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https://www.thedldf.org/board-and-staff
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en
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Board and Staff — Dramatists Legal Defense Fund
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Dramatists Legal Defense Fund
|
https://www.thedldf.org/board-and-staff
|
VICE PRESIDENT
F. Richard Pappas is an entertainment attorney with over 30 years’ experience in the theatre, motion picture, television, and literary publishing industries. Before establishing an exclusive private practice in 1992, Rick was a member of the entertainment department of the New York City firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison for 11 years. He has been fortunate to represent pre-eminent playwrights, composers, directors, choreographers and producers on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in the West End, as well as numerous clients in the not-for-profit theatre community. In 1990 Rick co-conceived and produced the groundbreaking charity record album Red Hot + Blue with contemporary artists such as David Byrne, U2, Annie Lennox and Tom Waits reinterpreting the songs of Cole Porter, and executive produced the companion ABC/Channel 4 television special featuring short films by Jonathan Demme, Wim Wenders, Neil Jordan and Jim Jarmusch. The album was RIAA-Certified Gold and has generated over $5 million for AIDS research and relief organizations. In 2012 Rick was Executive Producer of the Cameron Mackintosh/Working Title motion picture adaptation of Les Miserables, which was Oscar® and BAFTA nominated and won the Golden Globe as Best Picture. He is a graduate of Yale and lives in Austin, Texas because he can.
TREASURER
Ralph Sevush, Esq., is an entertainment attorney. He’s been with The Dramatists Guild of America since 1997, and their Co-Executive Director and general counsel since June 2005. After college (SUNY at Stony Brook, 1983), he began a career in the film industry with Cinema 5 films and New Line Cinema, working in motion picture marketing, distribution, and script development. After law school (Cardozo School of Law, 1991), he worked with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Reiss Media Entertainment, International Media Investors and Sony Pictures.
Then, as Director of Business Affairs for Fremont Associates/Pachyderm Entertainment, he began his career in the Theater with the Broadway productions of BIG the Musical, Bill Irwin & David Shiner’s Fool Moon, Julia Sweeney’s God Said, 'HA!' and the off-Broadway & L.A. productions of Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life. Since coming to the Dramatists Guild, in addition to administering the organization and advising the Guild’s membership and its council, he has co-authored numerous amicus briefs, and provided expert testimony, in a range of cases affecting playwrights. He has also authored over 70 articles on the theater industry for The Dramatist magazine, as well as hosting seminars and workshops for writers. He founded The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund in 2012 to support the Guild’s efforts in defense of free speech and copyright protection.
SECRETARY
JT Rogers is the author of the plays Oslo, One Giant Leap, Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar, which have been seen on London’s West End and at the National Theatre, on Broadway and at Lincoln Center Theater, and throughout the US and the world. For Oslo he received the 2017 Tony, New York Critics, Outer Critics, Drama Desk, Drama League, Lortel, and Obie awards for Best Play. He wrote the screenplay for the HBO film of Oslo, and is the creator, writer, and showrunner of the HBOMax series Tokyo Vice. Rogers has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and is the recipient of the Irwin Piscator Award in recognition of his body of work. He is a founding partner of SRO Productions and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
BOARD MEMBER
Plays include: Stick Fly (’12 Outer Circle Critics Nomination – Best Play [Broadway],’10 Irne Award – Best Play, ’10 LA Critics Circle Award – Playwriting, ’10 LA Garland Award - Playwriting, ’09 LA Weekly Theatre Award – Playwriting, ’08 Susan S. Blackburn Finalist, ‘06 Black Theatre Alliance Award),’06 Joseph Jefferson Award Nomination – Best New Work, Voyeurs de Venus(’06 Joseph Jefferson Award – Best New Work, ‘06 BTAA – Best Writing), The Bluest Eye (’06 Black Arts Alliance Image Award – Best New Play, ‘08 American Alliance for Theatre and Education Distinguished Play Award), The Gift Horse (’05 Theodore Ward Prize, Kesselring Prize 2nd Place), Harriet Jacobs, and Stage Black. Theatres include: Arena Stage, Cort Theatre (Broadway), Chicago Dramatists, Company One, Congo Square, Everyman Theatre Company, Freedom Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Co., Jubilee Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Long Wharf, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, McCarter Theatre Co., Mo’Olelo Theatre Co., MPAACT, New Vic (Off Broadway), Playmakers Rep, Plowshares Theatre Co., Steppenwolf, TrueColors, and Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Commissions include: Steppenwolf (4), McCarter, Huntington, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville/Victory Gardens, Humana, Boston University, and The Roundabout. Stick Fly and Harriet Jacobs published by NU Press, Bluest Eye, Gift Horse, Stage Black - Dramatic Publishing, Stick Fly - Samuel French. Lydia is a graduate of Northwestern University where she majored in Performance Studies. Lydia was an ’05/’06 W.E.B. Du Bois Institute non-resident Fellow, a 2007 TCG/NEA Playwright in Residence at Steppenwolf, an 06/07 Huntington Playwright Fellow, a 2012/’13 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, a 2012 Sallie B. Goodman McCarter Fellow, a 2012 Sundance Institute Playwright Lab Creative Advisor, is Co-Vice President of Theatre Communication Group’s Board of Directors, is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, has an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Pine Manor College, and is on faculty at Boston University.
BOARD MEMBER
Cheryl L. Davis is the General Counsel of the Authors Guild and a former partner at the firm of Menaker & Herrmann LLP, with more than 30 years’ legal experience. Her practice before the Authors Guild focused on counseling clients on intellectual property issues and litigating copyright and trademark cases. An award-winning playwright, she has long combined her creative passion with her legal work, representing theater clients in connection with a variety of contract and corporate issues (including both intellectual property and employment matters). She has made numerous presentations and written about intellectual property in the commercial arena, as well as for theater artists and other creatives. She was recently honored by the Lawyers Alliance for New York for her pro bono work, and she is the Vice President of Theater Resources Unlimited, a networking organization for producers and producing entities, as well as a proud member of the League of Professional Theatre Women. As a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, and now the Authors Guild, she has hit the Guild trifecta.scription
BOARD MEMBER
Broadway: Leap of Faith, Arcadia, Speed-the-Plow, The Homecoming, Company, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Taboo, Cabaret, The Rocky Horror Show. Off-Broadway: Seared, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Normal Heart, Comedians, tick, tick... BOOM!
ENCORES!: Anyone Can Whistle, The Cradle Will Rock, Road Show, Oliver! Shakespeare in the Park’s Twelfth Night, Cymbeline.
Kennedy Center: Chess, 2002 Sondheim Celebration: Sunday in the Park with George and Merrily We Roll Along.
Regional: Cry, The Beloved Country, Slaughterhouse-Five, Fur, What the Butler Saw, Arcadia, The Waves.
Television: Retreat, Candy, Dopesick, Law & Order: SVU, Hannibal, The Path, Bojack Horseman, Pushing Daisies. Film: Find Me Guilty, Custody, Ferdinand, My Soul to Take, Elian. Online: Take Me to The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration (Drama League Award, Library of Congress), The Waves In Quarantine.
A four-time Tony Award nominee in every acting category, Raúl is the recipient of the OBIE, the New York Outer Critics Award, the Barrymore, the LA Ovation Award, the Jose Ferrer Award, three Drama Desk Awards, and the Theater World Award.
BOARD MEMBER
Pulitzer Prize, Tony, WGA, and Humanitas Award winner, three-time Emmy nominated writer. Author of twenty plays: Old Cock, ReCON$truxion, The Trojan Women at Sandy Hook, The Great Society, All The Way, (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Steinberg, and Edward Kennedy Awards), The Investigation; A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts, Building the Wall, Hanussen, Shadowplay, By the Waters of Babylon, Handler, A Single Shard, Devil and Daniel Webster, Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates, Final Passages, The Marriage of Miss Hollywood and King Neptune, Heaven on Earth, Tachinoki, The Dream Thief, The Kentucky Cycle (Pulitzer Prize, Tony and Drama Desk nominations), and a musical, The 12. Films: Hacksaw Ridge, The Quiet American. TV: All the Way, The Pacific, The Andromeda Strain, Crazy Horse, Spartacus. Robert is a Plan II/Fine Arts graduate of UT. He is a Distinguished Alumnus and a member of the Friar Society. He is currently President of the Orchard Project, a member of the Dramatists Guild National Council, a board member of The Lillys, NTC member, and a New Dramatists Alumnus.
BOARD MEMBER
Laurence T. Sorkin is a retired partner in the New York City law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, where he practiced for more than 45 years and was head of the firm’s antitrust and trade practice group. During that time he represented clients before the Federal Trade Commission, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and numerous state and foreign competition authorities, and litigated a wide range of antitrust issues in federal and state courts. He also led his firm’s pro bono practice for a number of years.
Larry was outside counsel at the Dramatists Guild of America for many years while at Cahill, and he has represented the Guild in some of its most significant matters. He successfully defended the Guild in the antitrust lawsuit that led to the adoption of the Approved Production Contract (APC) currently in use today for Broadway productions. He also represented the Guild as amicus in Thomson v. Larson, the landmark Second Circuit case rejecting a dramaturg’s claim that she was the co-author and joint owner of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical, Rent.
He is currently an adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School and is also a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam Law School in The Netherlands. He has also taught at Yale Law School. He is a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at Loyola University (Chicago) School of Law and the advisory board of the Fordham Competition Law Institute. He has served in leadership positions in the Antitrust Law Section of the American Bar Association and has spoken at antitrust conferences in the United States and abroad.
He has been a member of the board of directors of The Legal Aid Society of New York, as well as the board of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and currently serves on the board of Sympho, Inc., an orchestral groupthat seeks to reinvent the classical music concert experience for contemporary audiences. He is also a past president of the Yale Law School Association.
Among his pro bono representations, Larry successfully represented Samuel Bice Johnson, a Mississippi death row inmate, in Johnson v. Mississippi, where the U.S. Supreme Court held that the jury’s consideration of materially inaccurate evidence at sentencing violated Johnson’s Eighth Amendment rights and vacated his death sentence. For his work on the Johnson case and other death penalty cases he received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1998.
OF COUNSEL
David H. Faux is licensed to practice law in New York and New Jersey and focuses on Intellectual Property, Entertainment, Art, and Business/Commercial Law. He has served as Director of Business Affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. since 2007. Prior to becoming an attorney, Dave spent several years as a music journalist and, later, a publicist in the Northwest. He also worked as Marketing Director for a 3-D computer animation company, heading sales and representing graphic artists to potential clients. While living in Oregon, he was on the Board of Directors for the Community Center for the Performing Arts (a.k.a., the Woodsmen of the World—or “W.O.W.” Hall) and as an officer of the Lane County Literary Guild.
In addition to his Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School, he holds a Master of Science in social sciences from the University of Oregon and a Master of Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied local, creative expressions of Buddhism in South Korea. His years in the music and fine arts industries as an entrepreneur, scholar, and international traveler inform his approach to the law, giving him an insight not achieved by most other lawyers.
Dave has served on a wide range of panels involving subjects from theater financing and theater contracts to stage-to-screen adaptations and obtaining underlying rights. He has lectured across the nation on the topic “Author as a CEO.” He has also chaired programs in boxing law and basics in fine arts and the law.
While Dave is a member of the Copyright Society of the United States of America, the New York City Bar Association, the Brooklyn Bar Association, and the New Jersey State Bar Association, he has been particularly active in the New York State Bar Association (“NYSBA”) in its Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Section (“EASL”). For EASL, he is the Eleventh District Representative, representing Queens. He also serves as EASL’s Alternate to House of Delegates in Albany, NY and is the co-chair for EASL’s Fashion Law Committee. Dave is a member of the Copyright and Trademark Committee, IP Law Committee, and the Phil Cowan/BMI Memorial Scholarship Committee. He also sits on the Executive Executive Committee that represents the business of Entertainment and Arts lawyers for NYSBA.
ADMINISTRATION EXECUTIVE
Amy VonMacek (she/her) has spent her entire career in the non-profit and theater arts administration sector. A former equity stage manager, she has worked in off-Broadway and off-off Broadway theaters around the tri-state area. Amy is the current Director of Council Programs at the Dramatists Guild of America and the Executive Administrator for the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund.
In her fourteen years at the Dramatists Guild Amy has developed programming and produced events that educate and advocate on behalf of theater writers. In 2018 she produced a weekend long conference on Devised Theater in collaboration with The Public Theater, Tectonic Theater Company, and Pig Iron Theater. In 2019 Amy began producing DG’s first ever professional podcast: The Dramatists Guild Presents: TALKBACK in association with Broadway Podcast Network. In October 2023 TALKBACK will present its fourth season to a listenership of over 10,000.
Amy joined the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund in 2014 as their executive administrator. During this time Amy ran the administration of both the programming and fundraising. She also received her paralegal certification from Pace University in 2014 to support the work of the DLDF. Amy is the executive producer on the cornerstone program of the DLDF, Banned Together, An Anti-Censorship Cabaret. From 2016-2019 Banned Together was performed live across the country and in NYC at places such as The Drama Book Shop and Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater. Banned Together has evolved to a podcast that Amy is producing this year along with Broadway and TV actor, Raul Esparza, and writer and Board President John Weidman.
Amy attended The University of Southern Maine and Lehman College where she received her BS in Self Determined Studies and is currently working on her thesis at Baruch College for her master’s in arts administration.
Amy lives in the Bronx with her husband. In her spare time she loves to knit and compete in powerlifting competitions.
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https://www.centeratwestpark.org/fall-2021-season
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Fall 2021 Season — The Center at West Park
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The Center at West Park
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https://www.centeratwestpark.org/fall-2021-season
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DEBRA ANN BYRD
Debra Ann Byrd is the Founding Artistic Director of the Harlem Shakespeare Festival, as well as, an award winning classically trained actress, scholar and producer who was recently named Writer-in-Residence at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Artist-in-Residence Fellow at the Folger Institute, an A'Lelia Bundles Community Scholar Arts Fellow at Columbia University, a Virtual Artist-in-Residence at The Center at West Park, and Artist-in-Residence at Southwest Shakespeare Company, where she recently reprised the role of Othello, winning her the 2019 Broadway World Phoenix Award for Best Lead Actress. In addition, Byrd is an emerging playwright who recently completed her new critically acclaimed solo show BECOMING OTHELLO: A Black Girl’s Journey.
Debra Ann received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Marymount Manhattan College and completed advanced studies at Shakespeare & Company, The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab and The Broadway League’s Commercial Theatre Institute.
Her career as an actor, producer, scholar, arts manager and business leader has been recognized with many awards and citations, including the NAACP Shirley Farmer Woman of Excellence Award, the LPTW (League Lucille Lortel Award, and the Josephine Abady Award for Excellence in “Producing works that foster diversity.”
She is the 2021 recipient of the prestigious Sidney Berger Award presented to her by the Shakespeare Theatre Association for her work as leader of a Shakespearean theater throughout the world.
TORN OUT THEATER
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE CENTER AT WEST PARK
PRESENTS
ANTIGONICK
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20 AT 8:00PM (DOORS AT 7:30PM)
SATURDAY, AUGUST 21 AT 3:00PM (DOORS AT 2:30PM)
THERE IS NO ADVANCE TICKETING. ALL SEATS ARE FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVED.
Torn Out is thrilled to present Antigonick, Anne Carson’s adaptation of Sophocles’ famous tragedy Antigone.
After over a year of physical isolation, come celebrate intimacy, connection, and the devastating importance of human touch.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
TORN OUT THEATER, founded in August 2016, is a home for theater projects that push the boundaries of how we see the human body and what we assume about modern sexuality. Alice Mottola and Pitr Strait, co-founders, believe that everyone's body tells a story, sometimes many stories. By adapting classic texts and devising unique audience experiences, Torn Out attempts to navigate a culture where private and public blur together, where the shocking and common trade places, and where magic is real.
In the spring of 2016, Mottola was approached by the Outdoor Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society about directing a nude production of Shakespeare's The Tempest. After developing the core concepts of this world, finding a way for nudity and Shakespeare to blend together seamlessly, she invited Strait, longtime friend and collaborator, to join her as co-director. Together, they brought a performance like no one had ever seen to Central Park. A cast of brave and proud actors, dancers, and musicians played to overflowing crowds, leaving sorcery, beauty, and wonder in their wake.
In the weeks that followed, coverage of the performance circled the globe, igniting controversy and conversation. Thousands of people debated the role of the nudity in art and in society, the politics of reinventing classic plays, and the differing perceptions of male and female bodies. Seeing the power of theater to bring simmering tensions to the surface, where they could be confronted and explored, Mottola and Strait decided to form a company dedicated to starting more difficult conversations.
WELCOME TO IMAGI*NATION: PART 2
DIRECTION & CHOREOGRAPHY BY CARMEN CACERES
(In Collaboration with the dancers)
CO-DIRECTION & DRAMATURGY BY LAUREN HLUBNY
OCT 21 AT 7:30PM
FREE WITH REGISTRATION
SUGGESTED DONATION OF $10 - $40
Welcome to Imagi*Nation: Part 2 is a multimedia interactive performance that begins at the conflict of two fictional neighboring nations. While the audience participates in a socially distant interactive experience, the performers will enter into a series of challenges that will result in multiple possible outcomes. As the characters are searching for a way to survive, the audience will experience the motivations and consequences of migration.
This production will feature performances by Carmen Caceres, Israel Harris, Lauren Hlubny, Mallory Markham-Miller, Sofia Baeta, & Sofia Bengoa.
Understudy: Lydia Perakis
Lighting Design: Nicole Sliwinski
The evening will run approximately 60 minutes total, including a 20-minute talk-back with the artists following the performance.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
CARMEN CACERES (SHE/HER) is a dance artist, originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She received a BA in Dance and Education at SUNY Empire State College and deepened her studies in dance, performance, and choreography at the former Merce Cunningham Studio in New York. In her native city, she graduated from the National School of Dance and has studied Dance Composition at the National University of the Arts UNA.
She has been creating and presenting dance works in Argentina and NY since 2009. In 2012 she founded DanceAction, a creative platform composed of artists from multiple disciplines, to produce performing artworks in collaboration and provide educational opportunities. DA participated in numerous festivals and performance series in New York, such as Performance Studio Open House (PSOH) at Center for Performance Research, Take Root at Green Space Studio, Open Performance for Movement Research, Under Exposed at Dixon Place, and SharedSpace at the Mark Morris Dance Center. DA has also been invited to international dance festivals in different cities. The First International Contemporary Dance Festival of Mexico City (FIDCDMX), the International Contemporary Dance Festival and Campus “Ticino in Danza” in Ticino, Switzerland, and “Women Center Stage Festival” in New York are some of them. DA’s project, BLINDSPOT, was sponsored, in part, by the Brooklyn Arts Fund community grant, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). The company has also received the Dance/NYC Emergency COVID-19 Grant in 2020. DA was an Artist in Residence at The Center at West Park, premiering their new work Welcome to Imagi*Nation during the Virtual Residency Program in April 2021. Most recently, DA has received the City Artist Corps Grant to continue exploring this piece; Welcome to Imagi*Nation: Part 2 will premiere in the fall of 2021 at The Center at West Park.
As a performer and collaborator, Carmen has worked with artists Ines Armas, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Isabel Lewis, Jillian Peña, Lisa Parra, Elia Mrak, Jody Oberfelder, and Sarah Berges among others. Carmen also works as a dance educator and program director for different art education programs in New York City, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. www.carmencaceres.com
LAUREN HLUBNY (SHE/HER) is the NYC Artistic Director of the Franco-American company Danse Theatre Surreality (DanseTheatreSurreality.org). Hlubny's work centers image-as-metaphor, physicality, social justice, and interdisciplinary communication, and her research focuses on the intersection of movement and storytelling. Hlubny has been invited to share works in France, Italy, Seattle, San Francisco, Birmingham, Knoxville, New Orleans, Portland, and in museums nationwide, including the Dali Museum. Hlubny studies Martial Arts and Anthropology in New York City, where she works as a director who originates works at venues such as Joe’s Pub, Triskelion, The Kraine, Shetler Studios, TADA! Youth Theater, Mark Morris, and La MaMa. Fascinated by multifaceted productions, combat, and consent, Hlubny also enjoys working as a dramaturg and acting coach for choreographers, and as a choreographer for theatre and opera. Hlubny was an artist-in-residence for her piece īs, a dance-concerto this August at the Shed Seattle, and serves as co-director/dramaturg for Dance Action’s latest work Welcome to Imagi*nation directed and choreographed by Carmen Caceres.
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10th Edition By Julia Cameron (hardcover) : Target
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Shop The Artist's Way - 10th Edition by Julia Cameron (Hardcover) at Target. Choose from Same Day Delivery, Drive Up or Order Pickup. Free standard shipping with $35 orders.
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Book Synopsis
"Without The Artist's Way, there would have been no Eat, Pray, Love." --Elizabeth Gilbert
A stunning gift edition of the powerful bestselling book on creativity.
The Artist's Way is one of the bestselling gift books of all time. Beautifully packaged with a slipcase and ribbon, this tenth anniversary gift edition is the ideal gift for loved ones engaged in creative lives.
Review Quotes
"This book has been around for a long time, and I hope it sticks around forever. It guides the reader through a fascinating (and fun) 12-week-long program of exercises and explorations that help loosen up one's artistic self. It takes you on a journey that will cost you nothing (aside from the guidebook) and it brings much insight, gently helping you see what is holding you back, and showing you how to move forward. Three times in the last decade I've committed to doing The Artist's Way's program, and each time I've learned something important and surprising about myself and my work. Just to show how influential it's been to me--the first time I did the program, I had decided by end of it that I wanted to 1) travel to Italy and learn Italian, 2) Go to an Ashram in India, and 3) Return to Indonesia to study with the old medicine man I'd once met there. We all know what THAT decision led to. . . Without The Artist's Way, there would have been no Eat, Pray, Love."
--Elizabeth Gilbert "THE ARTIST'S WAY by Julia Cameron is not exclusively about writing--it is about discovering and developing the artist within whether a painter, poet, screenwriter or musician--but it is a lot about writing. If you have always wanted to pursue a creative dream, have always wanted to play and create with words or paints, this book will gently get you started and help you learn all kinds of paying-attention techniques; and that, after all, is what being an artist is all about. It's about learning to pay attention."
--Anne Lamott, Mademoiselle "The premise of the book is that creativity and spirituality are the same thing, they come from the same place. And we were created to use this life to express our individuality, and that over the course of a lifetime that gets beaten out of us. [THE ARTIST'S WAY] helped me put aside my fear and not worry about whether the record would be commercial."
--Grammy award-winning singer Kathy Mattea "Julia Cameron brings creativity and spirituality together with the same kind of step-by-step wisdom that Edgar Cayce encouraged. The result is spiritual creativity as a consistent and nourishing part of daily life."
--Venture Inward "I never knew I was a visual artist until I read Julia Cameron's THE ARTIST'S WAY."
--Jannene Behl in Artist's Magazine "Julia Cameron's landmark book THE ARTIST'S WAY helped me figure out who I really was as an adult, not so much as an artist but as a person. And award-winning journalist and poet, Cameron's genius is that she doesn't tell readers what they should do to achieve or who they should be--instead she creates a map for readers to start exploring these questions themselves."
--Michael F. Melcher, Law Practice magazine "This is not a self-help book in the normative sense. It is simply a powerful book that can challenge one to move into an entirely different state of personal expression and growth."
--Nick Maddox, Deland Beacon "THE ARTIST'S WAY (with its companion volume THE ARTIST'S WAY MORNING PAGES JOURNAL) becomes a friend over time, not just a journal. Like a journal, it provokes spontaneous insights and solutions; beyond journaling, it establishes a process that is interactive and dynamic."
--Theresa L. Crenshaw, M.D., San Diego Union-Tribune "If you really want to supercharge your writing, I recommend that you get a copy of Julia Cameron's book THE ARTIST'S WAY. I'm not a big fan of self-help books, but this book has changed my life for the better and restored my previously lagging creativity."
--Jeffrey Bairstow, Laser Focus World "Working with the principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Cameron developed a three month program to recover creativity. THE ARTIST'S WAY shows how to tap into the higher power that connects human creativity and the creative energies of the universe."
--Mike Gossie, Scottsdale Tribune "THE ARTIST'S WAY is the seminal book on the subject of creativity and an invaluable guide to living the artistic life. Still as vital today--or perhaps even more so--than it was when it was first published in 1992, it is a provocative and inspiring work. Updated and expanded, it reframes THE ARTIST'S WAY for a new century."
--Branches of Light "THE ARTIST'S WAY has sold over 3 million copies since its publication in 1992. Cameron still teaches it because there is sustained demand for its thoughtful, spiritual approach to unblocking and nurturing creativity. It is, dare we say, timeless."
--Nancy Colasurdo, FOXBusiness Praise for VEIN OF GOLD, the second volume in the ARTIST'S WAY trilogy
"For those seeking the wellspring of creativity, this book, like its predecessor, is a solid gold diving rod."
--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
About the Author
Julia Cameron has been an active artist for four decades. She is the author of more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction, including such bestselling works on the creative process as The Artist's Way, Walking in this World, Finding Water, and The Listening Path. A novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has multiple credits in theater, film, and television. She divides her time between Manhattan and the high desert of New Mexico.
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The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre since 1945
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The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre since 1945 - September 2021
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365 Women A Year: a playwriting project
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2015-03-14T19:53:41+00:00
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Welcome to our database of female directors from all over the world! As our database expands, we will be able to search by region. For now, each director's region is at the end of their bio. If you would like to be included in the database email 365womenayear@gmail.com with Director in the subject line. Include your…
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365 Women A Year: a playwriting project
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https://365womenayear.wordpress.com/female-directors/
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Welcome to our database of female directors from all over the world! As our database expands, we will be able to search by region. For now, each director’s region is at the end of their bio.
If you would like to be included in the database email 365womenayear@gmail.com with Director in the subject line. Include your bio and region in the email and attach your resume. We look forward to promoting gender parity around the world.
Abigail Barr is a director primarily interested in working on new plays by women with strong roles for women. Her previous New York directing credits include BETTIE PAGE IN THE MODERN AGE by Piper Werle (ESPA Advanced Playwriting), HOLY WEEK (WHOLLY) by KJ Gormley (Mots de Changer, Dixon Place) DOUBLE DIPPED by Megan Meinero (TinyRhino), IN THIS DANCERY by Natyna Osborne (24 Hour Plays: Nationals) BLUE SKIES AT HOME by Rae Binstock (Manhattan Rep), and CAMP TUPPER LAKE by Veronica Cooper (ESPA.) Oberlin College directing credits include 4000 MILES by Amy Herzog, CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION by Annie Baker, CENTRAL PARK WEST by Woody Allen, and 8 by Dustin Lance Black. She has assistant directed for the 24 Hour Plays on Broadway, |the claque|, Theatre for the New City, Dixon Place, Dark Matter Productions, and Bedlam Ensemble. She currently works at Playbill, and has interned for Second Stage, New Dramatists, Primary Stages, New York Theatre Workshop and Atlantic Theater Company.
Aliza Shane is a director, playwright and producer. She works with her actors in a collaborative process, creating organic characters borne out of movement and improvisation in addition to the written word. Aliza is the co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of 3 Voices Theatre, working alongside long time collaborator and friend Jenn Tufaro. Most recently, she wrote and directed the original playMein Uncle, an absurdist fairytale about the seeds of inhumanity, produced by 3V Theatre. In addition 3V has produced four staged reading events; Threesomes, Say Uncle!. Caged, and Shocktober, in which Aliza both wrote and directed. At Looking Glass Theatre (where she served as Assistant Managing Director and Producer of the Writer/Director Forum) Aliza wrote and directed Are You There Zeus? It’s Me, Electra, The Spanish Wives: A Groovy Tale of Peace, Love and Restoration, and The Three Sillies, which earned an NYIT Award for Outstanding Short Script. Aliza also wrote and directed The Imaginary Invalid: By Prescription Only, and Are You There Zeus? It’s Me, Electra as part of Planet Connections Festivity, which earned awards for Outstanding Overall Production and Outstanding Direction respectively. Other directing credits: Hamlet, The First Quarto (Genesis Rep), The Bacchae, (Cypreco Theatre Co.), Cabaret: A New World (Towards Truth Productions) The Acoustic Nerve (Groove Mama Ink). REGION: NYC
Allie Costa is an actress, writer, and director working in film, TV, theatre, and voiceover. She can usually be found on a set, on a stage, or in a secondhand bookstore. She always has energy to burn and a song to sing. Her plays and screenplays include FEMME NOIR, WHO SHE COULD HAVE BEEN, BREAKING COVER, PRODIGAL DAUGHTER, and LITTLE SWAN, a Pas de Deux. Her acting credits include 90210, SPRING AWAKENING, HAMLET, and YOU ME & HER. Occasionally, she sleeps. REGION: Los Angeles
Amanda Connors is a stage director currently residing in the midwest. Amanda has worked with companies such as the Guthrie Theater, The O’Neill Theater Center and various theatres around Wisconsin. She is very interested in directing new works and was a founding member of InterMission Theatre, a company dedicated to producing new student works in Madison, WI. She directed their first two productions, Space Voyage: The Musical Frontier, a student-written musical sci-fi parody as well as Broadcast, a new musical by Nathan Christensen and Scott Murphy that work-shopped at the O’Neill Center’s National Music Theatre Conference in 2013. In addition to directing new works, Amanda is a script reader for the National Playwrights’ Conference at the O’Neill and assists student groups at UW-Madison with producing their own works at the Memorial Union Theater. Along with new works, Amanda also has a passion for a wide variety of genres. Directing credits include: Macbeth, Broadcast, An Evening with Poe, Space Voyage, Side Show and more. She recently assisted director Joel Sass with Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at the Guthrie Theater and will be heading back to work with Joe Dowling on Juno and the Paycock in 2015. Amanda is a proud graduate of UW-Madison (with degrees in theatre and journalism) and the National Theatre Institute at the O’Neill Theater Center. REGION: Midwest, USA/WI
Amy Corcoran is a freelance director/choreographer who works all over the country and internationally. She received her MFA in Directing at Penn State under Broadway director Susan Schulman, and has assisted several Broadway director/choreographers on projects in Canada, London, and here in the states. She has a BA in Psychology from the University of Kansas. Favorite credits include: SMOKEY JOE’S CAFE, SHE LOVES ME, FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE, IN TROUSERS, BOMBITTY OF ERRORS, CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION, and DRIVING MISS DAISY, and has directed Darren Criss, Bill Irwin, Rozzi Crane, and Hal Linden for various events. Amy is currently attached to 3 new musicals as director, and working on developing a popular novel into a musical with the writer. Amy works as a creative consultant and script doctor for new musicals, and she also works at Dallas Summer Musicals as the Creative Associate. REGIONS: NYC, Boston, Toronto, San Fran, Dallas, Chicago, LA, Orlando, Miami, London, Paris, Kansas City, Houston, Prague, Denmark.
