Theatre in
Europe Between World War I & World War II
Social and Historical Background
devastation
throughout Europe
artists
react to the chaos
Paris as center of experimentation
fewer experiments in England than in Continental Europe
In France:
Futurism
Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti (1876 -- 1944), playwright, pens manifesto
sintesi (synthetic plays)
Detonation
political
implications of Futurism
spreads through Europe: Victory
Over the Sun (1913), example of Russian Futurism
Dadaism - begins in Cabaret
Voltaire, Zurich, spreads to Paris
Tristan
Tzara (1896 -- 1963), leader, writes several manifestos, plays
The Gas Heart (1923)
Surrealism
Guillaume
Apollinaire (1880 -- 1918) –
The Breasts of
Tiresias (written 1903, produced 1917)
Jean
Cocteau (1892 -- 1963), The Marriage on
the Eiffel Tower (1921), surreal films
Andre Breton (1896 -- 1966), poet, writes surrealist
manifesto, 1924
Theatre of Cruelty
Antonin
Artaud (1896 -- 1948)
The Theatre and
Its Double (1938)
Jet of Blood (1927)
In Germany, site of the greatest
devastation
Expressionism
Georg
Kaiser (1878 -- 1945) - From Morn to
Midnight (1916)
Karel
(1890 -- 1938) [and Josef] Capek, Czech brothers - R.U.R. (1921)
Leopold
Jessner (1878 – 1945 directs an expressionist Richard III
Jessnertreppen
Epic Theatre
Erwin
Piscator (1893 -- 1966)
creates a political (agit prop) theatre
uses filmed sequences behind live actors
The Good Soldier
Schweik (Hasek, 1928)
Bertolt
Brecht (1891 -- 1956)
Threepenny Opera (1928)
Mother Courage (1937)
The Good Woman of
Setzuan (1938 -- 39)
The Caucasian
Chalk Circle (1944 -- 45)
alienation (verfremdungseffekt,
V-effekt)
historification
In Russia
more
experiments from Meyerhold
biomechanics
constructivism – settings by Lyubova Popova, other “Amazons
of avant-garde”
directs the works of Mayakovsky (e.g. The Bedbug, 1929)
directs landmark production of Gogol’s The Inspector General (1926)
other
major Russian anti-realist directors
Nikolai Evreinov (1879 -- 1953) The Storming of the Winter Palace, 1920
Evgeny Vakhtangov (1883 -- 1922) Princess Turandot
Alexander Tairov (1885 -- 1950) works with designer
Alexandra Exter
In Italy
Luigi
Pirandello (1867 -- 1936)
grotesque plays – “theatre within the theatre”
Six Characters in
Search of an Author (1921)
Enrico IV (1922)
In Spain
Federico
Garcia-Lorca (1899 -- 1936) writes poetic tragedies
Blood Wedding (1933)
The House of
Bernarda Alba (1936)
Less radical movements in France
Jacques
Copeau (1879 -- 1949) establishes the Théâtre du Vieux Columbier
experiments with masks, commedia
techniques
focuses on the actor and the text
trains many major performer/directors, notably:
Louis
Jouvet (1887 -- 1951)
Charles Dullin (1885 -- 1949)
Jean Giraudoux (1882 -- 1944) writes The Madwoman of Chaillot (1945)
In England, few radical movements
the Old
Vic (1931) is the leading theatre
Tyrone Guthrie (1900 -- 1971) directs experimental Shakespeare
there
formation
of important regional theatres (Birmingham, Manchester etc)
English
actors:
John Gielgud (1904 -- 2000), also directs frequently
Laurence Olivier (1907 -- 1989)
Edith Evans (1888 -- 1976)
Peggy Ashcroft (1907 -- 1991)
Playwrights:
Noel Coward (1899 -- 1973) – new comedies of manners
Private Lives (1930)
Blithe Spirit (1941)
T.S. Eliot (1888 -- 1965) poetic dramas - Murder
in the Cathedral (1935)
In Ireland
Sean
O'Casey (1884 -- 1964), playwright
Juno and the
Paycock (1924), others in realist mode
The Silver Tassie (1928), in expressionist mode
Theatre in the
United States Between World War I & World War II
Seeds of Change
the
"Little Theatre" movement, includes
the Toy Theatre, Boston 1912; the Chicago Little Theatre,
1912;
