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8-22-06
Thursday:
18-27 in Enjoyment of theater
8-24-06
Keyword: Ephemeral
lasting for a short period of time
existing for only one day, as with some plants and insects
“Metaphor makes us human”-Augusto Boal
Pictures in cave
What is art?
Monet-Woman with Parasol
Urinal: Duchap-Fountain, 1917
Art is about context
What is theatre:
Event-art-space-idea-system
Need:
Actor
Audience
Space
Time
“Three boards, two actors, and a passion”
Theatre vs. Life
Theatre is a heightened and compressed version of life
It’s moment by moment
Involves problems with life
There’s life after theater, but no coffee after life
Optional ingredients:
Story, words, writer, director, designer, costumes, lights, sets, sound
Other arts in theatre:
Music, dance, visual art
Music artists:
They’re creating a character for themselves
Performing Arts:
Theatre, Dance, Music, Opera
-Ephemeral
-Ephemeral=fleeting (here once moment, gone the next, never
the same twice)
-occupy time and space
-need an audience
Performer vs. Actor
Why go to theatre
History of humanity
Live
-like life
-real people, not images
More than words
Local
“to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature”
Summary:
No definitive definition
8-29-06
Seeing and Reading Plays keywords
Audience
Casual (Linear) Plot
Episodic Plot
Protagonist
Antagonist
Foil
Raisoneur
Confidante
Idea
Language
Genre
Quiz on Thursday over A Doll’s House
How to Watch a Play
Before the play:
First thing you see:
Stage
Audience
Set
Program
-director’s notes
-cast
Scenic Design:
More doors, funnier the show’s supposed to be
Today’s Audiences:
upper middle class
Spare time, money
Ticket prices are a lot
Avg. B’way theatergoer: $100,000+ income
Alternative- smaller theatres! Cheap!
Audience Behavior
Elizabethan: much more involved, react more, diverse audience, groundlings broke 4th
wall. Actors addressed audience directly
Cradle Will Rock
Negative behaviors:
Audience size
Preparation
Willingness
Waiting for Lefty (cast member calls for a strike, audience rioted)
Different from reading a book
Use Imagination
Title
Characters
Stage Directions
Other notes
Place, time, season, historical, era
Aristotle:
Plot, Character, Idea, Language, Music, Spectacle
Plot- arrangement of the incidents; casual (linear, a-b-c), episodic
Causal:
Exposition-inciting incident-rising action, point of no return, climax, resolution
Episodic Plot
Multiple plots centered around an idea
Character:
Functions:
Protagonist: main character
Antagonist: bad guy
Foil: shows off the facets of the protagonist
Confidante: protagonist confides in
Raissoneur: voice of the author
Idea:
Meaning
Central theme
Language:
Style, modern, old-fashioned, reflections on world of play
Genre:
Type of play
Things that affect audience:
Size, willingness, preparation, demographic
8-31-06
A Doll’s House
Plot:
Linear plot
Multi-linear (other characters taking their own journey)
Climax- when she yells at him and leaves
Character:
Protagonist: Nora
Antagonist: Torvald
Confidante: Kristine
Foil: Kristine, Dr. Rank, Krogstag
Child
Doll
Stubborn
Frightened singing-bird
Fool
Bewildered
Helpless
Happy
Fritter bird
How has she changed in the end?
More confidant. Independence, no blind trust, selfish and bold, wants to be her own
person, not the doll in the dollhouse
Macaroons hint that Nora will develop independent frame of mind, conversation with
Kristine, she swears, when she talks about how she made her money
What’s Nora’s overall goal or SUPEROBJECTIVE
Beginning- money, end-freedom
Torvald-banker-hates debt
Language of Kristine compared to Nora:
Older, more mature, more independent, life experience
Rank has syphilis
Ibsen:
Father of modern drama
Realism
Norwegian folklore
Doll’s House based on true story
“problem play”
retrospective plot
-like greek tragedy
-most major events before play starts
Europe, mid-1800s
Doll’s House-revolutionary for the time
Theatres refused to produce it
Actresses refused to play Nora
-Germany-another ending
-Nora stays for her children’s sakes
“The slam heard ‘round the world”
Norway:
Winter, 3-4 hours of sun per day.