Angela Dumlao is a queer Filipina-American director and theater artist dedicated to new work, non-realism, and intersectionality. She is the director of Post Traumatic Super Delightful (PTSD) (All For One Theater, FRIGID New York Festival, currently on a tour of colleges, theaters, crisis centers throughout the U.S. and Canada). Other selected credits: Glutton for Punishment (EstroGenius Festival, Best Director Award); Between (Gallatin Arts Festival); boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, 8: the Play by Dustin Lance Black (Vassar College). Assistant directing: SeaWife (Naked Angels). Angela is a Vassar College graduate and former Powerhouse Directing Apprentice. REGION: NYC
Ann Tracy has been involved in first modern dance and then theatre since the early 70s. After working as a choreographer, performer and teacher for the Full Circle Modern Dance Company (All Souls Unitarian Church, Colorado Springs), an injury propelled her to leave the world of dance behind to focus on theatre, at first as an actor and later as a director and playwright. In 1992 she founded the Foothill Actors Theatre (FAT) in Placerville CA and served as its artistic director until 1994. The year she left FAT, she founded Beyond the Proscenium Productions in Sacramento CA and served as its artistic director until 2009. As a director, her main focus has been new work for the stage, although she has also directed adapted classics, musicals and contemporary plays. Her most recent work was in November 2015 as she directed the world premiere of Madeleines, a one-act play by Bess Weldonfor Portland Stages’ Studio Series in Portland, Maine, where she currently lives. Tracy is also the author of ten scripts, seven of which have been produced in California: Hecuba & Dido: Love Gone Wrong, Dreams & Diatribes Redux, Human Love Rescue, Orestes 2.5, Looking for Richard 3, Dreams & Diatribes, The Secret Life of My Evil Twin, Paths Active Notation, and IMAGES. She is a member of the SnowLion Repertory Theatre Company’s Play Lab in Portland, Maine. She was a theatre reviewer for Sacramento, California, radio stations KGNR and KXPR, the PBS affiliate (1984–1986). She hold a BA (Theatre/Communications) from Western Illinois University and has done graduate work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Montana State University (with Mary Overlies). Tracy has done workshops with Mary Overlies (Viewpoints 6/99), Ping Chong (12/96) and the SITI Company (Saratoga International Theatre Institute, 5/96). REGION: Portland, Maine
Ashley DeMoville is a director, actor, and professor of theater specializing in Actor and Director Training, the Michael Chekhov Technique, Intercultural Theatre, and Gender Studies. Her most recent production, Frangipani Perfume, by Makerita Urale was produced at the Leeward Theatre and examined gender roles and identity in Oceania. Originally from Los Angeles, CA, she holds a Master of Theatre Arts in Directing from Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). This terminal degree, equivalent to the American MFA, is offered as a joint program alongside Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. There, she studied with Christian Penny, a former student of Philippe Gaulier and one of New Zealand’s boldest theatre directors. She also studied with and has assistant directed for David O’Donnell, a leading scholar of New Zealand and Pacific drama and an award-winning director whose productions include several premieres of recent New Zealand plays. Ashley is currently a faculty member in the University of Hawaiʻi System primarily teaching undergraduate courses at Leeward Community College. In addition to her work at Leeward, Ashley has experience teaching graduate students at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the Asian Acting Styles course, as well as undergraduate courses at Chaminade University. Ashley was also a guest lecturer in the Literature and Theatre of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific course at Victoria University of Wellington. Ashley has been one of the producing artistic directors for the Leeward Theatre since 2013. Professionally, Ashley is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She also has taken on a number of leadership roles within the theatre community, serving on the executive governing board of the Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council as well as the Pacific Islanders In The Arts (PACITA) Board. REGION: Hawaii, California, New Zealand
Briana Schwartz is the current artistic director of Novus Productions, the subsidiary company to Pegasus 51 Performance Project. She most recently directed and produced Everything Must Go, an original children’s devised theatre piece which premiered at MCVTS Theatre as well as The Producers Club NYC this past December. Her assistant directing credits include MCVTS Theatre’s The Education Project and Girl Be Heard/Estrogenius Festival’s The Narrator of My Life. Briana currently resides in Old Bridge NJ, where she is a Senior at MCVTS School of The Arts majoring in Theatre. REGION: NY/NYC
DR BARBARA BRIDGER Taught Theatre and Writing at Dartington College of Arts (UK) between 1991 and 2010. Now freelance writer, performer, dramaturg and director. Currently a member of HAND IN GLOVE THEATRE COMPANY. Plays and digital films have been performed, screened and toured nationally in the UK and internationally in the US and Russia. REGION:UK based
Bridget Grace Sheaff is a recent graduate of The Catholic University of America (BA in Drama 2014) summa cum laude. As the Resident Directing Intern at Cape May Stage in Cape May, NJ, she served as assistant director and dramaturg on several mainstage productions at Cape May Stage as well as leading the Second Stage Reading Series. Her most recent production, Merry Melodies was her professional directing debut with an Equity company. Recent productions: Savage in Limbo (Cape May Stage); Antigone, Company, Everyman (Catholic University) Legally Blonde: The Musical (DMPlayhouse). As a playwright, she has published many written works, including Perfect, Forgive and Forget, love letter to my home town, A Chance of Rain, The Days of Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches, Idle Hands, Kissing Lessons, It’s Not About the Hair, and Danny’s How-to-Vlog. Bridget is a freelance director based out of DC. She has worked with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Inkwell, and other regional and local DC theatres. Bridget resides in DC, but is a native to Des Moines, Iowa. REGION: DC Metro Area
Chelsea Long is an NYC-based director with a special interest in plays written by and for women. She is drawn to scripts that use humor to address complex political, societal, or interpersonal issues, and works mostly with new plays in development. New York Directing Credits: The Bakery, Open Tent Theater Company (Dancing in the Elevator, Family Business), Equity Library Theater (Bless Their Hearts, Ask Zsuszanna), ESPA at Primary Stages (Detention: #25, Lunchtime at Westfeld High, Clarity, Petting Zoo Story), Village Playwrights (Queer Scares reading),Hudson Theater Works (Last Resort reading). Educational Theater Directing Credits: Harvey (Bentley University), A Fine Romance, Period Piece, The Clean House (Clark University). REGION: NYC
Christine Emmert is an actress, playwright, director and educator. Presently she lives outside of Philadelphia, PA where she often performs and directs. The head of the Outreach Program for Hopewell Furnace National Park she recently toured for the last eight years with FROM OUT THE FIERY FURNACE, a one woman presentation about the iron industry in Pennsylvania in the 1800s. She has lectured at Rosemont College on playwrighting, theater history, and Suffragettes. Currently her small production, company is preparing to do THE PLAGUE SEEKER as part of Bridges at Penn Campus in November 2018. Theater is her great love, although she also writes poetry , essays, and novels. She hopes women will become a greater voice in all the world as a stage. REGION: Northeast and Central Atlantic portion of the USA. I am willing to travel a bit if necessary
Collette Rutherford is a director, actress, and Executive Director of Infinite Jest Theatre Company in Los Angeles. With expansive experience in a wide variety of genres and types of theatre spanning twenty years, Collette has worked in L.A. with The Blank Theatre, New American Theatre Company, Archway L.A. Studio, Torrance Theatre Company, Repertory East Playhouse, Little Fish Theatre and others. Additionally, she has trained at N.C. State University, University of N.C.-Chapel Hill, American Conservatory Theater, and Second City-Hollywood. REGION: Los Angeles based, but can work local in Chicago and NC.
dianne k. webb– Artistic Director, Director and Acting Coach/trainer, dianne k. webb has an MFA from Lesley University. From an early age she grew up in community theater-prompter, prop mistress, stage hand, set builder, costume designer, costumer, sound designer, sound tech, actor, director. dianne k. webb is intersting in how theater—though actors and audiences, begins to change us, our perceptions, of ourselves and our world. Dedicated to finding the next iteration of theater, in how we fund, pay, participate, create and perform theater, dianne k. webb founded Next Iteration Theater Company in 2014. Before NITC, she was the Artistic Director and director of SHOTT, an interactive theater company that performed throughout Maine. In Houston she has produced and guest-directed readings and plays at several local theater companies She has also trained over three hundred actors in Houston and beyond. REGION: USA (able to travel)
Donna Hoffman is the Artistic and Producing Director for WIT-Women in Theatre which is dedicated to doing plays by, for, and about women. WIT has been adopted by St. John United Church of Christ in Bellevue, Kentucky, because of the inequity in theatre projects for women directors and actors. WIT performs on a stage that is being slowly being renovated within the church building. The group has recently been highlighted in RCN River City Online Newspaper and has a Facebook Page. Donna Hoffman has her BFA in Theatre/Directing from Northern Kentucky University (1983), a BA in English Literature (2000), and an MEd. from Xavier University in Cincinnati (2005). In between earning her degrees, Donna was employed in both the publishing and the advertising industry until she decided to go back to college to become a high school teacher. After 8 years in our slowly dying public education system, she retired and has devoted herself to establishing an organization that can and will produce plays by women playwrights, for women actors, and about women’s lives. WIT-Women in Theatre is slowly making headway within the theater world of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. REGION: Greater Cincinnati area – southern Ohio, northern Kentucky
Eliza Orleans is a Brooklyn-based theater director and educator with a passion for new work. Credits include Wiley and the Hairy Man (Long Wharf TYA), A World With Three Sides (O’Neill Young Playwrights Festival), She (The Underground), Blackbird (Ithaca College), Faux Snow, and Paper Towels (National Theater Institute.) She has assisted directors Eric Ting, Kip Fagan, and Phylicia Rashad among others. Eliza is the Associate Director of Theatermakers, a nationally recognized intensive for college students at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. She has also taught at Florida Studio Theatre and Birch Trail Camp for Girls. REGION: NYC
Ellen Chace. Ellen Chace has been an active member of the theatre community in Eugene, Oregon for many years. Acting on stage for The Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Very Little Theatre, University of Oregon Theatre, Lane Community College, and Cottage Theatre in Cottage Grove, Oregon. She has a Master’s Degree in Performing Arts from Western Washington University. In the last few years she has participated in the Playwriting workshops presented by Oregon Contemporary Theatre. She has been an active participant in the Northwest Ten Festival of Ten Minute Plays since it’s inception, acting and directing. One of the play she wrote during the workshops, “Ever, Ever, Ever” – was presented in the 2013 Festival, Northwest Ten: Mission Accomplished.
Emily Breeze is a director and playwright whose background includes comedy and opera. After graduating from Vassar College, she served as the Artistic Resident at Long Wharf Theatre for the 2014-2015 season. Credits include The Boy at the Edge of Everything (Long Wharf Theatre), The Little Dog Laughed (Vassar College), and Eat Your Heart Out (Vassar College). She has assisted Gordon Edelstein, Eric Ting, Oliver Butler, and John Caird among others. Other performance credits include two international choir tours, Chicago’s Sketchfest, and Gluck’s Orfeo. REGION: NYC, CT
Frankie Regalia has worked in the States and the UK with a number of different companies and across several genres of theatre. Frankie has a wide range of experience having worked in new writing, opera, physical theatre, children’s theatre, and the classics. Most recently she produced and directed a new adaptation of Ella Enchanted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has worked with Stay Up Late Collective, West Green House Opera, and Dead Leaf Theatre Company. She is a member of the Young Vic Director’s Program and Stage Directors UK. She is an Associate Director of Sweaty Palms Productions. REGION: UK
Ginette Mohr A Toronto-based director, performer and playwright, Ginette is passionate about staging imaginative stories with dynamic physical expression at their core. She recently directed Life as a Pomegranate (Midtown International Theatre Festival, NYC – Best Director Nomination), The Underpants and Burying Toni (Alumnae Theatre), The De Chardin Project (The Quickening Theatre) and Tikva’s Orchestra (Lab le Jeu – NOW Magazine Critic’s Pick for Best Director). With The Quickening Theatre, she co-created/performed in The Children’s Museum and wrote/performed in Fish Face (Cultch Theatre Award) and The Truth about Comets (Best of Fringe). For Keystone Theatre, she co-created/directed The Last Man on Earth and co-created/performed in The Belle of Winnipeg (Dora Nomination for Outstanding Performance). She is also thrilled to have collaborated/ performed in Ten Green Bottles (Te-Amim) and Gorey Story (The Thistle Project – Dora Nominations for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production). Other performance credits include The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Neptune Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, Drayton Entertainment, Theatre Aquarius, The Second City, The Edmonton Festival Ballet, and Monkey Toast (Canadian Comedy Award Winner). REGION: Toronto
Gwendolyn Schwinke’s professional directing credits include Driving Miss Daisy and Sylvia for Atlantic Stage, the new play Empress of Mexico by Erica Christ at The Playwright’s Center, and the multidisciplinary, site-specific, audience-interactive Six Heads for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She has also directed The Sweetest Swing in Baseball and Intimate Apparel for Coastal Carolina University, and She Stoops to Conquer and Marat/Sade at University of Northern Iowa. Her work as a voice and dialect coach has been heard at Atlantic Stage, Oxford Shakespeare Festival, Frank Theatre, Cheap Theatre and in multiple university productions. As a playwright, her work has been developed and produced by organizations including Seattle Repertory Company (WA), Red Eye Collaboration, Cheap Theatre, The Playwrights Center and the Jungle Theatre (all in Minneapolis, MN), Judith Shakespeare Company (NYC), Riverside Theatre (Iowa City, IA), and Off-Broadway’s Cherry Lane Theatre. Excerpts from her plays have been published by Heinemann, Meriwether Publishing Co. and Applause Theatre Books. Gwendolyn’s original performance work has been produced by multiple venues from The Walker Art Center to First Avenue Nightclub (Minneapolis). As an actress, Gwendolyn has worked with theatres including Atlantic Stage (SC), Red Eye Collaboration, Carlyle Brown & Company, Frank Theatre, Cheap Theatre and The Playwrights’ Center (MN), Old Creamery Theatre (IA), Oxford Shakespeare Festival (MS) and Pulse Ensemble Theatre (NY). Gwendolyn teaches Acting and Voice in the BFA program at Coastal Carolina University, and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. REGION: Conway, SC, Myrtle Beach, SC, Central Missouri – anywhere from St. Louis west to Jefferson City and Columbia.
Gyda Arber is a writer/director best known for the transmedia theatrical experiences Suspicious Package (The Brick, 59E59, Edinburgh Fringe, Future Tenant: Pittsburgh), Suspicious Package: Rx (published in Plays and Playwrights 2010), the award-winning post-apocalyptic dating show FutureMate (Lincoln Center, The Brick) and the ARG-inspired Red Cloud Rising (called “brilliant” by the NY Times). Named “Person of the Year” by nytheatre.com, Arber is the director/creator of the interactive play Q&A: The Perception of Dawn, the writer/director of the short film Watching (Bride of Sinister Six), and the director of The Brick/FringeNYC sold-out hit Theater of the Arcade: Five Classic Video Games Adapted for the Stage. Also an actress, Arber has appeared at Lincoln Center, The Public, 59E59, and most frequently at The Brick, where she also serves as the executive producer of the Game Play festival, a celebration of video game performance art. A 4th-generation San Franciscan, she has a degree in musical theater from NYU and is a graduate of the Maggie Flanigan Studio. www.thefifthwall.info REGION: NY, USA
Holly Stanley lives, works and creates in Eugene, OR. She has been involved in theatre for over 20 years as a props master, stage manager, actor and many other backstage roles. While she has been writing short stories and poetry for 25 years, she began writing plays in 2010.
Jackie Davis As the artistic director of New Urban Theater Laboratory, Jackie Davis produced and directed five years of new works, both short plays and full length. She is also happy to note that the Lab provided opportunity for several directors other than herself….notably and proudly, opportunities for women directors. Previous to New Urban Theatre Lab, Ms. Davis served as the Associate Director for Ed Bullins’ Crossroads Theater Company and worked with theater greats including Mr. Bullins, Woodie King (who said “you’re a bad Sister!”), and renowned poet and activist, Sonia Sanchez. Jackie directed Mr. Bullins’ Black Drama Showcase and work-shopped several short works for future development. As a free-lance director, Ms. Davis has been fortunate enough to direct new works, most recently Identity Crisis by Peter Snoad and cult favorites, including Hairspray! at Newton Stage. Her work as a director and producer has been acknowledged in print in The Best New Short Plays of 2011, for Gift of an Orange’s production in Boston and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Jackie has worked with actors ranging from novices to union staples. She primarily works on the east coast and has recently has an opportunity to produce and direct a project in New Orleans, LA
Jess Jung serves as Assistant Professor of Directing at North Dakota State University. Selected directing credits include Hangar Theatre (NY), Adventure Theatre MTC (MD), Actors Theatre of Louisville (KY), and Forum Theatre (MD). Jess is a Drama League Directors Project Fellow, an ensemble member of Forum Theatre, a company member of Young Playwrights’ Theatre, and holds an MFA in Directing from The Theatre School at DePaul University. REGION: North Dakota, Midwest
Joyce Lu, PhD.: I have been facilitating performance work with youth and adults for over 20 years with a specialty in guiding people to make theater from their personal stories. I am in the process of establishing a Playback Theater group in Los Angeles as I have a strong interest in dramatherapy and using theater for social change. Most recently I created and performed my own original work Grace Needs A Mirror at Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles. This work deals with institutions; institutions of “higher” education and medical institutions. It also critiques the pharmaceutical industry and the mainstream modes of diagnosing and treating mental and emotional health issues. Last year, I directed Dry Land, by Ruby Rae Spiegel, and previous to that I directed the hip-hop musical, Krunk Fu Battle Battle, by Qui Nguyen, with songs by Marc Macalintal and lyrics by Beau Sia. Currently I am directing Charles L. Mee’s Trojan Women: A Love Story at Pomona College where I teach in the theater department. I have strong movement and vocal training and am interested also in the field of dramaturgy for dance. I also used to work backstage doing scenic design and painting, costume and prop construction. All of these things help inform my overall vision as a director. REGION: LA/Bay Area
Juli Crockett Alabama-born Juli Crockett is a bona fide Renaissance woman: playwright, theater director, retired (undefeated) professional boxer, and amateur champion, ordained minister, Phd in Philosophy, singer, songwriter, and leader of the alt-country/Americana genre-defying band The Evangenitals. As a playwright/ director, Crockett is best known for her adaptations of classic works of literature and philosophy. Her work has been presented at the REDCAT and 24th Street Theatre (Los Angeles), TENT (Portland, ME), and Red Room (New York); festivals: Downtown Film Festival’s Sustainable LA and Edge of the World Festival (Los Angeles), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Venue 13, Scotland.) Having recently completed her PhD in the Philosophy of Media and Communication at the European Graduate School, Crockett has also received a BFA in Acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Directing at the California Institute of the Arts. Published works include Void Creation: Theater and the Faith of Signifying Nothing(Atropos Press), excerpts of a new play, Saint Simone, appear in the collection I Might Be the Person You Are Talking To (Padua Playwrights Press), and [or, the whale] (Delere Press) which debuts at the Singapore Book Fair in November 2014. She lives in Montecito Heights, CA with her husband, composer Michael Feldman, their son Thelonious, a tortoise, and the family cat, Žižek. REGION: California
Julie Lyn Barber’s experience as a stage director ranges from opera to children’s theatre. She has directed outreach productions for the Bloomington Early Music Festival of Indiana and the Marjorie Lawrence Opera Theatre in Carbondale, Illinois. Other directing credits include Madwomen’s Late Nite Cabaret (Indianapolis Fringe Festival, IN) Working (American Heritage Theater Project, Portland, OR) and Clue: The Musical (Farmland Dinner Theatre, Farmland, IN). Most recently, she directed Rick Lewis’ USO style musical revue: G.I. Jukebox, and three American one–act operas: Menotti’s The Telephone, Moore’s Gallantry and PDQ Bach’sThe Stoned Guest. In 2014 she was part of the creative team that developed a new musical about Brown County, Indiana, calledIf You Don’t Outdie Me, through the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Studies at Ball State University. Julie is a produced playwright who received a 2012 Indiana Arts Commission, Individual Artist Project grant to write two new children’s plays, Two of her plays have won inclusion in the juried festival, DivaFest of Indianapolis, and ger one-act play, Down That Road Again, was selected for inclusion in the juried, Q Artistry Playwright’s Festival in 2011. She holds a Doctor of Arts degree from Ball State University and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Western Kentucky University.
Karin Crighton began her career in theatre at 10 years old with a small role in a church basement and has been acting, directing, producing, and writing ever since. She graduated Towson University with a concentration in Directing in 2000 and began acting in, directing, and producing works around Baltimore. Moving to New York in 2012, she has since produced and directed her own off-Broadway short play, assistant-directed a one-act for the Strawberry Festival, and appeared in a number of commercials and independent films. She continues to create her own works, primarily in Brooklyn and Manhattan. REGION: NYC
Katharine Farmer is the Director of International Programming at Rubicon Theatre. Directing credits include THE NIBROC TRILOGY by Arlene Hutton at Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, California. Katharine directed LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC in May 2015 which was nominated for three Ovation Awards including ‘Best Production of a Play (in a large theatre)’ and won Katharine a Santa Barbara Independent Award for Direction. The second instalment, SEE ROCK CITY was produced in January 2016 and was Critic’s Pick in ‘The Los Angeles Times’. The last play in the trilogy GULF VIEW DRIVE is scheduled for Rubicon’s 2016-2017 season. In London, Katharine has directed the U.K premiere of PIG FARM by Greg Kotis, starring Stephen Tompkinson, which was long-listed for ‘Best New Comedy’ and ‘Best Director’ at the Olivier Awards. Katharine is affiliated with the rolling world premiere of 23.5 HOURS by Carey Crim and has worked on productions at Bay Street Theatre and Rubicon as a Producer, Assistant Director and will be Co-Directing the Canadian premiere at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Center. Katharine was Assistant Director to the off-Broadway run of LONESOME TRAVELER by James O’Neil and WIESENTHAL by Tom Dugan, which were both nominated for Outer Critic’s Circle and Drama Desk Awards in their respective categories. Katharine has also served as Assistant to the Director for Sir Trevor Nunn on his revival of SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE in 2013 and is a graduate of the University of Warwick. Region: London, LA and New York.
Katherine Hayes My recent productions have required the ability to work with technical theatre staff, dramaturgy, acting personnel. I have recently worked with puppeteers and writers from British Asian companies. These writers were new to producing professional work. I worked in Edinburgh 2014 on a production that will tour regionally 2015 and I have also worked as a rehearsal director for Charm Offensive Theatre Company, having taken rehearsals for their upcoming production of Ivanov/The Seagull/A Month in the Country. Previous notable work was for the Timewave festival 2013 directing David Simpatico’s Carpe Diesal, a piece using telepresence and live staging combining a cast in both Los Angeles and London. This production required the ability to cast, script and rehearse with casts both here and LA and have script meetings via skype with the writer in New York. The festival was supported by the Arts Council. My productions of I Don’t Care I Love it and of Aaron Antony Wallace’s Shoehorn were finalists in the LOST theatre’s 2012 5 minute festival. REGION: UK
Kathi E.B. Ellis is a member of the Lincoln Center and Chicago Directors’ Labs and an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. She has received nominations for the South Florida Regional Theatre Carbonell Award for her productions of “Jekyll and Hyde” and “West Side Story”. Ellis has worked extensively in theatre productions and projects focused on women’s issue and was a company member of the Pleiades Theatre Company during its decade of existence and is currently a company member of Looking for Lilith Theatre Company. Her work with Pleiades included the NEA-funded, collaboratively written and produced “Alice Moments: Echoes, Ripples, and Light” (Gall-Clayton, Shelby, Lunsford, Massek, Ellis). With Lilith she has directed the world premiere of “Alice in Black and White” (Lichtig) and the originally-devised “Fabric, Flames, and Fervor: The Girls of the Triangle”, which was part of the official Centennial Remembrance programming of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire in Manhattan, March 2011. Ellis has assistant directed for the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville and is the co-coordinator of the Kentucky Theatre Association’s Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Festival; she has directed new works for Pandora Productions; the Finnigan Festival of Funky, Fresh Works; the Bard’s Town Theatre, Juneteenth Legacy Theatre and Looking for Lilith. She is currently researching a 19th century Kentucky actress, work supported by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Ellis received the first Mary K. Bonsteel Tachau Award for Gender Equity from the University of Louisville’s Womens Center. REGION: Louisville, KY and have worked in Florida, Colorado, Michigan, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas.
KATRIN HILBE is a director of opera and theatre, of Liechtenstein-Kansas origin, working both in the US and in Europe. For Richard Strauss’ Salome for New Orleans Opera she won “Best Opera Production 2012”. With her company, ManyTracks, she co-produced and directed the play St Joan by Julia Pascal, and won the Hilton Edwards Award for best direction and adaptation at the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival 2015. Her main interest as a director and dramaturg is non-traditional work that allow for much physical exploration. Strong roles for women, working with women in the creative team, and creating theatre that inspires debate are both at the center of her company’s mission and important to her as a freelance director and dramaturg. In addition to scripted work (classic or new), Katrin is highly interested in collaboratively devised pieces, such as Fremd bin ich eingezogen… (Theater Konstanz, Germany, 2015), a music-theatre piece based on Schubert’s song cycle A Winter Journey and Georg Büchner´s novella Lenz. Between 2007-2010 Katrin was the primary Assistant Director for Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen under the direction of Tankred Dorst at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany. Katrin is a member of SDC, LPTW, TRU, DG. More information: Katrinhilbe.com and ManyTracks.org Region: NY.
Kendra Augustin is NYC based actress and playwright. Her directing and assistant directing credits include Naomi in the Living Room (Christopher Durang) Watermelon Boats (Wendy Maclaughlin) and original one acts: All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go (Thespis Theater Festival), Ain’t Life Sweet (Venus/Adonis Festival) , Burying Elephants (Robin Rice) and The Past is Still Ahead (Sophia Romma). She, alongside Patricia Cardona, are Co Founders of The Leela NYC Theatre Festival. Region: NYC
Kiana Harris Simon Kiana has worked professionally as an award-winning director, performer, teacher and movement specialist for numerous companies and schools in Chicago, Philadelphia, Ohio and Wisconsin. She currently works as the Director of Event Entertainment and Marketing at The Actors Gymnasium, a premier circus and performing arts organization in the Chicago area. She formerly worked as the Marketing Director and Artistic Associate for Glass City Films. She received her B.A. in Theatre from Temple University; and an M.F.A. in Acting and Creating New Work with a focus on Movement, Teaching and Directing from Ohio State University. REGION: Chicago, USA
Kirsten Brandt is an award winning director, playwright and producer. She served for six seasons as Artistic Director of Sledgehammer Theatre, San Diego’s alternative theatre know for innovative and provocative world premieres and reinterpretations of classics. At Sledgehammer, she directed over a dozen plays including FURIOUS BLOOD and THE DREAM PLAY and wrote BERZERKERGANG, THE FRANKENSTEIN PROJECT, and NU. She was the Associate Artistic Director of San Jose Repertory Theatre, where she directed DR. FAUSTUS, NEXT FALL, THE BIG MEAL, LEGACY OF LIGHT and GROUNDSWELL, among others. As a director, Ms. Brandt’s work has been seen at San Jose Repertory Theatre, The Old Globe, TheatreWorks, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Repertory, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, North Coast Repertory, and Arizona Theatre Company. She is the co-adapter of Henrik Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE, which had its world premiere at the Old Globe Theatre. Her telematic, multi-site play THE THINNING VEIL was produced at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she is a continuing lecturer. Ms. Brandt is a proud member of SDC. Region: West Coast, USA
Kytriena Payseno comes from Denver Colorado, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Theatre/English at the Metropolitan Denver State University. Ms. Payseno joined the Ojai community in 2010, and since then she has appeared in local shows at Theatre 150 and The Ojai Art Centre such as, Annie (Lily St. Regis), Hello Dolly (Minnie Fay), Brooklyn Boy (Alison), Grease (Sandy), Romeo &Juliet (Nurse) and Reunions (Petra). She has also appeared on The Santa Paula Theatre stage in A Trip to Bountiful (Thelma), and at The Elite Theatre in various stage readings. In 2013, Kytriena Payseno attended The University of Essex-East 15 Acting School, where she graduated with her Master’s in Acting. While in England, she performed in A Winter’s Tale (Emilia) at The Cockpit Theatre, The Cherry Orchard (Ranevskia), Waiting for Godot (Lucky), MacBeth (Lady McDuff/Witch) and Blood Wedding (Mother) at The Corbett Theatre. Kytriena is known for directing RENT, children’s musicals, James and the Giant Peach, The Field and Macbeth. She also has created two theatre companies; SpeakEZ Cabaret and Glass Moon Theatre Comapny (International). Ms. Payseno has taught drama for Jefferson Public Schools, Ojai Unified Schools, as well as local private schools such as: Oak Grove, Ojai Valley School and Beasant Hill School, and she has returned to The Ojai Youth Entertainers Studio, to continue her passion of directing and teaching today’s youth about theatre. I direct internationally, but primarily work out of Southern California.
Lana Russell is a Brooklyn based director, producer and teaching artist, dedicated to collective and theatrical re-imagination to inspire communal healing. Selected Credits: Vigils by Noah Haidle , Salute* by Alex Kveton, Henry VI Part 3, George Bell* by Melisa Annis Cloud Tectonics by Jose Rivera, Human Resources by R. Eric Thomas, The Coming World by Christopher Shinn, Gibraltar by Octavio Solis and Around The Block*-a community based theater project about New York neighborhoods with collective, 5D. Lana most recently assistant directed Sheryl Kaller’s Sacred Valley* by Josh Radnor at New York Stage and Film. Lana is the resident director and producer for Goldfish Memory Productions and the founder of Goldfish’s new community engaged ensemble, the[re]group. She has worked in Literary at Primary Stages and LCT3 and was a producing fellow at Naked Angels and Cape Cod Theatre Project. Lana is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. MFA Directing, New School. Lanarrussell.com
Region: Brooklyn, NY
Linda Grinde In January 2015 Linda’s most recent directing project, Leah Joki’s PRISON BOXING, will be produced at the Beverly Hills Playhouse in Los Angeles by the Skylight Theater’s New Plays Incubator Series. Last year Linda started a consulting business (www.yourspotlightmoment.com) working with playwrights to shape their work for the stage. The premiere of NO TIME FOR LOVE, by Kathy Witkowsky, which began two years ago with an informal reading of this play in her living room, was directed by Linda and produced last month by The Stumptown Players. For the last four years Linda Grinde has served as theater consultant and director for a plan to create an indigenous theater festival on the Flathead Indian Reservation. She directed the premiere production, MOON OVER MISSION DAM, in 2011 and received a Montana Art’s Council Strategic Artist’s Grant for that project. In 2012 she directed four plays for N’pustin’s Native American Playwright’s Festival in Arlee and at the 2013 Festival she directed an original play by Jennifer Finley for the Salish Institute Youth Storytellers. As a result of that collaboration, she helped to create, a one-woman show, BELIEF, with Salish writers Julie Cajune and Jennifer Finley, which premiered in 2012 at the Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts. BELIEF has been performed in Missoula, Bozeman, and Dillon, Montana, in Hawaii, and in Salamanca, Spain at the WILD10 land conference in October 2013. That show is currently preparing to tour the Scottish Isles in 2015. Linda has directed more than fifty plays. Last summer she directed THE MUSIC MAN for Fort Peck Summer Theater, BECKY’S NEW CAR and THE FOREIGNER for Whitefish Theater Company, and KIMBERLY AKIMBO for Stumptown Players. Previous shows for WTC include ENCHANTED APRIL, SMELL OF THE KILL, GUYS AND DOLLS, and MIDDLE AGED-WHITE GUYS. She also directed TWELFTH NIGHT for Montana Actors Theater in Missoula and choreographed SUESSICAL for the Missoula Children’s Theater Camp. She earned an MFA in Directing from the Professional Training Program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and has directed for Bigfork Summer Playhouse, University of Montana, Laughing Stock Theater in Sun Valley, Aloha Theater in Hawaii, and Skid Road Theater in Seattle. REGION: Montana, NJ, NY, CA
LUCY GRAM is a freelance theatre director and the Founding Director/Producer of One Bird Productions. Selected directing credits include Sarah Treem’s The How and the Why, Allison Eve Zell’s Come to Leave, and readings of Meron Langsner’s Legacies and Mike Poe’s Like Father. She has assisted for Sleeping Weazel, the Dallas Theater Center, and the Kitchen Theatre Company, and has trained with Cornerstone Theater Company and Old Vic New Voices. She is an LA native and a graduate of Ithaca College. REGION: NYC
Lylanne Musselman resides in Toledo, OH. She is an award winning poet, playwright, and artist. In addition, she made her professional debut as a director with the play “Crisis Line” at the Canton One Acts Festival 2015. Her one-act play, Surfacing, was produced at the Strother Theatre in Muncie, IN, and her monologue “Of Mother and Men” appears in ICWP’s publication of Mother/Daughter Monologues: Thirtysomethings. Musselman has two plays that are a part of the 365 Women A Year: A Playwriting Project, and she will be contributing three more in 2015. Her poetry has appeared in many print and online literary journals, as well as anthologies. She is the author of three chapbooks, and co-author of Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013). She teaches writing at Eastern Michigan University, Washtenaw Community College and Ivy Tech Community College. REGION: Toledo(NW Ohio)/Detroit(SE Michigan)
Madeline Sayet is the Resident Artistic Director at Amerinda Inc, the Artistic Director of the Mad & Merry Theatre Company, a Van Lier Directing Fellow at Second Stage Theatre, and a National Arts Strategies’ Creative Community Fellow. She is a recipient of the White House Champion of Change Award for Native American Youth. Recent directing credits include: Daughters of Leda (IRT, Theatre for the New City, Dixon Place, Culture Project), Powwow Highway (HERE), Sliver of a Full Moon (Joe’s Pub), Miss Lead (59e59), The Tempest (Brooklyn Lyceum), Uncommon Women and Others (Connelly Theater). Upcoming: Magic Flute (Glimmerglass). Raised on traditional Mohegan stories and Shakespeare, her work as a director focuses on questions of gendering, indigenous perspectives, reimaginings of classic plays, and stories that give voice to those who have been silenced. REGION: NY/New England
She was proud to be an Adjudicator for the NY International Fringe Festival, where she read scripts, rated projects, discussed work with panelists, and gave recommendations for The Festival. She has been a reader for the New York Musical Theater Festival since 2013. She has participated in the Soho Rep Writer/ Director Lab, Director’s Company at NYU, and completed a one month writer’s residency at chaNorth, part of chashama. She wrote an article honoring the original dancers of “West Side Story” for Dancers Over 40, and writes regularly for Howl Round and Theater Pizzazz. Her monologues were published in InterJACtions: Monologues at the Heart of Human Nature, available on Amazon.com and kindle. She has an MFA from Columbia University, and a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
MARIDEE SLATER is a director, performer, and writer with a penchant for live music finishing up her tenure in Columbia University’s MFA Directing program. She comes from the desert. Her name means “of the sea”. That irony is not lost on her. Or wasted. Recent projects run the gamut in terms of genre: The Tooth of Crime by Sam Shepard, with original music by Jillie Mae Eddy and Sam Gelband, You’ve Been Tartuffed (Lickety Split, Off-Broadway), Song of the Sea ((Dream)Play, Jillie Mae Eddy), SIRENS (devised with writings from Tabia Lau, Matthew Minnicino, Diane Nora, and Laura Zlatos, music by Jillie Mae Eddy), A Sea Gull (adapted from Chekhov’s classic by Matthew Minnicino),Select Sections From The Heart: A Word Cycle (Tabia Lau), Twelfth Night (adapted by Matthew Minnicino), A Separate Thing From Earth (Matthew Minnicino), and The Girl From Bare Cove (Jillie Mae Eddy), and a solo spin on Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, titled Drop It (Maridee Slater- Writer/Performer, Edinburgh Fringe). She was Production Assistant on a recent workshop for the musical Waitress (Directed by Diane Paulus, Music by Sara Bareilles), Assistant Directed BLACKOUT: HOUSE (Directed by Kris Thor), and Assistant Directed the fledgling workshops for BASETRACK (En Garde Arts, Directed by Seth Bockley, Produced by Anne Hamburger). She holds degrees in Acting and Scenic Design from Colorado Mesa University. REGION: NYC
Marilli Mastrantoni is a Director and Artistic Director of Theatre ENTROPIA. She’s based in Athens, Greece, and works internationally (Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Italy, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, S. Africa, U.K.). She’s the director of several theatre, interdisciplinary and multimedia performances. She speaks Greek, English, French, German. REGION: All over the world
Mary McGinley Currently directing in New York, Mary was Artistic Director of the Carolinian Shakespeare Festival in NC for 15 years. She has worked as a director, dramaturg, performer and administrator at many regional theaters across the country and in the New York area. She is the director of Actors Alternative Studio where she teaches acting, Shakespeare and does private coaching. Mary is a member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Director’s Lab and also teaches at Kean University in NJ. She received her M.F.A. in Directing from Mason Gross School of the Arts and her B.A. in Acting from Rutgers University. Besides classics she has worked extensively on new works with such playwrights as John Pielmeier and Bill Mastrosimone. A member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, Mary currently directs The Garden, A New Plays Project for New Millennium Theatre Works and leads Weird Sisters Consortium, an advocacy group for women working in Shakespeare. REGION: NJ,NY,PA
Melissa Firlit is currently nominated for Best Director in the Broadway World Denver Awards for her production of RED with Thingamajig. She has been nominated and won various awards at festivals across the New York area. Her accolades include best direction, best ensemble and best variety show. She teaches at the renowned McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Recent credits:Misterman (Thingamajig), BUBBA (FringeNYC, Planet Connections, Mile Square, UnitedSolo Festival, Theatre Tuscaloosa, Rutgers), SIDD (Chicago Fringe Festival) Bunting or Flags (New Light Theater Project), Red (Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts, Thingamajig), Annabel Lee (Apothecary Theater Company), Murder Mystery Macbeth (Co-Lab Arts), Someone to Buy It(EST’s Youngblood), C- (Orlando Fringe Festival), Play (Manhattan Repertory), A Short History of Weather (45th Street Theatre), A Nasty Tempered Man (Theatre for the New City) That Stays There (Bushwick Starr, Dixon Place), Big League Chew (Mile Square Theatre), The Death of Evie Avery (FringeNYC, The Looking Glass Theatre), A Nasty Story (FringeNYC), By The Light Of The Silvery Moon (MITF), Futurity (The Zipper Theatre),The Rise and Fall of Miles and Milo (The Pulse Theater, Connecticut College, FringeNYC), Genius Andronicus (The Bridge Theater, Manhattan Theater Source), and 5 Women Wearing the Same Dress (The Bridge Theater). Reading Credits: Bad Husband, Wetiko and Heathens (NYC Sit-In idtheater), Oakwoods (Artful Conspirators), The Way of Water (Mile Square Theater). Rutgers credits: Under Construction, Fabulation, Machinal, Solitary, boom, Any Place But Here, Lone Star and Lost Persons. Training: MFA: Rutgers University, University of Hartford and The National Theater Institute. REGION: NY/NJ/Colorado
Michelle Barber is an actor, writer and director with a wide range of film, television and theater credits. As a professional writer, Michelle has written eight studio screenplays and has performed her personal essays in literary venues around Los Angeles. Recent theater credits include ANNAPURNA at CTC in the Berkshires and THE WAVE FEST at Santa Monica Rep, where she directed THE REAPER (also by Raegan Payne!) and INDIVISIBLE, and also performed in Jennie Webb’s IT’S NOT ABOUT RACE. Happy to be working with these wonderful writers again! REGION: SoCal
Miranda Stewart is a Los Angeles based director who is passionate about new plays. Her productions include Vital Records (GLO), Eleemosynary (Hollywood Fringe Festival), Catalyst (Loft Ensemble), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore(Archway Theatre), A Part and Funeral Party (Hollywood Fringe Festival), Old Times (Occidental College), and Little Shop of Horrors, Metamorphoses, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (all at Caltech). Her feature film Fishbowl has just been completed! REGION: L.A., California USA
NANCY WEST has a degree in Theatre Arts from the University of Oregon, and has performed as an actor in Eugene, Oregon for more than 30 years. She began writing plays in 2012, and two of her plays have appeared in the juried competition for the Northwest Ten Festival of Ten-minute Plays at Oregon Contemporary Theatre in Eugene, Oregon: The Dissolution Mask in 2013, and Bible Jeopardy in 2014. She recently directed a concert reading of Mother/Tongueby Connie Bennett from the 365 Women a Year: Playwriting Project for 2015 SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day. Nancy is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Natalie Osborne is a Senior at Bennington College studying Theatre and Anthropology. She loves directing, especially when it comes to new works. Other directing credits include Brides of the Moon, by the Five Lesbian Brothers, and the Belarusian Dream Project at Bennington College. She has also worked with La MaMa Theater in NYC, the Athena Project in Denver, Colorado, and the Kattaikkuttu Sangam in Punjarasantankal, India. She’s very excited to have been a part of 365 Women a Year’s first international festival, and looks forward to doing it again next year!