Neighborhood Playhouse, New York 1915; Detroit Arts and
Crafts Theatre, 1916
theatre
in the universities
George Pierce Baker (1866 -- 1935), Harvard, later Yale
the new
stagecraft
Robert Edmund Jones (1887 -- 1954) leads the movement
The Dramatic Imagination (1941)
Other designers include Norman Bel Geddes, Lee Simonson, Jo
Mielziner
The
Provincetown Players, founded 1915 by Jig Cook, produces Eugene O’Neill’s plays
The
Washington Square Players, founded 1915
becomes the Theatre Guild (1919)
the workers’ theatre movement – agit/prop, political plays
the Group
Theatre (1931 -- 1941)
socially conscious, well-performed drama
Harold Clurman (1901 -- 1980)
Cheryl Crawford (1902 -- 1986)
Lee Strasberg (1901 -- 1982) applies Stanislavsky system to actor training
the
Federal Theatre Project (1935 -- 1939) -- “free, adult, uncensored”
led by Hallie Flanagan (1890 -- 1969)
living newspapers (One-Third
of a Nation)
African-American projects
Orson Welles
(1915 -- 1985) and John Houseman (1902 -- 1988)
The Cradle Will Rock (1937)
Independent
producers/directors
Welles and Houseman, The Mercury Theatre
Arthur Hopkins (1878 -- 1950)
Eva Le Gallienne (1899 -- 1991) Civic Rep (1926)
The birth of Unions (IATSE, United Scenic Artists, Actors
Equity)
Plays & Playwrights
Eugene
O'Neill (1888 -- 1953) most important
experiments in many styles; empowers later writers
The Emperor Jones (1920)
Desire Under the
Elms (1924)
Long Day's Journey
into Night (1941, produced 1956)
wins four Pulitzers, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1936
Other American Playwrights
Elmer Rice (1892 -- 1967) The Adding Machine (1923)
Sidney Howard (1891 -- 1939) They Knew What They Wanted (1924)
Maxwell Anderson (1888 -- 1959), Mary of Scotland (1933)
Robert Sherwood (1896 -- 1952) Idiot’s Delight (1936)
William Saroyan (1908 -- 1981) The Time of Your Life (1939)
Clifford Odets (1906 -- 1963)
Waiting for Lefty (1935)
Awake and Sing (1935)
Philip Barry (1896 -- 1949) The Philadelphia Story (1939)
George S. Kaufman ((1889 -- 1961) & Moss Hart (1904 --
1961)
You Can’t Take it
With You (1936), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1940)
A Surge
of Women Playwrights
Zona Gale (1874 -- 1938), Miss Lulu Bett (performed 1920, Pulitzer 1921)
Susan
Glaspell (1876 -- 1948) – Alison’s House
(1930), Pulitzer 1931
Rachel Crothers (1878 – 1958) Susan & God (1937)
directs and casts her own plays, plays by others
Sophie Treadwell (c.1885 -- 1970) expressionist Machinal (1928)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950) Aria da Capo
with others creates The Cherry Lane Theatre (1924)
Lillian Hellman (1905 -- 1984)
The Children's Hour (1934)
The Little Foxes (1939)
and one more male: Thornton Wilder (1897 -- 1975)
Our Town (1938)
The Skin of Our Teeth (1942)
African-American theatre – roots
in Harlem Renaissance
Anita Bush (c. 1883 -- 1974)
Noble
Sissle (1889 -- 1975) & Eubie Blake (1883 -- 1983) - Shuffle Along (1921)
Angelina
Grimke (1880 -- 1958) - Rachel (1916)
Willis
Richardson (1889 -- 1977) - The
Chipwoman's Fortune (1924)
Langston
Hughes (1902 -- 1967) - Mulatto
(1935)
Paul Robeson (1898 -- 1976)
The American musical
Ziegfeld
Follies (1907 -- 1931)
George M
Cohan (1878 -- 1942) Little Johnny Jones
(1904)
influence
of European operetta
Jerome
Kern (1885 -- 1945)
Princess musicals (Very
Good Eddie, 1915; Leave it to Jane,
1917)
Showboat (1927) by Kern & Oscar Hammerstein (1895 -- 1960)
major
step forward in musicals
serious
plot, racial theme
songs
tell the story, in addition to the libretto
Irving
Berlin (1888 – 1889)
writes
songs for Ziegfeld Follies, other
revues
As Thousands Cheer (1933)
George
Gershwin (1898 -- 1937) and brother Ira (1896 -- 1983)
