Theatre History Studies articles from January 1 2005

Theatre History Studies archives from January 1 2005

It's been how long?!(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... During the spring convention of the Mid-America Theatre Conference in March 1993, Ron Engle, who had been editor of this journal since its inception in 1981, asked me if I would be interested in assuming the editorship. Without giving it much...

The uses of empathy: theater and the real world.(Excerpt)
January 1, 2005... (This was the keynote address delivered at the MATC annual convention in Kansas City, March 5, 2005. Portions of this speech are adapted from Blank and Jensen's new book Living Justice: Love, Freedom and the Making of The Exonerated, published...

The landmark years of the Humana Festival.
January 1, 2005... Just south from the banks of the Ohio River rests Main Street, Louisville's avenue for the arts. Positioned along this one-way street is the city's Kentucky Center for the Arts (which houses the touring roadshows) as well as the...

"London is the place for me": performance and identity in Notting Hill Carnival.
January 1, 2005... In the heart of London, across several square miles of North Kensington, on the last weekend of August every year, between a million and a million and a half people share in a process of transformation. The streets become stage and auditorium,...

On the streets of Notting Hill: Carnival as/is theatre.
January 1, 2005... Is carnival theatre? And if so, can it be studied in the same way we study other forms of theatre? Or is it best left on the margins where it has historically generated much of its energy and creativity? But carnival refuses to stay on the...

Edwin Booth goes west: 1852-1856.
January 1, 2005... In July of 1852, in the company of his father Junius Brutus Booth, eighteen-year-old Edwin Booth arrived in San Francisco. The story of Edwin's years in California, interrupted by a voyage to Australia, has been sketched by all of Booth's...

The winds of change: alternative theatre practice and political transformation in the former FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).
January 1, 2005... The months September 2000-February 2002 were turbulent ones for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), now Serbia and Montenegro. They saw the transfer of power from Slobodan Milosevic to Vojislav Kostunica, as well as Milosevic's transfer...

Still Fervent: Phoebe Brand at 96: the last of the Group Theatre and of the first generation of American Stanislavsky System actors.(Interview)
January 1, 2005... Harold Clurman's The Fervent Years (1945) still stands as the defining chronicle of the Group Theatre (1931-1941). The Group Theatre's aspirations and accomplishments keep it among the pre-eminent American theatre endeavors of the 20th century....

The Washington Square players: art for art's sake.
January 1, 2005... In the years before the First World War, when the century was less than a dozen years old, an upheaval that would have cultural and artistic repercussions across the country was taking place in an obscure corner of New York City. The social,...

Between love and theatre: young Stanislavsky.
January 1, 2005... "Konstantin Sergeyevich was a man with a capital 'M,' while I was ordinary, and I have always known it."--Maria Lilina (1) Foreword from the author Despite the great many books that were written about Stanislavsky, he--the human being...

Zoe Akins: Broadway Playwright.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Zoe Akins: Broadway Playwright. Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies number, 107. By Alan Kreizenbeck. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2004; pp. xv + 231. $64.95 cloth. Between 1919 and 1944, eighteen of Zoe Akins's plays...

Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theater.(Musical Theater and American Culture)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre. By John Bush Jones. Lebanon, NH: University of New England Press, 2003; pp. xiii + 411. $29.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. Musical Theater and American Culture. By David...

Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee. By Mona Z. Smith. New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., an affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. pp. ix + 430.38 b/wh illustrations. $27 cloth. Exhaustively researched and impressive in depth,...

The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson. By Harry J. Elam, Jr. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2004, pp. xix + 271. $49.50 cloth. For the past two decades, playwright August Wilson has occupied a preeminent position...

Women's Contribution to Nineteenth-Century American Theatre.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Women's Contribution to Nineteenth-Century American Theatre. By Miriam Lopez Rodriguez and Maria Dolores Narbona Carrion. Valencia: Biblioteca Javier Coy d'estudis nord-americans, Universitat de Valencia, 2004; pp. 183. The twelve essays...

"Stage Page, Scandals, and Vandals": William E. Burton and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... "Stage Page, Scandals, and Vandals": William E. Burton and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre. By David L. Rinear. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003; pp. ix + 283. $55.00 cloth. It is always a pleasure to read such a...

Composing Ourselves: The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... "Composing Ourselves": The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience. By Dorothy Chansky. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004; pp. xiii + 293.15 b/wh illustrations. $55.00 cloth. Predicated on Progressive Era...

Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater. By Milly S. Barranger. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 367 pp. $35.00 cloth. Milly S. Barranger's book about Margaret Webster brings into public awareness one of the most important...

Writing and Rewriting National Theatre Histories.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Writing and Rewriting National Theatre Histories. Edited by S.E. Wilmer. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004; pp. xi + 277. $42.95 cloth. Nationalism and history have always been uneasy bedfellows--or perhaps too easy...

The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia. Edited by Philip C. Kolin. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004: pp. xxix + 350. $89.95 cloth. The career of Tennessee Williams spanned nearly fifty years, encompassing a voluminous output and...

Playing Underground: a Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement. By Stephen J. Bottoms, University of Michigan Press, 2004; pp. x + 448. 38 b/wh illustrations. $35.00 cloth. In small basements, coffeehouses, lofts and...

Books received.
January 1, 2005... The listing of a book in this section does not preclude subsequent review. Aebischer, Pascale. Shakespeare's Violated Bodies: Stage and Screen Performance. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. xiii + 221. $65 cloth. ...