Seasonal Depression
Isben says it’s not about women’s rights
It’s about transformation
Everyone changes
9-5-06
Show Business
Broadway
Regional
LORT: League of Resident Theatres
-Goodman theater-Chicago
-Guthrie theatre- Minneapolis
-Indiana Repertory Theatre- Indianapolis
-Cincinnati Playhouse- Cincinnati
goal of commercial theatre: make a profit
goal of nonprofit theatre art, break even
Broadway-commercial, professional
Regional- nonprofit, professional
Academic- nonprofit, amateur
Community- nonprofit, amateur
Who’s in charge:
Nonprofit:
artistic director:
-ticket sales, grants
-Picks seasons (with help)
-Hires personnel (directors, designers)
-Oversees quality of productions
Commercial Theatre:
Producer:
-picks show
-finds investors
-hires personnel
-coordinates publicity
-negotiates for use of performance space
Finding People:
Producer/artistic director---casting director---talent agent---actors
Trade Papers:
Back Stage- NYC
Back Stage West- LA
PerformINK-Chicago
Actors read notices, call theatre for appt. to audition
Unions: Actor’s Equity Association (1913)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%27s_Equity_Association
Pros:
Salary standards
Housing
Transportation
Insurance
Cons:
Hard to get into union
Must pay dues, even when not working
Can only work at union theatres
AEA: Actor’s Equity Association
Actors and Stage Managers
40,000+ members in USA
Negotiates wages, working conditions, contracts, etc
Recent Controversy:
Protest by Equity members
National tour of The Music Man:
-starring Purdue grad Gerritt VanderMeer
-non-equity
-“Broadway show”-Susan Stroman’s choreography and direction
-salaries below Equity minimum, no benefits
Other Unions:
USA-United Scenic Artists
SSD&C-Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers
Creating a show:
Rehearsals:
-stage manager duties
Scenery
Costumes
Lights, Sound
Publicity:
Advertising
100k for full page color ad in NY Times
Nonprofit theatre-what would you do?
Sponsors, flyers
Publicist-press kit
David Merrick-publicity stunts
Moon over Broadway
About Moon Over Buffalo
Carol Burnett, Philip Brosco
Directed by Tom Moore, Purdue grad
Critics:
Press Night:
-press kit
-reviews
Critics at big papers can make or break a show
What it is:
Selfish, dependent, shallow, childish, stubborn,
What it isn’t:
Childish: obnoxious, annoying, ignorant, way too happy, baby, easily stressed out
Stubborn: thickheaded, won’t listen, ignorant, not a very hard life,
Shallow-ignorant
Don’t possess a lot of knowledge or experience.
Simple minded.
Emotional about little things.
Selfish-obnoxious:
Self-centered
Controlling
Phrases:
Ignorance is bliss.
9-7-06
Playwright:
Dionysus: ancient Greece, god of wine and orgies and theatre
Dythoram: homage to Dionysus, 50 men singing and dancing around statue
Aeschylus:
First playwright, 500 bc. Added a second character, 80-90plays. 7 still exist
Thespus is first actor.
Ben Johnson (1573-1637)
Read best authors
Observe best speakers
Exercise own style
Write what you know
O’Neill was the first to put working class on stage, sad plays on Broadway, complex
black characters
Formatting is important
Full length play=90 manuscript plays
Formatted plays are easier for actors to read
Helps get a literary agent
Literary manager
Optioning:
Standard agreement=10% of the purchase price of the script and option it for x years,
usually renewable
Samuel French:
Established playwrights
Licensed rights to publish acting editions of plays (used to only get your lines)
By late 1800s, represented most major playwrights
Biggest two publishing houses:
Samuel French
Dramatists
New Playwright:
Small stipends ($50-$100)
Royalties for small theatres, world premiere play, 5-10% of total ticket sales
Theatre companies take % of future royalties if they present world premiere
Dramatists Guild:
Professional association for playwrights, composers, lyricists
Membership is open
Helps with contracts
Copyright
Work is protected moment hits the paper
Safe side: certificate from US copyright office: $20
Getting your work seen:
Theatres and contests
Dramatists Sourcebook
What to send:
Cover letter
Resume
Synopsis
Script
S.A.S.E
Produce it Yourself
How?