Of Thee I Sing (1931) -- first Pulitzer for musical
Porgy and Bess (1935)
Cole
Porter (1891 -- 1964) Anything Goes
(1934)
Richard
Rodgers (1902 -- 1979) and Lorenz Hart (1895 -- 1943)
Pal Joey (1940)
Performers on stage and in film
John
Barrymore (1882 -- 1941), sister Ethel (1879 -- 1959), brother Lionel (1878 --
1954)
Orson
Welles, Eva Le Gallienne, Paul Robeson
Group
Theatre actors exit to Hollywood
Katherine
Hepburn (1907 -- 2003)
Alfred Lunt (1892 -- 1977) & Lynne
Fontanne (1887 -- 1983)
Laurette
Taylor (1884 -- 1946)
Helen Hayes 1900 -- 1993)
Katherine Cornell (1898 -- 1974)
Theatre in
Europe and Great Britain after World War II
Social and historical background
World War
II wreaks destruction and division in Europe
The
atomic bomb
The cold
war
Artists
seek appropriate mirror to hold up to 20th c nature
Theatre in post-World War II France
The Theatre of the Absurd
critic
Martin Esslin coins the term
roots: Jarry, Pirandello
existential drama by Sartre (1905 -- 1980) & Camus
(1913 -- 1960)
Samuel
Beckett (1906 -- 1989)
Waiting for Godot (1953)
Endgame (1957)
Happy Days (1961)
Eugene
Ionesco (1912 -- 1994)
The Bald Soprano (1949)
Rhinoceros (1960)
Jean
Genet (1910 -- 1986)
The Maids (1947)
The Balcony (1956)
Other Theatre in Post-War France
Jean
Anouilh (1910 -- 1987) – writes literary, cynical drama
Antigone (1943)
Ring Round the Moon (1947)
The Lark (1953)
Influential
French Directors
Jean-Louis Barrault (1910 – 1994) - “the text is like an
iceberg”
Jean Vilar (1912 – 1971) breathes life into Théâtre
National Populaire
founds the Avignon Festival 1947
Roger Blin (1907 -- 1984) directs absurdist plays of
Beckett, Genet
Roger
Planchon (1931 -- 2009) takes a Brechtian approach to classics
two recent French directors
Patrice Chereau
(1944 -- )
directs
film, opera, as well as theatre
Ariane
Mnouchkine (1940 -- )
Théâtre
du Soleil
intercultural
theatre
a recent French playwright
Yasmina
Reza (1959 -- )
Art (1994)
The Unexpected Man (1995)
God of Carnage (2006)
Theatre in German-speaking countries
Brecht's Berliner Ensemble (1949) influences
production style throughout Europe
Two postwar writers
Max Frisch (1911 -- 1991)
The Chinese Wall (1946)
Biedermann and the Firebugs (1958)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921 -- 1990)
The Visit (1956)
The Physicists ((1962)
Docudrama
Rolf
Hochhuth (1931 -- ) The Deputy (1963)
Peter
Weiss (1916 -- 1982) The
Investigation (1965)
also writes an important non-docudrama - Marat/Sade (1964)
Two recent writers
Peter Handke (1942 -- ) – anti-theatre: Kaspar (1968)
Heiner
Müller (1929 -- 1995) deconstructionist
Hamletmachine (1977)
Postwar German Directors
Peter
Stein (1937 -- ).
Schaubühne
am Lehniner Platz
reinterpretations
of classics
Claus
Peymann (1937 -- ) revivifies Burgtheater,
Vienna
Frank
Castorf (1951 -- )
Volksbühne
in Berlin
irreverent
treatments of classics and modern classics
Thomas
Ostermeier (1968 -- )
from
the Baracke to the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
introduces
radical young British writers
German Dance Theatre - Pina Bausch
(1940 -- 2009) Tanztheater in Wuppertal
Italian Theatre from 1945 to Present
Giorgio Strehler (1921 -- 1997) – most
important post-war director
Teatro Piccolo di Milano
(1947)
Shakespeare,
Goldoni, Brecht
Franco
Zeffirelli (1923 -- ) directs and designs operas as well as plays
Dario Fo
(1926 -- ) biting political humor
Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1968)
Nobel
Prize for Literature 1997
Theatre in the Czech Republic after the war: Havel and
Svoboda
Vaclav Havel (1936 -- )
The Garden Party (1963)
becomes
President of the Czech Republic in 1989
Josef Svoboda (1920 -- 2002)
design