Natasha Yannacanedo As a director, my work spans independent film, radio, several showcases, and infinite plays. I have a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater. Favorite plays that I have directed are 29 Questions at the Shell Theater in Times Square which received critical acclaim and Reconstructing Julie at the Algonquin Theater in Manhattan. I served as the Casting Director on Andres Valencia’s film City Park Ranger and played a lead role in it as well. I am an Assistant Professor at Hostos Community College. I served as the Resident Director of an elite acting troupe at St. Francis College called the Troupers for three years. My acting students perform in a showcase of monologues and scenes twice a year. I also teach private and group classes for my company, The N.Y. Acting Company. I have considerable experience and range as a director; I can direct Shakespeare or Mac Wellman with the same passion! REGION: NYC
Nicole Dominguez was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and is a director, actor and writer. Her work has been seen both locally, regionally and overseas. Los Angeles Theatre: At The Blank Theatre- Knockout Mouse in a workshop on their mainstage, Sam’s Birthday and Barophobia in the Young Playwrights Festival and The Diamond Stars and Nervous Persons in The Living Room Series. Theatre of NOTE- C’est La Mort, Long Beach Playhouse- Macbeth, The Grove- Right Together, Left Together-a new musical, Magic Mirror- Matt and Ben, the upcoming This is Where We Live at The Word @ The Road and most recently The Womens Image Network Awards. Regionaldirecting credits include: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change-Show Palace Theatre Hudson, FL, It’s All Greek to Me- TUTS, Ordinary People and Steel Magnolias- Sheboygan Theatre Company. As a playwright, her play The Things We Do When We’re Alone was presented this season at Studio C and Honestly Ok: The Semi-True Story of a Girl and her Shoes (co-written with Lauren Stone) has been seen both at The Blank Theatre during The Hollywood Fringe Festival and in Montreal, QC at the Mainline Theatre. Region- West Coast- Los Angeles, CA
Nina Morrison is a formerly Brooklyn-based, currently Iowa City based, director and devisor. In Fall 2013 she began the 3-year MFA Directing Program at the University of Iowa. Upcoming projects in 2015 at UIOWA are Family Dinner by MFA Playwright Sarah Cho, Silo Tree by MFA Playwright Sam Collier and a reading of A Quiet Violence by MFA Playwright Alysha Oravetz. Other directing at UIOWA: Don’t Go, a site-specific devised project presented as part of the Worth Fighting For Pop Up Museum, thing with feathers, Suit of Leaves (reading) and Quiet, Witches, all by MFA Playwright Sam Collier, Four Stories by MFA Playwright Micah Ariel James, Desire Caught by the Tail by Pablo Picasso. In August 2014 Nina was an invited director to the Kennedy Center/National New Play Network Directing Intensive: Developing New Work. NYC: Nina was an artist-in-residence at Dixon Place in 2013, and her devised piece Arrow In was presented there in May 2013. Dixon Place also presented her devised piece Girl Adventure: Parts 1-4 in May 2011. Nina presented work in the HOT! Festival in 2011, 2012 and 2013. She presented work in the Little Theatre series curated by Jeff Jones in 2011 and 2012. Nina wrote and directed the play Forest Maiden which was presented in the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival. She wrote Forest Maiden while she was a 2008-2009 WORKSPACE Writer-in-Residence, a residency program of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. REGION:Iowa City, IA, Chicago, Minneapolis, NYC and DC
Patricia Coleman is a Brooklyn based writer/director who has created theatre at Chashama, Here, The Kitchen, Bowery Poetry Club and elsewhere. In 2012/13, she organized a reading series of historical avant-garde texts that engage with disembodied or automatic voices at JACK in Brooklyn.Her most recent work was in Spring, 2014: a staging of her adaptation of Medea as a site-specific piece at Brooklyn Glass Studios. In 2012, she completed a PhD in Theatre on disembodied voices in avant-garde theatre at The Graduate Center. REGION: NY, USA
Patricia Middleton is a Wichita-based actor, writer, and director who loves good clean fun on stage! She recently wrote and directed the melodrama A Sure Bet of Marryin’ a Librarian. She has also directed Christmas Crisis at Mistletoe Mesa, A Cowhand’s Christmas Carol or Twas Plum Tired of Pudding, and Someone Save My Baby, Ruth. She has assisted at Backstory Theatre in Colorado, Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre in Missouri, and at Music Theatre Wichita in Kansas. Patricia has appeared on stage at Kechi Playhouse, Wichita Community Theatre, and Old Cowtown Museum. REGION: Kansas, USA
Pilar Ordóñez, actriz y escritora española. Tras presentar en el Teatro Alfil de Madrid (España) mi monólogo de humor sobre sexualidad femenina MISS TUPPER SEX, He empezado a representarlo internacionalmente, como en el R.A Studios & Theatres Times Square en NYC. Y ahora acabo de llegar de Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) donde lo he representado con mucho éxito en el Festival de Arte Femenino. Me gustaría que pudiérais valorar mi espectáculo MISS TUPPER SEX. Para ello te envío el dossier del espectáculo en el que hay varios enlaces del Show. REGION: Spain
Rachel Delmar I received my BA in Theatre from the University of Southern California. While there I served as Artistic Director of the Writing Our Dream Organization, as well as working as a director for the Brand New Theatre which developed and produced all new student work. I was a directing intern at the Guthrie on the production of Caroline or Change during the Tony Kushner Celebration. I also acted with several smaller companies while living in Minneapolis. Next, I attended the National Theatre Institute at the O’Neill Theatre Center [Summer 2009] as a director for the Theatremaker program. Afterward, I returned to Los Angeles and worked with several LA Theatre companies including Playwright’s Arena, LA Theatre Center, Antaeus Theatre, The Virginia Avenue Project, The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, etc. My last show in LA was as the Assistant Director to James Roday for the Red Dog Squadron’s [RDS] production of GREEDY. I continue to work with RDS virtually as their social media manager. I also served as the Production Coordinator for the Directors Lab West [2010]. Since returning to Seattle in early 2011 I have worked primarily with the Bellevue Youth Theatre as a Resident Director & Teacher. I have had the privilege of working with several incredible companies in and around Seattle including, MAP Theatre, theater schmeater, ACT, Balagan, 14/48 – The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival, theatre anonymous, Annex Theatre, SANCA [training], Seattle Playwright’s Collective, West of Lenin, Seattle Public Theater, LIVE GIRLS! & theater simple. AND! I am West of Lenin’s Communications Director & lead my own theatre company PLAYING IN PROGRESS. I’ve also been very lucky to work with some wonderful Seattle filmmakers since being here & can’t wait for more. REGION: Seattle
Rachael Murray is a director, actor, writer, producer, and teaching artist. She has worked in the DC area for the past four years. During her time in DC, she has had her hands in numerous readings, workshops, film and TV projects, teaching opportunities, and full-fledged productions. As a director, she is enthusiastic about small ensemble pieces that fit big ideas into intimate situations. She is particularly interested in pieces that examine the construction of identity and self-doubt. During her brief time in DC, she founded Naked Theatre Company. Naked Theatre Company seeks to bridge the gap between process and performance by providing a ‘behind-the-scenes’ glimpse of creating and rehearsing a piece. REGION: DC Metro Area
Samantha Shada Originally from Loveland, Colorado, I moved to Los Angeles in 2008 to finish my film degree through Emerson College. I have worked in the film industry for the past few years at companies such as the The William Morris Agency, the United Talent Agency, Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures. Along with my day jobs, I have produced and directed a number of video projects and stage productions here in Los Angeles including work with the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Theater remains a constant sandbox for creative exploration in my career and in the last year I had an invaluable opportunity to shadow participants at Director’s Lab West here in LA. I also strive to raise awareness for women in the film industry by programming a screening series titled Seeking our Story, which features influential films by women directors. Join us in LA the last Friday of every month to celebrate these filmmaking mavens and to meet other women who share their voices with the world through directing. REGION: LA/Denver
SASH BISCHOFF. Broadway: “On the Town” (AD), “How to Succeed” (AD). Madison Square Garden: “Grinch” (AD). National tours: “Shrek.” Off-Broadway: “Candyland: The Last Train to Babylon,” “Life,” and “Taboo” (Ars Nova), “Babs the Dodo,” “Swept,” “Talk to Me of Love,” “Cold” and “Seven Categories” (Williamstown), “Mine” (Chautauqua), “The Milkman, The Paperboy, Evening TV” (UglyRhino), “A Social Event” (Atlantic), “Urinetown” and “She Loves Me” (PST). Assisting includes “The Mound Builders” (Signature), “The Visit” (Williamstown), “All in the Timing” (Primary Stages). 2011 SDC Traube Fellow. UPCOMING: 2015 PLAYA Residency (Playwriting). REGION: NYC
SHANA SOLOMON is a freelance director based in New York City. Among others, she has directed for The Culture Project, Classic Stage Company, The Director’s Company, New Jersey Repertory, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Columbia University, North Shore Theatre Group, and The New York Women on Film and Television. Recent projects include: Annie Get Your Gun (Waterman’s Community Center), The Glass Menagerie (NYU’s Graduate Acting Alumni Association), Rise of the Triple Helix (The Brick), The Little Mermaid (StageCoach), Things We Make (The Culture Project), and Stroke of Insight (NYU’s MFA Dance Program). Shana is the Artistic Director of Odyssey Theatre Ensemble New York, an Associate Member of SDC, and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Shellen Lubin has directed numerous plays, musicals, and cabaret acts in productions, workshops, and readings, most recently the 28th and 29th Annual Bistro Awards, Between Pretty Places (a musical Ghost Story by Susan Merson with music and lyrics by Shellen Lubin and additional music by Matthew Gandolfo) at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, CA and at Here Arts Center in NYC, and The Sarah Play at the Davenport Theatre. She is currently developing Leon’s Dictionary by Stephanie Satie and Leah Friedman’s Essie Monologues for production in 2015 as well as Elsa Rael’s Last Lady of Stuyvesant Town. My Brave Face which she co-created with Robert John Cook has been performed at a number of venues around town with Robert John Cook, Cynthia Enfield, and Matthew Gandolfo. REGION: NYC/NJ/Boston/Philly/LA
Sonita L. Surratt is an award winning classically trained vocalist, playwright, actor, director, sound designer and ‘voice for the actor’ professor at Columbia College. Her diverse experience, among many, encompasses opera stages, Off Broadway, and touring with Opera in the Hood. Her recent sound, music and directing credits include Two Twenty-Seven(Sound Designer) with Christine Houston, If Scrooge Was a Brother (Music Director) w/Kemati Porter, The Door Game(Director), at the Chicago Prologue Landmark Theatre Festival, Re-Entry (Director) at the Chicago Fringe Festival, and Sampled: Beats of Muslim Life (Director). She is versed in dialect, voice verse and earned a vocal performance degree from SUNY-Geneseo and her MFA in directing from Syracuse University. She was the recipient of the 2012 Black Theatre Alliance Best Sound Design Award. Other awards include the National Association of Teachers Vocal Competition Silver Ribbon Award, the Syracuse Post Standard Best Play of the Year and a two-time winner of the National Clarion Award for her Women’s Voices Radio Drama. Ms. Surratt is a Lincoln Center Directors Lab alumna and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. REGION: Chicago, Upstate NY
Stephanie Barton-Farcas (Director) currently directing an April production of ‘Red Noses’, recently directed ‘The Cherry Orchard’ and her company Nicu’s Spoon is the subject of the documentary ‘Two and Twenty Troubles’ which premiered in NYC this September. Other NYC directing includes ‘Bad Seed’, ‘Buried Child’, ‘The Little Prince’, ‘George Orwell’s 1984’, and the OOBR winning ‘SubUrbia’. She is the creator of a new performance style called co-playing for both deaf and hearing audiences and will be guest director at The University of Hawaii in 2016. As an actress: Off-Broadway: ‘Talk Show’ (Actors Playhouse), ‘Nuclear Family’ (Abingdon Theatre) and Queen Elizabeth I in ‘Elizabeth Rex’ for which she won the 2008 NY Innovative Theatre Award for Best Actress, playing Queen Elizabeth I in both the off-off and off-Broadway premieres. Off-Off Broadway as Vivian Bearing in ‘Wit’, Miss Meacham in ‘Separate Tables’ among many roles. Recent film work was Sheriff McNulty in ‘Karkass Karts’ and Judit in ‘After Midnight, Before Dawn.’ REGION: East Coast, USA (Bi-Coastal, USA after June 2016)
Sue Yocum began her theatrical career as an actor, but after writing/directing/performing sketch comedy with Five Card Draw and Women Out of the Blue in the 1990s, she switched her focus to writing and directing. In 2005, Sue created Playwrights for Pets, which produces play-reading benefits for animal rescue organizations in the NYC area. In addition to more than twenty Playwrights for Pets events (so far), Sue’s most recent New York City productions include Between Us Gals (playwright) and Camera-Ready Art (director). Member: Dramatists Guild, Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, Charles Maryan’s Playwrights/Directors Workshop, and the Barrow Group’s FAB Women.
Susane Lee is a writer and director in NYC. Currently she is the Assistant Artistic Director for Hudson Warehouse, a theater company that produces free, classical theater in NYC’s Riverside Park, now in its 12th season. For the Warehouse, she started “Writers-A-Go-Go” (W.A.G.G.), a reading series that workshops plays and promotes our living writers. Susane directed the staged readings of many of their, to date, 9 new plays and directed a fully mounted production of one of the new plays, Same River Twice, by Benjamin Elterman, in the fall of 2014. Susane also directed Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), by Long, Singer, and Winfield, both for the Warehouse. She wrote an original adaptation of The Three Musketeers, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, that was performed by the Warehouse in the summer 2013, for which she was also Assistant Director. She was an Assistant Director for Richard III in August 2012. Susane is also a Lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, East and directed their Screenplay Reading series for many years. Her twelve years in television included traveling to more than 100 cities across the United States as she wrote and produced one-hour documentaries for WNET/Channel 13. She won the PBS Communication Award in 1999, a WGBH/CPB Fellowship, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Nonfiction Literature in 2005. She also published a memoir for MORE Magazine in Feb. 2010. Susane was a Finalist for the WAI Look Award in 2013 by The Asian American Arts Association for her contribution to the Arts in NYC.
Susanna Wolk is a New York based director whose work has been seen at 54 Below, Theatre Row, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Access Theatre, Dixon Place, Club OBERON, The Flea, 13th St. Repertory Theater, A.R.T.’s Loeb Mainstage, and more.
She has worked on the Broadway productions of Waitress (also 1st National Tour), Significant Other, Lobby Hero, and Finding Neverland (also A.R.T., 1st National Tour). She is a Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellow and has assistant directed productions at A.R.T., MCC, the Geffen, Second Stage, Williamstown, and more. Susanna graduated in 2014 from Harvard University where she studied English and Dramatic Arts. www.susannawolk.com Region: NYC
Tracy Cameron Francis has directed and developed work with Red Bull Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Williamstown Theatre Festival, CultureHub/LaMama, Portland Center Stage, NY Arab American Comedy Festival, Martin Segal Theatre, Monarch Theatre, NY International Fringe, Falaki Theatre (Egypt), Alwan For the Arts,Poetic Theatre and others. Select credits include “A Marriage Proposal” (Yussef El-Guindi/Cairo), “Comedy Of Sorrows” ( HERE/NYC), “Holy Land” (HERE/NYC),” Broken Heart Story” (Center for Performance Research/NYC), “The Maids” (Curious Frog), “ , “Psalms of a Questionable Nature” (NYC Fringe Festival), Amina’s Stories (TheatreLab). Francis has directed U.S. premieres of plays from Egypt, Algeria, and Finland and presented development productions of plays from Iraq, Pakistan, Uganda, Japan, Uruguay and Chile. Conference presentations include “The Arab Spring and it’s Dramatic Reverberations” (Panel chair, Re-Orient Forum, San Francisco), “Theatre in the Middle East and Islamic World” (Panelist, Global Performance and Diplomacy Convening, Georgetown University). Core member of Theatre Without Borders, Artistic director of Hybrid Theatre Works,associate member of SDC, Member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Performance Art Curator (Bushwick Open Studios), LaMama Directing Symposium (Italy), BA Fordham University. Upcoming projects include the US premiere of Syrian playwright Mohammad Al-Attar for Boom Arts in Portland. REGION: New York, Oregon, Cairo, Egypt
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Margaret-Cameron
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Julia Margaret Cameron | Victorian era, portrait photography, celebrity portraits
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Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer who is considered one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 19th century. The daughter of an officer in the East India Company, Julia Margaret Pattle married jurist Charles Hay Cameron in 1838. The couple had six children, and in 1860 the
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Encyclopedia Britannica
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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julia-Margaret-Cameron
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Julia Margaret Cameron (born June 11, 1815, Calcutta, India—died January 26, 1879, Kalutara, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka]) was a British photographer who is considered one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 19th century.
The daughter of an officer in the East India Company, Julia Margaret Pattle married jurist Charles Hay Cameron in 1838. The couple had six children, and in 1860 the family settled on the Isle of Wight. After receiving a camera as a gift about 1863, she converted a chicken coop into a studio and a coal bin into a darkroom and began making portraits. Among her sitters were her friends the poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the astronomer Sir John Herschel, the writer Thomas Carlyle, and the scientist Charles Darwin. Especially noteworthy from this period are her sensitive renderings of female beauty, as in her portraits of the actress Ellen Terry and Julia Jackson; the latter was her niece, who would one day be the mother of the writer Virginia Woolf.
Like many Victorian photographers, Cameron made allegorical and illustrative studio photographs, posing and costuming family members and servants in imitation of the popular Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite paintings of the day. At Tennyson’s request, she illustrated his Idylls of the King (1874–75) with her photographs, which show the influence of the painter George Frederic Watts, her friend and mentor for more than 20 years.
Cameron was often criticized by the photographic establishment of her day for her supposedly poor technique: some of her pictures are out of focus, her plates are sometimes cracked, and her fingerprints are often visible. Later critics appreciated her valuing of spiritual depth over technical perfection and now consider her portraits to be among the finest expressions of the artistic possibilities of the medium.
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Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain
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Cambridge Core - British Theatre - Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain
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https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/29894/Nygren_ku_0099D_16586_DATA_1.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1%26isAllowed%3Dy
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https://nothingbythebook.com/2019/10/15/so-yeah-i-met-julia-cameron-in-the-flesh-the-power-of-story-dialectics-and-the-creation-of-god/
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So, yeah, I met Julia Cameron (in the flesh!): The power of story, dialectics and the creation of god
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2019-10-15T00:00:00
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I’ve left paradise and I’m in a crowded parking lot. It’s tucked between the Ukrainian Catholic Church that, I guess, presumes to be a conduit to paradise for its worshippers, and the cultural centre it runs as both a community service and a modest revenue stream. Even churches need to keep the lights on, somehow.…
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https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/f53e6553d488468e2038c98a6d06b4cd1bc5548e2b499676a075a5afe5146b40?s=32
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Nothing By The Book
|
https://nothingbythebook.com/2019/10/15/so-yeah-i-met-julia-cameron-in-the-flesh-the-power-of-story-dialectics-and-the-creation-of-god/
|
I’ve left paradise and I’m in a crowded parking lot. It’s tucked between the Ukrainian Catholic Church that, I guess, presumes to be a conduit to paradise for its worshippers, and the cultural centre it runs as both a community service and a modest revenue stream.
Even churches need to keep the lights on, somehow.
The Church is St. Basil’s, an unusual and beautiful name that always makes me think of both Sherlock Holmes and John Cleese (and OMG, people, John Cleese playing Sherlock Holmes, why has that not been a thing?).
(Excuse me—I’m googling “Has John Cleese ever played Sherlock Holmes?”)
(OMG, people, John Cleese played Arthur Sherlock Holmes, the grandson of the great detective, in a 1977 British film called The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It, and you can watch it for free on Open Culture.)
(Back to regularly scheduled programming…)
I’m here because in 2015, then-Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Decore, Janice Sarich, lost her job.
Follow me for a while; I’ll explain.
I’m actually here for Julia Cameron’s first Canadian appearance in more than 20 years. Julia Cameron is the author of The Artist’s Way—and more than 40 other books, several musicals, plays, screenplays, etc. She’s also the director of an art film, the creation of which is a study in synchronicity, serendipity, and also, perseverance past the point of reason.
Julia has been my writing teacher and creativity coach for five years. Today is the first day we are to meet. And when I say meet, I mean, I will be in a church hall with 300 other people while she talks. It’s not going to be a particularly intimate experience. But still. We will be in the same room, I will have seen her, truly, “live,” and this brings me much anticipatory happiness.
Back in 2014, when I was drowning (metaphorically, although the flood was real enough), The Artist’s Way threw me a lifeline and turned Cameron into my first real teacher, and the one I keep on going back to, again and again and again.
And again.
I don’t like her.
Let’s make this clear right away, so that you are not expecting a hagiography. We are not friends, Julia and I. I do not have a rose-coloured schoolgirl’s crush on her. I am neither the Peter nor Paul to her Jesus, nor the Mardana to her Guru Nanak.*
* You can google Mardana and Guru Nanak. Or, you can read The Singing Guru, a marvellous novel by Kamla K. Kaur (also author of Ganesha Goes to Lunch and Rumi’s Tales from the Silk Road), about the life of the founder of the Sikh religion—that’d be Guru Nanak—and his faithful companion, Mardana.
If we were closer in geography and fame, we would not be friends, meeting for a coffee and a chat. I don’t accept Julia’s tools and wisdom uncritically, as gospel. Frankly, I argue with her, fight her every step of the way. I call her names—throw her struggle with alcoholism and co-dependent romantic relationships in her face (repeatedly and unkindly). Tell her that if she spent less time gazing out her window and writing Morning Pages and more time perfecting the craft and refining technique, maybe she’d be famous for her poetry or her musicals. Or her novels would be, like, good, and they’d sell.
I am mean to her, so mean to her.
I hate her.
She is my most beloved teacher.
My refusal to be an uncritical acolyte notwithstanding, I’m here to pay homage. I’m quite aware of this, long before I get into my hic-cuping (Please don’t die!) 2007 Nissan Versa (grey) (I’m telling you this because Julia likes specificity, just as much as Writing Down the Bones author Natalie Goldberg does) at 5:30 a.m. that morning to drive the 300 km that will take me to St. Basil’s Cultural Centre in Edmonton.
I know I am here to give gratitude and pay homage long before Julia Cameron enters the hall and I leap to my feet, giving her a standing ovation before she utters a word, because, fuck, Julia, there you are, after all these years, in the flesh, you’re real, would I be where I am, who I am, right now if you hadn’t been thrust upon me back in 2014?
Julia Cameron is 71 now, and an old 71, a frail 71. My mother is 68 and a) she looks much younger and prettier and b) she could easily take Julia in a fight. Janice Sarich—the organizer—warns us before the Godmother of Art, the Midwife of Creation enters the hall that Ms Cameron has health issues, and because of them, there are some rules we need to follow. We are not to badger her, approach her, crowd her—there’s a red velvet rope strung as a barrier to separate us from the lectern and we are not to cross it. There will be no book signings or requests for selfies. We are here to get what she is willing to give us—and to demand no more.
I know from her books that Cameron is a highly introverted, very sensitive and anxious—neurotic really—and has suffered at least two nervous breakdowns.
Those are all the things about her that annoy me when I read her (Could you be a little less neurotic, Julia?), those are all the things that make her such a sensational teacher.
If I am a doubting Thomas and a pre-conversion St. Augustine—maybe even a Rene Descartes, who, had he lived half a century earlier may well have been burnt at the stake—the woman who brought Cameron to Edmonton—to me—is a less critical disciple. Former MLA Sarich is in the honeymoon phase of the student-teacher relationship, you know, when Socrates can do no wrong in the eyes of Plato, when Jung nods his head enthusiastically at every word Freud utters… even though, if he lets himself think, he’ll see that actually, um, ah, I dunno, maybe the old man got it just a little wrong?
I’ve never had that phase with Cameron. I’ve never had that with anyone. Hero-worship, goddess worship—I envy it when I see it.
Sarich lost her job at the Alberta Provincial Legislature when my socialist, progressive, feminist, “Damn straight I will dance at the Pride Parade!” premier unseated the oligarchy that had been lording it over the province for 44 years. So as soon as Sarich introduces herself and her story, I know some pretty core philosophical differences separate us. In 2015, I celebrated with abandon—if not precisely her loss, then my premier’s win. When the Conservatives returned to power in 2019 under a reprehensible platform that offended virtually all of my values as well as my reason, I mourned.
But when I talk to Sarich, all I feel is gratitude and admiration. Because she turned her tragedy and trauma—and job loss is traumatic, no matter how common in the modern economy—into this opportunity, not just for herself, but for me and for 300 other people. To meet Julia, to work with Julia.
For an emotionally exhausting eight hours.
At 4:30 p.m. that day, I revise my estimation of Julia as old and frail. Fuck, the woman might be 71 and battered by life, but she’s also tough and committed. She might have health problems. She may pause at the lectern for a long, long while here and there, to catch her breath or to recall her train of thought. But she gives us her all for the entire day, shepherding her energy carefully, resting in-between when we break off into our mini-clusters—but, at the end of the day, still giving it all, as fully engaged, as fully present as she was at its beginning.
I bow my head and come the closest to hero-worship, goddess worship I will ever feel.
There are several points during the day when I wish I hadn’t come. The first happens early in the day, during one of our first break-off clusters. The workshop for 300 of Julia’s biggest fans is surprising intimate, because Julia (clearly, she’s done this before) speaks for a little bit, gives us a written exercise, then has us break off into clusters of three, four or two. Each time, we are to connect with new people; each time, we are to share ourselves with strangers.
I fucking hate this. There is immense creative power in being vulnerable, open, exposed. I know—I’ve just come off a 10-day stint in Paradise in which I gave myself like that, completely. And I am still so very vulnerable and leaking tears and love. But these people, here? I don’t know these people at all.
And this is a fact, not an opinion: being vulnerable and open with people you don’t know and trust is stupid.
This is also a fact, not an opinion: The Artist’s Way exercises Julia is leading us through are useless unless one is stupid and open. I mean, vulnerable. Ugh.
I hate her. I wish I hadn’t come. Fine, Julia. I’m here. For you. My stupid list… numbered one to five. Things people in my family thought about Art. Imaginary lives. Things I’d do if I knew I didn’t have to do them perfectly. U-turns…
My first two clusters are marvelous. The women—the audience is 90 percent female, and also, 95, 99 per cent white, and this is sadly relevant—are all also open and vulnerable and loving. And so they set me up for what happens next.
Fine. No blame. I set myself up. I relax into the vulnerability. I start to feel safe.
Bam!
Julia says, she’s going to dictate some questions for us, and we are to answer them in our best Obi Wan Kenobi impersonation. I’m not a Star Wars fan, and while I know the difference between Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda (Yoda’s the green one, right?), I’m not sure which one of them it is who says, “There is no try. There is only do.” But I think that’s what she’s asking for. Right? Anyway. Jedi master advice to the Padawan. This much I know. Jedi, wise.
She dictates.
What do I need to do?
I write:
Write and build.
She says:
What do I need to try?
I write:
Rejuvenate, recharge, restart.
(I actually think, “I need to let go,” BUT I AM NOT LETTING GO OF ANYTHING, analyze that!)
Number three, says Julia:
What do I need to accept?
Motherhood is forever.
Corners of my eyes tingle, sting.
Number four:
What do I need to grieve?
I don’t want to do this fucking exercise.
But I write:
Loss of freedom. And time.
Tears stream down my face, hot and sticky.
Last one.
What do I need to celebrate?
This one’s hard. But I find the words.
Love. And my talent. I’m fucking amazing and I’m still here.
My face is wet, soaked when we break off into the clusters. Fuck you, Julia, I wasn’t quite ready for that. Fuck honesty. Sometimes, a little bit of distance and delusion is good. And now, in this state, I need to be with people? Why would you do this to me?
We’re a group of four, a young stay-at-home mom, a woman who could either be my age or be a decade my senior, hard to tell, and a post-menopausal matriarch. And, me.
I want to stay to stay open, so I tell them the exercise really triggered me and I was crying and I pretty much can’t stop. They make supportive noises. We share our lists, without details, context, backstory. Then, the matriarch starts asking questions. Who, what, why. She likes to be in charge. The young stay-at-home mom says something about motherhood, challenges, sacrifices. “You will never regret this time,” the matriarch says authoritatively. “There is so much time to do everything you want after…” And she launches into the story her of her perfectly sequenced life.
I can’t bear it. Because sometimes there’s no time, there’s no more time. Sometimes, just as you think there’s more freedom, more time, everything comes crumbling down, and then what? Is it still worth it?
Right now, to be perfectly, brutally honest, I don’t know. I don’t know if it was worth it. Maybe I should have been more selfish, more focused on what I needed back then. I’ve lost so much time, I’m losing so much time now, I’m wasting the time I do have…
What happens when you find out there will not be more time, more freedom? And you will never get back what you lost, and you have to figure out how to work with what you have?
And what is it with this crap of telling women—sacrifice everything you are, everything you want now, because sometime in the future, when nobody needs you anymore, you can do the things that you…
Fuck that shit.
My tears come again. Hot.
What do I need to accept?
Motherhood is forever.
What do I need to grieve?
Loss of freedom. And time.
I don’t want to out Flora, her story, her struggle to strangers.
But they are looking at me, confused, but, I think, also, compassionate.
“I have a sick child,” I say by way of an inadequate explanation. “I don’t have more time, now, that she’s older. My challenge is to figure out how to work with the time I have.”
I don’t add that I’m having a really hard time making use of what time I do have. That I spent most of it exhausted, non-functional.
The matriarch looks at me. I don’t really expect words of wisdom. Just, what? Acknowledgment? That it’s hard.
“I know this couple,” she says. “Married thirty-two years. Never a cross word between.”
There’s no more to her story, although her mouth keeps on moving and she’s making words. I excuse myself and go cry in the washroom for a while.
I’m not angry. Just unsupported. And reminded that it is stupid to be vulnerable in front of strangers.
I recover sufficiently to be present and to listen to Julia. But I know that even though I carry out the exercises, between myself and the page, fairly honestly, I will not be naked to strangers again today.
This is not unfortunate. It’s smart, safe, necessary. Just as necessary as, when walking home late at night, choosing the well-lit paths or opting to call an Uber instead of taking a shortcut through the dark alley or ambush-point filled urban park.
The next point of pain comes during the Q&A on Morning Pages. The Morning Pages, if you’re not an Artist’s Way acolyte, are the primary tool Julia gives us for creative recovery—and perseverance. Three pages, written in longhand, first thing in the morning. Other than those guidelines, anything goes.
In my Morning Pages, I often tell Julia she’s an idiot and this is a stupid exercise, and surely there’s a more productive, creative, enjoyable way with which to start my mornings?
But it’s been more than five years now and I’ve missed perhaps five days. The Morning Pages have given me three novels. Renegotiated most of my existing relationships, opened me to new ones. They are saving me, keeping me anchored to life and why I want to live it during this latest, shittiest chapter of my life.
They work.
They work, very very well, for writers.
Julia prescribes them for everyone.
The question, asked by a woman I don’t really see, but the top of whose head suggests she might have African roots, is this:
“The Morning Page tool is so powerful. But it’s all about writing. Is there way for people or cultures without writing traditions, to use it?
Julia answers it like a 71-year-old white woman.
The first part of her answer is ok. She says that she’s a writer and she comes at this process from that lens and she doesn’t have any experience elsewhere.
Would that she just stopped there, it would be ok.
But she doesn’t. Her next sentiment, communicated as much by tone as actual words, comes across as, “I’m not interested in making my tools work for non-writing cultures.”
Bang. Ouch. Wah.
I can’t tell if the woman asking the question is African or indigenous—she’s far, the room is crowded, I’m blind (I meet her later, she’s a Canadian with Jamaican parentage), but OMFG, Julia, how could you?
Well.
She’s no goddess, she’s no hero, she’s blinded by her class and her privilege, and she’s a product of her time.
She’s also a product of her culture, which has over-privileged writing as a cultural and communication form almost since it invented it.
And it’s so weird, really if you think about it at all.
This urge to write shit down. Not even important shit. Just… anything that happens to you. Or crosses your mind. Imagined shit. Stories about robots and unicorns and alternate universes. Murders that didn’t happen. Love affairs that go right or wrong—but that don’t actually exist.
How weird is that?
Nothing natural, inevitable about any of it, right?
What would all we writers be doing if we were born into a pre-literate age?
We would be… story tellers. Song makers. Poem reciters.
Writing is a tool, a technology, a cultural invention we use to express, communicate both the very mundane (“Sold three sheep for two wheat barrels”; “Pick up toilet paper and eggs on your way home, will you love?”) and the absolutely divine…
“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”
― Rumi (Coleman Barks translation)
The Morning Pages are magical for writers. My non-writing son finds a similar peace and cleansing when he runs. His father finds it in meditation (which Cameron near-dismisses during the workshop, wilfully misunderstanding what it is that happens in meditation—“You meditate until you push the problem away,” she says—as most failed meditators and non-meditators do).
My great-grandmother found it in prayer or the rosary.
I find it in the Morning Pages.
But that doesn’t mean everyone will, everyone should.
Julia. You too old to be open-minded?
Sigh.
My last moment of pain comes when Julia wants to talk about God. She’s a highly spiritual person and this, and her highly personal relationship with an anthropomorphic God the Creator, God the Artist permeates all her work. It is another point of contention between us. I’ve had to “get over” Julia’s god thing to work through her books. Don’t laugh. It’s possible. You can read both the New Testament and the Q’ran for life lessons and reject the existence of both Jesus’s God the Father and Muhammad’s Allah. Ditto the Vedas and the Upanishads. You can learn from the Bhagavad Ghita without praying to Krishna, you know?