Volunteer, find a director and space, set up your own development process
9-12-06
The Director
Newest facets in terms of theatre
mid-late 1800s, director comes
Stanislovsky’s directing of Chekov’s Seagul
A guide
A midwife
Love what you are directing
Read the script without stopping the first time
7 is considered the perfect number
casting is 80% of your work-William Ball
1. tablework
2. on our feet reading
3. Blocking
a. Pictureization
b. Composition
4. Workthroughs
5. Walkthrough
6. Runthrough
7. Tech (director is not as important after this)
8. Dress rehersals
9. Previews
Lecture:
Before director:
Choregs: financed plau
Didaskalos: “teacher” of the chrorus
Medieval Theatre:
Master of Secrets
Actor-Managers:
Head of acting company
Leading actor
David Garrick: 1717-1779, no audience on stage (first star)
Ibsen hired as a manager, organized sets, costumes entrances and exits
What changed?
1859-Origin of Species from Darwin
1900-Interp of Dreams from Freud
1879-A Doll’s house, 11 rehersals
1883-An Enemy of the People, 32 rehersals
Duke of Saxemeiningen; Georg II, 1826-1914
First true director
Peter Brook’s white box production of Midsummer Night’s Dream
Director does:
Select play (maybe)
Interprets a play
Casts, rehearses
Guides designers
Liaison
Coordinates into finished performance
Auteur Director:
Author, idea comes from director, not playwright
Txt serves director
Good director: knows purpose of script, knows spine, develops concept, communicates
well
9-14-06
I start at Elliott, in lobby
What to look for:
Color
Intense or washed out?
Why did the designer choose them?
What do they signify?
Line:
Jagged? Smooth? Short? Long?
What does that signify?
Size
Genre
Period
Julie Taymor
Director/Designer
The Lion King: How does she use costume and set design
9-21-06
Tuesday: Exam 1, study guide on WebCT
Multiple choice
Ch 8: The Actors
Stanislavsky:
Russian actor, director, theorist
Father of modern acting
Founded Moscow Art Theatre
Strasberg, Adler, Meisner
Stan says being truthful on stage and “live the part”
Stan’s System
Given Circumstances: who, what, where, when why, who is the other person
“Magic If” put yourself in the role
Objective: character’s goal
Obstacle
Character Analysis
Actor’s Training
Voice: pitch, volume, dialects, etc
Body: use to characterize
Mind: access emotion
External vs. Internal Acting:
External Acting- physical life (how we walk, etc)
Internal Acting: inner life (thoughts, feelings, opinions, points of view)
Auditioning:
Job interview for actors, show talent and versatility
99% of the time you won’t get cast
Types of Auditions:
Regional (big theatres who aren’t in NYC or LA) or national (broadway or touring)
Theatre Companies, audition to become a member of the company
Open Auditions
Cattle Calls: American Idol
Headshots
Resumes: don’t list weight on resume, or age
Prepared Monologues/songs
Where to fine auditions:
Regional papers, trade papers, agents, internet
Who Watches:
Director, casting director, producer, artistic director, playwright
After Audition:
Waiting, callbacks, cold reading,
What’re they looking for:
Hold an audience, professionalism, taking big risks, handling direction, how you look
Hints: they’re not the enemy, be prepared, do your best, be professional
9-28-06
Ancient Greece: Sex, Wine, and Theatre
Philosophy: Socrates, Plato
Math: Pythagoras
Medicine: Hippocrates
Architecture: the Parthenon
Art: statue from 450 bc
Democracy
Today:
Advertising
Entertainment:
Athens Population: 140,000
Democracy: demos (people) + (kratein) (rule)
Attica: 10 tribes
The Beginning-Dionysus
Cult
Alcohol, orgies, sacrifices
Wild dancing-ecstatis
Creativity
Satyrs-half men half goat
Dithyramb:
Ode to Dionysus
50 men, dressed as satyrs
evolved to story/drama
Thespis (first actor according to legend)
Important Date to Know:
534 BC: Festival changed to include drama
Athens
City Dionysia:
Religious festival
Choragus-producer appointed 1 year before festival, paid for everything
Tragedies
Satyr Play
All male actors who wear masks
Shoes-kothornos
Chiton- costume
Center of theatre: orchestra
Skene, or scene house
Parodos, or entrance
Deus ex Machina: god from the machine, fly in a god to say stop fighting
Ekkyklema: platform on wheel to bring characters out of a building
Why Tragedy?