experiments with light and film
Laterna
Magika
Theatrical Experimentation in Poland
Slawomir
Mrozek (1932 -- 1913) Tango
(1964)
Janusz Glowacki (1938
-- ) - Hunting Cockroaches
(1985), The Fourth Sister (2003)
Jerzi
Grotowski (1933 -- 1999), influential director
Towards a Poor Theatre (1968)
a
“holy” theatre, actors priests and audience communicants
Tadeusz
Kantor (1915 -- 1990) director based in Krakow, created Theatre of Death
Postwar Theatre in the Former Soviet Union
after
Stalin, a period of “thaw”
five
important Russian directors
Oleg
Efremov (1927 -- 2000) The Sovremennik (Contemporary) Theatre
introduces
British and American plays in the period of the thaw
Yuri
Lyubimov (1917 -- ) The Taganka
Theatre (1964-1984)
experiments
with puppets, masks
non-realistic
versions of classics
stripped
of citizenship
Anatoly
Efros (1925 -- 1987)
stages
Bulgakov’s Moliere, 1967
heads
Taganka after Lyubimov
Georgi Tovstonogov (1915 -- 1989)
Gorky
Theatre, Saint Petersburg
stages
Tolstoi’s Kholstomer, or The Story of a
Horse, 1975
Lev
Dodin (1944 -- )
Maly
Theatre, Saint Petersburg
extensive
tours of U.S and Europe
Postwar Theatre in the United Kingdom
The Old Vic, elegant, old
fashioned with an emphasis on fine acting
The English Stage Company (1956) creates
a revolution in 1956
George Devine (1910 --
1965) artistic director
John Osborne (1929 --
1994)
Look Back in Anger (1956)
The Entertainer (1957)
The
Theatre Workshop (1945) – some company created pieces
Joan
Littlewood (1914 -- 2002) artistic director
Brendan Behan
(1923 -- 1965) - The Hostage (1958)
Shelagh Delaney (1939 --
) - A Taste of Honey (1958)
Oh, What a Lovely
War! (1963) company-produced success
Plays and
Playwrights
Harold Pinter (1930 -- 2008)
The Homecoming (1965)
Old Times (1970)
Betrayal (1978)
the
Pinter pause
wins
Nobel Prize for Literature, 2005
Joe
Orton (1933 -- 1967)
Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964)
What the Butler Saw (1969 – posthumously)
Peter Shaffer (1926 --
) Equus (1973), Amadeus (1979)
Tom Stoppard (1937 --
)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
(1967)
Travesties (1974)
The Real Thing (1982)
Arcadia (1993)
Caryl Churchill (1938 -- )
Cloud 9 (1979)
Top Girls (1982)
Far Away (2000)
The Royal
Shakespeare Company (1962), founded by:
Peter Hall (1930 -- )
Michel Saint Denis (1897 --
1971)
Peter Brook (1925 -- )
Brook directs famous productions of (among many others):
Marat/Sade (1964)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970)
The Mahabharata (1985)
Trevor
Nunn (1940 -- ) takes control of RSC in
1968
The Royal
National Theatre (1963)
Laurence Olivier (1907 --
1989) first artistic director
Kenneth Tynan (1927 – 1980)
literary adviser
Nicholas
Hytner (1956 -- ) takes over National in
2003
new directions, inexpensive seats
New
Theatres for New Writers
The Edinburgh Festival and its Fringe, also the Traverse,
year round
In 1968 “fringe” theatres (e.g. The Tricycle) spring up in
London
1990s
London theatres: Donmar Warehouse, Almeida, The Gate, others
Glasgow
– The Citizens’ Theatre
Recent
British Writers
“in-yer-face:
theatre
Patrick
Marber (1964 -- ) Closer (1997)
Mark
Ravenhill (1966 -- ) Shopping and Fucking (1996)
Sarah
Kane (1971 -- 1999) Blasted (1995)
The
Stratford and Shaw Festivals in Canada
Irish Drama after WWII
Brian
Friel (1929 -- )
Philadelphia, Here I Come (1964)
The
Faith Healer (1979)
Dancing at Lughnasa (1990)
Frank
McGuinness, Tom Murphy, Conor McPherson
Martin
McDonagh (1970 -- )
The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996)
The Cripple of Inishmaan (1997)
The Pillowman (2003)
Theatre in the
United States after World War II
Social and Historical Background
post-World
War II
U.S.