Siddhartha Gautama, the “first” Buddha, figured it out—he also realized the average person needs God and I don’t expect he’s surprised either by his own deification or the veneration of Boddhisatvas and statues that make some schools of Buddhism look as theatrical as Roman Catholicism. But I digress, yet again. Point: Julia loves God and trusts that he’s running the show.
I think it’s… well, now, occasionally, I think it’s nice. Why not? Whatever gets you through the days and keeps you sober. But I can’t join her there. Not even because, Syrian civil war, genocide in Rwanda, the Jewish Holocaust, and also, the disease my daughter is battling. Just because… it seems so infantile.
Fake.
In the workshop, we first deconstruct, as a group, the idea of god we grew up with. I’m silent. I’ve put the pedophiliac “You are born in sin and you will die in sin” anthropomorphic, misogynist God the Father of my childhood religion away a long time ago. So I think, anyway. Many of the people in the group though had a similar experience. They share it. I don’t understand why anyone would worship, deify, believe in such an entity past the age of reason. Well. I do. Children are impressionable, life is uncertain.
Worship is seductive.
Next, Julia wants us to construct a joyous God the Creator, God the Artist. “What sort of God do you, as an artist, want?” she asks. “Let’s make him!” The room enters into the exercise enthusiastically. I’m silent again. I think making art to celebrate a thing that doesn’t exist is, while not as evil as making war in the name of a thing that doesn’t exist (“She was a virgin mother!” “No, she wasn’t!” “He was the son of God!” “No, he was just a prophet of God!”) is just as pointless.
But because I’m not busy building false deity, I am looking inward, and when I look inward, the “Why? to what purpose?” question inevitably looms large.
And because “it’s god’s plan” is not an answer available to me, I must find the answer myself, in myself.
This is hard to do when one is empty…
Julia ends the section, and the workshop, by asking us to first, write a letter from ourselves to this god we create, and then a response from him. (Yes, it’s a him. Of course, no gender neutral pronouns for Julia. We don’t get into it. But I feel we would fight about that too. Anyway, I don’t think she’s thought about it very deeply. Her god has a definite, also material penis. Or so I think as I seethe at her. I told you. I don’t like her. This is not a hagiography.)
At the beginning of the workshop, she introduces us to two characters who will accompany us on the journey, the Tyrant and the Rebel.
The Tyrant is also, I think, the Inner Critic. My Aunt Augusta. “Your list of five imaginary lives is so stupid.” “See, you couldn’t come up with 25 things that you love. I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it, because you suck. You’re stupid.”
The Rebel says, “The teacher is so stupid. Why is she making us do this shit?”
My Rebel is rising, but as I have done since I’ve first started working with Julia five years ago, I acknowledge that she, the Rebel, is absolutely right—but we’re going to do this stupid exercise anyway.
I write:
Dear Creativity God,
You don’t exist because, well, you don’t. I don’t believe in you, or ghosts. But Julia Cameron exists—she is very real, right here, and I believe in her. And in myself. And I believe—most of the time—that my urge to create, to write, to put all these stories down on paper is a worthwhile one. It’s important to bear witness. To document.
Look at that. This is how Jesus and the Buddha became gods.
Julia calls time. Now, it’s time for the Creativity God to write back.
Jesus.
For three minutes, I need to write in the voice of something I don’t believe in, that doesn’t exist. Fun.
Fine.
When I commit to doing something, I do it.
I write.
Yes, M., you’re absolutely right. It’s important to bear witness, to document, to interpret, even. How did you put it in that love letter to your crew? To make sense of the world and share it with other people. Not everyone can see either the whole, or the unique angle with which you can illuminate the most ordinary experience. And so, yes. Believe in your urge and in yourself and in its value. Believing in me is not necessary. Unlike Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, I exist whether you believe in me or not.
Well, fuck what the hell is this?
I hate Julia Cameron.
I love Julia Cameron.
Both statements are true. That’s dialectics, that’s where all the best ideas happen.
(Note to self: re-read American Gods soon. I love Neil Gaiman. But it’s his wife Amanda Palmer who is, occasionally, my teacher.)
We give Julia Cameron a standing ovation to close the day and then, I end up at dinner with three other fascinating attendees, including the woman who asked the question about non-literate people and cultures. (She’s brilliant, Julia, working on a doctorate on how we can use art to heal trauma—you really should have paid more attention to what was behind her question).
We de-brief, dissect. I am very pleased to find myself talking with critical thinkers, not mindless acolytes.
I love Julia, I hate Julia—I think the reason my work with The Artist’s Way has been so fruitful for me is because I fight with Julia, argue with her almost every step of the way. Resist and then surrender, for a little while. Fight some more, grow some more.
She is my most beloved Teacher.
Thank you, Janice Sarich, for giving me this time with her.
xoxo
“Jane”
PS In case you forgot where we started: John Cleese + Sherlock Holmes = The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977). Give it at least 13 minutes before giving up. The 1970s were a different time: people still expected/accepted awkward foreplay in their books and films.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn
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Aphra Behn
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn
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British playwright, poet and spy (1640–1689)
Aphra Behn ( ;[a] bapt. 14 December 1640[1][2] – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.[3]
She is remembered in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."[4] Her grave is not included in the Poets' Corner but lies in the East Cloister near the steps to the church.[5]
Her best-known works are Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, sometimes described as an early novel, and the play The Rover.[6]
Life and work
[edit]
Versions of her early life
[edit]
Information regarding Behn's life is scant, especially regarding her early years. This may be due to intentional obscuring on Behn's part.[7] One version of Behn's life tells that she was born to a barber named John Amis and his wife Amy; she is occasionally referred to as Aphra Amis Behn.[8] Another story has Behn born to a couple named Cooper.[8] The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696) states that Behn was born to Bartholomew Johnson, a barber, and Elizabeth Denham, a wet-nurse.[8][9] Colonel Thomas Colepeper, the only person who claimed to have known her as a child, wrote in Adversaria that she was born at "Sturry or Canterbury"[b] to a Mr Johnson and that she had a sister named Frances.[3] Another contemporary, Anne Finch, wrote that Behn was born in Wye in Kent, the "Daughter to a Barber".[3] In some accounts the profile of her father fits Eaffrey Johnson.[3] Although not much is known about her early childhood, one of her biographers, Janet Todd, believes that the common religious upbringing at the time could have heavily influenced much of her work. She argued that, throughout Behn's writings, her experiences in church were not of religious fervour, but instead chances for her to explore her sexual desires, desires that will later be shown through her plays. In one of her last plays she writes, "I have been at the Chapel; and seen so many Beaus, such a Number of Plumeys, I cou'd not tell which I shou'd look on the most...".[10]
Another version of her life says she was born as Aphra Johnson, daughter to Bartholomew and Elizabeth Johnson of Harbledown in Kent; her brother Edward died when he was six and a half years old.[2] She is said to have been betrothed to a man named John Halse in 1657.[11] It is suggested that this association with the Halse family is what gave her family the colonial connections that allowed them to travel to Suriname.[2] Her correspondence with William Scot, son of parliamentarian Thomas Scot, in the 1660s seems to corroborate her stories of her time in the American colony.[2]
Education
[edit]
Although Behn's writings show some form of education, it is not clear how she obtained the education that she did. It was somewhat taboo for women at the time to receive a formal education, Janet Todd notes. Although some aristocratic girls in the past had been able to receive some form of education, that was most likely not the case for Aphra Behn, based on the time she lived. Self-tuition was practised by European women during the 17th century, but it relied on the parents to allow that to happen. She most likely spent time copying poems and other writings, which not only inspired her but educated her. Aphra was not alone in her quest of self-tuition during this time period, and there are other notable women, such as the first female medical doctor Dorothea Leporin who made efforts to self-educate.[12] In some of her plays, Aphra Behn shows disdain towards this English ideal of not educating women formally. She also, though, seemed to believe that learning Greek and Latin, two of the classical languages at the time, was not as important as many authors thought it to be. She may have been influenced by another writer named Francis Kirkman who also lacked knowledge of Greek or Latin, who said "you shall not find my English, Greek, here; nor hard cramping Words, such as will stop you in the middle of your Story to consider what is meant by them...". Later in life, Aphra would make similar gestures to ideas revolving around formal education.[13]
Behn was born during the buildup of the English Civil War, a child of the political tensions of the time. One version of Behn's story has her travelling with a Bartholomew Johnson to the small English colony of Surinam (later captured by the Dutch). He was said to die on the journey, with his wife and children spending some months in the country, though there is no evidence of this.[8][14] During this trip Behn said she met an African slave leader, whose story formed the basis for one of her most famous works, Oroonoko.[8][9] It is possible that she acted as a spy in the colony.[3] There is little verifiable evidence to confirm any one story.[8] In Oroonoko, Behn gives herself the position of narrator and her first biographer accepted the assumption that Behn was the daughter of the lieutenant general of Surinam, as in the story. There is little evidence that this was the case, and none of her contemporaries acknowledge any aristocratic status.[3][8] Her correspondence with Thomas Scot during the time of her stay in Surinam seems to provide evidence for her stay there.[2] Also, later in her career when she found herself facing financial troubles in the Netherlands, her mother is said to have had audience with the King in an attempt to secure Aphra's way home, implying there may have been some form of connection with aristocracy, however small.[2] There is also no evidence that Oroonoko existed as an actual person or that any such slave revolt, as is featured in the story, really happened.
Writer Germaine Greer has called Behn "a palimpsest; she has scratched herself out," and biographer Janet Todd noted that Behn "has a lethal combination of obscurity, secrecy and staginess which makes her an uneasy fit for any narrative, speculative or factual. She is not so much a woman to be unmasked as an unending combination of masks".[14] Her name is not mentioned in tax or church records.[14] During her lifetime she was also known as Ann Behn, Mrs Behn, agent 160 and Astrea.[15]
Career
[edit]
Shortly after her supposed return to England from Surinam in 1664, Behn may have married Johan Behn (also written as Johann and John Behn). He may have been a merchant of German or Dutch extraction, possibly from Hamburg.[8][14] He died or the couple separated soon after 1664; however, from this point the writer used "Mrs Behn" as her professional name.[9] In correspondence, she occasionally signed her name as Behne or Beane.[2]
Behn may have had a Catholic upbringing. She once commented that she was "designed for a nun," and the fact that she had so many Catholic connections, such as Henry Neville who was later arrested for his Catholicism, would have aroused suspicions during the anti-Catholic fervour of the 1680s.[16] She was a monarchist, and her sympathy for the Stuarts, and particularly for the Catholic Duke of York may be demonstrated by her dedication of her play The Second Part of the Rover to him after he had been exiled for the second time.[16] Behn was dedicated to the restored King Charles II. As political parties emerged during this time, Behn became a Tory supporter.[16]
By 1666, Behn had become attached to the court, possibly through the influence of Thomas Culpeper and other associates. She has also been placed in Westminster, in lodgings close to Sir Philip Howard of Naworth, and that it was his connections to John Halsall and Duke Ablemarle that led to her eventual mission in the Netherlands.[2] The Second Anglo-Dutch War had broken out between England and the Netherlands in 1665, and she was recruited as a political spy in Antwerp on behalf of King Charles II, possibly under the auspices of courtier Thomas Killigrew.[3][8][9] This is the first well-documented account we have of her activities.[14] Her code name is said to have been Astrea, a name under which she later published many of her writings.[8] Her chief role was to establish an intimacy with William Scot, son of Thomas Scot, a regicide who had been executed in 1660. Scot was believed to be ready to become a spy in the English service and to report on the doings of the English exiles who were plotting against the King. Behn arrived in Bruges in July 1666, probably with two others, as London was wracked with plague and fire. Behn's job was to turn Scot into a double agent, but there is evidence that Scot betrayed her to the Dutch.[3][14]
Behn's exploits were not profitable, however; the cost of living shocked her, and she was left unprepared. One month after arrival, she pawned her jewellery.[14] King Charles was slow in paying (if he paid at all), either for her services or for her expenses whilst abroad. Money had to be borrowed so that Behn could return to London, where a year's petitioning of Charles for payment was unsuccessful. It may be that she was never paid by the crown. A warrant was issued for her arrest, but there is no evidence it was served or that she went to prison for her debt, though apocryphally it is often given as part of her history.[3][14]
Forced by debt and her husband's death, Behn began to work for the King's Company and the Duke's Company players as a scribe. She had, however, written poetry up until this point.[8] While she is recorded to have written before she adopted her debt, John Palmer said in a review of her works that, "Mrs. Behn wrote for a livelihood. Playwriting was her refuge from starvation and a debtor's prison."[17] The theatres that had been closed under Cromwell were now re-opening under Charles II, plays enjoying a revival. Under Charles, prevailing Puritan ethics were reversed in the fashionable society of London. The King associated with playwrights that poured scorn on marriage and the idea of consistency in love. Among the King's favourites was the Earl of Rochester John Wilmot, who became famous for his cynical libertinism.[18]
In 1613 Lady Elizabeth Cary had published The Tragedy of Miriam, in the 1650s Margaret Cavendish published two volumes of plays, and in 1663 a translation of Corneille's Pompey by Katherine Philips was performed in Dublin and London.[19] Women had been excluded from performing on the public stage before the English Civil War, but in Restoration England professional actresses played the women's parts.[20] In 1668, plays by women began to be staged in London.[21]
Behn's first play The Forc'd Marriage was a romantic tragicomedy on arranged marriages and was staged by the Duke's Company in September 1670. The performance ran for six nights, which was regarded as a good run for an unknown author. Six months later Behn's play The Amorous Prince was successfully staged. Again, Behn used the play to comment on the harmful effects of arranged marriages. Behn did not hide the fact that she was a woman, instead she made a point of it. When in 1673 the Dorset Garden Theatre staged The Dutch Lover, critics sabotaged the play on the grounds that the author was a woman. Behn tackled the critics head on in Epistle to the Reader.[22] She argued that women had been held back by their unjust exclusion from education, not their lack of ability. Critics of Behn were provided with ammunition because of her public liaison with John Hoyle, a bisexual lawyer who scandalised his contemporaries.[23]
After her third play, The Dutch Lover, failed, Behn falls off the public record for three years. It is speculated that she went travelling again, possibly in her capacity as a spy.[14] She gradually moved towards comic works, which proved more commercially successful,[9] publishing four plays in close succession. In 1676–77, she published Abdelazer, The Town-Fopp and The Rover. In early 1678 Sir Patient Fancy was published. This succession of box-office successes led to frequent attacks on Behn. She was attacked for her private life, the morality of her plays was questioned and she was accused of plagiarising The Rover. Behn countered these public attacks in the prefaces of her published plays. In the preface to Sir Patient Fancy she argued that she was being singled out because she was a woman, while male playwrights were free to live the most scandalous lives and write bawdy plays.[24]
By the late 1670s Behn was among the leading playwrights of England. During the 1670s and 1680s she was one of the most productive playwrights in Britain, second only to Poet Laureate John Dryden.[15][25] Her plays were staged frequently and attended by the King. Behn became friends with notable writers of the day, including John Dryden, Elizabeth Barry, John Hoyle, Thomas Otway and Edward Ravenscroft, and was acknowledged as a part of the circle of the Earl of Rochester.[3][14] The Rover became a favourite at the King's court.
Because Charles II had no heir, a prolonged political crisis ensued. Behn became heavily involved in the political debate about the succession. Mass hysteria commenced as in 1678 the rumoured Popish Plot suggested the King should be replaced with his Roman Catholic brother James. Political parties developed, the Whigs wanted to exclude James, while the Tories did not believe succession should be altered in any way. Behn supported the Tory position and in the two years between 1681 and 1682 produced five plays to discredit the Whigs.[citation needed] Behn often used her writings to attack the parliamentary Whigs claiming, "In public spirits call’d, good o' th' Commonwealth... So tho' by different ways the fever seize...in all 'tis one and the same mad disease." This was Behn's reproach to parliament which had denied the king funds.[16] The London audience, mainly Tory sympathisers, attended the plays in large numbers. But a warrant was issued for Behn's arrest on the order of King Charles II when she criticized James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of the King, in the epilogue to the anonymously published Romulus and Hersilia (1682).[26] Charles II eventually dissolved the Cavalier Parliament and James II succeeded him in 1685.
Final years and death
[edit]
In her last four years, Behn's health began to fail, beset by poverty and debt, but she continued to write ferociously, though it became increasingly hard for her to hold a pen.[citation needed]
As audience numbers declined, theatres staged mainly old works to save costs.[citation needed] Nevertheless, Behn staged The Luckey Chance in 1686. In response to the criticism levelled at the play, she articulated a long and passionate defence of women writers in the preface of the play when it was published in the following year.[27] Her play The Emperor of the Moon was staged and published in 1687; it became one of her longest-running plays.[26]
In the 1680s, she began to publish prose. Her first prose work might have been the three-part Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, anonymously published between 1684 and 1687. The novels were inspired by a contemporary scandal, which saw Lord Grey elope with his sister-in-law Lady Henrietta Berkeley.[28] At the time of publication, Love-Letters was very popular and eventually went through more than 16 editions before 1800.[29]
She published five prose works under her own name: La Montre: or, the Lover's Watch (1686), The Fair Jilt (1688), Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave (1688), The History of the Nun (1689) and The Lucky Mistake (1689). Oroonoko, her best-known prose work, was published less than a year before her death. It is the story of the enslaved Oroonoko and his love Imoinda, possibly based on Behn's travel to Surinam twenty years earlier.[29]
She also translated from the French and Latin, publishing translations of Tallement, La Rochefoucauld, Fontenelle and Brilhac. The two translations of Fontenelle's work were: A Discovery of New Worlds (Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes), a popularisation of astronomy written as a novel in a form similar to her own work, but with her new, religiously oriented preface;[9] and The History of Oracles (Histoire des Oracles). She translated Brilhac's Agnes de Castro.[30] In her final days, she translated "Of Trees" ("Sylva"), the sixth and final book of Abraham Cowley's Six Books of Plants (Plantarum libri sex).
She died on 16 April 1689, and was buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on her tombstone reads: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality."[31] She was quoted as stating that she had led a "life dedicated to pleasure and poetry."[3][14][32]
Legacy and re-evaluation
[edit]
Following Behn's death, new female dramatists such as Delarivier Manley, Mary Pix, Susanna Centlivre and Catherine Trotter acknowledged Behn as their most vital predecessor, who opened up public space for women writers.[3][15] Three posthumous collections of her prose, including a number of previously unpublished pieces attributed to her, were published by the bookseller Samuel Briscoe: The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696), All the Histories and Novels Written by the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1698) and Histories, Novels, and Translations Written by the Most Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1700).[33] Greer considers Briscoe to have been an unreliable source and it's possible that not all of these works were written by Behn.[34]
Until the mid-20th century Behn was repeatedly dismissed as a morally depraved minor writer and her literary work was marginalised and often dismissed outright. In the 18th century her literary work was scandalised as lewd by Thomas Brown, William Wycherley, Richard Steele and John Duncombe. Alexander Pope penned the famous lines "The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed!". In the 19th century Mary Hays, Matilda Betham, Alexander Dyce, Jane Williams and Julia Kavanagh decided that Behn's writings were unfit to read, because they were corrupt and deplorable. Among the few critics who believed that Behn was an important writer were Leigh Hunt, William Forsyth and William Henry Hudson.[35]
The life and times of Behn were recounted by a long line of biographers, among them Dyce, Edmund Gosse, Ernest Bernbaum, Montague Summers, Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf, George Woodcock, William J. Cameron and Frederick Link.[36]
Of Behn's considerable literary output only Oroonoko was seriously considered by literary scholars. This book, published in 1688, is regarded as one of the first abolitionist and humanitarian novels published in the English language.[37] In 1696 it was adapted for the stage by Thomas Southerne and continuously performed throughout the 18th century. In 1745 the novel was translated into French, going through seven French editions. It is credited as precursor to Jean-Jaques Rousseau's Discourses on Inequality.
In 1915, Montague Summers, an author of scholarly works on the English drama of the 17th century, published a six-volume collection of her work, in hopes of rehabilitating her reputation. Summers was fiercely passionate about the work of Behn and found himself incredibly devoted to the appreciation of 17th century literature.[17]
Since the 1970s Behn's literary works have been re-evaluated by feminist critics and writers. Behn was rediscovered as a significant female writer by Maureen Duffy, Angeline Goreau, Ruth Perry, Hilda Lee Smith, Moira Ferguson, Jane Spencer, Dale Spender, Elaine Hobby and Janet Todd. This led to the reprinting of her works. The Rover was republished in 1967, Oroonoko was republished in 1973, Love Letters between a Nobleman and His Sisters was published again in 1987 and The Lucky Chance was reprinted in 1988.[38] Felix Schelling wrote in The Cambridge History of English Literature, that she was "a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature... catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations," and that, "Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man." Edmund Gosse remarked that she was, "...the George Sand of the Restoration".[39]
The criticism of Behn's poetry focuses on the themes of gender, sexuality, femininity, pleasure, and love. A feminist critique tends to focus on Behn's inclusion of female pleasure and sexuality in her poetry, which was a radical concept at the time she was writing. Like her contemporary male libertines, she wrote freely about sex. In the infamous poem "The Disappointment" she wrote a comic account of male impotence from a woman's perspective.[23] Critics Lisa Zeitz and Peter Thoms contend that the poem "playfully and wittily questions conventional gender roles and the structures of oppression which they support".[40] One critic, Alison Conway, views Behn as instrumental to the formation of modern thought around the female gender and sexuality: "Behn wrote about these subjects before the technologies of sexuality we now associate were in place, which is, in part, why she proves so hard to situate in the trajectories most familiar to us".[41] Virginia Woolf wrote, in A Room of One's Own:
All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds... Behn proved that money could be made by writing at the sacrifice, perhaps, of certain agreeable qualities; and so by degrees writing became not merely a sign of folly and a distracted mind but was of practical importance.[42]
The current project of the Canterbury Commemoration Society is to raise a statue to Canterbury born Aphra Behn to stand in the city.[43] In partnership with local organisations, Canterbury Christ Church University announced, in September 2023, plans for a year long celebration of Behn's connection to Canterbury which would involve talks, a one-woman show, walks, and exhibitions, some hosted within the Canterbury Festival.[44]
Works
[edit]
Plays
[edit]
The Forc'd Marriage (performed 1670; published 1671)
The Amorous Prince (1671)
The Dutch Lover (1673)
Abdelazer (performed 1676; published 1677)
The Town-Fopp (1676)
The Debauchee (1677), an adaptation, attribution disputed
The Rover (1677)
The Counterfeit Bridegroom (1677), attribution disputed
Sir Patient Fancy (1678)
The Feign'd Curtizans (1679)
The Young King (performed 1679; published 1683)
The Revenge (1680), an adaptation, attribution disputed
The Second Part of the Rover (performed 1680; published 1681)
The False Count (performed 1681; published 1682)
The Roundheads (performed 1681; published 1682)
The City-Heiress (1682)
Like Father, Like Son (1682), lost play
Prologue and epilogue to anonymously published Romulus and Hersilia (1682)
The Luckey Chance (performed 1686; published 1687)
The Emperor of the Moon (1687)
Plays posthumously published
The Widdow Ranter (performed 1689; published 1690)[45]
The Younger Brother, or, the Amorous Jilt (1696)
Poetry collections
[edit]
Poems upon Several Occasions (1684)[46]
Miscellany, Being a Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1685)
A Miscellany of New Poems by Several Hands (1688)[47]
Prose
[edit]
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–1687), published anonymously in three parts, attribution disputed[34]
La Montre: or, the Lover's Watch (1686), loose translation/adaptation of a novel by Bonnecorse[48]
The Fair Jilt (1688)[49]
Oroonoko (1688)[50]
The History of the Nun: or, the Fair Vow-Breaker (1689)[51]
The Lucky Mistake (1689)[52]
Prose posthumously published, attribution disputed[34]
The Adventure of the Black Lady
The Court of the King of Bantam
The Unfortunate Bride
The Unfortunate Happy Lady
The Unhappy Mistake
The Wandring Beauty
Translations
[edit]
Ovid: "A Paraphrase on Oenone to Paris", in John Dryden's and Jacob Tonson's Ovid's Epistles (1680).[53][54]
Paul Tallement: A Voyage to the Island of Love (1684), published with Poems upon Several Occasions. Translation of Voyage de l'isle d'amour.[46]
La Rochefoucauld: Reflections on Morality, or, Seneca Unmasqued (1685), published with Miscellany, Being a Collection of Poems by Several Hands. Translation of Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morale (1675 edition)[55]
Paul Tallement: Lycidus; or, the Lover in Fashion (1688), published with A Miscellany of New Poems by Several Hands. Translation of Le Second voyage de l'isle d'amour.[47]
Fontenelle: The History of Oracles (1688). Translation of Histoire des Oracles.[56]
Fontenelle: A Discovery of New Worlds (1688). Translation of Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1688)[57]
Jean-Baptiste de Brilhac: Agnes de Castro, or, the Force of Generous Love (1688). Translation of Agnes de Castro, Nouvelle Portugaise (1688)[58]
Abraham Cowley: "Of Trees" ("Sylva"), in Six Books of Plants (1689). Translation of the sixth book of Plantarum libri sex (1668).[59]
In popular culture
[edit]
Behn's life has been adapted for the stage in the 2014 play Empress of the Moon: The Lives of Aphra Behn by Chris Braak, and the 2015 play [exit Mrs Behn] or, The Leo Play by Christopher VanderArk.[60] She is one of the characters in the 2010 play Or, by Liz Duffy Adams.[61][62] Behn appears as a character in Daniel O'Mahony's Newtons Sleep, in Philip José Farmer's The Magic Labyrinth and Gods of Riverworld, in Molly Brown's Invitation to a Funeral (1999), in Susanna Gregory’s "Blood On The Strand", and in Diana Norman's The Vizard Mask. She is referred to in Patrick O'Brian's novel Desolation Island. Liz Duffy Adams produced Or,, a 2009 play about her life.[63] The 2019 Big Finish Short Trip audio play The Astrea Conspiracy features Behn alongside The Doctor, voiced by actress Neve McIntosh.[64] In recognition of her pioneering role in women's literature, Behn was featured during the "Her Story" video tribute to notable women on U2's North American tour in 2017 for the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree.[65]
Biographies and writings based on her life
[edit]
Duffy, Maureen (1977). The Passionate Shepherdess. The first wholly scholarly new biography of Behn; the first to identify Behn's birth name.
Goreau, Angeline (1980). Reconstructing Aphra: a social biography of Aphra Behn. New York: Dial Press. ISBN 0-8037-7478-8.
Goreau, Angeline (1983). "Aphra Behn: A scandal to modesty (c. 1640–1689)". In Spender, Dale (ed.). Feminist theorists: Three centuries of key women thinkers. Pantheon. pp. 8–27. ISBN 0-394-53438-7.
Hughes, Derek (2001). The Theatre of Aphra Behn. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-76030-1.
Todd, Janet (1997). The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2455-5. A comprehensively researched biography of Behn, with new material on her life as a spy.
Janet Todd, Aphra Behn: A Secret Life. ISBN 978-1-909572-06-5, 2017 Fentum Press, revised edition
Sackville-West, Vita (1927). Aphra Behn – The Incomparable Astrea. Gerald Howe. A view of Behn more sympathetic and laudatory than Woolf's.
Woolf, Virginia (1929). A Room of One's Own. Only one section deals with Behn, but it served as a starting point for the feminist rediscovery of Behn's role.
Huntting, Nancy. "What Is Triumph in Love? with a consideration of Aphra Behn".
Greer, Germaine (1995). Slip-Shod Sibyls. Two chapters deal with Aphra Behn with emphasis on her character as a poet
Hutner, Heidi (1993). Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813914435.
Hutchinson, John (1892). "Afra Behn" . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. pp. 15–163.
Britland, Karen (2021). "Aphra Behn's First Marriage?". The Seventeenth Century, 36:1. 33–53.
Hilton, Lisa (2024). The Scandal of the Century. Michael Joseph, 352 pp.
Marsh, Patricia (2024). Three Faces. The Conrad Press. ISBN 978-1-916966-60-4 A novel based on the known facts of Behn's life.
Notes
[edit]
References
[edit]
Further reading
[edit]
Todd, Janet. The Works of Aphra Behn. 7 vols. Ohio State University Press, 1992–1996. (Currently most up-to-date edition of her collected works)
O'Donnell, Mary Ann. Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. 2nd Edition. Ashgate, 2004.
Spencer, Jane. Aphra Behn's Afterlife. Oxford University Press. 2000.
Aphra Behn Online: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830. e-journal sponsored by the Aphra Behn Society and the University of South Florida. 2011–
Hobby, Elaine. Virtue of necessity: English women's writing 1649–88. University of Michigan 1989.
Lewcock, Dawn. Aphra Behn studies: More for seeing than hearing: Behn and the use of theatre. Ed. Todd, Janet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Brockhaus, Cathrin, Aphra Behn und ihre Londoner Komödien: Die Dramatikerin und ihr Werk im England des ausgehenden 17. Jahrhunderts, 1998.
Todd, Janet (1998). The critical fortunes of Aphra Behn. Columbia, SC: Camden House. pp. 69–72. ISBN 978-1571131652.
Owens, W. R. (1996). Shakespeare, Aphra Behn, and the canon. New York: Routledge in association with the Open University. ISBN 978-0415135757.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Behn, Aphra" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Gosse, Edmund (1885). "Behn, Afra" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, Jr., and Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama. ISBN 978-0393921519
Altaba-Artal, Dolors. Aphra Behn's English Feminism: Wit and Satire, Susquehanna University Press, Selinsgrove, PA, 1999.
Hughes, Derek. The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn. Cambridge University Press. 2004.
Copeland, N. E. (2004). Staging gender in behn and centlivre: Women's comedy and the theatre. Ashgate
Wallace, David S. "The White Female as Effigy and the Black Female as Surrogate in Janet. Schaw's Journal of a Lady of Quality and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park." Studies in the Literary Imagination, vol. 47, no. 2, 2014, pp. 117.
Trofimova, Violetta. "First Encounters of Europeans and Africans with Native Americans in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: White Woman, Black Prince and Noble Savages." SEDERI. Sociedad Española De Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses, vol. 28, no. 28, 2018, pp. 119–128
Holmesland, Oddvar. Utopian Negotiation: Aphra Behn & Margaret Cavendish, 2013. Print.
Marshall, Alan. "Memorialls for Mrs Affora": Aphra Behn and the Restoration Intelligence World." Women's Writing : The Elizabethan to Victorian Period, vol. 22, no. 1, 2015, pp. 13–33.
Dominique, Lyndon J. Imoinda's Shade: Marriage and the African Woman in Eighteenth-Century British Literature, 1759–1808. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012. Print.
Benítez-Rojo, Antonio. "The Caribbean: From a Sea Basin to an Atlantic Network." The Southern Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 4, 2018, pp. 196–206.
Alexander, William. The history of women, from the earliest antiquity, to the present time; giving some account of almost every interesting particular concerning that sex, among all nations, ancient and modern. By William Alexander, M.D. In two volumes. ... Vol. 2, printed by J.A. Husband, for Messrs. S. Price, R. Cross, J. Potts, L. Flin, T. Walker, W. Wilson, C. Jenkin, J. Exshaw, J. Beatty, L. White, M, DCC, LXXIX. [1779]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CW0101002305/ECCO?u=maine_orono&sid=bookmark-ECCO&xid=b35feb3c&pg=1. Accessed 20 September 2021.
Krueger, Misty, Diana Epelbaum, Shelby Johnson, Grace Gomashie, Pam Perkins, Ula L. Klein, Jennifer Golightly, Alexis McQuigge, Octavia Cox, and Victoria Barnett-Woods. Transatlantic Women Travelers, 1688–1843, 2021. Internet resource.
Waller, Gary F. The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture: From Mary Sidney to Aphra Behn, 2020. Internet resource.
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https://www.playpenn.org/category/classes/
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Classes – Play Penn
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Developing a Solo Show with Che’Rae Adams
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This hands-on class is designed to ready scripts for production by taking a close look at effective writing.
This 6-week remote class is for actors who want to develop a solo show script. This hands-on class is designed to ready scripts for production by taking a close look at effective writing. This class is centered around a workbook entitled “Writing is Hard…” which is based on lectures given by Che’Rae Adams at various universities across America. A series of exercises will be assigned on a weekly basis from the text which the instructor will review with the students. Original material will be generated by the students, and feedback on the work will be given by the instructor. Students are asked to generate at least 5-7 new pages a week to share with the instructor so that students can have a rough draft of a 45-60 minute show by the end of the 6 weeks.
Online (via Zoom)
$360
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
Ethics and Fundamentals of Playwriting with Angeline Larimer
https://www.playpenn.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Angeline-Larimer-Headshot.jpg 650 433 Play Penn Play Penn https://www.playpenn.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Angeline-Larimer-Headshot.jpg October 14, 2022 October 14, 2022
Learn foundational playwriting rules to go forward with confidence in reinventing them.
Ethics and Fundamentals of Playwriting provides an introduction or refresher for those serious about beginning or improving their scriptwriting skills, with added conversations built-in that help each playwright answer the questions, ‘Why am I doing this? What impact am I trying to make?’ Participants will learn playscript formatting, strengthen knowledge of structure of drama, participate in prompted writing exercises, complete a 10-minute play at the end of the 8 weeks course, and will learn and participate in the required rules of beneficial workshopping. Essentially, participants learn foundational playwriting rules so that they can go forward with confidence in reinventing them.
Online (via Zoom)
A strong creative writing background is preferred. Angeline will meet with each participant individually to create an individualized plan.
Angeline Larimer (she/her) is an MFA playwright, screenwriter, dramaturg, bioethicist for public health, & Medical Humanities and Applied Theatre playwriting professor for Indiana University-Indianapolis. She is a collaborator with Fonseca Theatre Company and American Lives Theatre. She is also a volunteer scriptwriting instructor for Indiana Veterans Affairs Outreach (Playwriting for Veterans) and Indiana Prison Writers Workshop. She is a member of the IU Conscience Project. Her recent specialty is collaborating on devised scripts addressing social justice and health inequity concerns. She was Lead Dramaturg for PlayPenn’s 2022 New Play Development Conference. dapibus leo.
$320
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
Director & Playwright Collaboration with Jackson Gay
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Expand on all aspects of the director-playwright collaborative process
In this class, you will come together for joint exercises designed to expose you to all aspects of the director-playwright collaborative process, from the first coffee date, through all stages of the rehearsal and production process, including design and casting. We will discuss practical ways you can, proactively and throughout the process, create a room where the playwright’s intentions and the director’s contributions work together to bring the production to life.
Online (via Zoom)
$120
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
The Artist’s Way, with Lisa Berger
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A 12-week creative recovery. This program offers exercises in gaining self-confidence and harnessing your creative talents and skills.
The Artist’s Way written by Julia Cameron supports people in their creative recovery. It teaches techniques and exercises to assist people in gaining self-confidence in harnessing their creative talents and skills. Participants will read one chapter a week, prior to convening as a group. As a group, you will then come together to discuss the chapter and activities of the week. Lisa Berger will facilitate the group. This is meant to be a safe and brave space. Each participant will make their own goals and have their own journey in reclaiming ownership of their artist practice.