Gods, Humans, Fate
Pathos (Pitiful people), Hubris (excessive pride)
Format of Tragedy:
Tragos (goat) and ODE (song)
Prologue-parados (chorus enters)-five scenes (each followed by chorus)-exodus (big
finish)
Aeschylus:
First playwright
Added 2nd actor
Reduced chorus from 50 to 12
Great trilogies
-Orestia
Sophocles:
Great plot construction
Added 3rd actor
Oedipus Rex, Antigone (sister/daughter of Oedipus)
Euripedes
Fewer gods, more regular people
Deus Ex Machina
Made fun of in other plays, satires
The Trojan Women
Comedy:
Two types:
-old comedy-mocks social, political, and cultural
-new comedy-comedy for the sake of comedy, led to Roman comedy
only one of each remains
Decline:
404BC: Athens defeated by Sparta, annexed into Roman Empire in 146 BC
City Dionysia theatre
10-3-06
adinkra symbols
Lloyd Wilson-director, “acting is falling into darkness backwards”
Richard III not due until 12th
No ticket stubs for 7 guitars
10-5-06
Richard III quiz due 10/17
Roman Theatre
55BC
Roman Theatre:
Borrowed from Greece
1st play-translation from freek
Livius Andronicus (Greek: Andronikos)
Ludi Romani (oart of games)
All actors were men dressed in greek costumes, comedies called Fabula Palliata
Masks
Comic Actor:
Slave?
Low professions, “Infami” w/o honor
Costumes very important, masks, phallus, pallium
Minerva-Roman Goddess of Crafts
Plautus (254-184 BC)
Palliatae
Copied Greeks
Farce
Stock Characters (Miles Gloriosus-“The Boastful Soldier”, The Menaechmi TwinsShakespeare stole it-Comedy of Errors)
Terence (185-159 bc)
6 plays, more refined
born a slave
wooden stages
Audience:
Everyone could go, VIPs in orchestra
Plautus’ The Little Cathiginian
Theatres and Stages:
Gree influence, some with roof (Odeon)
55 BC- first stone theatre, 17,000 seats
Pompey the Great, dedicated to Venus
Roman architecture more elaborate, theatres freestanding, Greek theatres built into hills
Seneca (4 bc-65 ad)
Only survving tragedies, closet drama
Based on Greek tragedies
Philosopher
Nero’s tutor
Influenced Shakespeare
Atellan Farce
From Atella, Stock Characters (fool, babbler, grandfather, glutton, or doctor)
Masks, improvised
Pantomimus:
Dance, Poetic text-chorus, popuar
Decline
Fall of Rome 476 AD
Christianity
Constantinople-eastern Roman capital, founded by Constantine
Saint Genesius
10-17-06
Italian Renaissance
Verasmilitude: life like
Perspective
Gutenberg’s press, Galileo proves sun is center of universe
Humanism: focus on humanities, individual dignity, reason/logic
Neoclassical Ideals:
Verisimilitude: life like
Unities (from Aristotle):
Time-24 hours
Place-One Locale
Action-One central story
Tragedy and Comedy rules: no violence, chorum, supernatural characters, solilquies
Purpose: teach moral lessons
Teatro Olimpico: theatre (looks just like an ancient Roman theatre-painted sky on ceiling)
Teatro Farnese: procenium stage, greater realism
Pole and Chariot System: Giacomo Torelli (1608-1678):
Ropes and pullies to put things on stage
Wing and Groove: scenery on flat board in groove, drag on and off
Sabbattini: invented way to dig lights
Periactoi: big overhead triangle stages
Commedia dell’ Arte: form of improv comedy
Lazzi-little bits of action
Known for scenic designs and special effects
Renaissance England:
Elizabeth I: 1558-1603, colonization of New World
Shakespeare:
Stratford-upon-Avon
Lord Chamberlain’s Men (his company)
Christopher Marlowe
Dr. Faustus
Iambic pentameter
Stabbed in eye in bar fight at 29 (1593)
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
1550-1604
minor artists, Queen paid him 1000 pounds a year, dunno why
William Shakespeare:
10 plays written after 1604, too much conspiracy, many writer knew Shakespeare, his
company published works, crediting him
Major Players:
Queen Elizabeth, Lord Chamberlin’s Men
James Burbage-opens Red Lion, firs theatre in London
Globe Theatre
Jacobean Period:
James 1, son of Mary Queen of Scots
Melodramatic plays, violence, spectacle\
Masques
Ben Jonson:
Known for fighting, killed an actor, thumb branded
Wrote court masques
Inigo Jones:
Designer, architect (Covent garden), Court Masques, costumes
Decline:
Civial War, Charles 1 deposed, beheaded
William Cromwell takes over
1642-Puritans outlaw all heater
10-19-06
Exam 10-31
All Shakespeare’s plays had 5 acts (like greeks)
Romantcism & Realism
Romanticism: 1750-1859
Revolution: American (1776) French (1789)
Industrialization, cities
Beauty, art, truth
Social revolutions (abolitionism, suffrage)
Melodrama:
The Girl of the Golden West
David Belasco
Good v Evil
Stock characters (hero, villain, young lovers)
Clear moral world
Stereotypes
Stage directions, music, special effects
Language
Moral reason
Charles Darwin:
Origin of Species-1859
Marx-Das Kapital-1867
Edison-lamp-1879
Frued-Interpretation of Dreams-1900
Einstein-Theory of Relativity-1905
Ibsen (1828-1906)
Realistic and non-realistic
Ordinary people
Deep psychological portrait of characters
August Strindberg (1849-1912)
Individual v himself or v each other
Hated “Emancipatied Women”
Naturalism:
Lower classes, sordid aspects of life, social problems, reform
Emile Zola (1840-1902)
Novelist, theorist, playwright
David Belasco (1853-1931)
Extreme naturalist
Girl of the Golden West: 20 minute sunrise-1905
Richard Wagner
Beyreuth Theatre-1876
Continental seating
Scene design
Limitations of Realism:
Confining, excludes: music, dance, symbolism, poetry, fantasy, supernatural
Reaction/decline (WW1, depression, mass production, industrialization)
10-24-06
Exam 2-10/31
Avant garde: ahead of their times, on the front lines
Early 20th century:
Freud-“Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”
Oliver Messiaen-Quartet for the end of time-german prison camp
Inspired by book of revelation
Timeline-pg 359
Non-mainstream movements
Adolphe Appia
1862-1928
very simple, living space, focus on action
3d space
spotlights
lighting plot
Bayreuth theatre
Expressionism
Metropolis- Fritz Lang
Dadaism: most abstract, non-literal, deliberately irrational, “Art is shit”, no form,
meaning?
Dadaist Manifesto-Tristan Tzara (Gas Heart, “nothing is more enjoyable than baffling
people.”)
Absurdism:
Post ww2, existentialist, God is Dead, world w/o meaning, Familiar/Strange, circular
plot, Samuel Beckett (Happy Days, Waiting for Godot)
10-26-06
American Theatre
Melodrama:
Kid actors amazingly popular
19th century:
museums, music halls, circuses (PT Barnum-1810-1891)
American Museum
Feejee mermaid
Tom thumb
Booth family big
Wild West Shows:
Huge shows, native Americans, cowboys (Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull)
Buffalo Bill was a women’s rights advocate
Vaudeville
Minstrel Shows
Eugene O’Neil: first serious American playwright
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Federal Theatre Project:
Part of WPA, 1935-1939
Purpose: create work!
Controversial
Clifford Odets-playwright from group theatre
Waiting for lefty
Show Boat-first true Broadway show
Outdoor Drama
Review
Be familiar with the parts of an ancient Greek theatre.
Orchestra (playing area), parodoi (entrances), skene (scene house),
What is an eccyclema? What is a mechane? What were they used for?
Platform/crane used to bring actors on and off stage, usually dead
In class, Andrew and Lisa performed a scene from Lysistrata, an ancient Greek comedy. What
was the scene about?
Women withholding sex from their soldier husbands
What is a dithyramb?
Ode to Dionysus
50 men, dressed as satyrs
evolved to story/drama
What is a satyr play?
A short, rustic, and often obscene play included in the Dionysian festivals of Greece at the
conclusion of tragedies
Who were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides?
Writers, Aes introduced second actor, trilogies. Soph introduced 3rd actor, Euri was mocked in life,
examined human relationships
Be familiar with the traits of Greek theatre described in the textbook.
Polytheism, special occasions, competitive,
In what year was drama added to the festivals in ancient Greece? What actor, by legend the
first actor in ancient Greece, is said to have won the competition that year?
534 bc, Thespis
Be familiar with the parts of an ancient Roman theatre.