leads Western world
Cold
War anxieties
HUAC
hearings
family
unit shaken
Vietnam,
the 1960s and 1970s
John
F Kennedy assassinated
war
escalates
1968
- Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy assassinated
anti-establishment
protests in U.S. and throughout the world
Watergate
scandals (1972 – 1974)
a weak U.S. economy
from
the 1980s to the new millennium
new
era of conservatism
new
enemies in the post-cold war
unrest
in Baltic States
The
Middle East crisis
9-11
wars
in Iraq & Afghanistan
The Postwar Theatrical Style
Elia Kazan (1909 -- 2003) – directs
Williams, Miller
Jo Mielziner (1901 -- 1976) –
designs for Kazan
Harold
Clurman (1901 -- 1980)
Alan
Scheider (1917 -- 1984) directs absurdists, Albee, regional theatre
Actors
Studio (1947)
Robert Lewis, Elia Kazan,
Cheryl Crawford, founders
Lee Strasberg (1901 -- 1982)
– modified Stanislavsky acting style
Plays and Playwrights
O’Neill’s
late plays produced posthumously
Tennessee
Williams (1911 -- 1983) – poetic realism
The Glass Menagerie (1945)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1954)
Arthur
Miller (1916 -- 2005) – social realism
Death of a Salesman (1949)
The Crucible (1953)
The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991)
William
Inge (1913 -- 1973)
Picnic (1953)
Bus Stop (1955)
Edward
Albee (1928 -- )
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962)
A Delicate Balance (1966)
Three Tall Women (1994)
Neil
Simon (1927 -- )
Barefoot in the Park (1963)
The Odd Couple (1965)
Broadway and the American Musical
1940s -- 1960s -- the "Golden
Age" of the musical:
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Oklahoma (1943), Carousel
(1945), South Pacific (1949)
Agnes
DeMille (1909 – 1993) - dream ballets for Oklahoma,
Carousel
Alan Lerner (1918 – 1986) &
Frederick Loewe (1901 – 1988) - My Fair
Lady (1956)
Frank Loesser (1910 – 1969) - Guys and Dolls (1950)
Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990) - West Side Story (1957)
Other Golden Age musicals: The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, Hello
Dolly
"Concept" musicals:
McDermott, Rado, & Ragni, Hair (1968)
Stephen Sondheim (1930 -- )
Company (1970)
Sweeney Todd (1979)
Into the Woods (1987)
Assassins (1991)
Michael Bennett (1943 -- 1987)
(Hamlisch, Kleban, Kirkwood, Dante)
A Chorus Line (1975)
John Kander (1927 -- ) and Fred Ebb (1932 -- 2004) - Cabaret (1966), Chicago (1975)
Major
musical producers and directors
David Merrick (1911 – 2000)
Bob Fosse (1927 – 1987)
Hal Prince (1928 -- )
Jerome Robbins (1938 -- 1998)
James Lapine (1949 -- )
The
British invasion
Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948 -- )
Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)
Cats (1982)
Phantom of the Opera (1986)
Cameron Macintosh (1946
-- )
produces Lloyd Webber’s and other work, e.g. Les Miserables (1987)
The Musical in the 21st
Century
revivals,
musicals from movies, and “dancicals” that stage pop music
complicated,
intimate musicals (Lippa, La Chiusa, Guettel, others)
How does the new musical function in the commercial
theatre?
Off-Broadway, a non-commercial
alternative
full seasons of classics, modern European plays, new
American work
American
Repertory Company (1947 -- 48)
Eva LeGallienne, Margaret Webster, Cheryl Crawford,
founders
Circle in the Square (founded 1951)
Jose Quintero (1924 --
1999) & Theodore Mann (1924 -- )
the Phoenix Theatre (1953)
Stuart
Vaughn directs
merges with Association of
Producing Artists (APA) early 60s
Lincoln Center (1965)
The Regional Theatre Movement
non-profit
alternative to commercial tours
thrust
and arena stages
pioneers
Margo Jones (1913 --
1955) Theatre 47 -- Dallas (1947)
Nina Vance (1914 --
1980) Houston Alley Theatre (1947)
Zelda Fichandler (1924 -- )
Arena Stage -- Washington D.C. (1949)
expansion
in the 1960s
Ford and Rockefeller
Foundation grants (1959)
National Endowment of the
Arts (1965)
Theatre Communications
Group (1961)
well-known
regional theatres
Guthrie Theatre,
Minneapolis MN (1963)
Long Wharf, New Haven CT (1965)
A.C.T., San Francisco (1965)
and many, many more
Off-Off Broadway
Caffe
Cino – Joe Cino (d. 1967)
Judson
Poets’ Theatre – Al Carmines (1938 -- )
Cafe
La Mama -- Ellen Stewart (1921 -- )
the Living Theatre (1946)
Judith Malina (1926
-- ) & Julian Beck (1925 -- 1985)
Paradise Now (1968)
the
Open Theatre (1963)
Joe Chaikin (1935 -- 2003)
A Sampler of Non-Profit Theatres
in New York
Roundabout Theatre (1965), Gene Feist,
later Todd Haimes
Manhattan Theatre Club (1970), Lynne
Meadow
Playwrights
Horizons (1971), Robert Moss
Circle Rep (1969-1997) Marshall
Mason directs Lanford Wilson’s plays
The New
York Shakespeare Festival (1954)
Joseph
Papp (1921 -- 1991)
free
Shakespeare in Central Park, beginning 1957
The
Delacorte Theatre (1962)
the Public
Theatre (1967)
“Is the
theatre really dead?”