Online (via Zoom)
A PDF of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron will be distributed before the class, but feel free to purchase a copy of The Artist’s Way as well. Please read the first chapter before class.
Lisa Berger is a director, Meisner teacher and professor of Theatre. Her San Diego directing credits include How High the Moon and The Car Plays: Incident Row (Wow Festival); The Car Plays: We Wait (LaJolla Playhouse, Moving Arts) , Red Truck, Blue Truck, When It Comes and Skelton Crew (readings;The Old Globe), Parlour Song (Backyard Renaissance) A Behanding in Spokane (Cygnet Theatre) Looking for Normal, The Long Christmas Ride Home and The Moors, (Diversionary Theatre) She received her MFA from the University of Montana and is also a graduate of The William Esper Studio in New York City. She currently teaches at Mira Costa College and the University of San Diego. She is co-artistic director of Meisner/Chekhov Integrated Training Studio.
$480
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
Lyric Blockbusting, with Marcy Heisler
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Creating contemporary lyrics via an interactive lyric writing workshop.
Join Marcy Heisler in a hands-on interactive writing workshop in which lyricists expand the boundaries of their creative toolkit. With a core of instructor-based assignments grounded in professional experience, writers will complete assignments built on themes of adaptation, collaboration, production environment, and more.
Online (via Zoom)
None
Marcy Heisler is a bookwriter/lyricist, performer, poet, author and educator. Primarily working with composer Zina Goldrich, current collaborations include: Ever After (Book/Lyrics), Breathe (Lyrics), Hollywood Romance (Lyrics), Dear Edwina (Book/Lyrics, Drama Desk nomination), Snow White, Rose Red and Fred (Book/Lyrics, Helen Hayes nomination), Junie B Jones, The Musical (Book/Lyrics, Lucille Lortel nomination) Junie B’s Essential Survival Guide to School (Book/Lyrics), The Great American Mousical (Lyrics), and others. Additionally, she is working on Williamsburg, which was recently workshopped at New York Stage and Film in collaboration with Pultizer-prize winning composer Tom Kitt, Emmy Award winning author Jason Katims, and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller. She collaborated with Concord composer Georgia Stitt on Alphabet City Cycle, which was based upon her poetry. Her songs have been featured in numerous projects for Disney, ABC, NPR and PBS, and she is co-lyricist of Little Did I Know, a podcast musical collaboration with Doug Besterman and Dean Pitchford. Awards include the 2012 Kleban Prize for Lyrics, 2009 Fred Ebb Award (co-recipient) for outstanding songwriting, the 2012 ASCAP Rodgers and Hart Award, the ASCAP New Horizons Theatre Award, and the Seldes-Kanin Fellowship. She is a Concord publishing artist and her collected works are available at Hal Leonard.
$225
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
Building a First Draft, with Phillip Christian Smith
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The focus of the class will be on moving forward without getting stuck, and making that great idea, a visceral reality, words on paper.
Students will bring in 5-10 pages a week, those pages will be workshopped in a safe Lerman styled manner. Through, what stuck out to you (popcorn), questions the class has, and questions the writer has, we hope to inspire the playwright to write vigoursly and more effectively by seeing what impact it is having on the class IE what is coming across. A little positive and kind feedback can be a strong motivational factor for an emerging playwright.
Online (via Zoom)
Bring 5 pages of a new idea to the first class, if possible – from there in, 5-10 pages of writing will be required for each week’s class.
Phillip Christian Smith is a 2021 O’Neill (NPC) Finalist for his drag ball adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest titled: A Handbag is Not a Proper Mutha, 2020-21 Playwrights Realm Fellow, Lambda Literary Fellow, Winter Playwrights Retreat, Blue Ink Playwriting Award Semi-Finalist, Finalist for The Dramatists Guild Fellowship and New Dramatists, Finalist and Semi-finalist PlayPenn, Two time Semi-finalist for The O’Neill (NPC), and runner- up in The Theatre of Risk Modern Tragedy writing competition for his play The Chechens, which also won Theatre Conspiracy’s playwriting award, and recently had its third production at Alliance for the Arts. He has been a semi-finalist for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries (ASC), finalist for Trustus, former Playwright in Residence Exquisite Corpse and founding member of The Playwriting Collective. 2021 Playwright in Residence: Quicksilver Theatre’s Playwrights of Color Summit. Co-Literary Director of Exquisite Corpse Company. His work has been supported by The Fire This Time Festival, Bennington College, Primary Stages (Cherry Lane) ESPA, Fresh Ground Pepper, and the 53rd Street New York Public Library. MFA Yale School of Drama, BFA University of New Mexico. MFA Hunter ’23.
$150
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
The Polish, with Jule Selbo
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It’s important for a playwright, after the first solid draft of a play is completed, to be able to step back and analyze the elements of their work.
Are the characters clear? Is there a purpose for the piece? What themes are creeping to the forefront? What does the writer want the audience to “get” from the piece? Is it ready to be produced? Do all elements have a clarity to them, so the reader/producer will understand the writer’s intent? We will work as a group, and also individually, to explore the questions (and more) stated above. Exercises will help generate new content. The plays will be workshopped during the class sessions.
Online (via Zoom)
A completed first draft of a play. Instructor will provide reading material.
Jule Selbo loves story – and she writes in many mediums (theatrical plays, screenplays, novels, non-fiction). Her plays have been produced in New York and Los Angeles and in regional theaters. Isolate (directed by Allan Wasserman) was awarded the LA Women’s Playwrighting Prize (1992), Boxes, a nominee for the Valley Awards (directed by Mary Lou Belli), premiered at Theater West (2015) and most recently produced (in 2019) at Good Theatre in Portland, Maine to sold out houses and excellent reviews. One-acts include Open Door (Theater West) The Wedding (Actors Theater Louisville), Two Not So Tall Women (Interact Theatre); her short play Miss Julie was chosen for the LA Pride Festival Zoom reading series and for Acorn Theater’s Spring Festival (postponed because of Covid). Her play, Lake Girls has enjoyed staged readings and is on a short list for possible 2021 production. She’s a produced screenwriter in both film and tv, she’s written “story podcasts” and also for bookshelves (four books so far); her latest novel, 10 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery has been nominated for a 2021 Clue Award. She has also written academic texts on screenwriting, film history. She helped shape the playwriting department at California State University and started a one-act festival at the university; she has taught playwriting workshops in LA, NYC, Maine and Florence, Italy. Her focus, as an instructor, is to help each writer find the core of the work and to help get it ready for an audience. Check out her website https://www.juleselbo.com
$200
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
Dynamic Dialogue, with Chisa Hutchinson
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How to (you know) write dynamic dialogue.
We’ve all been there. You’ve ruminated on an idea for a play. Dreamed up some really compelling characters. Even outlined major plot points in the shower one morning. Like you know exactly how you want the thing to end and everything. But then you sit down to start writing it and read that first scene out loud and go, “Ughch, all my characters all sound the same,” or “Man, this feels so flat.”
THAT. That’s what this class is for: avoiding that shit. I’ll break dialogue down into elements and give you some tips for how to create dialogue that feels both authentic to your characters and engaging to your audience. Along the way, I will give you two short assignments that will challenge you to flex your dialogue muscles, and we will workshop your work.
Online (via Zoom)
Just bring something to write on or with.
Chisa Hutchinson (B.A. Vassar College; M.F.A NYU – TSoA) has presented her plays, which include She Like Girls, Somebody’s Daughter, Surely Goodness And Mercy, Whitelisted and Dead & Breathing at such venues as the Lark Theater, Atlantic Theater Company, CATF, the National Black Theatre, Second Stage Theater and Arch 468 in London. Her radio drama, Proof of Love, can be found on Audible (with a pretty boss rating). She has been a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Lark Fellow, a NeoFuturist, and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group. She’s won a GLAAD Award, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and the Lanford Wilson Award. Currently, Chisa is standing by for production on a new TV series she helped write for Showtime, and is about to embark on another with producers Karamo Brown (Queer Eye) and Stephanie Allain (Hustle & Flow, Dear White People). Her first original feature, THE SUBJECT, an indie about a white documentarian dealing with the moral fallout from exploiting the death of a black teen, is available on various VOD platforms after a successful film festival circuit during which it won over 30 prizes. To learn more, visit www.chisahutchinson.com .
$50
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
The Subconscious First Draft, with C. Julian Jiménez
https://www.playpenn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/C-Julian-Jimenez-Headshot-1.jpg 640 433 Play Penn Play Penn https://www.playpenn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/C-Julian-Jimenez-Headshot-1.jpg September 13, 2021 September 13, 2021
This course is designed to free students from the expected into the unknown.
Using writing exercises, students will begin to understand how bucking traditional form can unlock their imagination and help them embrace the messiness of their first draft as something to cherish, instead of something to discard.
Online (via Zoom)
None
C. Julian Jiménez Acting MFA (The Actors Studio Drama School at the New School). Awards: The 2009 Public Theater Emerging Writers Group Fellowship, 2015 Queens Arts Council Grant, and The 2014 Best New Work Motif Award. Plays include, Locusts Have No King (INTAR), Animals Commit Suicide (First Floor Theater), Nico was a Fashion Model (LAByrinth) and Man Boobs (The Public Theater). Julian received honors for Best Devised Work & Best Direction at the 49th Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in 2017 for his production of anOTHER. He is an Executive Producer and Writer of the hit web series, Bulk- The Series.
$225
Tuition
Register Here
Click the link below to visit our Reservation Page, where you can view all classes and register for this course. For questions or to inquire about payment plans, please email classes@playpenn.org.
“Writing can be a lonely road. I’m thankful that Philadelphia offers the supportive, talented PlayPenn community.”
-Joe G., 2020 Participant
“I walked away with an arsenal of guidelines for what makes a high-concept play, but also with half a notebook full of fantastic off-the-cuff breakthroughs and exercises.”
-Danielle B., 2019 Participant
|
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692
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https://www.centeratwestpark.org/fall-2021-season
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Fall 2021 Season — The Center at West Park
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The Center at West Park
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https://www.centeratwestpark.org/fall-2021-season
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DEBRA ANN BYRD
Debra Ann Byrd is the Founding Artistic Director of the Harlem Shakespeare Festival, as well as, an award winning classically trained actress, scholar and producer who was recently named Writer-in-Residence at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Artist-in-Residence Fellow at the Folger Institute, an A'Lelia Bundles Community Scholar Arts Fellow at Columbia University, a Virtual Artist-in-Residence at The Center at West Park, and Artist-in-Residence at Southwest Shakespeare Company, where she recently reprised the role of Othello, winning her the 2019 Broadway World Phoenix Award for Best Lead Actress. In addition, Byrd is an emerging playwright who recently completed her new critically acclaimed solo show BECOMING OTHELLO: A Black Girl’s Journey.
Debra Ann received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Marymount Manhattan College and completed advanced studies at Shakespeare & Company, The Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab and The Broadway League’s Commercial Theatre Institute.
Her career as an actor, producer, scholar, arts manager and business leader has been recognized with many awards and citations, including the NAACP Shirley Farmer Woman of Excellence Award, the LPTW (League Lucille Lortel Award, and the Josephine Abady Award for Excellence in “Producing works that foster diversity.”
She is the 2021 recipient of the prestigious Sidney Berger Award presented to her by the Shakespeare Theatre Association for her work as leader of a Shakespearean theater throughout the world.
TORN OUT THEATER
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE CENTER AT WEST PARK
PRESENTS
ANTIGONICK
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20 AT 8:00PM (DOORS AT 7:30PM)
SATURDAY, AUGUST 21 AT 3:00PM (DOORS AT 2:30PM)
THERE IS NO ADVANCE TICKETING. ALL SEATS ARE FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVED.
Torn Out is thrilled to present Antigonick, Anne Carson’s adaptation of Sophocles’ famous tragedy Antigone.
After over a year of physical isolation, come celebrate intimacy, connection, and the devastating importance of human touch.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
TORN OUT THEATER, founded in August 2016, is a home for theater projects that push the boundaries of how we see the human body and what we assume about modern sexuality. Alice Mottola and Pitr Strait, co-founders, believe that everyone's body tells a story, sometimes many stories. By adapting classic texts and devising unique audience experiences, Torn Out attempts to navigate a culture where private and public blur together, where the shocking and common trade places, and where magic is real.
In the spring of 2016, Mottola was approached by the Outdoor Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society about directing a nude production of Shakespeare's The Tempest. After developing the core concepts of this world, finding a way for nudity and Shakespeare to blend together seamlessly, she invited Strait, longtime friend and collaborator, to join her as co-director. Together, they brought a performance like no one had ever seen to Central Park. A cast of brave and proud actors, dancers, and musicians played to overflowing crowds, leaving sorcery, beauty, and wonder in their wake.
In the weeks that followed, coverage of the performance circled the globe, igniting controversy and conversation. Thousands of people debated the role of the nudity in art and in society, the politics of reinventing classic plays, and the differing perceptions of male and female bodies. Seeing the power of theater to bring simmering tensions to the surface, where they could be confronted and explored, Mottola and Strait decided to form a company dedicated to starting more difficult conversations.
WELCOME TO IMAGI*NATION: PART 2
DIRECTION & CHOREOGRAPHY BY CARMEN CACERES
(In Collaboration with the dancers)
CO-DIRECTION & DRAMATURGY BY LAUREN HLUBNY
OCT 21 AT 7:30PM
FREE WITH REGISTRATION
SUGGESTED DONATION OF $10 - $40
Welcome to Imagi*Nation: Part 2 is a multimedia interactive performance that begins at the conflict of two fictional neighboring nations. While the audience participates in a socially distant interactive experience, the performers will enter into a series of challenges that will result in multiple possible outcomes. As the characters are searching for a way to survive, the audience will experience the motivations and consequences of migration.
This production will feature performances by Carmen Caceres, Israel Harris, Lauren Hlubny, Mallory Markham-Miller, Sofia Baeta, & Sofia Bengoa.
Understudy: Lydia Perakis
Lighting Design: Nicole Sliwinski
The evening will run approximately 60 minutes total, including a 20-minute talk-back with the artists following the performance.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
CARMEN CACERES (SHE/HER) is a dance artist, originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She received a BA in Dance and Education at SUNY Empire State College and deepened her studies in dance, performance, and choreography at the former Merce Cunningham Studio in New York. In her native city, she graduated from the National School of Dance and has studied Dance Composition at the National University of the Arts UNA.
She has been creating and presenting dance works in Argentina and NY since 2009. In 2012 she founded DanceAction, a creative platform composed of artists from multiple disciplines, to produce performing artworks in collaboration and provide educational opportunities. DA participated in numerous festivals and performance series in New York, such as Performance Studio Open House (PSOH) at Center for Performance Research, Take Root at Green Space Studio, Open Performance for Movement Research, Under Exposed at Dixon Place, and SharedSpace at the Mark Morris Dance Center. DA has also been invited to international dance festivals in different cities. The First International Contemporary Dance Festival of Mexico City (FIDCDMX), the International Contemporary Dance Festival and Campus “Ticino in Danza” in Ticino, Switzerland, and “Women Center Stage Festival” in New York are some of them. DA’s project, BLINDSPOT, was sponsored, in part, by the Brooklyn Arts Fund community grant, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). The company has also received the Dance/NYC Emergency COVID-19 Grant in 2020. DA was an Artist in Residence at The Center at West Park, premiering their new work Welcome to Imagi*Nation during the Virtual Residency Program in April 2021. Most recently, DA has received the City Artist Corps Grant to continue exploring this piece; Welcome to Imagi*Nation: Part 2 will premiere in the fall of 2021 at The Center at West Park.
As a performer and collaborator, Carmen has worked with artists Ines Armas, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Isabel Lewis, Jillian Peña, Lisa Parra, Elia Mrak, Jody Oberfelder, and Sarah Berges among others. Carmen also works as a dance educator and program director for different art education programs in New York City, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. www.carmencaceres.com
LAUREN HLUBNY (SHE/HER) is the NYC Artistic Director of the Franco-American company Danse Theatre Surreality (DanseTheatreSurreality.org). Hlubny's work centers image-as-metaphor, physicality, social justice, and interdisciplinary communication, and her research focuses on the intersection of movement and storytelling. Hlubny has been invited to share works in France, Italy, Seattle, San Francisco, Birmingham, Knoxville, New Orleans, Portland, and in museums nationwide, including the Dali Museum. Hlubny studies Martial Arts and Anthropology in New York City, where she works as a director who originates works at venues such as Joe’s Pub, Triskelion, The Kraine, Shetler Studios, TADA! Youth Theater, Mark Morris, and La MaMa. Fascinated by multifaceted productions, combat, and consent, Hlubny also enjoys working as a dramaturg and acting coach for choreographers, and as a choreographer for theatre and opera. Hlubny was an artist-in-residence for her piece īs, a dance-concerto this August at the Shed Seattle, and serves as co-director/dramaturg for Dance Action’s latest work Welcome to Imagi*nation directed and choreographed by Carmen Caceres.
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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/julia-cameron-says-you-can-get-creative-indoors
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en
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Julia Cameron Says You Can Get Creative Indoors
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2022-01-23T06:00:00-05:00
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Rachel Syme speaks with the author Julia Cameron about her best-seller “The Artist’s Way,” her career as a journalist, her time living in New Mexico, and her thoughts about the spiritual side of writing.
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https://www.newyorker.com/verso/static/the-new-yorker/assets/favicon.ico
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The New Yorker
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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/julia-cameron-says-you-can-get-creative-indoors
|
I first heard about “The Artist’s Way,” Julia Cameron’s best-selling self-help book, from 1992, about tapping into your inner creativity, when I was in my twenties and struggling to finish a piece of writing that had been dogging me for months. A friend mentioned the book, which is big and floppy, like an elementary-school math workbook, and I trundled off to the Union Square Barnes & Noble to grab a copy. Then I promptly shoved it into my bag like it was contraband. There is something about “The Artist’s Way” that inspires eye rolls at first—oh, so you think you’re an artist? The book’s language, with its invocations of a higher power called the Great Creator who wants you to make things, and lines like “action has magic, grace, and power in it,” can feel a little out there even for those with a high woo-woo tolerance. But the advice contained within is surprisingly practical and effective. Cameron recommends two core practices to activate one’s creative energy. The first is Morning Pages, a ritual of scribbling three longhand, stream-of-consciousness pages each day, preferably before you’ve even had your coffee. The second is Artist Dates, a weekly “festive, solo expedition,” such as going to a museum or walking through a strange neighborhood, to stimulate the mind through flânerie. What resonates with many readers is Cameron’s matter-of-fact approach to making things, and to overcoming self-doubt: to get work done, you have to have a steady, everyday practice. Her techniques have spread astonishingly far and wide: “The Artist’s Way” has sold more than four million copies, and writers and celebrities from Elizabeth Gilbert to Alicia Keys swear by its methodology. During the pandemic, the book has leaped back onto best-seller lists.
Before she was a self-help celebrity, Cameron led several other professional lives. Raised in the suburbs of Chicago, she became a star of the New Journalism movement in the nineteen-seventies, when she wrote for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice about Watergate and party drugs; one writer described her as an “East Coast Eve Babitz.” She had a two-year marriage to the director Martin Scorsese, from 1975 to ’77, which began after she interviewed him for a magazine article and he asked her to do some punch-up work on the “Taxi Driver” script. The two had a daughter together, and after the marriage ended Cameron found herself struggling to get screenplay gigs in Los Angeles. She got sober and began writing motivational essays for her friends who were still stuck in bad mental places. In the course of a decade, those texts evolved into a cult-popular workshop in SoHo, and then into a self-published, Xeroxed workbook. At the urging of her second husband, Mark Bryan, Cameron contacted a literary agent who landed her a publishing deal. “The Artist’s Way” took off slowly at first, spreading through word of mouth, but soon became a mainstay of “unblocking” literature. In the years since, Cameron has written several dozen more books in a similar vein.
Now seventy-three, Cameron lives in a cozy adobe house on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I visited her there one morning in December. We sat in the purple living room of her house as her Westie terrier, Lily, circled our ankles. Cameron shares Lily’s fluffy white hair, and she had rimmed her eyes with kohl. As we spoke, she got up several times to bring me various artistic trinkets from her life: a pack of medicine cards from Taos, a small Casio keyboard she uses to write music on, a binder full of poetry. She showed me a printout of a recent profile of her daughter, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, now an actor and director, who cited both of her parents as equal creative influences. During the pandemic, Cameron wrote a new book that’s just been released, “Seeking Wisdom,” which urges artists to tune in to their spirituality in order to help guide their decision-making. Like most of Cameron’s methods, this latest one combines concrete activity with free-form thinking; she believes that the mind often follows the hands. Our conversation has been condensed and edited.
Did you do your Morning Pages today?
I was nervous about meeting you because of the pandemic. So I wrote that in my Morning Pages. I do them every day.
What is your ritual? Do you do them in bed? Do you do them at a desk?
I don’t do them in bed. I do them either there in that chair, right over there [pointing to a large leather chair], or else I do them in my library, where I have what I call my writing chair. It’s a big tipsy chair. And I brace myself on one side with my Morning Pages book and on my other side with Lily [gesturing to the dog].
And do you ever go back and read them?
I don’t. I do guidance, which is when I’ll say, “What should I do about x?” And I’ll listen. I’ll go back and reread that, which is sort of comforting and straightforward, and hopefully less neurotic.
What was the last thing you asked for guidance on?
How to make you feel comfortable.
What did the pages bear out?
They said we would like each other, that we would have an immediate rapport. That we would offer you water.
Ah, so you predicted the water. When you’re asking for “guidance” in these pages, are you asking from your subconscious? Is that what answers? Or do you feel like you have another sort of separate personality that comes to answer—someone wiser, someone more confident?
I don’t want to say it’s my subconscious. It feels it’s sort of a benevolent force.
Did you do a lot of writing as a little girl? What was your childhood like in terms of creativity?
My father was in advertising. He was the executive at Dial soap. My mother was very creative. She was a poet. She was very aware of nature. She would be alert to cardinals, to robins, to finches. And she had seven children. She would give us projects to do. And then she would tack up the result on the bulletin board in the kitchen. Things like making snowflakes, things like rhyming, drawing. I had a drawing that I still remember of a palomino horse rearing up with a mountain in the distance. I read horse books. I read “Black Beauty.” I read “The Island Stallion Races.”
I feel like a lot of girls who are into horses grow up to be writers. I don’t know why that’s a correlation.
I think reading all the horse books made me want to write. It made writing seem as possible as riding.
So you started writing poetry in high school?
Yes. I had a nun in high school, Sister Julia Clare Green. She encouraged me. Then when I got to Georgetown, I had gone as an Italian major. But it turned out that the whole Italian faculty had been hired away during the summer. So there was no one who could really teach Italian. And I thought, Well, I’ll just go straight to English, then. But, when I went to the English department and said, “I want to be a writer,” they said, “Men are writers. Women are wives.” This was 1966. And so, I went to the newspaper and said, “I’d like to help,” because I had been on the newspaper in high school. And they said, “Can you bake cookies?”
Oh, my God.
So Georgetown was not supportive of a plan of becoming a writer. They had lots of rules. Women were not allowed to wear slacks. Women were not allowed to sit on the lawn. You had to get back into the dormitory before curfew ended. No public displays of affection. When I finished college, I got a call from a boy I had gone to high school with. He said, “How would you like to work for the Washington Post?” He was a copy aide. And I said, “I’m writing short stories. I don’t want to work for the Washington Post.” And he said, “Well, it’s four hours a day and sixty-seven dollars a week.” So I went.
That’s when you started publishing in the paper?
Yes. I was offered a book-reviewing job by a man named William McPherson. But, I had the boy that I went to high school with, peering over my shoulder, telling me I was sorting the mail wrong. And I told him to go to hell! And he went to the editor of the Arts section about it. The editor came to me and said, “At the Washington Post, we do not tell people to go to hell.” And so I quit. I think that boy was jealous of me that I was publishing pieces in the Style section. So I went back to writing short stories. And I got a phone call that said, “I’m an editor at Rolling Stone. I’ve been reading you in the Style section. Would you like to write for us?”
Do you remember your first Rolling Stone assignment?
Yes, it was to write about E. Howard Hunt’s children. You know, Watergate. I said, “I don’t think I want to do this.” And they said, “Well, just try.” So I found their house. I drove out. It became a cover story. It got written up in Time magazine. William F. Buckley [Jr.] called me and said, “You’re a catastrophe.”
That’s when you know you’re doing something right.
And I felt that I was doing something right. And then I became known as a hot writer. And I was writing for the Village Voice. I had my passport stamped in a lot of the right places.
Did you ever write for Esquire?
No. Esquire called me and wanted me to write about one-night stands, and that wasn’t my story.
And did you have a lot of contemporaries at the time, women who were also writers, who you felt were your peers?
I was friends with a writer you may know called Judy Bachrach. And Judy was sort of doing everything right, and I was on the outside. I never had the security of a full-time job. This is still true. I write my books on spec.
Wow. Still? Not by proposal?
Yes. I write the whole book, and then I try and sell it.
You were part of the New Journalism crowd. So you have Nora Ephron, you have Joan Didion, you have Tom Wolfe, you have all these people writing. Were you going to the parties?
Well, I was living in Washington, D.C., but I knew Nora. She once told me I wrote the best ledes in America. I knew Carl [Bernstein]. I knew Bob Woodward. I knew sort of the whole crew. But I was a girl, and I didn’t . . . matriculate.
When you started out, did journalism feel like a boys’ club where it was hard to be taken seriously? Or did you feel like it was exciting to be the rare woman everyone knew who was doing these big stories?
The answer to that is both. I wasn’t somebody’s girlfriend. I had to be scrappy. I had to be independent. I had sort of a persona of a tough girl. I wore all black. I smoked Camels. I drank. And I sort of made my way by keeping up with the boys.
And then at what point in this did you meet Marty [Scorsese]? You were doing a story on him, right?
Yes. Though I prefer to not talk much about that. It was forty-five years ago. People want to focus on that little fragment of my life. And my real story was I was a writer.
I do wonder how you squared being this tough, independent woman with getting married. How did you maintain your creative autonomy?
Well, my desire to remain a creative iceberg stayed intact until Marty sat down at the table. I realized I’d met the man I was going to marry. And my mother had always supported my father. And so it seemed to me like I could support Marty. And what happened was, he gave me a script of “Taxi Driver” to read, and I thought parts of it were a little shaky. And I had my own history as a reporter. So I blindly wrote on the script.
Did you find your time in Hollywood to be particularly creative? Did you keep writing your own stories?
It was difficult. My editors said to me, “If you want to write for us, get divorced.”
Because you got so wrapped up in that other world.
Right. And I got pregnant on our wedding night. Well, we think. So I went from being a tough Rolling Stone writer, hip and cool, and writing for the Village Voice, and flying around on assignments, to, suddenly, Marty was going to work, and I was in charge of a child. It was a hard transition. I think, if I had stayed married to Marty, there would not be an “Artist’s Way.”
I think a lot of women pick up “The Artist's Way” after they’ve had a baby because they want to find their way back into this creative way of living. Did you manage to do any writing for yourself as a new mom?
I’ve always kept writing. In fact, the night before I had Domenica, I stayed up all night writing. I wanted to record her entry into the world. She was born on Labor Day, which I thought was perfect for a writer’s child.
Very literal. At what point in this journey did you stop drinking? You’ve been open about being sober as an important part of your creative process.
It will be forty-four years in January.
Did you feel that sobriety helped you become a better writer?
It helped me become a different writer. I began to try to write to be of service. And where, before, as per Nora Ephron saying I wrote brilliant ledes, I was always trying to be clever and intellectual, after I got sober I began to try to be useful. A lot of what happened to me with “The Artist’s Way” was an impulse to teach something that I had learned through experience.
Let’s talk about how “The Artist’s Way” developed. You’re sober. You’re no longer in your marriage. Walk me through how it came to be.
So, I had written a movie for Jon Voight. And they called me up, and they said it was brilliant, and then I couldn’t get them on the phone. I was living in New York at the time, and I thought, I’d better go to Hollywood and get to the bottom of this. And, as I was flying from New York to Hollywood, I was praying, Dear God, please give me a sense of direction. And I think the line from Dylan Thomas, “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” was what I was praying to, the creative energy. And I heard, “Go to New Mexico.” This was before New Mexico was hip.
When I landed in L.A., I told my girlfriend, a woman named Julianna McCarthy, who was an actress and a poet, “I keep hearing, ‘Go to New Mexico.’ ” And she said, “Here’s a thousand dollars. Go to New Mexico.”
And you just went?
I went to Santa Fe and I thought, This isn’t it. And somebody said, “Take the high road to Taos.” And I went to Taos, and I just fell in love with the place immediately. I rented a little adobe house at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by cows. I had my daughter. I didn’t know what to do about my movie career. And I was heartbroken. I didn’t have the stomach to write scripts and have them shelved. I needed to have things made. I started getting up in the morning to write before my daughter woke up, and she would manage to stay asleep for three pages.
So that’s how the length of Morning Pages came about?
Yes. I was staring out the window at the Taos mountains, which would be wreathed in clouds or clear or folded gold velvet. And that was the beginning of “The Artist’s Way.”
The other big method in the book is the Artist Dates. How did that idea start to congeal?
Taos was an Artist Date. They had a teeny metaphysical bookstore called Merlin’s Garden. Artist Dates happened when you went to town and explored little nooks and crannies. And, meanwhile, I had people I had left behind in Los Angeles who were stymied and blocked and unhappy. And so I wrote essays and sent them to them. Then I went back to New York.
Why did you leave Taos, if you loved it so much?
I had a prowler in Taos. The police were not particularly interested in catching the prowler. I had a doctor say to me, “You’ll never feel safe in your house again.” Taos felt dangerous—and drunk. I went to New York to be part of sort of a river of creativity that wasn’t grounded in substance abuse. I was walking in the West Village, and, again, asking for guidance from the creative force. And I heard, “Teach.” And I thought, Oh no. I don’t want to teach. I want to be an artist! And I called a girlfriend of mine and said, “I’ve been praying for guidance and I keep getting told, ‘Teach.’ ” And she said, “I’ll call you right back.” When she called back, she said, “Congratulations. You’re now on the faculty of the New York Feminist Art Institute, and your first class meets Thursday.”
Kismet!
So I started teaching Creative Unblocking at a little space on Spring Street. I worked with blocked directors, blocked painters, blocked writers. All women. And I taught them, “Do Morning Pages. Go for walks. Take Artist Dates.” And they started working the tools of “The Artist’s Way” and getting unblocked.
Did you know that these ideas were coalescing into a larger system? Did people take you seriously as a teacher?
I feel like I’ve always taught from my own experience. And this is why I have had my run-ins with intellectuals who are offended by my experience. Now the book has five million practitioners. So people who are cynical are still curious. What I didn’t realize was that, by teaching unblocking, I would stay unblocked. That, by doing Morning Pages, I would be led. And it’s thirty years later, and I’m still led.
You’ve said in the past that your second husband, Mark Bryan, was the one who encouraged you to publish your ideas as a book.
I’d been teaching a little circle. And I met my second husband, and he said he wanted to be a writer. And I said, “Well, would you like to take a course in unblocking?” And he said, “Where’s the book?” And I said, “I am the book.” I’d been teaching probably ten years without a book. And he said, “It could help a lot of people.” I dedicated the book to Mark. I felt like he was the wind behind my sails.
In terms of getting it published, was that an uphill battle?
At first, I self-published it and sold it to people, and I began to get correspondence: “I hear you have a manuscript.” I would mail it out. And then the Jungians got ahold of it and the Creation Spirituality Network got ahold of it. I was still at William Morris, with a movie agent. She read it and she said, “Nobody will be interested in this.” She wanted me to write a beauty book! Mark said, “I have a card for a literary agent. Call her.” She said, “Every year at Christmas, I get a good book. Maybe this year, it’s yours.” So we mailed off the manuscript. And, right after New Year’s, she called and said, “I want to represent you.” She sent the book to Jeremy Tarcher, and he wanted to publish it.
When it was published, did the reception shock you?
Initially, they thought they were publishing a little California book. But I knew the tools worked because they worked for me. I think they sold a hundred thousand books before they realized they should do something with it. What happened was, one person would work it, it would be contagious, and the second person would work it. I was once told that, for every book it sold, there were seven practitioners.
I first heard about it by word of mouth. A friend told me, “You have to do this to get unstuck.”
Word of mouth happened. The people who first started teaching it were some nuns at a place called Wisdom House in Connecticut—Brookfield, Connecticut. Nuns got ahold of it!
You never think that’s the first part of a viral phenomenon—the nuns. When did you start to feel like you were becoming a bit of a celebrity for these tools?
I ran away!
What does that mean? Where did you run to?
I ran to London. To write books for musicals. And, when I got to London, I found people who were blocked.
So you’re like, Oh no. They need this here, too! Did you ask for guidance again?
Well, in “The Artist’s Way,” I talk about how, at the end of Morning Pages, I write “LJ,” for Little Julia. I ask her things. And I said I didn’t want to be trapped as a teacher. I considered it being trapped. I wanted to be an artist.
Do you ever resent the tools for becoming your calling card?
I think it’s important to me to keep creativity around me and in me. And, when I am doing something creative, I don’t feel trapped. I feel liberated. I’m a practitioner first and foremost. I don’t just rest on the tools. Every Thursday night, [my assistant] Nick and I go to dinner, and our deal is that we have to bring a new poem each week. And so that keeps the sparkle alive for me. I’ve never felt “The Artist’s Way” blocked my reception as an artist. To the contrary, it seems to have opened doors. I have never felt embittered or pigeonholed.
How did you feel when people who were, say, professional writers besides yourself, started to use the tools? Like, say, someone such as Elizabeth Gilbert, who says she is devoted to them?
It’s exciting. I did an interview last year with a man who said, “I’ve been doing Morning Pages for twenty-two years and I’ve written thirteen feature films. And I don’t believe in God.”
Let’s talk about your relationship to the term “self-help.”
I think it’s a misnomer, in my case. I don’t really feel like “The Artist’s Way” is a self-help book. I’m just pretty divorced from that whole debate. And I think a self-help book is a book where you’re pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Really? Because the book is catalogued that way a lot. And yet I know it has connected with people who might not identify as devotees of that genre. Why do you think people respond to the book, even if they’re skeptical at first?
Well, as I say at the beginning, don’t let semantics be a bar for you. I think, if people start working with the tools, they pretty quickly become interested in themselves.
Did you ever, when teaching the tools in your workshops, have people push back or say, “This is hokey”?
I didn’t have that experience. I did have an experience, one time teaching at the Open Center, when someone stood up and said, “Julia, I’m not getting anywhere!” And, to my eye, she had been changing at the speed of light. So I think sometimes people have grandiose expectations. They feel that, if they aren’t having huge creative breakthroughs immediately, the course isn’t working. But of course, it’s more subtle. I think, at this point, thirty years in, the book has a reputation for being useful. And I think its reputation sort of precedes it now. I feel like the book has stood the test of time, because it was a book written out of experience, not out of theory. I think there was a time when people were perhaps more skeptical. The pandemic has definitely opened people’s hearts.
A lot of people seem to have found “The Artist’s Way” again during the pandemic. Why do you think that is?
