Theatre Journal, 68.1 Opening section Two days before the new opera Crossing had its first performance at the Citi Shubert theatre in Boston, The New York Times published a piece entitled “Matthew Aucoin, Opera’s Great 25-Year-Old Hope.” The article, which introduced Crossing’s composer to Times readers, emphasized Aucoin’s abilities as a musician, conductor, and […]
American Theatre, 33.3 Opening Section A comedy about the Civil War? How do you make an episode from our nation’s bloodiest conflict funny? Can a play about America’s history of slavery manage to teach audiences about a neglected part of that history and also get laughs? A Civil War comedy might not be the […]
Modern Drama, 58.4 Abstract “Watching A Raisin in the Sun and Seeing Red” argues that, while anti-Communism has often been discussed by historiographers of African American theatre, Communism itself and the influence of the Communist Party U.S.A. as a positive force in black theatre history have largely been ignored. As a way of exploring […]
Asolo Program Essay, 2015-2016 Season Opening Section Guess who’s coming to dinner? The question contains a surprise, of course, but it is also a provocation, a challenge, a test for the person who hears it. In Todd Kreidler’s play, Joanna Drayton asks her fiancé and her family to “guess who” and – as it […]
Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 29.2 Opening section At the outset of Murder Most Queer, Jordan Schildcrout notes the prevalence of the criminalized, murderous, queer villain in our contemporary media. From the atrocities of Jeffrey Dahmer to the crimes passionels of Andrew Cunanan to the so-called man-hating, lesbian serial killer Aileen Wournos, newsmedia […]
Chapter 8: Viewing the Pornographic Theatre: Explicit Voyeurism, Artaud, and Ann Liv Young’s Cinderella Editor’s Description (from p. 21 of George Rodosthenous’s Introduction) The eighth chapter deals with approaches to the naked exhibited body and the pornographic in theatre. Aaron C. Thomas considers the work of Ann Liv Young in ‘Viewing the Pornographic Theatre: […]
Theatre Topics, 25.1 (collaboration with Angela Sweigart-Gallagher) Opening excerpt Early in the American classic Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Thoreau writes that “[i]t would be well perhaps if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak […]
Theatre Journal, 66.4 Opening section The Grapes of Wrath begins without music. John Steinbeck began his 1939 novel by describing the formation of clouds of dust as they rose out of the dry, broken land in Oklahoma. The empty silences are almost palpable in the novel as the winds pick up, the skies darken, […]