the future of theatre
an age of tv and computers
attempts to update
a “fabulous invalid”
the
continuing need for live performance
and remember: de nobis, fabula narrator
NOTE:
The following information was not covered in my course, at IC, but is in my
blog:
An Increasingly
Diverse Theatrical Culture in the United States
African
American theatre
Lorraine Hansberry (1930 -- 1965) - A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
African
American Theatre in the 1960s and 70s
Amiri Baraka (1934 -- ) Dutchman
(1964), Slave Ship (1969)
Ed Bullins (1935 -- ) The
Taking of Miss Janie (1975)
Negro Ensemble Company (NEC)
(1967) Douglas Turner Ward, Robert Hooks
Alice
Childress (1920-1994) Wine in the
Wilderness (1969)
Ntozake Shange (1948 --
)
for colored girls who have considered
suicide when
the rainbow is enuf (1975)
August Wilson (1945 -- 2005)
Fences (1985) wins Pulitzer Prize
The Piano Lesson (1990) wins Pulitzer
Prize
Lloyd Richards
(1923-2006) directs Wilson’s work
some recent African
American playwrights
George
C. Wolfe (1955 -- )
The Colored Museum (1986)
artistic
director, Public Theatre (1993-2004)
Anna Deavere Smith (1951 -- )
Fires in the Mirror (1991)
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993)
Susan Lori Parks
(1964 -- ) Topdog/Underdog (2002)
Dael
Orlandersmith (1959 -- ) Yellowman
(2002)
Lynne
Nottage (1964 -- ) Ruined (2008)
Pulitzer Prize 2009
Hispanic
American theatre
El Teatro Campesino
Luis Valdez (1940 --
) Zoot Suit (1978)
INTAR, Repertorio
Espanol, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, Nuyorican Poets’ Café
Miguel Pinero (1947 -- 1988) Short Eyes
Maria
Irene Fornes (1930 -- ) Fefu and her Friends (1977), The Conduct of Life 1985
Milcha
Sanchez Scott, Roosters (1987)
Stephen Adly Guirgis, Jesus Hopped the A-Train
Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics, Pulitzer Prize 2003
Asian American theatre
The East-West
Players (1965)
Pan Asian Repertory Theatre (1977) Tisa
Chang (1945 -- ) artistic director
David
Henry Hwang (1957 -- ) M. Butterfly (1988)
Ping
Chong (1946 -- ) – performance artist
Native American Theatre
Hanay
Geiogamah (1945 -- )
Native American Theatre Ensemble
Spiderwoman (1975) Native American
women’s ensemble
Gay and Lesbian Theatre
Split Britches (1981)
Peggy
Shaw, Lois Weaver, Deborah Margoli Belle
Reprieve (1991)
The
Five Lesbian Brothers (1989), Lisa Kron and others
Mart Crowley (1935
-- ) The
Boys in the Band (1968)
Martin Sherman, Bent (1978)
Plays about AIDS
Larry Kramer
(1935 -- ) The Normal Heart (1981)
William Hoffman
(1939 -- ) As Is (1981)
Harvey Fierstein
(1954 -- ) Torch Song Trilogy (1983)
Charles Ludlam
(1943 -- 1987) The Ridiculous Theatrical Company
The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984)
Terrence McNally
(1939 -- )
Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994)
Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune
(1982)
Master Class (1995)
Tony Kushner (1956
-- )
Angels in America (1991-1993)
Homebody/Kabul
Caroline or
Change (2004)
Some Important Recent American Playwrights
Lanford
Wilson (1937 -- ) Hot L Baltimore (1973)
John
Guare (1938 -- ) Six Degrees of
