Theatre History II Final

The Group Theatre

- "America's Moscow Art Theatre" - A non-commercial company producing plays in the Broadway district - Introduced Stanislavsky's system to the US and produced relevant social/ political dramas - Founding members: Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Harold Clurman, Stella Adler - Group disbanded because of Strasberg and Adler's disagreements over the right interpretation of Stanislavsky's system

Stanislavski's "Magic If"

- "If" is a word that can transform one's thoughts; through it you can imagine yourself in virtually any situation - Ex: "IF I suddenly became wealthy..." - The word if = a lever for the mind; can give you a sense of absolute certainty about imaginary circumstances

Lin-Manuel Miranda

- American composer, lyricist, actor, singer, rapper, producer, and playwright. Known for "In the Heights" and "Hamilton"

Stephen Sondheim

- American musical composer and lyricist - His musicals combine complicated lyrics, ingenious characters, intriguing subject matter, and complex music - "West Side Story", "Sweeney Todd" and "Into the Woods"

Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino

- American playwright who founded El Teatro Campesino to support a strike that farmworkers had organized in Delano, California - Wrote and directed "Zoot Suit"

Augusto Boal

- Brazilian playwright, director, and theorist - Known for his theoretical work "Theatre of the Oppressed", which became a manifesto for revolutionary and socially conscious theatre - Theatre was meant to be a tool for revolutionary change and for the ending of oppression

Lynn Nottage

- Contemporary African American female playwright - She wrote plays which address issues of feminism and racism that have been produced in regional and alternative theatres - Known for her two Pulitzer Prize winning plays, "Ruined" and "Sweat"

Anton Chekhov

- Created modern tragicomedy (ex: The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya) - One of the best short story writers in Russia, but when "The Sea Gull" was first produced in St. Petersburg it was horribly received because: - 1: audiences were not used to an understated and lifelike plot with no melodramatic developments - 2: The actors did not know how to perform a show like this b/c they did not understand his dramatic techniques and had barely rehearsed - His dramatic technique: - Relying on indirect action and character development to make tension - "The Sea Gull" was performed next at the Moscow Art Theatre because Stanislavsky and Danchenko wanted their theater to be different than the rest - Was well produced and well received this time & Chekhov continued to work with the Moscow Art Theatre

Václav Havel

- Czech playwright who challenged Communist and Soviet authorities in his plays, leading to the banishment of his works and his imprisonment - In 1989 he was elected president after the Czech Republic emerged as an independent nation

Josef Svoboda

- Czechoslovakian designer who experimented with such elements as projections - He believed that because a play only exists in performance, its setting must be dynamic, changing throughout the performance according to the demands of the text - He experimented with integrating performers and projected images, a technique he called "laterna magika" - "Polekran" literally means "multiscreen" and refers to his practice of using multiple screens at multiple angles and heights

Expressionism

- Developed in Germany in the early 1900s - A movement of art and literature in which the reality represented is distorted to communicate inner feelings - Expressionist plays are highly subjective and the dramatic action is seen through the eyes of the protagonist and therefore frequently distorted seeming or dream-like - Expressionist drama is often opposed to society and family, many writers were socialist/ pacifists - Short speeches alternating with long lyrical passages - Structured as "station dramas" referring to the stations of the cross and emphasizing parallels between the protagonist and Christ - Plays: "The Son" by Walter Hasenclever, "From Morn to Midnight" by Georg Kaiser, "Man and the Masses" by Ernst Toller

Julie Taymor

- Director of "Lion King" - Designer of masks and puppets for "Lion King"

Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty

- French writer and theorist - Believed that Western theater needed to be completely transformed and should be based on stylized Asian theaters - Believed theater should bombard their viewer's senses - Felt that scripts and plays should be reworked to maintain relevance and "classics" should only be put on if they are still relevant to contemporary audiences - Argued that productions could be staged in "found spaces" - Believed that theater could act as a "plague" cleansing modern society of all that was ugly

Emile Zola

- French writer, probably the most famous proponent of naturalism - Believed in "scientific objectivity" which was the idea that an artist should present a picture of the real world without making the author's presence felt - Believed that everything onstage (characters, language, costumes, etc..) should seem to come straight out of everyday life - "Thérèse Raquin"