Outside, semi-circle, on a street, roofed stage, architecurlal connection,
What year was the first stone theatre built in ancient Rome?
55 bc
In class we watched a video of Plautus’ The Braggart Warrior. What was it about?
Slaves getting freedom through tricking the boastful, but cowardly master
To what deity was ancient Roman theatre dedicated?
Minerva
What were ancient Roman theatre audiences like?
Theatre for all, vips in orchestra, commoners, slaves
Scenic designer Russ Jones said that the ring above the stage in Seven Guitars had symbols
inspired by what culture?
African, adrinka symbols from Ghana
Be familiar with the scenic design and costume design of Seven Guitars and of The Importance
of Being Earnest. (If you have seen the show you will be able to answer any questions on the
exam)
What are the Unities observed in Italian Renaissance theatre? Where did the unities
originate?
Unities (from Aristotle):
Time-24 hours
Place-One Locale
Action-One central story
What is verisimilitude?
truth seeming, no gods
What does the Teatro Olimpico look like?
Roman but inside, sky on ceiling, midgets for perspective
What innovation is the Teatro Farnese known for?
Proscenium stage, designed sets (not all on street)
What was Italian Renaissance scenic design like?
Perspective, overdone, not real
What is the pole-and-chariot system used for?
Bringindg sets and props on stage
What are periaktoi?
Three-sided triangles with scenes on them
What was Commedia dell’Arte like?
Imrpov, professional playing
Who was Christopher Marlowe? In what type of meter (rhythm) did he write his plays?
Playwright, stabbed in eye, Iambic pentameter, queen gave him cash
Who was Edward de Vere?
Earl of Oxford, thought to be shakespeare
What were Court Masques, and what were they like? What did designer Inigo Jones have to
do with Court Masques?
Big royal parties, Indigo Jones, designer/architect of huge sets, Covent Garden, Italian stages to
English audiences
What were Elizabethan English theatres like?
Outdoor public, loud, interaction, rich people in boxes
What are groundlings?
Poor people in front of the stage, on ground
What does Hamlet’s “advice to the players” tell us about acting in Shakespeare’s time?
Good acting is natural, don’t over do it
Who is David Belasco? How did he once create a scenic design for a boarding room?
Extreme naturalist, found a real boarding room and took it apart
What is melodrama?
Overdone drama, sometimes with swelling music
Why were the seats in Richard Wagner’s Beyreuth Theatre revolutionary? What else about
his theatre was revolutionary?
Got rid of boxes, continental seating (everyone was equal), orchestra in the pit
What were the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen’s theatre company and productions like?
Accuracy of costumes/sets, first true director, influenced realists
What is the “Fourth Wall?”
Magic wall between audience and actors
What genre of theatre is Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House?”
Realism
What form of theatre and art says “art is shit, but we want to shit in different colors?”
dada
In Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, what is unusual about the main character, Winnie?
She’s buried
What artistic and theatrical movement is characterized by a nightmarish, distorted world
view?
expressionism
What caused artists to react against realism?
Wwi, depression, mass production, industrialization
What major world events are surrounded by anti-realistic artistic and theatrical movements?
Who was Adolphe Appia? What type of design element did he feel was best able to fuse all
other theatrical elements into an artistic whole?
Scenic designer, did first lighting plot and used sptotlights
What type of acts could be seen in Vaudeville? How was Vaudeville different from Burlesque?
Variety, family vs strip shows
What was PT Barnum famous for?
Freaks, American Museum
What types of melodramas did PT Barnum show in his American Museum?
Circuses and temperance shows
What were Wild West Shows like?
Huge, live, animals
Who were Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, and Sitting Bull?
Members of the buffalo bill wild west show
What, according to a video shown in class, is considered to be the first real American
musical? (Hint: written by Kern and Hammerstein, it dealt with racism, miscegenation,
domestic violence, and show business)
showboat
What was the Federal Theatre Project?
Part of the WPA, paid actors to perform during the great depressions
In what show written by Clifford Odets did actors sit in the audience and yell “strike” until
the audience rioted?