Separation (1990)
David
Rabe (1940 -- ) Hurlyburly (1984)
Sam
Shepard (1943 -- )
Curse of the
Starving Class (1977)
Buried Child (1978)
True West (1980)
David
Mamet (1947 -- )
American Buffalo (1975)
Glengarry Glen
Ross (1983)
Speed-the-Plow (1988)
Marsha
Norman (1947 -- ) ‘night, Mother
(1983)
Christopher
Durang (1949 --) Sister Mary Ignatius Explains
It All For You (1979)
Wendy
Wasserstein (1950 -- 2006) The Heidi
Chronicles (1988)
John
Patrick Shanley (1950 -- ) Doubt
(2004)
Paula
Vogel (1951 -- )
The Baltimore
Waltz (1982)
How I Learned to
Drive (1997)
Craig
Lucas (1951 -- ) Prelude to a Kiss
(1990)
Beth
Henley (1952 -- ) Crimes of the Heart
(1977)
Donald
Margulies (1954 -- ) Sight Unseen
(1992)
Richard
Greenberg (1958 -- ) Take Me Out (2002)
Teresa
Rebeck (?) Spike Heels (1990)
Neil
LaBute (1963 -- ) reasons to be pretty
(2008)
Tracey
Letts (1965 -- ) August: Osage County
(2007)
Sarah
Ruhl (1972 -- ) Eurydice (2003)
Postmodern Performance in America
The
Performance Group (1967-80)
Richard Schechner (1934-
) writes Environmental Theatre
(1968)
Dionysus in 69 (1968)
Wooster
Group (1980- ) founded by Elizabeth
LeCompte (1944- )
Routes 1 & 9 (1981)
Brace Up! (1990)
To You, The Birdie
(2002)
“deconstructions” of classics
Ontological-Hysteric
Theatre (1968) founded by Richard Foreman (1937- )
Total Recall (1970)
The Gods are
Pounding my Head (Lumberjack Messiahs)
(2005)
Mabou
Mines (1970)
Lee Breuer (1937- )
JoAnne Akalaitis
(1937- )
Martha
Clarke - dance theatre
Garden
of Earthly Delights (1984, revived 2009)
Vienna Lusthaus (1986, revived 2002-03)
Peter
Sellars (1957- )
directs ART’s The
Inspector General 1980-81
heads American National Theatre 1984-86
updates Mozart trilogy Don
Giovanni, Figaro, and Cosi fan Tutte 1989
heads Los Angeles Festival and Boston Opera Theater 1990
stages The Persians,
Los Angeles Festival 1993
Robert
Wilson (1942- )
CIVIL warS (1983-84)
The Black Rider (1989)
Time Rocker (1996)
Woyzeck (2000)
Robert
LePage (1957- ) French Canadian
founds
Ex Machina, Quebec City, 1993
Seven Streams of the River Ota (1994)
The Far Side of the Moon (2000)
Some major recent directors not already noted (listed
alphabetically).
This and the lists below
do not pretend to be complete.
U.S.:
Anne Bogart b. 1951 Mike Nichols b. 1931
Robert Falls b. 1954 Jack O’Brien b. 1939
Frank Galati b. 1943 Andrei Serban b. 1943
Michael Greif b. 1959 Daniel Sullivan b. 1920
Joe Mantello b. 1962 Julie Taymor b. 1952
Des McAnuff b. 1952 Jerry Zachs b. 1946
Gregory Mosher b. 1949
England &
Ireland
Howard Davies b. 1945 Sam Mendes b. 1965
Declan Donnellan b. 1953 Katie Mitchell b.1964
Richard Eyre b. 1943 Adrian Noble b. 1950
Michael Grandage b. 1962- Thea Sharrock b. 1976
Garry Hynes b. 1953 Max Stafford-Clark b. 1941
Jonathan Kent b. 1950 Deborah Warner b. 1959-
Simon McBurney b. 1957
Europe
Eugenio Barba b. 1936 Jerome Savary b. 1942-
Ingmar Bergman 1918-2007 Antoine Vitez 1930 – 1990
Calixto Bieito b.1963 Andrzej Wajda b. 1926
Tadeusz Kantor 1915-1990 Peter Zadek 1926-2009
Luca Ronconi b. 1933
Some major recent designers not already
mentioned (listed chronologically)
U.S.
