distinguished scholar of musical theatre Bruce Kirle passed away unexpectedly. In tribute to his contribution to this field of scholarship, the Music-Theatre-Dance focus group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) established a competition for new scholars researching in the field. This is now the second season in which three prize-winning entries to this competition have been presented both as conference papers (at the 2010 ATHE conference in Los Angeles),and as written articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. Judith Sebesta, respondent to the papers at the ATHE conference, introduces them in this short address.