Download The First Actress - The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Study Day
The First
Actress
Saturday 1 December 2012
This study day is an examination of the theatrical
approaches used by women playwrights to question
the role of the actress. This is presented in the context
of the theatrical convention that excluded women
from the stage for centuries.
This study day will be delivered by Professor Lesley
Ferris, an Arts and Humanities Distinguished
Professor of Theatre at The Ohio State University.
100 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G2 3DB
www.rcs.ac.uk
STUDY DAY
The First Actress
Saturday 1 December 2012
10am – 4pm
£40 (Current Royal Conservatoire
of Scotland Staff and Students £30)
Book in advance:
Telephone 0141 270 8213
Email [email protected]
Who is the Study Day for?
This study day will be of interest to
you if you are a current student or
have a general interest in theatre and
performance or women’s studies.
Study Day Outline
Beginning with an introduction called
the History of the Actress, the day will
include discussion, readings and staging
of short excerpts of relevant play texts.
The main focus will be on The First
Actress produced by the Pioneer Players,
a theatre society established in the early
1900s. Other texts to be discussed are
Playhouse Creatures by April De Angelis,
Mrs. Pat by Pam Gems and The Summer in
Gossenass by Maria Irene Fornes.
Preparing for your Study Day
Participants will be provided with
the script for The First Actress on the
day. Students may wish to familiarise
themselves with the other texts to be
discussed.
Forthcoming talks and study days:
20 February 2013
April De Angelis – A Life in Playwriting
11 March 2013
Bridget Escolme and Aoife Monks –
Work and Wear in Performance
13 March 2013
Liz Burton-King – Stage Management as
a Career
Study Day Lecturers
Professor Lesley Ferris
Professor Ferris, an Arts and
Humanities Distinguished
Professor of Theatre at The
Ohio State University, currently
serves as the Director of OSU/
Royal Shakespeare Company
Programs. Her research interests are focused on
gender and performance, carnival, and the use
of masks.
Ferris has directed more than fifty productions
in Britain, South Africa and the U.S.A, including
Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal, Pearl Cleage’s A
Song for Coretta, Adrienne Kennedy’s A Movie
Star Has to Star in Black and White. In February
2012 Lesley directed the North American
premiere of Patricia Suarez’s Matchmaker. She
co-curated (with Adela Ruth Tompsett, London)
an exhibition entitled Midnight Robbers: The
Artists of Notting Hill Carnival (City Hall, London
2007).
Melissa Lee
Professor Ferris’s co-tutor
Melissa Lee, a Presidential
Fellow completing at The
Ohio State University, is
completing her dissertation
is on dramatic representations of the actress,
linking aesthetics and characterization to larger
issues of gender in performance. Her work is
titled “Staging the Actress: Dramatic Character
and the Performance of Female Identity.”
Recent conference papers inspired by this
research have been presented at Mid America
Theatre Conference, American Society of
Theatre Research, and International Federation
of Theatre Research in Munich, Germany.
Melissa holds her MA from San Francisco State
University where she completed her thesis on
David Henry Hwang, examining the dramaturgy
of the playwright as adaptor.