Scenic Costume Lighting
Ming Cho Lee b. 1930 Patricia
Zipprodt 1925-1999 Tharon
Musser 1925-2009
Robin Wagner b. 1933 Theoni
Aldredge b. 1932 Jennifer
Tipton b. 1937
Tony Walton b. 1934 Jane
Greenwood b. 1934 Jules
Fisher b. 1937
John Conklin b. 1937 William
Ivey Long b. 1947 Paul
Gallo b. 1953
Marjorie Kellogg b. 1946 Susan
Hilferty Peggy
Eisenhauer b. 1962
Eugene Lee b. 1949 Ann
Hould-Ward b. 1954 Brian
MacDevitt 1956-
Santo Loquasto b. 1944 Ken
Billington 1946-
John Lee Beatty b. 1948
Sound
Harold Burris-Meyer 1902 – 1985
Abe Jacob b. 1944
Tony Meola
Mark Bennett
Dan Moses Schreier
England
Set & (frequently) Costume Lighting Sound
Ralph Koltai b. 1924 Andrew
Bridge b. 1952 David
Collison
John Bury 1925 – 2000 Paule
Constable Adrienne
Quartly
Sally Jacobs b. 1932 Mark
Henderson Paul Arditty
John Napier b. 1944 Hugh
Vanstone Bobby
Aitken
Nick Ormerod b. 1951 Christopher
Shutt
Deirdre Clancy Carolyn
Downing
Bob Crowley b. 1953?
Tim Hatley b. 1967
European Designers
E. F. Burian 1904 – 1959 Karl-Ernst Herrmann b. 1936
Miroslav Kouril 1911-1984 Roberto Moscoso b. 1943
Josef Svoboda 1920 – 2002 Richard Peduzzi b. 1943
Andre Acquart b. 1922 Hans Peter Kuhn b. 1952
Franco Zeffirelli b. 1923 Dionysis
Fotopoulos
Ezio Frigerio b. 1930 Jean Kalman
The following is an outline I created to add to the
woefully little “world” theater in my courses. It is not anywhere near complete,
but it may be of interest to some of you.
A Few Examples of Theatre in the Middle East
Islamic Influences on the Theatre
storytelling
puppet
drama
Iran
Arts Festival at Shiraz 1967-77
Before the Iranian fundamentalist revolution major performing artists
such as Peter Brook, John Cage, Merce Cunningham took part
Ta’ziyeh, a religious
drama that reenacts the murder of the grandson of Mohammed, the founder of
Islam
Palestine
Palestinian National
Theatre (1984)
Jidariyya (2008) based on a poem by
Mahmoud Darwish
Al-Kasaba
Theatre (1970)
Israel
Habimah Theatre --
established in Russia, moved to Palestine 1928
Tel
Aviv Municipal Theatre (The Cameri) founded 1944
Joshua Sobel (1939- )
writes Ghetto (1984)
heads
Municipal Theatre, Haifa
combines
Israeli and Palestinians in controversial productions
A Sampling of Theatre in Africa
traditional dance drama and
storytelling
influence of colonial powers
contemporary African
theatre reflects both of those influences
Nigeria
Roots in Yoruba Empire,
dating back to 14th century
1950s
Herbert Ogunde produces Yoruba operas
Wole Soyinka
(1934- ) in Nigeria
Death and the King’s Horseman (1976)
Nobel
Prize 1986
Biyi Bendele, recent Nigerian playwright, was commissioned by RSC to
adapt Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko
Portuguese-speaking Africa (Angola,
Mozambique etc)
After independence
(mid-1970s) a surge of political plays, vaudevilles etc
French-speaking Africa
North Africa
– Algeria
Muslim
tradition and French censorship impede growth of theatre
Kateb
Yacine, playwright well-known in France
South of
the Sahara
pre-colonization:
pieces featuring story-tellers
Recent
historical plays react against French colonialism
Jean-Marie
Serreau (1915 – 1973)
trained
with Charles Dullin
in
1960s became associated with plays by Yacine, others
South Africa
Market Theatre, Johannesburg, est 1976 as an independent
non-racial theatre
Space Theatre, Cape Town, defiantly no-racial, active in
70s re-opened 2008
Athol Fugard (1932-
)
Sizwe Banzi is Dead (1972)
with
John Kani, Winston Ntshona
Master Harold and the Boys (1982)
William Kentridge, artist, designer,
director
Woyzeck
on the Highveld, 1992
Ritorno d’Ulisse in
Patria
Magic
Flute Metropolitan Opera
The Nose, Metropolitan
Opera
Handspring Puppet Company
Founders:
Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler
Frequently
work with Kentridge
Woyzeck
on the Highveld, 1992
Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria
War
Horse
A Few Dramatists/Directors in South America
& the Caribbean
Martinique
Aime Cesaire (1913-2008)
A Tempest (1969)
Trinidad
Derek
Walcott (1930- )
The
Odyssey: A Stage Version (1993)
Nobel
Prize 1992
Mustapha
Matura (1939- )
The Playboy of the West Indies (1984)
Brazil
Augusto Boal (1931 --
2009), theoretician and practitioner
The Theatre of the Oppressed (1975)
theatre for
social change
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