Bertolt Brecht and Epic Theatre

- German Marxist dramatist well known for his theories and his plays - Argued that a production should force the audience to be emotionally detached/ "alienated" from the dramatic action - Brecht's form of epic theater: - Episodic structure - Deal with history or fictional lands over a long period of time - Shifts locale often and has many characters Intricate plot - Hated escapism in theater and actively reminded his audiences they were watching a show throughout the performance by spoiling what's going to happen next on title cards, having exposed lighting instruments, etc. - Plays: "The Threepenny Opera", "Man is Man", "Galileo"

Jerzy Growtowski and his "Poor Theatre"

- Inspired by Stanislavsky - Poor theater came from the question "What is theater?" - Believed that only the audience and the actor were essential so script, scenery, and other elements were considered less important - Tried to intensify the audience/actor relationship by experimenting with various spatial arrangements - His acting style was externally based with emphasis on control of one's voice/body instead of inner emotions - Was criticized b/c was more interested in the nature/form of theater as an art instead of a vehicle for social/political views

Samuel Beckett

- Irish playwright and author renowned for absurdism - Shows the ridiculous aspects of life in dramatic form - Plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days

George Bernard Shaw

- Irish theater critic turned playwright - Defended the realists/naturalists (LOVED Ibsen) and believed drama should inspire social reform - "Our Theater in the Nineties" set a new higher standard of dramatic criticism - Started writing plays after not finding any English dramas that reflected his views - His plays discussed social problems and philosophy while also being witty comedies - Could be characterized as realistic comedy of manners - Plays: Caesar and Cleopatra, Saint Joan, Pygmalion (later adapted into My Fair Lady) - Awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for literature in 1925 - Got hate later in life because he considered war a useless enterprise and praised dictators

NEA Four

- Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes - Proposed grants from National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Brought case to Supreme court. In the end NEA, under pressure from congress, stopped funding individual artists.

Eugene O'Neill

- Leading American playwright of the early-mid 20th century - Wrote almost every form of drama- realism, expressionism, modern versions of Greek tragedy - Son of famous actor James O'Neill - Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1920 for his play "Beyond the Horizon" - Also known for "The Hairy Ape" and "Long Day's Journey into Night"

Mei Lanfang

- Most renowned performer of Peking Opera and one of the first Asian theater artists to influence Western theater developments - Specialized in "tan" = female roles - Mei's work = one of the biggest influences on Brecht's acting theories - Refused to act when Japan invaded China and didn't act again until the Japanese surrendered years later

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein and the importance of the musical Oklahoma!

- Musical produced in 1943which brought the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein together for the first time - Heralded a golden age of the American book musical - Seamlessly brought together story, music, lyrics, and dances so that the production combined tone, mood, and intention in a unified whole - Its choreography, by Agnes DeMille, influenced Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse

Tennessee Williams

- One of the foremost 20th century playwrights in the United States - Won Pulitzer Prizes for his plays "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" - Also well-known for "The Glass Menagerie"

The Federal Theatre Project (FTP)

- Part of the WPA to help the unemployed work again during the depression - Headed by Hallie Flanagan Davis - Lasted only 4 years b/c political disagreements, closest we've ever been to having a National Theatre - Most popular form was "living newspaper" = dramatization of current events

Rabindranath Tagore

- Prominent Indian philosopher, social reformer, poet, and playwright - Plays written in Bengali covering a wide array of styles and subjects - His works include song, mime, dance, and lyrical verse tinged with mysticism; often does not translate well to English audiences - Received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913

Beijing (Peking) Opera

- Resembled a modern day dinner theater, with audiences eating and drinking at tables - Combines music, dance, and theater and has elements of folk drama - Origins in popular entertainment - Symbolism is very important; chairs and a table could = a throne room - Long traditions of popular singing, acrobatics, and acting - Inspired Brecht

Andrew Antoine and the Free Theatre Movement

- Was founded in Paris after Antoine's first amateur acting troupe refused to produce a one-act adaption of a short story by Zola, so he rented a theater and started another company - Used the fourth wall and motivated lighting (ex: a table lamp that really works) - Introduced French audiences to realistic and naturalistic playwrights like Ibsen and Zola - Was against celebrity actors and organized a company of amateur actors to create ensemble performances - Believed an actor should appear to be living, not acting

Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki

SITI Company founded by these two directors, one American and one Japanese