I think that, for many people, the pandemic was a sort of spiritual crisis. We were thrown back on ourselves, and we needed to have a sense of guidance. And I think we needed a sense of exploration. It was abundantly clear that it had to be an inside job. It’s been No. 4 again on the best-seller list in Los Angeles. I don’t think that there’s embarrassment any longer about “spirituality.” I think people have felt they need this.
But how are you supposed to do your Artist Dates when you cannot really go anywhere?
I think there’s a whole raft of indoor things that we can do when we turn to look at our creativity. Make a pot of soup, bake a pie, take a bubble bath, dance barefoot.
But people are also feeling burnt out. How do you expect people to tap into creative energy when they are already exhausted?
I think that feeling low in resources is having restless energy turned in upon the self. And my prescription, at the risk of sounding fanatical, is please do Morning Pages. They will wake you up to a sense of possibility again.
How did the pandemic affect your own creativity?
I wrote the prayer book. And then I wrote another book, which won’t be out for another year, called “Write for Life.” That one is just about writing.
And what did you want to teach people about writing?
Gentleness. I think we have a lot of negative mythology about writing. We believe that you have to have discipline. We believe that, if it’s not difficult, it’s not good.
I want to talk about the role of spirituality in your work in general, because the new book is much more orientated that way.
Well, this is where I don’t want to sound too woo-woo.
It’s O.K., we’re in New Mexico. You can sound a little woo-woo.
But I asked, “What should I write next?” And I heard, “Prayer.” And I thought, Oh, my God. No. I’m not a religious person. It was frightening. And I thought, Who am I to write about prayer? But I think that, when you make something, you wake up to a benevolent something. And you may not call it God. You might call it sunspots.
But don’t you think people are looking for practical advice over spiritual advice?
I would say spirituality is very practical. You become more productive. You become more enthusiastic. You become more lively.
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Playwrights.
At the organization of the Women's Playwright Club, of New York City, there were forty women eligible for admission. This vocation for women is especially an American institution. In no other country are there so many who have obtained recognition in a field where the compensation is the same for women as for men. The New Theatre when opened made its bow to the public with a play from the pen of an American woman.
Mary Hunter Austin, the newest woman dramatist, has spent the greater part of her life in the West, and many of her plays deal with the border life.
Margaret Mayo is another successful playwright, who was the author of "Baby Mine" and "Polly of the Circus," two of the biggest New York successes. In private life Miss Mayo is the wife of Edgar Selwyn, a successful writer and playwright of distinction. He is the author of "The Country Boy."
Kate Douglas Wiggin, whose writings we are all familiar with, dramatized her "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."
Charlotte Thompson made a most successful dramatization of "The Awakening of Helena Richie," in which Margaret Anglin starred.
Another successful playwright is the author of "The Nest Egg"—Anne Caldwell, who has been an actress, opera singer, musician, composer, magazine and newspaper writer.
The music of "The Top of the World" is her composition, position.
Another talented writer of plays is Rida Johnson Young, who in five years has successfully produced "Brown of Harvard," 'The Boys of Company B," "Glorious Betsey," "The Lottery Man," as well as two plays for Chauncey Olcott. One of the New York successes, "Naughty Marietta," was written by her, Victor Herbert writing the music. Mrs. Young is the wife of Mr. James Young, leading man, who has appeared with E. H. Sothern. He was formerly a newspaper man on the staff of a daily newspaper of Baltimore, Md. Mrs. Young before her marriage was Rida Johnson.
Lottie Blair Parker is another successful professional woman, whose husband, Harry Doel Parker, attends entirely to the production and the leasing of her plays. "Way Down East," written in 1897, is still being played throughout the country. "Under Southern Skies" is another one from her pen. Among others by this same author are "A War Correspondent," "The Lights of Home," a dramatization of "The Redemption of David Corson," a number of one-act plays, and a novel entitled "Homespun."
Miss Alice Ives, the author of "The Village Postmaster," has done every phase of literary work, art criticisms, music notes, deep articles for the Forum and similar magazines, as well as some light verse. She has written ten plays. "The Village Postmaster" was on the road for ten successive seasons. Miss Ives wrote a clever one-act play, a satire on women's clubs, introducing all the famous women characters of popular plays. She is the first vice-president of the Society of Women Dramatists, to which all these playwrights belong.
The pioneer playwright of her sex is Miss Martha Morton. Some dozen years ago, the New York World offered prizes for the cleverest scenarios to be submitted under assumed names. It was a general surprise when a woman secured one of the prizes. This successful person was Miss Morton. Some of the most distinguished American actors have appeared in her plays, the best known of which are, "Brother John," "His Wife's Father," and "A Bachelor's Romance." Miss Morton was the first vice-president of the Society of Dramatic Authors. Off the stage she is Mrs. Herman Conheim, and is one of the most popular dramatists in New York City.
Another successful prize winner, who ultimately made this her profession, was Mrs. Martha Fletcher Bellinger, a graduate of Mount Holyoke. The title of her scenario was "A Woman's Sphere."
Mrs. Mary Rider Mechtold, also a college woman and successful winner of newspaper prizes, wrote her first plays when she was still a student at the Chicago University. She is the author of a clever play, "The Little Lady."
The thousand-dollar prize offered by the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in England a year or two ago was won by an American woman, Josephine Preston Peabody. The contest for the best play in English verse dealing with a romantic subject was won by a graduate of Radcliffe. It is said that this college has long been famous for its unusually clever plays, in which its students take part.
Beulah Dix is also a graduate of Radcliffe. She was author of "Hugh Gwyeth." She collaborated with Evelyn Greenleaf in a number of successful plays, "The Rose o' Plymouth Town," and "The Road to Yesterday."
Another Radcliffe graduate, who has become a successful playwright, is Agnes Morgan, who wrote "When Two Write History."
Another is Rebecca Lane Hooper. Miss Hooper not only stages these performances herself, but has often played comedy roles.
The exception to the rule of directors for theatrical performances, which are usually men, is Miss Edith Ellis, author of "Mary Jane's Pa," one of the most successful plays produced. She began her career as a child actress. She is one of the few successful stage managers, and has frequently strengthened lines in places and made a possible success from what seemed an inevitable failure.
Rachel Crothers is another who supervises much of the rehearsing of her own plays. She began her authorship of plays while a teacher in the Wheatcroft School of Acting. Among her plays are "The Coming of Mrs. Patrick," "Myself Bettina," and "The Inferior Sex," which were written for Maxine Elliott. "The Man on the Box" was dramatized by Grace Livingston Furniss, who with the late Abby Sage Richardson dramatized "The Pride of Jennico." Since then she has written a number of other plays, including, "Mrs. Jack," "The Colonial Girl," and "Gretna Green."
Frances Hodgson Burnett writes her books and then dramatizes them. This she has done most successfully in the case of "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "The Little Princess," "A Lady of Quality," "That Lass o' Lowries," "The Pretty Sister of Jose," and "The Dawn of a To-morrow."
Harriet Ford has successfully dramatized many books, among them: "The Gentleman of France," "Audrey," and with Mr. Joseph Medill Patterson, she wrote the most successful play of last season (1910-1911), "The Fourth Estate." This play brought forth more favorable comment and discussion from the press than any other produced.
Miss Mary Roberts Rinehart has written three plays, two of which were in co-authorship, "Double Life," "The Avenger," and "Seven Days." Her husband, Dr. Stanley Rinehart, contributed to "The Avenger," and Avery Hapgood to "Seven Days." This was one of the season's successes.
Two successful playwrights, Pauline Phelps and Marion Short, have formed a partnership and turned out a number of most successful plays. Miss Phelps, a country girl, deals with life in the country, and Miss Short, with city life and its problems. Their greatest success is "The Grand Army Man," in which David Warfield starred last season. They are also the authors of "The Girl from Out Yonder," "At Cozy Corners," "Sweet Clover," the latter used largely for stock companies.
Anne Warner's "Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary" is familiar to everyone.
Frances Aymar Matthews, as well as being a successful dramatist, is a writer of poetry and books. One of her plays, "Julie Bon Bon," was starred by Clara Lipman.
Among others that may be mentioned are : Cora Maynard, Kate Jordan, and Mrs. Doremus.
MARY W. CALKINS.
Miss Calkins is head of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Wellesley College. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1863, and is the daughter of Wolcott and Charlotte Grosvenor Whiton Calkins. Miss Calkins is a graduate of Smith College of the Class of 1885, where she received the degrees of A.B. and A.M. She has written several books on psychology and numerous monographs and papers on psychological and philosophical questions.
VIDA D. SCUDDER.
Miss Scudder is to-day professor of English at Wellesley College and a well-known writer on literary and social topics. She was born in Southern India, December 15, 1861, and is the daughter of David Coit and Harriet L. Dutton Scudder. She received the degree of A.B. at Smith College in 1884 and that of A.M. in 1889, graduated at Oxford and Paris, and was the originator of the College Settlement in New York City. She is the author of "The Life of the Spirit in Modern English Poets," "Social Ideals in English Letters," "Introduction to the Study of English Literature" and "Selected Letters of Saint Catherine," and was the editor of Macaulay's "Lord Give," and also of the introduction to the writings of John Ruskin, Shelly's "Prometheus Unbound," works of John Woolman and Everybody's Library.
HANNAH ADAMS.
Miss Adams is believed to be the first woman in the United States to make literature a profession. She was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, in 1755, and died in Brookline, Mass., November 15, 1832. She was the daughter of a well-to do farmer, of good education and culture. In her childhood she was very fond of writing and a close student, memorizing the works of Milton, Pope, Thomson, Young and others. She was a good Latin and Greek scholar and instructed divinity students who made their home in her family. In 1772, her father losing his property, the children were forced to provide for themselves. During the Revolutionary War, Miss Adams had taught school and after the close of the war she opened a school to prepare young men for college, which was very successful. She wrote quite extensively. One of her books, "A View of Religious Opinions" appeared in 1784, and passed through several editions in the United States and was also published in England and became a standard work. In 1799 she published her second work, "A History of England," and in 1801 "Evidences of Christianity." In 1812, her "History of the Jews" appeared, being followed by "A Controversy with Dr. Morse," and in 1826 "Letters on the Gospels." She spent a quiet, secluded life, and it is said her only journeys were trips from Boston to Nahant and from Boston to Chelmsford. Notwithstanding the many books which she published, her business abilities seemed to have been very limited and in the last years of her life she was supported by an annuity settled upon her by three wealthy residents of Boston. She was buried at Mount Auburn, being the first person buried in that beautiful cemetery.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD.
Lydia Maria Francis was born in Medford, Massachusetts, February II, 1802. Her ancestor, Richard Francis, came from England in 1636 and settled in Cambridge, where his tombstone may be still seen in the burial ground. Her paternal grandfather, a weaver by trade, was in the Concord fight. Her father, Convers Francis, was a baker, first in West Cambridge, then in Medford, where he first introduced the article of food still known as "Medford crackers." He was a man of strong character and great industry. Though without much cultivation he had an uncommon love of reading and his anti-slavery convictions were deeply rooted and must have influenced his child's later career. He married Susanah Rand, of whom it is only recorded that "She had a simple, loving heart and a spirit busy in doing good." They had six children of whom Lydia Maria was the youngest. While her brother Convers was fitting for college she was his faithful companion, though more than six years younger. They read together and she was constantly bringing him Milton and Shakespeare to explain so that it may well be granted that the foundation of Miss Lydia's intellectual attainments was laid in this companionship. Apart from her brother's help the young girl had, as was then usual, a very subordinate share of educational opportunities, attending only the public schools with one year at the private seminary of Miss Swan, in Medford. In 1819 Convers Francis was ordained for the first parish, in Watertcwn, and there occurred in his city, in 1824, an incident which was to determine the whole life of his sister. Doctor G. G. Palfrey had written in the North American Review, for April, 1821, a "Review" of the now forgotten poem of "Yamoyden," in which he ably pointed out the use that might be made of early American History for the purpose of fictitious writing. Miss Francis read this article at her brother's house one summer Sunday morning. Before attending afternoon service she wrote the first chapter of a novel. It was soon finished and was published that year, then came "Hobomak," a tale of early times.
In juding of this little book it is to be remembered that it marked the very dawn of American imaginative literature. Irving had printed only his "Sketchbook"; Cooper only "Precaution." This new production was the hurried work of a young woman of nineteen, an Indian tale by one who had scarcely even seen an Indian. Accordingly "Hobomak" now seems very crude in execution, very improbable in plot and is redeemed only by a sincere attempt at local coloring.
The success of this first effort was, however, such as to encourage the publication of a second tale in the following year. This was "The Rebels; The Boston before the Revolution, by the Author of Hobomak." It was a great advance on its predecessor, and can even be compared, favorably, with Cooper's Revolutionary novels.
In October, 1828, Miss Francis married David Lee Child, a lawyer of Boston. In that day it seemed to be held necessary for American women to work their passage into literature by first completing some kind of cookery book, so Mrs. Child published in 1829 her "Frugal Housewife," a book which proved so popular that in 1855 it had reached its thirty-third edition.
The "Biographies of Good Wives" reached a fifth edition in the course of time as did her "History of Woman," and in 1833 Mrs. Child was brought to one of those bold steps which made successive eras of her literary life—the publication of her "Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans." It was just at the most dangerous moment of the rising storm of the slavery question that Mrs. Child wrote this and it brought down upon her unending censure. It is evident that this result was not unexpected for the preface to the book explicitly recognizes the probable dissatisfaction of the public. She says, "I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, I cannot fear them. Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild's wealth or Sir Walter's fame." These words have in them a genuine ring; and the book is really worthy of them. The tone is calm and strong, the treatment systematic, the points well put, the statements well guarded.
It was the first anti-slavery work ever printed in America and it appears to be the ablest, covering the whole ground better than any other. During the next year she published the "Oasis," also about this time appeared from her hand the "Anti-slavery Catechism" and a small book called "Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery."
While seemingly absorbed in reformatory work she still kept an outlook in the direction of pure literature and was employed for several years on "Philothea," which appeared in 1836. The scene of this novel was laid in Greece, and in spite of the unpopularity that Mrs. Child's slavery appeal had created it went through three editions.
In 1841 Mr. and Mrs. Child were engaged by the American Anti-Slavery Standard, a weekly newspaper published in New York. Mr. Child's health being impaired his wife undertook the task alone and conducted the newspaper in that manner for two years, after which she aided her husband in the work, remaining there for eight years. She was a very successful editor. Her management proved efficient while her cultivated taste made the Standard pleasing to many who were not attracted by the plainer fare of the Liberator. During all this period she was a member of the family of the well-known Quaker philanthropist, Isaac T. Hopper, whose biographer she afterwards became. This must have been the most important and satisfactory time in Mrs. Child's whole life. She was placed where her sympathetic nature found abundant outlet and earnest co-operation. Here she also found an opportunity for her best eloquence in writing letters to the Distant Courier. This was the source of "Letters from New York," that afterwards became famous. They were the precursors of that modern school of newspaper correspondence in which women now have so large a share, and which has something of the charm of women's private letters.
Her last publication, and perhaps her favorite among the whole series, appeared in 1867—"A Romance of the Republic." It was received with great cordiality and is in some respects her best fictitious work. In later life Mrs. Child left New York and took up her abode in Wayland, Massachusetts. She outlived her husband six years and died October 20, 1880.
ALMIRA LINCOLN PHELPS.
There were but two among all the early distinguished literary women of America who had the honor of being members of the American Association for the advancement of science, and these two women were Maria Mitchell and Almira Lincoln Phelps,—one from the North and one from the South. Mrs. Phelp's father, Samuel Harte, was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the first minister of Hartford and founder of Connecticut. She was the youngest child and was born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1793, educated at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and later married to Simeon Lincoln, editor of the Connecticut Mirror, in Hartford. She was early left a widow with two children. Finding the estates of both her husband and father insolvent, she took up the study of Latin and Greek, the natural sciences, art of drawing and painting, in order to perfect herself for the work which she had in comtemplation, namely, the education of the young. She was a student under Miss Willard for seven years. In 1831, she married Honorable John Phelps, a distinguished lawyer and statesman of Vermont. In 1839 she accepted a position at the head of the female seminary at West Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1841 she and her husband established the Patapsco Female Institute of Maryland. Pupils came to them from all parts of the West and South. In 1849 she was again left a widow. In 1855 her daughter's death so saddened her that she resigned her position and removed to the city of Baltimore. Her best known works are: "Lectures on Botany," "Botany for Beginners," "Lectures on Chemistry." "Chemistry for Beginners," "Lectures on Natural Philosophy," "Philosophy for Beginners," "Female Students," "A Fireside Friend," "A Juvenile Story," "Geology for Beginners," "Translation of the Works of Benedicte de Saussure," "Progressive Education," with a mothers' journal by Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Phelps, "Ada Norman, or Trials and Their Uses," "Hours with My Pupils," and "Christian Households." She probably had as much to do with the education of the young of this country as any woman, her works having been largely used in the schools.
SARAH BUELL (MRS. DAVID HALE).
Author and magazine editor, was born in Newport, New Hampshire. When a young girl, the first regular novel she read was "Mysteries of Udolpho," which, noting it was written by a woman, awakened in her an ardent desire to become an author herself. Her first work, however, was a small volume of fugitive poetry ; then "Northward," in two volumes. Her first novel was issued in 1827. Afterwards she was given charge of the editorial department of the Lady's Magazine, then published in Boston. In 1837 the Lady's Magazine united with the Lady's Book, published by Godey, in Philadelphia, and in 1841 Mrs. Hill removed to that city editing the double magazine. She has written a large number of books. The most notable of these are "Sketches of American Character," "Traits of American Life," "Flora's Interpreter," "The Lady's Wreath," a selection from the familiar poets of England and America; "The Way to Live Well and be Well While You Live," "Grosvenor," "Alice Ray," a romance in rhyme; "Harry Guy," "The Widow's Son," a story of the sea; "Three Hours or Vigils of Love," and other poems, and, finally, "Woman's Regret."
LYDIA HUNTLY SIGOURNEY.
Born in Norwich, Connecticut, September 1, 1791, and died in Hartford, Connecticut, June 10, 1865; was the daughter of Ezekiel Huntly, a soldier of the Revolution. It is said that she wrote verses at the age of seven. She taught a private girls' school in Hartford for five years, and in 1815 published her first volume "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse." In 1819 she became the wife of Charles Sigourney, a gentleman of literary and artistic tastes, a resident of Hartford. After her marriage she devoted herself to literature. She wrote forty-six separate works, besides two thousand articles, which she contributed to about three hundred periodicals. She was a favorite poetess in England and France, as well as in her own country. Mrs. Sigourney was always an active worker in charity and philanthropy. Her best known works are "Letters to Young Ladies," "Pocahontas, and Other Poems," and "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands."
LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON.
Lucretia Maria Davidson was born in Plattsburg, New York, September 27, 1808, and was the daughter of Dr. Oliver Davidson, a lover of science. Her mother, Margaret Davidson, whose maiden name was Miller, came of a good family and had received the best education that times afforded at the school of the celebrated Scotch lady, Isabella Graham, in New York City. The family of Miss Davidson lived in seclusion. Their pleasures were intellectual. Her mother suffered for years from ill health. Miss Davidson was delicate from infancy. When eighteen months old, she suffered from typhus fever which threatened her life. Her first literary acquisition indicated her after course. Her application to her studies at school was intense. Her early poems were of great merit. While devoting her time and attention to her invalid mother, she wrote many beautiful poems, the best known of which is her "Amir Khan" and a tale of some length called "The Recluse of Saranac." "Amir Khan" has long been before the public. Its versification is graceful and the story of orientalism beautifully developed and well sustained; as a production of a girl of fifteen it is considered prodigious. Many of her poems are addressed to her mother. "The Fear of Madness" was written by her while confined to her bed and was the last piece she ever wrote. The records of the last scenes of Lucretia Davidson's life are scanty. Her poetical writings which have been collected amount in all to 278 pieces of various length. The following tribute paid her by Mr. Southey is from the London Quarterly Review, whose scant praise of American productions is well known. "In these poems ("Amir Khan," etc.) there is enough of originality, enough of aspiration, enough of conscientious energy, enough of growing power to warrant any expectations, however sanguine, which the patron and the friends and parents of the deceased could have formed." Her death occurred August 27, 1825, in Plattsburg, New York.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
Few women of America enjoy greater fame than Julia Ward Howe, the author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." She can be classed as an essayist, poetess, philanthropist, and public speaker. She was born in New York City, May 27, 1819. Her parents were Samuel and Julia Cuttler Ward. She included among her ancestors some of the descendants of the Huguenots, the Marions of South Carolina, Governor Sam Ward of Rhode Island, and Roger Williams, the apostle of religious tolerance. Her father being a banker and a man of means gave her every advantage of education and accomplishment. In 1843 she married Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, and they spent some time abroad. In 1852 she published her first volume of poems; in 1853 a drama in blank verse, and during the war other works and patriotic songs. In 1867 while she and her husband were visitors in Greece they won the affection and gratitude of the people by aiding them in their struggle for national independence. In 1868 she took an active part in the suffrage movement. She preached, wrote and lectured for many years. She died in the summer of 1910, but her fame will ever be linked with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
LOUISA M. ALCOTT.
No name is more beloved among the girls of America of former days and present times than that of Louisa May Alcott, the author of "Little Women," a book dear to the heart of every American girl. Miss Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 29, 1832. Her parents were charming, cultivated people. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, became a teacher. He taught in Boston for eleven years, Margaret Fuller being one of his assistants. The atmosphere of the Alcott home was always one of culture and refinement, though their life was one of extreme simplicity. Whittier, Phillips, Garrison, Mrs. Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau and Oliver Wendell Holmes were frequent guests. Louisa was the eldest child, full of activity and enthusiasm, constantly in trouble from her frankness and lack of policy, but enjoying many friends from her generous heart, and it has not been difficult to recognize the picture of herself in the character of Joe in "Little Women." In this little home in Concord were enacted many of the scenes, sports and amusements pictured in Miss Alcott's stories. At sixteen she began to teach school, having but twenty pupils, and to these she told many of the stories which were later woven into her books. Her restless disposition gave her many occupations; sometimes she acted as a governess, sometimes she did sewing, and again writing. At nineteen she published one of her early stories in Gleason's Pictorial. For this she received five dollars. Later appeared "The Rival Prima Donna," and though she received but ten dollars for this, the request from the editor for another story was more to her than a larger check would have been. Another story appeared in the Saturday Evening Gazette. This was announced in the most sensational way by means of large yellow posters which spread terror to Miss Alcott's heart. Finding, however, that sensational stories paid, she turned them out at the rate of ten or twelve a month. But she soon tired of this unstable kind of fame, and she began work upon a novel which appeared under the name of "Moods" but was not a success. At this time the Civil War broke out. She offered herself as a nurse in the hospitals and was accepted, just after the defeat at Fredericksburg. After a time she became ill from overwork and was obliged to return home, and in 1865 published her hospital sketches, which made it possible for her to take a rest by a trip to Europe. Here she met many of the distinguished writers of her day. In 1868 her father submitted a collection of her stories to her publishers who declined them, and asked for a single story for girls, which was the occasion for the writing of "Little Women." It was simply the story of herself and her three sisters and she became at once famous. Girls from all over the country wrote her. When "Little Men" was announced, fifty thousand copies were ordered in advance of its publication. Among her other stories are those entitled, "Shawl Straps," "Under the Lilacs," "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag," "Jack and Jill," and the greatest after "Little Women," "An Old-Fashioned Girl." Most of her stories were written in Boston and depict her life in Concord. Miss Alcott's devotion to her sex made her a strong supporter of the women's suffrage movement, no one has done more for the women of her own generation than she. The pleasure which her books have given, and will ever continue to give, make her one of the most beloved of our American literary women. Miss Alcott died in Boston, March 6, 1888.
MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE.
Mrs. Terhune is more familiar to the public under the pen name of "Marion Harland." She was born December 21, 1831, in Amelia County, Vir ginia, her father Samuel P. Hawes, having removed there from Massachusetts. In 1856 she was married to Rev. E. P. Terhune, and since 1859 has lived in the North, but her stories have dealt largely with Southern life. She wrote her book "The Story of Mary Washington" to get funds to aid in the effort to erect a monument to the mother of Washington, which was unveiled on May 10, 1894. She has been a most industrious writer. Among her works are "Alone," "Nemesis," "The Hidden Path," "Miriam," "Husks," "Husbands and Home," "Sunnybank," "Helen Gardner's Wedding Day," "At Last," "The Empty Heart," "Common Sense in the Household." Her novel "Sunnybank" was very severely criticised by Southern editors, when it appeared soon after the Civil War. Mrs. Terhune's younger brothers were in the Confederate Army.
Mrs. Terhune has three children, with all of whom she has collaborated in literary work.
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD.
Mrs. Ward was born in Andover, Massachusetts, August 31, 1844, and inherited literary talent from both of her parents. Her mother was the writer of a number of stories for children, and her father, Rev. Austin Phelps, a professor of sacred rhetoric in the Theological Seminary of Andover, was the writer of many lectures which in book form have become classics and to-day are accepted text-books. At the age of thirteen Mrs. Ward made her first literary venture in a story which was accepted by the Youths' Companion. Her first novel, "Gates Ajar," 1869, met with unprecedented success. In 1888, she married Rev. Herbert D. Ward, and with him has written several novels, the most important of which are, "The Last of the Magicans," "Come Forth," "A Singular Life," and what she regards as her most important work, "The Story of Jesus Christ," which appeared in 1897. Some of Mrs. Ward's books are, "Ellen's Idol," "Up Hill," "A Singular Life," "The Gipsy Series," "Mercy Glidden's Works," "I Don't Know How," "Men, Women and Ghosts," "The Silent Partner," "Walled In," "The Story of Avis," "My Cousin and I," "The Madonna of the Tubs," "Sealed Waters," "Jack, the Fisherman," "The Master of Magicians," and many sketches, stories and poems for magazines.
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
Was born in Manchester, England, November 24, 1849. Her father was a well-to-do merchant. He died when she was but ten years old. Soon after his death the family removed to Tennessee to reside with an uncle. They settled in Knoxville, but her uncle having lost everything by the war, they made their home in the country and experienced the greatest poverty. Her mother's health failed under these trying conditions, and she died about two years after. Frances Hodgson obtained a position as school teacher, receiving her pay in flour, bacon, eggs and potatoes. She had early shown much talent in story writing, and at thirteen she wrote quite a creditable story, which her sister insisted on sending to a publisher. The only difficulty in the way of accomplishing this was how to procure the necessary postage, and a basket of wild grapes was sold by these
DISTINGUISHED WOMEN POETS.
two girls to pay for the mailing of the manuscript to Ballon's Magazine. As the publisher did not wish to pay for the printing of the story, which he had complimented in his letter to Frances, it was returned and sent to Godey's Ladies' Book, and from this source she received her first remuneration. Later she became a regular contributor to Peterson's Magazine and the publication of "Mrs. Carruther's Engagement" and another story entitled "Hearts and Diamonds" fixed the author's vocation. In 1873, she married Swan Moses Burnett. They had two children, the heroes of "Little Lord Fauntleroy," Mrs. Burnett's most famous story. The one named Lionel died in Paris, Vivian was the little Lord Fauntleroy of her story. "That Lass o' Lowrie's," "Pretty Polly Pemberton," "The Fair at Grantley Mills," "A Fair Barbarian" and "A Lady of Quality," are some of Mrs. Burnett's novels. Among her plays are : "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "The First Gentleman of Europe" and "A Lady of Quality." Her work has brought to Mrs. Burnett quite a handsome fortune. She now makes her home in England.
SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
Was born in South Berwick, Maine, on September 3, 1849. Her father was Dr. Theodore Herman Jewett, a physician, and her mother was the daughter of Dr. Perry of Exeter, also a prominent physician of that section of New England. Most of the characters and life of the people in her story have been taken from the simple New England life about the little village of Berwick. She frequently went about with her father on his errands of mercy and through these was enabled to gain much data for her stories. Her father was the hero of "A Country Doctor" from her pen. She first wrote short stories for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is said was but fourteen years of age when she wrote "Lucy Garron's Lovers." Her first great success was "Deephaven" which appeared in 1877. Lowell and Whittier were among her friends and admirers as a writer. Whittier attended the Friends' meeting in Berwick, and it was here Miss Jewett met him. The old sea-faring life of these New England towns has been preserved to us by Miss Jewett. Her grandfather was a sea captain, and in his home she met and enjoyed the companionship and heard the tales of this old sea captain's friends. Miss Jewett died in 1909.
MRS. BURTON HARRISON.
Was before her marriage Constance Cary, of Virginia, and on her father's side she is descended from Colonel Miles Carey of Devonshire, England, who emigrated to America and settled in Virginia about the middle of the seventeenth century, and during the rule of Sir William Berkeley was one of the king's council. Her father, Archibald Cary, of Cary's Brook, Virginia, was the son of Virginia Randolph, who was the ward and pupil of Thomas Jefferson and sister of his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph. Her mother was the youngest daughter of Thomas Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, who resided upon a large plantation in Fairfax, Virginia. It is said Mrs. Harrison inherits her literary taste from her grandmother on her father's side, Mrs. Wilson Jefferson Cary, who was herself a writer, and whose father's writings exerted quite an influence over Thomas Jefferson. Mrs. Harrison's first story was written when she was but seventeen years of age. The Civil War brought an end to her literary aspirations and the loss of her home necessitated her mother and herself living abroad for some years. After her return to this country she married Burton Harrison, a prominent member of the New York Bar. Charles A. Dana was a great friend of Mrs. Harrison and gave her the agreeable task of editing "Monticello Letters," and from this she gleaned the matter which was the basis of her story, "The Old Dominion." Some of the stories that she has written are : "Helen of Troy," "The Old-Fashioned Fairy Book," "Short Comedies for American Players," a translation; "The Anglomaniacs," "Flower-de-Hundred," "Sweet Bells Out of Tune," "A Bachelor Maid," "An Errant Wooing," "A Princess of the Hills," "A Daughter of the South." Mrs. Harrison resides in New York, and is still busy with her pen.
MARY N. MURFREE.
"Charles Egbert Craddock."
For several years of her early literary life both publishers and public were in ignorance of the fact that she was a woman. She was born at Grantsland, near Murfreesborough, Tennessee, in 1850, at the family home, which had been inherited from her great-grandfather, Colonel Hardy Murfree, a soldier of the Revolution, who, in 1807, had moved from his native state of North Carolina to the new state of Tennessee. Miss Murfree's father, William Law Murfree, was a lawyer, and her mother, Priscilla Murfree, was the daughter of Judge Dickinson. The family suffered greatly from the effects of the war. Mary Murfree had poor health but began to write of the people she found about her in the Tennessee mountains, and her novel, "In the Tennessee Mountains" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and was supposed to have been written by a man. When Mr. Howells assumed the editorial chair in the Atlantic Monthly office he requested further contributions from Charles Egbert Craddock, and a series of excellent stories from her pen were published: "Where the Battle was Fought," "The Prophet of the Great Stony Mountain," "The Star in the Valley," "The Romance of Sunrise Rock," "Over on Tother Mounting," "Electioneering on Big Injun Mounting," "A-Playing of Old Sledge at Settlement," "Adnfting down Lost Creek,"vhich ran through three numbers of the Atlantic, "Down the Ravine," a story for young people. It was possible for Miss Murfree to cover her identity in her nom de plume, for her style of writing and even her penmanship were masculine and she appreciated the fact that, at that time, men in the literary world had a great advantage over women writers. No one was more surprised than her own publishers at the discovery that Charles Egbert Craddock was a woman. Her great skill lies in vitalizing the picturesque characters who are the subjects of her stories.
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN ROHLFS.
Was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November II, 1846, and was thirty-two years of age when her famous story, "The Leavenworth Case" was published. Her father was a famous lawyer, and from him she is supposed to have gained the knowledge which she had in handling the details of this story. It was questioned for some time, although her maiden name, Anna Katharine Green, was signed to the story, whether it was possible that this story could have been written by a woman. She was a graduate of the Ripley Female College in Poultney, Vermont, and received the degree of B.A. In her early days she wrote poems, but her fame has come from her detective stories. "The Affair Next Door," "The Filigree Ball," and other stories from her pen are well known. In November, 1884, she became Mrs. Charles Rohlfs.
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
Miss Seawell's uncle was an officer in the United States navy before the Civil War, and served in the Confederate Army with distinction during the entire war. From him she heard the tales of our early navy which gave her inspiration to write her nautical sketches. Some of these are "Decatur and Somers," "Paul Jones," "Midshipman Paulding," "Quarter-deck," "Fo'c'sle," and "Little Jarvis," the latter winning the prize of five hundred dollars for the best story for boys offered by the Youths' Companion, in 1890. She was a constant reader of Shakespeare, Rousseau and other writers. Byron, Shelley, Thackeray, Macaulay, Jane Austen, Boswell's "Johnson" all formed a part of her home education. In 1895, she received a prize of $3,000 from the New York Herald for the best novelette, "The Sprightly Romance of Marsac." Her "Maid Marian" is a well-known and an amusing story of the Knickerbocker element of New York.
AMELIA E. BARR.
Among the foremost of American writers is Amelia Barr. She was born in Ulverston, Lancashire, England, in 183 1. Her maiden name was Amelia Edith Huddleston. Her father was the Reverend Doctor William Henry Huddleston, and her first introduction into the literary field was when she served as a reader to her father. She was educated in Glasgow and in 1850 married Robert Barr, a Scotchman, and four years later they came to this country. They made their residence in several states, in New York, the South and West, finally settling in Austin, Texas. In 1867, the yellow fever was epidemic in Austin. Mr. Barr became famous through his work among the Indians and white settlers of this city. Doctors and nurses dying on all sides, he gave up his life in his unselfish devotion to poor suffering humanity. Mrs. Barr lost not only her husband but three sons in this terrible epidemic, and after it was over she returned to New York City. Her first literary venture was brought out through the kind personal interest of the editor of the New York Ledger, Mr. Robert Bonner, and was a story published in the Christian Union. She did all kinds of literary work, wrote advertisements, circulars, paragraphs and verses. Her first great success came in 1885 in the publication of "Jan Vedder's Wife." Three other books followed: "Scottish Sketches," "Cluny MacPherson," and "Pawl and Christina," but none equalled "Jan Vedder's Wife." "The Bow of Orange Ribbon" is a delightful picture of New York in provincial days, as is "The Maid of Maiden Lane." One of her later books, "The Lion's Whelp," a story of Cromwell's time, is considered one of her strongest books.
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN.
Was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, in 1862. Her father was a native of Salem, and was a descendant of Bray Wilkins of good old Puritan stock. Her mother was a Holbrook, one of the old families of Massachusetts. The family early removed to Brattleboro, Vermont, and with Mr. J. E. Chamberland she wrote "The Long Arm" for which they received a two thousand dollar prize offered by a newspaper. Like many other writers she was largely influenced by the people about her and associated with her early life and that of her family. Barnabas, one of the characters in her story, "Pembroke," was drawn from Randolph. Losing her father and mother and sister, she returned to Randolph and took up her residence. Her story "A Humble Romance" was considered by Phillips Brooks the best short story ever written. In 1893, she wrote a play, "Giles Corey, Yeoman" a drama of the early Puritan days. "The Heart's Highway" is another of her stories of Colonial times, and "The Portion of Labor." In 1902 she married Dr. Charles Manning Freeman, of Metuchen, New Jersey, where she now resides.