Waiting for Lefty
What was a Living Newspaper?
style of theatre, documentaries
11-2-06
Black Theatre in America
Bert Williams-popular minstrel performer
Minstrel show: white performers in black face…then black performers in black face
TD Rice
The Escape (1858) first black play, written by Brown
In Da Homey, Abyssina (operettas)
Rachel (first black play performed, 1916, popoganda for NAACP)
Lafayette Players 1919 (Harlem, Anita Bush)
Harlem Renaissance, 1920-1930
African Americans being regular African Americans, not playing a part
Alain Locke, integrationist
Famous writers: Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes
All Black Musicals
Shuffle Along (music: Eubie Blake, 1921)
Porgy & Bess (Gershwins, 1935)
Richard Wright (1930-60)
FTP Negro Theatre Unit
Wright’s Essay, “The blueprint for negro writing” (1936)
Native Son
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
Black Theatre movement: 1960s
The Negro Ensemble Co (Sam Jackson, Denzel)
National Black Theatre
LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka
Duthman movie
Modern Playwrights/Plays
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls) choreopoem
August Wilson (The Piano Lesson) (90s)
Anna Deveare Smith (Twilight Los Angeles: 1992)
Suzan-Lori Parks (Topdog/Underdog)
11-7-06
Blackface
Minstrel shows:
19th century, mostly white in blackface, popular well into 20th century
fundraisers/community entertainment
Minstrel Line:
1. Semi-circle
Mr. interlocutor (center)
Bruder Tambo (tambourine)
Bruder Bones (castanets)
Birth of the rimshot
2. Olio
songs and skits, evolved into Vaudeville
3. One-act musical (spoof of novel or play)
Jim Crow (ignorant country bumpkin)
Zip Coon (city slicker)
Most hits of the 1800s are from Minstrel Shows
Abolitionism:
Minstrel shows coincide with N awareness of slavery
Portraits of Blacks as childlike, happy-go-lucky, always singing=safe, non-threatening
20th century:
NAACP founded in 1909
WW1 galvanized African-American community (soldiers return, protest racial injustice)
Migrations from rural S to N cities
Harlem Renaissance
c. 1920-1930s (after WW1)
explosion of artistic activity
“new Negro movement”
“two-ness”-WEB DuBois
Langston Hughes
Aaron Douglas: Into Bondage (1936)
Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake (write Shuffle Along-1941)
“I’m just Wild about Harry”
Ziegfeld hired dancers from this show to teach his Follies
Lorraine Hansberry: Raisin in the Sun
Directed by Lloyd Richards:
First black b’way director
Mentor to August Wilson
Head of Yale School of Drama
7 Guitars:
7 men with 7 guitars, anthology play, 10-minute scenes, men argue on which will play on what
corner
Future play planned, never completed: Seven Guitars Too
Inspired by decades of listening, blues
11-9-06
Latin-American Theatre
Medieval Theatre (ca 1350-1550)
Mystery Plays (biblical events)
Miracle Plays (lives of saints)
Morality Plays (religious themes, moral lesson)
Spanish Golden Age:
1550-1650:
leading world power (exploration/conquest of New World)
Devoutly Catholic nation (Norther Europe: Protestant Reformation, Inquisition)
Theatre Thrives
Lope de Vega (1562-1653) (b 2 years before S’peare)
Priest, loved ladies
More than 2200 plays, 1800 comedies, 400 autos sacramentales
“…three boards, two actors, and one passion”
Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Cortez landed in 1519
25 million Aztecs die (war/disease)
spain imposes gov’t and religion
Origins of Theatre in Mexico:
Native Mexican/Aztec rituals, Spanish drama combine
Mascaradas:
Dramatic religious allegories
Developed into posadas of today
The Last Judgement
First play written in New World
Friar Olmos, 1533
Carpas:
Mexico and border states
Traveling tent shows, 1800s-1900s
Family-run
Influenced by Euro circuses, Aztec acrobatics, vaudeville
La Carpa Garcia:
1920s-1940s
Garcia family
Traveled through SW US and Mexico
Pilar Garcia
Carpas: vaudeville and burlesque
Dances: traditional Mexican, Japan, Germany, Holland, Modern (Charleston, Jitterbug)
Luis Valdez:
El Teatro Campesino (founder)
Zoot Suit: first latin-american play produced on Broadway
Influenced by Commedia dell’Arte, Mexican Folklore, modern social issues
Theatre founded during farm worker’s strike in 1965
John Leguizamo…the king of one-man shows
Explores Stereotypes
Dozens of characters
Spic-O-Rama
Mamba Mouth
Freak
Sexaholix
11-14-06
Lisa Loomer:
Other plays: Expecting Isabel, The Waiting Room, wrote Girl, Interupted
Mother who has employed nannies, nanny characters based on interviews