ALICE FRENCH.
"Octave Thanet."
Miss French took a nom de plume to hide her identity, there being an unmistakably masculine tinge in many of her writings. Her real name is Alice French, she was born in Andover, Massachusetts, March 19, 1850. Her father was George Henry French, a man of important business connections and comfortable means. The family were descended from Sir William French who settled in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, and one of his descendants took part in the Revolutionary War, receiving the name of the "Fighting Parson of Andover." Miss French's grandfather on her mother's side was Governor Marcus Morton, and some of her ancestors were numbered among those who came to this country in the Mayflower. Miss French is a graduate of Vassar College. Her first story was printed in Godey's Magazine. Her story entitled "The Bishop's Vagabond," published in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1884, was the beginning of her substantial literary fame. Her story "Expiation" is considered very strong, as is "Knitters in the Sun "
KATE DOUGLASS WIGGIN (MRS. RIGGS.)
Her family were people of prominence in church and politics and at the New England Bar. She was born in Philadelphia and educated in New England, transplanted to California, and returned again to the Atlantic coast. Her first article appeared in St. Nicholas and was written at the age of eighteen. This she wrote while studying kindergarten work under the celebrated Marshall in California. After the death of her stepfather, she taught in the Santa Barbara College and organized the first free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. Soon after the successful establishment of this work, she was married to Mr. Samuel Bradley Wiggin, a talented young lawyer. She gave up her work in the kindergarten but continued to give lectures. One of the stories written at this time was the story of "Patsy," which she wrote to obtain money for the work in which was so much interested, to be followed by "The Birds' Christmas Carol," written for the same purpose. After removing to New York, in 1888, she was urged to offer these two books to an eastern publisher, and Houghton, Mifflin and Company reprinted them in book form, and they met with remarkable success. "The Birds' Christmas Carol" has been translated into Japanese, French, German and Swedish, even being put into raised type for the blind. Her story "Timothy's Quest" met with great success as also "Polly Oliver's Problem." Mr. Wiggin's death soon after they left San Francisco necessitated her taking up the kindergarten work in the East with great energy. She does much of her work at her old home in Maine, and many of the scenes and descriptions in the "Village Watch Tower" were taken from this neighborhood. In 1895 she married Mr. George Christopher Riggs, and has spent much of her time since then in England. "Penelope's English Experience" is a story of her own experiences among her English friends, as were those of "Penelope's Irish Experiences," "Penelope's Progress in Scotland" which followed a period of her life in these countries.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON.
Was born in Rincon Hill, a part of San Francisco, in 1857. Her mother was the daughter of Stephen Franklin, a descendant of one of the brothers of Benjamin Franklin. His daughter was quite famous in California as a beauty. She married Thomas L. Horn, a prominent citizen of San Francisco from Stonington, Connecticut, and a member of the famous Vigilant Committee. The daughter Gertrude was educated in California and married George Henry Bowen Atherton of Menlo Park, California, a Chilian by birth. Her first story, "The Randolphs of Redwoods," was published in the San Francisco Argonaut, but among her many stories perhaps the best known is "Senator North." Her story of the life of Alexander Hamilton under the title "The Conqueror" is considered her best work.
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES (MRS. CRAIGIE.)
Mrs. Pearl Mary Theresa Craigie was born in Boston, Massachusetts, November 3, 1867. Her mother's maiden name was Laura Hortense Arnold. Her father was John Morgan Richards, the son of Reverend Doctor James Richards, the founder of Auburn Theological Seminary, of New York. She received her early education from tutors, later studying in Paris, and then in London. She was an enthusiastic student of classical literature, and through the advice of Professor Goodwin, she took up literature as a profession. In 1887, she was married to Mr. Reginald Walpole Craigie of a well-to-do English family. "Rohert of Orange" was one of her early and most notable books. Mrs. Craigie did some writing for the stage and one of her plays, "The Ambassador," was considered very good. Her story "Love and Soul Hunters," has not been excelled by any of her contemporaries.
LILIAN BELL.
Was born in Chicago in 1867, but spent her early years in Atlanta. Daughter of Major William Bell, an officer of the Civil War. Her grandfather, General Joseph Warren Bell, was a Southerner, but sold and freed his slaves before the war, brought his family North to Illinois. He organized the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry. Her first literary work was "The Expatriates." Probably her best known book is "The Love Affairs of an Old Maid." In 1893 she married Arthur Hoyt Bogue of Chicago. They now make their home in New York City, where Mrs. Bogue is still engaged in literary work under her maiden name.
RUTH McENERY STUART.
Mrs. Stuart was born at Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, the daughter of a wealthy planter. Her family had always been slave holders and her life was spent on a plantation where she gained her familiarity and knowledge of the negro character. She was educated at a school in New Orleans where she remained after her marriage in 1879 to Alfred O. Stuart, a cotton planter, and her early life was spent near their plantation in a small Arkansas town. Her first story was sent by Charles Dudley Warner to the Princeton Review in which it appeared, and the second was published in Harper's Magazine. Her stories are of the la-ry life of the Creoles and the plantation negroes. They give a true picture of a peculiar race of people fast disappearing in the South. They are largely dialect stories. Since her husband's death Mrs. Stuart has resided in New York City and here most of her literary work has been done. "Moriah's Mourning," "In Simpkinsville," "A Golden Wedding." "Charlotta's Intended," "Solomon Crow's Christmas Box," "The Story of Babette," "Sonny," "Uncle Eph's Advice to Brer Rabbit," "Holly and Pizen," are some of her well-known stories. Charles Dudley Warner says, "her pictures of Louisiana life both white and colored are indeed the best we have."
ANNA FARQUHAR BERGENGREN.
Mrs. Bergengren was of Scotch-English ancestry, her people coming to America in Lord Baltimore's time and settling in Maryland, near Baltimore. She was born December 23, 1865, near Brookville, Indiana, her father being a lawyer, a member of Congress, and during her life in Washington, she obtained the material for her book called "Her Washington Experiences." Her father's death made her determine upon a career for herself and she chose a musical education, but her health failed while studying in Boston, and she was ultimately obliged to give up singing, in which she had already attained fair success. Her story "The Singer's Heart" expressed her professional ambitions. "The Professor's Daughter" was published in The Saturday Evening Post and was very popular. "Her Boston Experiences" appeared in a magazine and ultimately in book form. Her book, "The Devil's Plough," is a story of the early French missionaries of North America. In January, 1900, she was married to Ralph Bergengren, a Boston Journalist, and has continued her literary labors.
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE HOPKINS.
Mrs. Hopkins is a writer of historical fiction. For two years after her graduation from the Toledo High School she was engaged as a writer on the Toledo Blade. She soon abandoned this for a literary career, and most of her stories have appeared in magazines and newspapers. "Mademoiselle de Berny" and "Ye Lyttle Salem Maide" were, after most trying experiences with publishers, printed in book form. "A Georgian Actress" was written in Berkeley, California, where Mrs. Hopkins had gone with her husband, Dr. Herbert Müller Hopkins, now occupying the chair of Latin in Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. Here she also wrote two novels of Washington life during the Civil War. Mrs. Hopkins was born in Connecticut in 1873. Her father, Rev. Andrew Mackie, was an Episcopal clergyman and a very scholarly man, from whom she inherited her literary talent.
MARY JOHNSTON.
The publication of "Prisoners of Hope" brought, in 1898, a new star into the literary firmament, and instantly made Mary Johnston's name famous. At the time of the publication of her first novel Miss Johnston was but twenty-eight years of age. She was born in Buchanan, Virginia, November 21, 1870. Her great-great-great-grandfather, Peter Johnston, came to Virginia early in the Eighteenth Century and was a man of wealth and influence. He donated the land on which the Hampden Sidney College now stands, and Peter, his eldest son, rode in "light-horse," Harry Lee's legion and was the father of General Joseph E. Johnston. Her family numbered among its members some of the most distinguished men of the early Virginia history. "Prisoners of Hope" was hardly more famous than her second book, "To Have and To Hold." The latter established a record of sales among books unprecedented for any work by an American woman. Her latest novel is "The Long Roll," a story of the Confederacy during the war.
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW.
Miss Glasgow is a Virginia writer who has become a member of the literary life of the New South. "The Descendant," "The Phases of an Inferior Planet" and "The Voice of the People" are among her best works. She was born in Richmond, Virginia, April 22, 1874, and lived the greater part of her life at the family home. Her father was a lawyer, and the majority of her male ancestors were either lawyers, judges or men of literary tastes and talents.
BERTHA RUNKLE.
One of the most famous novels of the past few years was "The Helmet of Navarre," and was written, when its author, Bertha Runkle, was a little over twenty years of age. One of the most remarkable facts in this connection is that the authoress had never seen the shores of France, in fact had seldom been beyond the boundaries of New York State. Miss Runkle was born in New Jersey, but in 1888 she and her mother moved to New York City. Her father, Cornelius A. Runkle, a well-known New York lawyer, was for many years counsel for the New York Tribune, and her mother, Lucia Isabella Runkle, had been, previous to her marriage, an editorial writer on the same paper, in fact she was the first American woman to be placed on the staff of a great Metropolitan daily. In 1904 Miss Runkle married Captain Louis H. Bash, United States Army. She is very fond of outdoor life and spends much of her time in such sports as golf, riding, driving and tennis.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
In the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, one of the most famous literary women, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was born. She was the seventh child of her parents Rev. Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Beecher. Her father was an eminent divine, but her early childhood days were filled with the privations of great poverty. When Harriet Stowe was but five years of age, her mother died and she went to live for a short time with her aunt and grandmother, until Mr. Beecher's second marriage. At twelve years of age she was sent to the school of Mr. John P. Brace, a well-known teacher, where she soon began to show a great love for composition, and one of her essays, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be Proved by the Light of Nature," was considered quite a literary triumph, and won great admiration from her father who was ignorant of its authorship. Her sister Catherine went to Hartford, Connecticut, where her brother was teaching, and decided she would build a female seminary that women might have equal opportunities with men. She raised the money and built the Hartford Female Seminary, and Harriet Beecher at the age of twelve attended her sister Catherine's school. She soon became one of the pupil teachers. Mr. Beecher's fame as a revivalist and brilliant preacher took him to Boston, but his heart was in the temperance work and he longed to go West. When called to Ohio to become president of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati he accepted, and perhaps we owe to this circumstance Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In 1836, Harriet married the Professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Literature in that seminary, Calvin E. Stowe. At this time the question of slavery was uppermost in the minds of Christian people. In 1850 the Beecher family and the Stowes moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Mr. Stowe had accepted a professorship at Bowdoin College. The fugitive slave law was in operation and the people of the North seemed lacking in effort. Mrs. Stowe felt she must do something to arouse the people on this question, and we are told that one Sunday while sitting in church the picture of Uncle Tom came to her mind. When she went home she wrote the chapter on his death and read it to her two sons, ten and twelve years of age. This so affected them that they burst into tears. After two or three more chapters were ready she wrote to Dr. Bailey, her old friend of Cincinnati days, who had removed his press to Washington and was editing the National Era in that city. He accepted her manuscript and it was published as a serial. Mr. Jewett of Boston feared to undertake the work in book form, thinking it too long to be popular, but Uncle Tom's Cabin was published March 20, 1852, as a book. In less than a year over three hundred thousand copies had been sold. Congratulations came from crown heads and the literary world. In 1853, when Professor Stowe and his wife visited England no crowned head was shown greater honor. Other books followed from her pen on her return to America, her husband having taken a position as Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. Her other works are: "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," "Dread," an anti-slavery story; "The Minister's Wooing," "Agnes of Sorrento," an Italian story; "Pearl of Orr's Island," a New England coast tale; "Old Town Folks," "House and Home Papers," "My Wife and I," "Pink and White Tyranny," but none has added to the fame of her great work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This book has been translated into almost all the languages. The latter years of Mrs. Stowe's life was spent between her home among the orange groves of Florida, and her summer residence in Hartford, Connecticut. On her seventy-first birthday her publishers, Houghton Mifflin & Company, gave her a monster garden party in Newton, Massachusetts, at the home of Governor Claflin. Poets, artists, statesmen, and our country's greatest men and women came to do her honor, and when her life went out at Hartford, Connecticut, July 1, 1896, we lost one of the famous women of America.
HELEN HUNT JACKSON.
She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, October 18, 1831. Her father, Nathan W. Fiske, was a professor of languages and philosophy in the college of that town. When twelve years of age both her father and mother died, leaving her to the care of her grandfather. She entered the school of Rev. J. S. C. Abbott of New York. At twenty-one she married a young army officer, Captain, afterward Major, Edward B. Hunt. They lived much of their time at West Point and Newport. Major Hunt was killed in Brooklyn, October 2, 1863, while experimenting with a submarine gun of his own invention. After a year abroad and a long illness in Rome, she returned to this country in 1870. In her first small book of verses she was obliged to pay for the plates when they appeared, and it was only after years of hard work that she succeeded in her literary career. Her health becoming somewhat impaired, she moved to Colorado, and here in 1876 she married Mr. William Sharpless Jackson, a banker and cultured gentleman. They made their home at Colorado Springs, and it became one of the attractions of the place, her great love for flowers beautifying her surroundings. Here she wrote her first novels, "Mercy Philbrick's Choice" and "Hetty's Strange History," also, later "Ramona," but her strongest work was brought about through her intense interest and indignation over the wrongs of the Indians inflicted upon them by the white race. She advocated education and christianization of the race rather than their extermination. Leaving home, she spent three months in New York in the Astor Library gathering facts and material for her "Century of Dishonor." When published she sent a copy to each member of Congress at her own expense to awaken interest in her favorite theme, and this resulted in her being appointed special commissioner with Abbott Kinney, her friend, to examine and report on the condition of the Indians in California. She went into the work with enthusiasm and energy and the report was most exhaustive and convincing. In the winter of 1883, she began to write her famous novel, "Ramona," and we quote her own language when she says of it "I put my heart and soul into it." The book enjoyed wonderful popularity not only in this country but in England. In June, 1884, a fall caused a long, severe and painful illness. She was taken to Los Angeles, for the winter, but a slow malarial fever followed and she was removed to San Francisco and on the evening of August 12, 1885, she died. Her two works "Ramona," and "The Century of Dishonor" will ever preserve her name among the famous literary women of America. "The Century of Dishonor," has placed her name among the up-builders of our nation. She was buried near the summit of Cheyenne Mountain, four miles from Colorado Springs, a spot of her own choosing, and which is to-day one of the shrines of America.
THE CARY SISTERS.
The Cary sisters stand out as the most prominent poetical writers of the state of Ohio. Alice Cary was born April 26, 1820, on the farm of her father, situated within the present limits of Mount Healthy, Ohio. In 1832, the family moved to a larger residence near their former home, and it was christened "Clover Nook." Alice Cary had only the advantages of ordinary school education, but began early in life to contribute literary compositions, and at the age of eighteen, her first poetical adventure, "The Child of Sorrow," to the Sentinel and Star, a universalist paper of Cincinnati. Gradually her reputation spread and she contributed to many papers, among them, the National Mirror of Washington, D. C, the editor of which, Dr. Bailey, was the first to consider her writings worthy of pecuniary reward. In 1848, her name appeared first among the female poets of America, and in 1850, a small collection of poems by Alice and Phoebe Cary made their first appearance. Horace Greeley and John G. Whittier were among the warm friends and literary admirers of the Cary sisters. In 1860, Alice moved to New York City, and on February 12, 1870, she died.
PHOEBE CARY.
Was born September 4, 1824, in the old homestead at Clover Nook, Hamilton County, Ohio. Her writings were noted for their sincerity and sweetness. Her gifts were hardly inferior to those of her sister, Alice, whom she outlived but one year and a half, dying July 31, 1871.
ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON.
Daughter of Alfred Baldwin Williams and Ruth Hoge Johnson Williams, was born at Cambridge, Indiana, her parents removing to Cincinnati, Ohio, when she was quite young. Her education was received mainly from the grammar and high schools of Cincinnati. She was married October 18, 1876, to Mr. William Ernest Brotherton of that city. She has been a constant contributor to newspapers and magazines, a prominent college woman, and has devoted much time to essays and writings on Shakespeare, delivering lectures before women's colleges and dramatic schools.
EDITH MATILDA THOMAS.
Was born in Chatham, Ohio, August 12, 1854. Daughter of Frederick J. Thomas and Jane Louisa Sturges Thomas, both natives of New England, her great-grandfather being a soldier in the Revolutionary War. The family lived for a short time at Kenton, Ohio, and also at Bowling Green, where her father died in 1861. Soon after this, her mother and sisters moved to Geneva, Ohio, where Edith received her education at the Normal Institute. She taught for a short time in Geneva, but soon decided to make literature her profession. She had, while a student, contributed to the newspapers, and her first admirer was Helen Hunt Jackson, who brought her to the attention of the editors of the Atlantic Monthly and Century. In 1888, Miss Thomas moved to New York City, making her home on Staten Island, and has devoted her entire time to literature, being a frequent contributor to the prominent magazines of the day.
ALICE ARCHER SEWALL JAMES.
Daughter of Frank Sewall, an eminent Swedenborgian divine, and Thedia Redelia Gilchrist Sewall, and was born at Glendale, Ohio, in 1870, where her father was in charge of a church. The family removed to Urbana, Ohio, that year, and Doctor Sewall became president of Urbana University. Here Alice received her early education. At sixteen, she studied in the art schools of Glasgow, Scotland, traveling later on the Continent. In 1899, her home was in Washington, D. C, and here she met Mr. John H. James, a prominent attorney of Urbana, Ohio, whom she married. As an artist, Mrs. James' work has received much favorable comment and honors from the New York Architectural League, the Philadelphia Academy of Art, the Chicago World's Fair, the Expositions of Atlanta and Nashville, and at the Salon, Paris. Her illustrative work is of a high order, and she has contributed designs to the Century Magazine, Harper's Monthly, and the Cosmopolitan. She is hardly less noted as a poet than as a painter, and has published several volumes of verses. She was the authoress of the "Centennial Ode" of Champagne County, Ohio.
MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.
Daughter of Rev. Dr. Junkin, the founder of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, was born in Philadelphia in 1820. Her father moved to Virginia in 1848, and became the president of Washington College in Lexington, now known as the Washington and Lee University. He was succeeded in this position by Robert E. Lee. In 1857, Miss Junkin married Professor J. T. L. Preston, one of the professors of the Virginia Military Institute. Mrs. Preston belonged to a very noted family of the South, her brother being General Stonewall Jackson, who was also one of the professors of this famous college of the South. A few years prior to her death, she removed to Baltimore, her son being a prominent physician and surgeon of that city, and here she died March 28, 1897. She was a great admirer of the Scotch writers and produced some valuable literary work in verse and prose, which appeared in the magazines and journals of the day. she also published five volumes of poems. "Her Centennial Ode" for the Washington and Lee University was considered a very notable production. Much of her writings were of a religious character, and all breathed a very pure, simple and sweet nature.
MARGARET FULLER. (MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI.)
Margaret Fuller was a woman of most eccentric genius and great mental powers. She was born May 23, 1810, the daughter of Timothy Fuller, Esq., of Cambridge, Mass. In very early life Miss Fuller was put to the study of classical languages and showed wonderful power of acquisition. She then turned to living tongues and before she reached a mature age she was accounted a giant of philological accomplishments. Indeed she poured over the German philosophers until her very being became imbued with their transcendental doctrines. She was the best educated woman in the country and devoted her life to raising the standard of woman's intellectual training. To this effect she opened classes for women's instruction in several of the larger towns of New England. Her first publication was a translation of Goethe's "Conversation," which appeared in 1839. In the following year she was employed by the publisher of the "Dial," at whose head was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and she aided in the editorship of that journal for several years. In 1843 Miss Fuller moved to New York and entered into arrangement with the publishers of the Tribune, to aid in its literary department. This same year she made public her best literary effort, her "Summer on the Lakes," a journal of a journey to the West.
MARTHA JOANNA LAMB.
Mrs. Martha Joanna Lamb was born on August 18, 1829, at Plainfield, Massachusetts. She was at one time considered the leading woman historian of the nineteenth century. She is a life member of the American Historical Association and a Fellow of the Clarendon Association of Edinburgh, Scotland. Was editor of the Magazine of American History for eleven years. Her father was Arvin Nash and her mother was Lucinda Vinton. Her grandfather, Jacob Nash, was a Revolutionary soldier. The family is an old English one and to it belong the Rev. Treadway Nash D.D., the historian, and his wife, Joanna Reade, and to her family belongs Charles Reade, the well-known novelist. The ancestors of the Reade family came to America in the "Mayflower." Mrs. Lamb made her home at different times at Goshen, Massachusetts, Northampton and Easthampton. In 1882 she became the wife of Charles A. Lamb, and became conspicuous in charitable work in the city of Chicago, in which they resided from 1857 to 1866. She was an active worker after the great fire of 1863. In 1866 the Lambs made their home in New York City. Mrs. Lamb had always been a woman of remarkable mathematical talent and training. In 1879 she prepared for Harper's Magazine a notable paper translating to unlearned readers the mysteries and work of the Coast Survey. She has written a remarkable history of the city of New York, in two volumes, which was pronounced by competent authorities to be the best history ever written on any great city in the world. The preparation of this work required fifteen years of study and research. The list of Mrs. Lamb's works is long and distinguished, among them many historical sketches. Some titles are: "Lyme, a Chapter of American Genealogy"; "Chimes of Old Trinity," "State and Society in Washington," "The Coast Survey," "The Homes of America," "Memorial to Dr. Rust" and the "Philanthropist;" several sketches for magazines, "Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidential Nomination," sketch of Major-General John A. Dix, "Historical Homes in Lafayette Place," "The Historical Homes of Our Presidents." It is said that Mrs. Lamb wrote upwards of two hundred articles, essays and short stories, for weekly and monthly periodicals, but her greatest work was her "History of the City of New York," which is a standard authority and will be throughout all time. Mrs. Lamb died in 1893.
EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.
Emma D. E. Nevitt was the eldest daughter of Captain Charles Nevitt, of Alexandria, Virginia. Was born in Washington, D. C, December 26, 1819. The family was descended from those of high rank in England and France. Her people had emigrated to this country in 1632, and were conspicuous in the American Revolution. Her father served at the head of a company in the War of 1812, receiving a wound from which he never recovered. At the age of forty-five, Captain Nevitt married his second wife, a young girl of but fifteen years and removed to Washington, where they leased a large house said to have been occupied at one time by General Washington. Mrs. Nevitt, after Captain Nevitt's death, married the second time, her husband being Joshua L. Henshaw of Boston, and to him Mrs. Southworth says she is indebted almost entirely for her education. Among her early writings is "The Irish Refugee," which was accepted by the editor of the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, who so encouraged the young writer that she wrote "The Wife's Victory." A few of her early stories were printed in the National Era of Washington City, its editor engaging her as a regular writer for that paper. She then commenced her third novel "Sibyl's Brother, or The Temptation," and in 1849 "Retribution" was published by Harper Brothers, and in five years after its appearance she had written "The Deserted Wife," "Shannondale," "The Mother-in-Law," "Children of the Isle," "The Foster Sisters," "The Courts of Clifton," "Old Neighbors in New Settlements," "The Lost Heiress" and "Hickory Hall." Her prolific pen was latterly engaged exclu sively for the New York Ledger. In 1853 Mrs. Southworth moved to a beautiful old home on the heights above the Potomac in Georgetown, and this became the rendezvous of distinguished people from all parts of the country. Here, in what was known as Prospect Cottage, Mrs. Southworth spent the last years of her life, dying there June 30, 1899.
MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN.
The wife of the distinguished Admiral Dahlgren was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, about 1835. She was the only daughter of Samuel F. Vinton, who served with distinction as a member of Congress for some years. At an early age she became the wife of Daniel Convers Goddard, who left her a widow with two children. On the 2nd of August, 1865, she became the wife of Admiral Dahlgren, and three children were born of this marriage. Admiral Dahlgren died in 1870. Her first contributions to the press were written in 1859 under the signature "Corinne." She also used the pen-name "Cornelia." Her first book was a little book entitled "Idealities." She made several translations from the French, Spanish and Italian languages, among them, "Montalembert's Brochure," "Pius IX," and the philosophical works of Donoso Cortes from the Spanish. These translations brought her many complimentary notices and an autographed letter from Pope Pius IX, and the thanks of the Queen of Spain. She was also the author of a voluminous biograph of Admiral Dahlgren and a number of novels including, "The South-Mountain Magic," "A Washington Winter," "The Lost Name," "Lights and Shadows of a Life," "Divorced," "South Sea Sketches," and a volume on "Etiquette of Social Life in Washington," and quite a number of essays, reviews, and short stories for the leading papers and periodicals of the day. She was a woman of fine talent and a thorough scholar, and in the social circles of Washington of which she was a conspicuous figure, she was considered a literary authority, and the Literary Society of Washington, of which she was one of the founders, had about the only "Salon" ever in existence in Washington. Her house was the center of a brilliant circle of official and literary life of the Capital city. In 1870-1873 she actively opposed the movement for female suffrage, presenting a petition to Congress which had been extensively signed asking that the right to vote should not be extended to women. Mrs. Dahlgren was a devout Catholic, and was for some time president of the Ladies' Catholic Missionary Society of Washington, and built a chapel at her summer home on South Mountain, Maryland, near the battlefield, known as St. Joseph's of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
EMILY LEE SHERWOOD.
Mrs. Sherwood was born in 1843, in Madison, Indiana, where she spent her childhood. Her father, Monroe Wells Lee, was a native of Ohio; her mother, of the state of Massachusetts. At the age of sixteen she entered the office of her brother, who published the Herald and Era, a religious weekly paper in Indianapolis. Here she did most creditably whatever work she was asked to do in the various departments of this paper. At the age of twenty she became the wife of Henry Lee Sherwood, a young attorney of Indianapolis, and later they made their home in Washington, D. C. Mrs. Sherwood became one of the most prominent newspaper correspondents of the Capital city. She sent letters to the various papers over the country and was a contributor of stories and miscellaneous articles to the general press. In 1889 she became a member of the staff of the Sunday Herald, of Washington, D. C, and contributed articles also to the New York Sun and World. She is an all-round author, writing in connection with her newspaper work, books, reviews, stories, character sketches, society notes and reports. She published a novel entitled "Willis Peyton's Inheritance"; is an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, National Press League and the Triennial Council of Women.
JULIA HOLMES SMITH.
Born in Savannah, Georgia, December 23, 1839. On her mother's side, her grandfather was Captain George Raynall Turner, United States Navy. She was educated in the famous seminary of Gorman D. Abbott, and after graduating, married Waldo Abbott, eldest son of the historian, John S. C. Abbott. Mrs. Abbott was the organizer and first president of the Woman's Medical Association, the only society of its kind in America. In 1889 she contributed to the New York Ledger a series of articles on "Common Sense in the Nursery." She was at one time the only woman who contributed to the Arndts System of Medicine.
MARY STUART SMITH.
Mrs. Mary Stuart Smith was born at the University of Virginia, February 10, 1834. Was the second daughter of Professor Gessner Harrison and his wife, Eliza Lewis Carter Tucker. In 1853 she became the wife of Professor Francis H. Smith, of the University of Virginia. Besides original articles, her translations from the German for leading periodicals form a long list. She is a most pleasing writer for children.
MARY ELIZABETH SHERWOOD.
Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sherwood was born in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1830. Her father, General James Wilson, served as a member of Congress from New Hampshire. Her mother, Mary Richardson, was well known for her great beauty and fine intellect. Mrs. Sherwood was a woman of strong personality and distinguished appearance. While living in Washington she became the wife of John Sherwood and soon obtained a prominent place among literary people. She was a contributor to all the leading magazines of the day, a writer of several well-known novels, among them, "A Transplanted Rose," "Sweet Briar," and "Royal Girls and Royal Courts," but is best known for her books on etiquette, being considered an authority on that subject. During Mrs. Sherwood's residence abroad she was prominent in the literary circles of Europe. In 1885 she gave readings in her New York home for the benefit of the Mt. Vernon Fund. Mrs. Sherwood was active in many of the charities of New York City, and through her pen raised sums of money for many in which she was interested. Mrs. Sherwood died in 1903.
KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD.
Mrs. Kate B. Sherwood was born in Mahoning County, Ohio, September 24, 1841. Of Scotch descent, her maiden name was Brownlee. Before graduating from the Poland Union Seminary, she became the wife of Isaac R. Sherwood, afterward General Secretary of the State, and at present Congressman from Ohio. Her husband was the owner and editor of the Canton Daily News Democrat.
She has always taken an active interest in all public and philanthropic questions for the soldiers and her state. While her husband served his first term in Congress, she was correspondent for the Ohio papers, and at one time contributed to the columns of the National 'tribune, Washington, D. C, published for the benefit of the Grand Army of the Republic and the soldiers of the country.
Mrs. Sherwood has done valiant work for her state and the Woman's Relief Corps, being one of the founders of the latter organization. She was at one time its national president; organized the Department of Relief and instituted the National Home for Army Nurses in Geneva, Ohio.
In her earlier years she was well known by her very melodious voice and frequently sang at meetings of military organizations. There is no woman better known or whose ability is more universally conceded or who wields a wider influence in the organizations of women for the advancement of her sex and the progress of our country.
EVA MUNSON SMITH.
Mrs. Eva Munson Smith was born July 12, 1843. She was the daughter of William Chandler Munson and Hannah Bailey Munson. Her mother was a direct descendant of Hannah Bailey of Revolutionary fame, who tore up her flannel petticoat to make wadding for the guns in battle. Mrs. Smith has made a collection of sacred compositions of women under the title "Women in Sacred Song." She has written quite a number of musical selections.
AMELIE RIVES. (PRINCESS TROUBETZKOY).
Princess Troubetzkoy was born in Richmond, Virginia, August 23, 1863, but her early life was passed at the family home, Castle Hill, Albermarle County. She is a granddaughter of William Cabell Rives, once minister to France and who wrote the "Life of Madison." Her grandmother, Mrs. Judith Walker Rives, left some writings entitled "Home and the World" and "Residence in Europe." Amelie Rives was married in 1899 to John Armstrong Chanler, of New York. Her most conspicuous story was "The Quick and the Dead." She wrote "A Brother to Dragons," "Virginia of Virginia," "According to St. John," "Barbara Dering," "Tanis" and several other well known stories. Her first marriage proved unhappy and she was divorced, and has since married Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy, a Russian artist, and continues her literary work.
GRACE ELIZABETH KING.
Miss King was born in New Orleans, in 1852, and is the daughter of William W. and Sarah Ann King. She has attained a distinguished reputation as the writer of short stories of Creole life. Among them are: "Monsieur Mottee," "Tales of Time and Place," "New Orleans, the Place and the People," "Jean Baptiste Lemoine, Founder of New Orleans," "Balcony Stories," "De Soto and His Men in the Land of Florida," "Stories from the History of Louisiana."
ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER.
Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer was born in London, England, in July, 1822. Her father was Rear Admiral Ralph Randolph Wormeley of the English navy, and her mother was Caroline Preble, of Boston, Massachusetts. In 1842 she was a member of the family of George Ticknor, of Boston, and her first literary work was the appendix to Prescott's Conquest, of Mexico. Her father's death occurred at Niagara Falls, in 1852. In 1856 Miss Wormeley married Randolph Brandt Latimer and they later made their home in Howard County, Maryland. Mrs. Latimer's works have been quite numerous. Among them are "Cousin Veronica," "Amabel," "My Wife and My Wife's Sister," "A Chain of Errors," and "France in the Nineteenth Century." Mrs. Latimer died in 1904.
MARY A. RIPLEY.
Was born January n, 1831, and was the daughter of John Huntington Ripley and Eliza L. Spalding Ripley. The Huntington family was very prominent in New England, one of its members, Samuel Huntington, signed the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Federation. On her mother's side Miss Ripley is descended from a distinguished French Huguenot family. She taught school in Buffalo for many years and contributed letters, articles on questions of the day and short poems. Her poems are characterized by sweetness and vigor. Her articles attracted much attention and exerted a wide influence. In 1867 she published a small book entitled "Parsing Lessons for School Room Use," which was followed by "Household Service," published under the auspices of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, of Buffalo. Her health failing, she resigned her position and removed to Carney, Nebraska, where she took an active part in every good work of that state, and was later made state superintendent of Scientific Temperance Instruction in the public schools and colleges of Nebraska.
EMMA WINNER ROGERS.
Was a native of Plainfield, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Reverend John Ogden Winner and granddaughter of Reverend Isaac Winner, D.D., both clergymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For six years she was the corresponding secretary of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Detroit Conference and later honorary president of the Rock River Conference, Woman's Home Missionary Society. She is specially interested in literary work on the lines of social science and political economy and has been a contributor on these subjects to various papers and periodicals. She has written a monograph entitled "Deaconesses in the Early and Modern Church." Mrs. Rogers is a woman of marked ability and specially endowed with strong logical faculties and the power of dispassionate judgment. She is of the type of American College women who, with the advantage of higher training and higher education, bring their disciplined faculties to bear with equally good effect upon the amenities of social life and the philanthropic and economic questions of the day. She is the wife of Henry Wade Rogers, of Buffalo, New York, dean of the Law School of the University of Michigan, and later president of the Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois. As the wife of the president of a great University her influence upon the young men and women connected with it was marked and advantageous. Mrs. Rogers has left an impress upon the life of her times that is both salutary and permanent.
ELLEN SARGENT RUDE.
Born March 17, 1838, in Sodus, New York. Her mother died when she was an infant. Educated in the public schools of Sodus and Lima, New York. She became the wife of Benton C. Rude, in 1859. She won a prize for a temperance story from the Temperance Patriot. Some of the choicest poems of the "Arbor Day Manual" are from her pen.
GRACE ATKINSON OLIVER.
Born in Boston, September 24, 1844. In 1869 she became the wife of John Harvard Ellis, the son of Reverend John E. Ellis, of Boston, who died a year after they were married. She was for some years a regular contributor to the Boston Transcript. In 1874 Mrs. Ellis spent a season in London and while there met some of the members of the family of Maria Edgeworth, who suggested her writing the life of Miss Edgeworth. This she did, and the book was published in the famous old corner book store in Boston, in 1882. In 1879 she became the wife of Doctor Joseph P. Oliver, of Boston. Subsequently she wrote a memoir of the Reverend Dean Stanley, which was brought out both in Boston and London. Mrs. Oliver is a member of the New England Woman's Press Association and the New England Woman's Club; vice-president of the Thought and Work Clnb, in Salem, and a member of the Essex Institute, in Salem. Mrs. Oliver died in 1899.
ELIZABETH MARTHA OLMSTED.
Born December 31, 1825, in Caledonia, New York. Her father, Oliver Allen, belonged to the family of Ethan Allen. In 1853 she became the wife of John R. Olmsted, of LeRoy, New York. The Olmsteds were descended from the first settlers of Hartford, Connecticut, and pioneers of the Genesee Valley, New York. Her poems were well known during the war, and appeared in the newspapers and magazines of that period.
MARY FROST ORMSBY.
Was born in 1852 in Albany, New York. Her family connections included many distinguished persons. She opened a school known as the Seabury Institute, in New York City, a private school for young women. She has been active in reforms and movements on social and philanthropic lines. Mrs. Ormsby is a member of the Sorosis Club also of the American Society of Authors, Woman's National Press Association, an officer and member of the Pan Republican Congress and Human Freedom League, a member of the executive committee of the Universal Peace Union and in 1891 was a delegate from the United States to the Universal Peace Congress, in Rome, Italy. Writer of short stories and a contributor of articles to various publications.