11-16-06
Hroswitha von Gandersheim
10th century germany, first recorded female playwright in Europe, Imitated Terence
Puritans:
1642, England Parliament, Puritan majority, outlaws theatre
Charles I loses Civil War
Charles II:
Opened theatres, allowed women on stage, REALLY liked actresses
Mary “Moll” Davis: mistress, actor, singer, dancer, comedienne, had one child
Fanny Kemble (1809-1893)
Born in London, toured US, married plantation owner, abolitionist, helped persuade Britain to
support Union
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923)
Divine Sarah, greatest actress in the world, many us tours, managed theatres and owned one,
“silver” voice, athletic acting style, silent film star, big celebrity
Eva Le Gallienne (1899-1991)
Actress, producer, director
Translated Ibsen
Most prominent and acclaimed actress in US
Pioneered repertory theatre movement
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)
The Children’s Hour
House committee on Un-American Activities
Margaret Edson:
Kindergarten teacher
First and only play
Pulitzer Prize
Theatre in high school
John Donne (1572-1631)
Catholic, charming, witty, Elizabeth’s court, eventually became Anglican chaplain
Married woman in secret
11-21-06
Francis Gumm---Judy Garland
Marx Bros
1964: Hello, Dolly! Based on Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker
Hair:
1967, book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni
Ga;t McDermott, composer
Public Theatre, Central park
Spoke to 60s generation
Jesus Christ Superstat-1971
ALW-composer
Tim Rice-lyricist
Video:
First written as an album
Linear plot: book musical
Episodic plot: revue
Godspell-1971, Stephen Schwartz
Grease: 1972, directed by Tom Moore (PU alum)
The Wiz, 1975, all African-American
Little Shop of Horrors: 1982
Jonathan Larson:
1996, La Boheme, corporate backing, modern Oklahoma?
11-28-06
Post Modernism/Eclecticism:
Theatre for a New Millennium
1960s-Present
Broadway & non-profit theatre
1. What other movements influence the theatre of the present. What connections can you make?
2. What is the difference between performance art and theatre
3. Can theatre/art create change in society
Eclectic: made up of or combining elements from a variety of sources; a reflection of our diverse
society
Postmodernism (changes since 1960)
-loss of belief in objectivity and truth
-loss of belief in meaning
-deconstruction of societal constructs
-questioning of language
-differences in shades of meaning; not black and white opposites
Broadway Theatre:
-prices skyrocket
-“safe” moneymakers
-musicals/entertainment
-corporate takeover (Disney-Lion King)
Non-profit theatre:
1960s/70s:
experimentation and improvisational
ritualistic
(street) theatre/confronting the audience
Poor theatre movement: everything stripped down to it’s essence
The Open Theatre-Van Itallie and The Serpent
Performance art; making personal political statements; Karen Finley
Experiments with visual images & times; fragmentation, juxtaposition and recombination
Today’s eclectic theatre:
Diversity of stiles, often intermingled to produce “departures from realism”
Encompasses a variety of plot structures: linear, circular, other (M. Butterfly, Metamorphoses)
May mix genre and media
Diversity of voices: gender, ethnicity, age, religion, sexuality, etc
World Theatre: globalization
International festivals and conferences
Cross-cultural performances
Theatre of the Oppressed: political/community based theatre
Cultural (PC) sensitivity
Antonin Artaud
Changing Stages
Spurt of Blood
Theatre of cruelty
11-30-06
Review session on Tuesday in class
12-12 is the alternate final
war machine imagery
set design:
turn of the century forgery
costume design:
used color and silhouette
key word for women is restriction
bi-colored capes so they can switch
lighting design:
clear soft work lights
pull all color from light on “now is the winter”
use shadows to help contort Richard
sketches in chalk on black paper
lights above stage light up when someone dies
sound:
fun, rockin
lord of the rings stuff
some transitions were weird circus music
no underscoring, don’t interfere with the dialogue
actors:
text is a challenge
counting the pantameter
using the language instead of acting against it
family connections
1st pholio text
“dropping in” method
playing multiple characters
no scripts on stage, fed lines
spent 1 hour every rehearsal
stripping away tension in your speech
12-5-06
Review:
2nd floor of PAO hall for alternate final