REGINA ARMSTRONG NIEHAUS.
Was born in Virginia, March 4, 1869. Daughter of Thomas J. and Jane Ann Welch. Married Charles Henry Niehaus, in 1900. Has contributed poems, stories and critiques to leading New York magazine since 1896, also to The Studio, London.
MARIA I. JOHNSTON.
Mrs. Maria I. Johnston was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, May, 1835. Her father was Judge Richard Barnett, of Fredericksburg, who later removed to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and here Mrs. Johnston was a resident during the terrible forty days' siege of that city during the Civil War. That experience was made the subject of her first novel, "The Siege of Vicksburg." She was a contributor to the New Orleans Picayune, The Times Democrat and to the Boston Women's Journal. Since the death of her husband, Doctor W. R. Johnston, Mrs. Johnston has supported herself by her pen. She has educated her children, one son, a graduate of Yale, becoming a Judge of the Circuit Court of Montana. She was editor at one time of St. Louis Spectator, a weekly family paper. She has made her home in St. Louis, Missouri, for some time.
CORNELIA JANE MATTHEWS JORDAN.
Mrs. Cornelia Jane Matthews Jordan was born at Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1830. Her father was Edwin Matthews and her mother, Emily Goggin Matthews. Her parents dying when she was young, she was brought up by her grandmother. In 1851 she married F. H. Jordan, a lawyer of Luray, Virginia. She is the author of many poems and some quite stirring lyrics of the Civil War. Her book of poems entitled "Corinth, and other Poems," published after the surrender was seized by the military commander of Richmond and suppressed. She has published a volume entitled "Richmond, Her Glory and Her Graves." Has also contributed many articles to magazines and newspapers, the best of which are "The Battle of Manassas," "The Death of Jackson and Appeal for Jefferson Davis." She is a member of the Alumni of the Convent of the Visitation, Georgetown, District of Columbia, her Alma Mater.
RUTH WARD KAHN.
Mrs. Ruth Ward Kahn was born in August, 1870, in Jackson, Michigan. She is a contributor to magazines and local newspapers. She is one of the youngest members of the Incorporated Society of Authors, of London, England. She is a member of the Authors' and Artists' Club, of Kansas City, and the Women's National Press Association.
MAREA WOOD JEFFERIS.
Mrs. Marea Wood Jefferis was born at Providence, Rhode Island, and is a descendant of William Brewster, of Mayflower fame. Her father is Doctor J. F. B. Flagg, a distinguished physician, who is well known through his work on anesthetics, and to whom is justly due the credit of making them practicable in the United States.
Her grandfather, Doctor Josiah Foster Flagg, was one of the early pioneers in dental surgery in the United States. Mrs. Jefferis' first husband was Thomas Wood; her second husband, Professor William Walter Jefferis, distinguished scientist and mineralogist. Mrs. Jefferis has published a volume of verses in memory of her daughter, the proceeds of which she has devoted to charity. She is a prominent resident of Philadelphia and is actively interested in all charitable work.
LUCY LARCOM.
Miss Lucy Larcom was born in Beverley, Massachusetts, in 1826. Her father died when she was but a child. In her early life Miss Larcom worked in the factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, and in her books "Idyls of Work" and a "New England Girlhood" she describes the life in these places. During her work she had constantly before her textbooks to further her education, and in 1842 the operatives in the Lowell mills published a paper known as the Offering. Miss Larcom became one of the corps of writers for this paper and in it appeared many of her first poems; also verses and essays which were afterwards collected and published in book form. Miss Larcom holds an honored place among the women poets of America. Among her earliest contributions to the Atlantic Monthly was the "Rose Enthroned" which was attributed to Emerson, as it was published anonymously. "A Loyal Woman's Party" attracted considerable attention during the Civil War; also her poems entitled "Childhood's Songs." She was at one time a teacher in one of the young women's seminaries of Massachusetts. She was also a contributor to Our Young Folks, and at one time was the associate editor and later the editor of this periodical. She also collected and published in two volumes a compilation from the world's greatest religious thinkers, under the title of "Breathings of the Better Life." She was the author of a number of religious works. Her death occurred in Boston, April 17, 1893.
JOSEPHINE B. THOMAS PORTUONDO.
Was born in Belleville, Illinois, November 23, 1867. Her grandfather was William H. Bissell, the first Republican Governor of Illinois. Writer of short stories and contributor to Benziger's Magazine and the Catholic Standard and Times.
MARY F. NIXON ROULET.
Author, journalist, musician, art critic, and noted linguist. On her father's side she is descended from a distinguished English family who were prominent in the Revolution of 1812. On her mother's side, the family were prominent in Connecticut, and fought in the Revolutionary War. She was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and educated in Philadelphia. She married Alfred de Roulet, B.S. and M.D. She is the author of several books, "The Harp of Many Chords," "Lasca and Other Stories," "The Blue Lady's Knight," "St. Anthony in Art," books on Spain, Alaska, Brazil, Greece, and Australia, also Japanese Folk and Fairy Tales, Indian Folk and Fairy Tales, and a contributor to the Ladies' Home Journal, The Messenger, The Catholic World, The Rosary, New York Sun, New York World, Boston Transcript and Ave Maria. Secretary of the Illinois Women's Press Association.
MARGARET ELLEN HENRY RUFFIN.
Was born in Alabama and is the daughter of Thomas Henry, of Kilglas, Ireland, who was a prominent merchant and banker of Mobile, Alabama. Her mother was a cousin of Archbishop Corrigan, of New York. One of her ancestors was the last Spanish Governor of Mobile. In 1887 she married Francis Gildart Ruffin, Jr., of Richmond, Virginia, who was the son of Francis G. Ruffin auditor of the state of Virginia for many years, and a great-great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and related to almost all the prominent families in Virginia, the Randolphs, Harrisons, Carys, Fairfaxes, and others. Mrs. Ruffin has written several books, one of which, "The North Star," a Norwegian historical work, was translated into the Norwegian language for the schools of that country, and she had the honor of receiving the congratulations of the King and Queen of Norway for this work; also having her name mentioned among the writers of consequence by the Society of Gens de Lettres, of Paris, in the Bibliotheque Nationale and given acclaim by the department of Belles Lettres of the Sorbonne, University of Paris, after receiving the degree of Doctor of Literature. Is the author of a small volume of poems entitled, "Drifting Leaves," and a story in verse, "John Gildart." Is a contributor to the magazines and papers of both the secular and religious press.
MARGARET LYNCH SENN.
Was born in 1882 in Chicago. Was the wife of a distinguished surgeon of that city, the late Doctor William Nicholas Senn. Mrs. Senn after her husband's death presented to the Newberry Library, of Chicago, the cygne noir edition number one of H. H. Bancroft's "Book of Health" in ten massive volumes. She is a contributor to the Rosary Magazine and Times.
HELEN GRACE SMITH.
Daughter of General Thomas Kilby Smith and was born in December, 1865, at Torresdale, Pennsylvania. Contributor of poems to various magazines, The Atlantic Monthly, Lippincott's, The Rosary, Catholic World and other religious papers.
MARY AGNES EASBY SMITH.
Was born in Washington, District of Columbia, February, 1855, when her father, Honorable William Russell Smith, was serving as a member of Congress from Alabama. Writes under the pen-name of Agnes Hampton. Has written sketches for several newspapers. In 1887 she married Milton E. Smith, editor of the Church News. Is the author of romances, poems, sketches, which have appeared in her husband's paper, and also Donahoe's Magazine, The Messenger uf the Sacred Heart, and other church publications. Wrote some of the sketches which appeared in the "National Cyclopedia of Biography." Is at present one of the expert indexers of the Agricultural Department.
ALICE J. STEVENS.
Editor of The Tidings, Los Angeles, California. She was born March 10, i860. Was at one time notary public for Los Angeles County. Was also engaged in the real estate business prior to becoming editor of The Tidings. Is a contributor to Harper's, Sunset, Overland, and Los Angeles Times Magazine, also edited the Children's Department, of the Tidings for a number of years. Is conspicuous in patriotic and philanthropic work.
MARY FLORENCE TANEY.
Was born at Newport, Kentucky, May 15, 1861. Her father, Peter Taney, was a grand-nephew of Roger B. Taney, chief justice of the United States. Her mother, Catherine Alphonse Taney, was descended from a distinguished Maryland family which came to this country with Lord Baltimore, in 1632. Miss Taney has been a teacher, president of a commercial college, newspaper correspondent, private secretary, and assistant editor of the Woman's Club Magazine. Has written an' operetta, the state song of Kentucky, and has contributed to the well-known Catholic magazines.
CAROLINE WADSWORTH THOMPSON
Was born in 1856 in New York City. Married Charles Otis Thompson, whose mother was a great-granddaughter of General Israel Putnam and daughter of Lemuel Grosvenor, of Boston. Her grandfather on her father's side was John Wadsworth, of New York. The wife of her maternal grandfather, Howard Henderson, was of French descent and her great-grandfather was one of the original signers of the Louisiana Purchase. Mrs. Thompson is a contributor to the Ave Maria, Benziger's, and Sacred Heart Review, and is a prominent woman socially and in the charitable works of the Catholic Church.
FRANCIS FISHER TIERNAN.
Is the daughter of Colonel Charles F. Fisher, of Salisbury, North Carolina. Married James M. Tiernan, of Maryland. Mrs. Tiernan is a writer of note and some of her novels, under the pen-name of "Christian Reid," are "A Daughter of Bohemia," "Valerie Aylmer," "Morton House," "The Lady of Las Cruces," and a "Little Maid of Arcady," and many others.
ELEANOR ELIZABETH TONG.
Daughter of Lucius G. Tong, at one time professor in the Notre Dame University. She is a descendant of William Tong, one of the Revolutionary heroes, and related also to Archbishop Punket. She is the author of the new manual of Catholic devotions under the title, "The Catholics' Manual, a New Manual of Prayer."
HONOR WALSH.
Associate editor of the Catholic Standard and Times. Is related to Daniel O'Connell and is the wife of Charles Thomas Walsh, of Philadelphia. She has charge of the home and school page of the Young Crusader. Is the author of "The Story Book House," and contributor to the New York Sun, Youth's Companion, Benziger's, Donahoe's, The Rosary, Irish Monthly and other publications of the Roman Catholic Church.
PAULINE WILLIS.
Was born in 1870, in Boston, Massachusetts. Daughter of Hamilton and Helen Phillips. Was a direct descendant on her mother's side, of Reverend George Phillips, of Watertown, Massachusetts, who came to this country in 1630 in Governor Winthrop's Massachusetts Colony from Norfolk, England. The descendants of this Doctor Phillips were the founders of the Phillips' Academy, at Andover, Massachusetts. Miss Willis is the author of "The Willis' Records, or Records of the Willis Family of Haverhill, Portland, and Boston"; also a memoir of her late brother, Hamilton Willis, and is a contributor to the Catholic and secular press, and active worker in the charitable works and the foreign missions of the Roman Catholic Church.
CELIA LOGAN.
Was born in 1840, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When quite young she filled a highly responsible position as critical reader of manuscripts in a large publishing house of London. While here she was a regular correspondent of the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette and the Golden Era of San Francisco, and was well-known as a writer of short stories for magazines in the United States and England. After the war, on her return to America, she became associate editor of the Capital, Don Piatt's paper published in Washington, District of Columbia. She did a great deal of translating from French and Italian. She was a writer of plays, the first of which was entitled "Rose," followed by "An American Marriage." In one of her plays Fay Templeton made her appearance and won success as a child actress. She wrote several stories and arranged and adapted from the French several plays. Her first husband was Minor K. Kellogg, an artist. After his death she married James H. Connelly, an author. She died in 1904.
HARRIET M. LOTHROP.
Was born June 22, 1844, in New Haven, Connecticut. She is best known under her pen-name "Margaret Sidney." Daughter of Sidney Mason Stone and Harriet Mulford Stone, and is connected with some of the most distinguished of the Puritan families. Her genius for writing began to develop early and the products of her pen have had wide circulation and enjoyed an enviable reputation. She is the author of the well-known "Five Little Pepper Stories," stories for children and young people. Mrs. Lothrop has written many books. Her story, "A New Departure for Girls" was written for those who are left without the means of support with the object of having them see their opportunities. In October 1881, she married Daniel Lothrop, the publisher and founder of the D. Lothrop Company. Their home at Wayside, in Concord, New Hampshire, is well-known, having been the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mr. Lothrop's death occurred March 18, 1892, and since that time Mrs. Lothrop has devoted herself entirely to literary work, the education of her daughter, and to the patriotic societies of which she is a member. She i
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https://profilebooks.com/contributor/julia-cameron/
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Julia Cameron
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2024-08-04T22:01:43+00:00
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Hailed by the New York Times as 'The Queen of Change', Julia Cameron is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream conversation – in the arts, in business, and in everyday life. She is the bestselling author of more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction; a poet, songwriter, […]
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Profile Books
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https://profilebooks.com/contributor/julia-cameron/
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https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP
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View Accepted Proposals
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"Derick Ariyams"
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NeMLA Call for Papers
Click on each session to submit your abstract and access the full description. Undergraduate Students can access the Undergraduate Forum here.
Search Options
By Area:
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https://www.porchtn.org/post/is-the-artists-way-for-you-is-it-for-everyone
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Is The Artist's Way for You? (Is it for Everyone?)
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Christina Berke leads us into the bestselling creativity guide
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I've been hearing about The Artist's Way for decades and know many folks who credit the book's "Morning Pages" as a life-changing exercise. Julia Cameron's bestselling creativity guide seems to only gain power with age, as new readers discover the book and its teaching year upon year. But what if you like what The Artist's Way has to say, yet struggle to fit its lessons into your already over-scheduled life? Porch instructor Christina Berke knows about this catch from experience and has devised ways to get the most out of Cameron's teachings in a manageable timeframe. Here, she tells us why she values The Artist's Way, and what participants can expect from her class, The Artist's Way for the 9-to-5er. Hint: Like many things in life, The Artist's Way is more fun with friends!Â
âThanks for chatting with us, Christina! For the uninitiated out there, could you describe Julia Cameronâs The Artistâs Way in three sentences? â
Thanks for having me! The subtitle of this book is âa spiritual path to higher creativityâ so itâs part self-help, part workbook for all sorts of creative folks. Its 12-week structure provides essays and prompts aimed to unblock people who feel stuck. Two of the most important I think are the Morning Pages and the weekly Artist Date.Â
When did you first read (and/or try the practice of) The Artistâs Way yourself? What was that like?Â
Well, I kept hearing about it over the years since I was a teen (back when I wanted to be an actress), but I didnât buy my first copy until a few years ago. Iâd just come back from living abroad and was dealing with some trauma, so I was browsing this used bookshop up north. I wasnât looking for anything in particular; more just passing some time. But, as they say, the book found me. It looked brand new and was only seven bucks so I figured Iâd finally get it.Â
And then I held onto it for a few more years until I finally opened it up one day. I was looking for more structure and since this is laid out for a three-month stretch, I thought it would be a great way to set aside time for my writing. This was before my MFA and I was struggling to write consistently. Calling myself an artist makes me roll my eyes a bit, and I donât feel particularly religious so there was a lot that I was uncomfortable with at first.Â
Itâs challenging for me to fully call myself a writer or an artist, so I look at this book and this class as an invitation to play more and experiment with whatever art form you love best. There are plenty of tools in here that can benefit folks of all backgrounds to unburden their unconscious thoughts and be more present in everyday life. Itâs a nice balance of woo-woo and practical.
But Cameron has an inviting tone throughout the book that makes it easier to dive in. Sheâs known as the âGodmother of Creativityâ as this bookâs been translated into 40 languages, and sold over 5 million copies. Thatâs pretty impressive and it helped me feel like she must be on to something. I found some of the activities a bit cheesy, but overall I enjoyed the process and excuse for buying art supplies to doodle and paint, or heading to a gallery for an hour to just be in front of art.Â
The Artistâs Way was first published in 1992. Why do you think it has remained so popular over three decades?Â
I think part of its popularity is that itâs so versatile. Musicians and painters and even gardeners can access the book. Recovering addicts come to it too because of its familiar 12-step structure. So while there are a lot of references to God, and it gets a bit woo-woo, the pandemic blues gave lots of us time to think about our legacy, our creativity, and how we can maintain this while going back to work in person and navigating the heaviness in our world.Â
There is a resurgence in its popularity on TikTok (over 8 million hits!) as new generations and audiences discover Morning Pages. Celebs use it too including Olivia Rodrigo, Bella Hadid, Martin Scorsese, Alicia Keys, Tim Ferris, and Elizabeth Gilbert who said Eat, Pray, Love wouldnât exist without The Artistâs Way. Â
For me, a lot of ideas randomly come from the Pages. Not at first, and not always, but I can see how this is another impact of Cameronâs methodsâit works. I donât always make time for Morning Pages, but when I do, I notice Iâm much calmer, less easily distracted, and feel more grounded.Â
Your class is designed to tailor some of Cameronâs teachings to folks with a busy 9-to-5 lifestyle. What sorts of adjustments, or adaptations, do you make to her suggested practices?Â
Because Iâve gone through it myself, one of the adaptations is streamlining prompts. Committing to 12 weeks is a bit daunting, especially doing it on your own, so accountability within a 4-week course is a major aspect, as well as selecting some of the exercises that are more accessible.Â
Itâs like a CliffsNotes versionâan appetizerâand if folks are into it, they can continue on after the course in more depth.Â
How might people who donât identify as writers, artists, or âcreativesâ benefit from this class?Â
Cameron says there is no such thing as a non-creative person, and since I started teaching in 2010, I believe it. We just get busy, we forget, we are hurt or discouraged from pursuing artistic endeavors.Â
Itâs challenging for me to fully call myself a writer or an artist, so I look at this book and this class as an invitation to play more and experiment with whatever art form you love best. There are plenty of tools in here that can benefit folks of all backgrounds to unburden their unconscious thoughts and be more present in everyday life. Itâs a nice balance of woo-woo and practical. These tools help get frustrations and worry out, provide a free space to clear our head, and offer self reflection. But more importantly, itâs fun!Â
And who doesnât want to have a little more fun in life?
â
----
Join Christina in Fall 2023 for The Artist's Way for the 9-to-5er, Thursdays on Zoom for 4 weeks, starting Nov. 2. Note:Â No class 11/23/24.
â
â
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https://www.macdowell.org/board
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MacDowell's Board of Directors
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Meet MacDowell's Board of Directors
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MacDowell
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https://www.macdowell.org/board
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Nell Painter
Nell Painter is a distinguished and award winning scholar and writer, visual artist, and madam chairman of the board of MacDowell and serves on its Executive Committee. A graduate of Harvard University, Painter went on to become the Edwards Professor Emeritus of American History at Princeton University. She is the author of seven books and countless articles relating to the history of the American South. Painter’s book, The History of White People, guides us through more than 2,000 years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but the frequent praise of “whiteness.” Her other books of history include Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol, which won the nonfiction prize of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association; Southern History Across the Color Line; Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919, which won the Letitia Brown Memorial Publication Prize; and Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction. Painter retired from Princeton in 2005, and used her newly acquired free time to earn a B.F.A. degree from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2009 and received her M.F.A. in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011. In June 2018, Painter published her book Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over about her experiences during this time.
Christine Fisher
Christine Fisher began serving as president of MacDowell’s Board of Directors in May 2023 and has been on the board since 2017. She has a background in retail working for The Gap, May Company Corporate, and Hecht’s in Washington DC. She currently lives in New York after having spent 12 years in London where she helped open the UK office for Women for Women International and was chair of the board until her move back to the United States. She was also a member of the U.S. Board for Women for Women until 2015. Currently, Fisher also serves on the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee for the University of Maryland College Park Foundation since 2019 as well as the Advisory Council at the Brown University School of Public Health since 2013.
Peter Wirth
Peter Wirth is head of investment banking at KBW, a seat he inherited from MacDowell's fearless President Andy Senchak. Though orchestrating mergers and acquisitions by day, Wirth has been a strong supporter of MacDowell in more creative hours and looks forward to continuing to further the residency program and its mission. He has a long affiliation with the creative arts including writing and singing credits on the iconic MBA's album Born to Run Things produced while he was at Harvard Business School down to the current day including helping produce an award-winning documentary on the life of ski movie impresario, Warren Miller. Peter is also on the boards of Educate! (an organization devoted to fostering school-age entrepreneurs in Uganda) and the African Rainforest Conservancy. In addition to being treasurer for MacDowell's Board, he is also on the Executive Committee.
Chiwoniso Kaitano
Chiwoniso Kaitano is a champion of artists everywhere and joined MacDowell in 2023 to oversee the creative mission as well as the financial well-being of the nation’s first multidisciplinary residency program. “Chi” comes to MacDowell from Girl Be Heard (GBH) where she served as the executive director for the last four years. GBH is a global NGO that advocates for social change through performing arts and storytelling in all of its forms. Prior to GBH she served as executive director of Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, a 30-year-old Brooklyn-based arts and culture organization. Chi is an avid traveler, having lived on three continents. She holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs. She also serves on the Board of Directors of three New York City-based nonprofits: the International Contemporary Ensemble, The Center for Fiction (formerly The Mercantile Library), and The Jazz Leaders Fellowship of Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. Originally from Zimbabwe, Chi lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, the political theorist Andrew Sabl and their children. Connect with Chi on Twitter @chiwonisok or Instagram @chiwoniso.
David Macy
Keeping artists at the center of all decision-making, David Macy works with about 30 Peterborough staff members to sustain ideal working conditions and an un-pressured atmosphere conducive to the exchange of ideas. Working with architects, staff, contractors, and the Board’s physical plant committee, Macy has directed more than $10M in capital improvements since 1994. Past projects include the installation of underground utilities and a one-acre solar energy system, renovation of the main hall and about two thirds of the studios, as well as new construction of Calderwood Studio and The James Baldwin Library. To deepen MacDowell’s relationship with the regional community, Macy established two free public programs, MacDowell in the Schools (1996-present) and MacDowell Downtown (2001-present), each introducing hundreds of volunteering writers, composers, performers, filmmakers, playwrights, journalists, architects, and visual artists to thousands of local students and enthusiastic regional arts lovers. Macy has served on the boards of the Alliance of Artists Communities, Monadnock Arts Alive!, the Peterborough Arts Council, and New Hampshire Citizens for the Arts. Macy moved to Peterborough from Northern California where he managed the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. In 2000 he earned his M.Sc. in management at Antioch University New England.
Noel Allain
Noel Allain is the founding artistic director of The Bushwick Starr Theater. He is a graduate of Skidmore College and the Juilliard School's Drama Division. As an actor, he has performed in various theater, television, and film productions in and out of New York City. At the Starr, he has programmed artists and companies such as Heather Christian, Jeremy O. Harris, Dave Malloy, Raja Feather Kelly, Daniel Fish, Clare Barron, Ayesha Jordan, The Mad Ones, Phillip Howze, Erin Markey, Flako Jimenez, David Greenspan, Haruna Lee, Diana Oh, and Jillian Walker. He has helped create the Starr’s workshop Creating Performance at El Puente Bushwick, and the after-school program Big Green Theater. He has served as a panelist for NYSCA, LMCC, The Shed, Sundance Theater Lab, and HERE’s HARP Residency, appeared as a guest artist for the University of Iowa’s New Play Festival, and as a guest speaker at Colombia, NYU, Hunter, Bard, Skidmore, the Prelude Festival, and Sarah Lawrence College
David Baum
David Baum is a “conversation architect,” facilitating and advising on strategy and vision. His work has included conflict mediation in Northern Ireland, peace initiatives in the Middle East, President Clinton's Summit for America's Future, and women’s entrepreneurship initiatives in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kenya, and Rwanda. He has worked with three Nobel Peace Prize laureates, five former and current country leaders, seven Conrad Hilton Humanitarian Prize winners, and two World Children’s Prize winners, among others. Clients have included Jane Goodall, Oprah, Martin Luther King 3, and a host of profit and non-profit organizations. Most recently he has been advising on the development of a university in Morocco focused on “Collective Intelligence.” Baum has authored two books, and holds a doctorate in organizational systems and another in divinity. Finally, he worked his way through graduate school in a circus. He lives with his wife in Peterborough, NH.
William B. Beekman
William Beekman is currently a retired partner at the international law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton, where he began working in 1980. He is the North American co-president of FRAME (the French American Museum Exchange), a consortium of 31 art museums, 16 in North America and 15 in France. He is also an honorary trustee of The New York Historical Society, a director and the treasurer of the American Friends of the National Gallery in London, and the secretary of The Paris Review Foundation, Inc. He has been a director of MacDowell since August 14, 2010 and serves on MacDowell's Executive Committee.
Eleanor Briggs
Eleanor Briggs has been a photographer for more than 20 years. She has had solo shows at The Addison Ripley Gallery in Washington, D.C.; The Currier Gallery of Art; The Audubon Society in Concord, NH; and The Shaw Gallery in Keene, NH. Her work has appeared in many books and catalogs, including Spell of the Tiger and New England Now. Briggs received a Citation award from The Hood Museum of Art in 1992. She has participated in many photographic research expeditions, including a trip to Tonie Sap, Cambodia in 1997 to work with the Stork Rookery project; many trips to Southeast Asia with the International Crane Foundation; and a trip in 1993 to Rajasthan, India with GEO Magazine.
Peter Cameron
Peter Cameron was born in Pompton Plains, NJ and grew up there and in London, England. Cameron graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a B.A. in English literature. In the 1980s he published short stories in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Mademoiselle, and many other magazines and literary journals. He subsequently turned his attention toward writing novels and has published six novels in the intervening years, including The Weekend, The City of Your Final Destination, and Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. He is the founding editor of Shrinking Violet Press, which publishes limited editions of finely-crafted books. He lives in New York City and Sandgate, VT.
Kendra Decious
Kendra Decious joined KKR in 2006 and is a Managing Director in the Finance group. Ms. Decious serves as the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of KKR Real Estate Finance Trust Inc. (NYSE: KREF). From 2006 to 2010, Ms. Decious was the CFO of KKR Private Equity Investors, L.P. Ms. Decious most recently served as KKR’s Head of Strategic Planning and Budgeting, was responsible for planning, executing and attending all KKR Board of Directors and committee meetings, and was responsible for the accounting, reporting, and risk controls for all of KKR’s balance sheet investments. Previously, Ms. Decious originated KKR’s global risk management framework and was responsible for the finance groups of KKR’s Capital Markets, Hedge Funds and Stakes businesses. Previously, Ms. Decious served as a founding member of KKR’s Global Risk Management Committee, as a founding member of KKR’s Inclusion and Diversity Advisory Committee, as a member of KKR’s Energy and Infrastructure Valuation Committee, as a member of PAAMCO Prisma’s Audit Committee, and as a member of the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of CHI Overhead Doors.
Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Decious was a vice president at KinderCare Learning Centers with responsibility for KinderCare’s finance and accounting and procurement departments and served as KC Distance Learning’s (subsidiary) CFO and was a director at Red Lion Hotels, responsible for SEC and financial reporting.
Ms. Decious began her career at KPMG and is a certified public accountant (inactive). Ms. Decious graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a B.A. in business economics and with distinction from Ellis College, New York Institute of Technology, with an M.B.A.
Fairfax Dorn
Fairfax Dorn is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Ballroom Marfa, a non-profit cultural art space dedicated to exploring varied perspectives and issues through the visual arts, film, music, and performances. Since 2003, Dorn has been responsible for the artistic and programmatic vision of Ballroom Marfa. She is also the Co-Founder of the Marfa Dialogues, an inclusive public forum which utilizes art to address the pressing issues of our time. In addition to her directorship of Ballroom Marfa, Dorn is currently a board member for the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Judd Foundation, New York, NY and Marfa, TX; and Triple Canopy, New York, NY. She lives in New York City.
Dorn was awarded the Marian MacDowell Award in 2023.
Amelia Dunlop
Amelia Dunlop is a lifelong strategist and innovator, and partner at Deloitte, where she leads the Customer Strategy and Innovation business. For the past 20 years she has advised CEOs and business leaders on how to find new sources of growth. Her life’s work focuses on using data, technology, and design to create human experiences that engage hearts and minds. She has delivered the talk the “Curious thing about love” on the TedX stage, has been a juror at the Cannes festival of creativity, and is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal on topics of innovation and the human experience. Her speaking engagements have been at X4, The CMO Club, the CMO Academy, Singularity University, and Oxford University. She has a B.A. from Harvard University, a master’s in theology from Boston College, and an M.B.A. from Cambridge University. She trained for 16 years in a variety of dance forms and performed with the Young Broadway Stars from ’91 to ’93. Born in London, England, she has lived and worked across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and India. She currently lives in Boston with her husband, Andrew Krivak, an award-winning novelist, and their three children.
Dahlia Elsayed
Dahlia Elsayed is an artist and writer who makes fictional landscapes using painting, installation, and sculpture. Her work is based on pairing diasporan narrative with a terra firma, connecting internal and external sense of place to create pictures for placelessness. Ranging from small dioramas to large site-specific installations, these allegorical landscapes are located in the ambiguous margin of East/West and tell unreliable oral histories and anticipate alternate futures through a symbolic vocabulary rooted in cartography, comics, and cosmology.
Elsayed’s work has been exhibited at galleries and institutions throughout the United States and internationally, including the 12th Cairo Biennale, Robert Miller Gallery, BravinLee Programs, The Arab American National Museum, The New Jersey State Museum, and Aljira Center for Contemporary Art. In 2022, she was commissioned by Amtrak to do a visual takeover of New York’s Penn Station. Her work is in the public collections of the Newark Museum, the Zimmerli Museum, Johnson & Johnson Corporation, the U.S. Department of State, amongst others. Her work has been supported by awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, Visual Studies Workshop, MacDowell, Women’s Studio Workshop, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
She received her M.F.A. from Columbia University and is professor of humanities at CUNY LaGuardia Community College in New York. She has served on the boards of the College Art Association and Women’s Studio Workshop.
Karen Fairbanks
Karen Fairbanks is a founding partner of Marble Fairbanks Architects where she has focused on the design and planning for both public and private educational and cultural clients. She is recognized as a leader in current library design, speaking on panels and presentations on library design around the world and participating as a member and past Chair of the American Libraries Association Buildings for College and University Libraries Committee.
Karen has been an active member of the AIA, serving on the Board of Directors of the New York Chapter, as well as on the Honors Committee, the Exhibition Committee, the Scholarship Committee, and as Co-Chair of the NYC AIA Design Awards Committee.
Throughout the development of her practice, Karen has simultaneously built the architecture department at Barnard College. At Barnard, Karen is the Claire Tow Chair Professor of Professional Practice and Chair of the Architecture Department. As Department Chair, she oversaw the merger of the Barnard and Columbia architecture programs, developed the current department curriculum, significantly expanded the faculty, and has taught and mentored students throughout her 30 years at Barnard College and Columbia University. She is the founder and Faculty Director of the Barnard Design Center, a makerspace that supports the campus community, and the founder and Director of the Barnard Architecture + Design Summer Institute, a newly launched summer program for underserved high school students. Additionally, during her tenure at Barnard, she has been instrumental in the capital planning of the campus, and she brings this extensive knowledge of institutional organizations and the specific needs of academic clients to the work of Marble Fairbanks.
Rosemarie Fiore
Rosemarie Fiore (Bronx, NY) is a MacDowell Fellow in visual art. She uses pyrotechnics to create her artwork working primarily in Fumage, painting, sculpture, and performancce.
She has received support for her work through The National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Sally and Milton Avery Foundation, the Bronx Council on the Arts, Kohler Arts/Industry Program, Art Omi, Yaddo, Skowhegan, MacDowell, Walentas-Sharpe Studios, Millay Arts, Wavehill Workspace Program, Roswell AIR Program, Dieu Donne Paper Mill, Sculpture Space and The Abrons Art Center.
Her solo/group exhibitions and performances include the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art, FL; Weatherspoon Museum, NC; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, NY; The SCAD Museum, GA; Von Lintel Gallery, Los Angeles; Grand Arts, Kansas City; Bronx Museum; Queens Museum; Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC; and Franklin Institute of Science in Philadelphia.
Published reviews of her work can be found in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Art in America, Artforum, The Village Voice, NY Arts Magazine, FLAUNT Magazine, Art Papers Magazine, The Washington Post, Art on Paper, Artcritical.com, Art and Cake and Art Ltd. Magazine.
Her work is in the following collections: the Kohler Company and John Michael Kohler Arts Center; the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka; UBS Art Gallery and Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection in New York; the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro, NC; the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas; Neuberger Berman Rome headquarters; the Aspen Collection in NYC; Capital One in Richmond, VA; Texas A & M University; and The Franklin Institute of Science.
She is a member of MacDowell’s Fellows Engagement Committee where she served as president from 2019-22. She is a mentor in NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Program since 2010 and a teaching artist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Katie Firth
Katie Firth was born in New York City and raised and educated in London, returning to the U.S. to attend Williams College from which she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in political science and theatre. Since then, she has worked as an actor, predominantly in New York but also in regional theaters around the country. She also works in the fields of voice-over and audiobooks. Firth is a member of The Actors Center, a resident workshop company devoted to artistic development and practice. She has served on advisory boards for several nonprofit institutions in New York, including MacDowell, Partnership with Children, and Planned Parenthood of NY, as well as volunteering to teach arts and literacy in underserved communities through LEAP, at East Harlem School at Exodus House, and at The 52nd St Project. She lives in Manhattan with her husband Jonathan Bank and their son.
Sarah Garland-Hoch
Sarah Garland-Hoch lives in Concord, MA with her husband, Roland, and two children. She is the daughter of the late Mary Garland who served on the MacDowell Board of Directors for 33 years. After attending Boston University, Sarah lived in Boston and worked for an executive travel agency, a cable company, and a hotel corporation in public relations before moving to Chicago and working with a travel agency planning college alumni tours. After Chicago and a year’s trip around the world, Sarah and Roland settled in Concord. Sarah has a long history of volunteer service including being on the Board of Concord's Community Chest a local organization that supports many non-profits in the area, including Open Table, a food bank, and Gaining Ground, an organic garden serving food banks. She was also active at her children’s schools. She was also on the Board of Visitors at the Peabody Museum in Salem, MA. Currently on the Hancock, NH Road Committee that is focusing on preserving Hancock's scenic roads.
Gerald J. Gartner
Gerald "Gerry" Gartner was born in Dubuque, Iowa and currently lives with his wife Teresa in Hollis, NH. He received a B.S. in physics and an M.S. in metallurgy from Iowa State University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. After working as a research scientist at Ames Laboratory (US Dept. of Energy) and as a project manager/marketing specialist for Corning, he co-founded Gar-Doc in 1971, which manufactures labels and other products for the packaging industry. He also co-founded Technical Graphics, a firm that produces security devices for the U.S. and other national currencies. Gerry and Teresa have three married children and eight grandchildren.
Jeannie Suk Gersen
Jeannie Suk Gersen is the John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and is a contributing writer for The New Yorker. Professor Gersen was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1979 when she was six, settling in Queens, New York. She attended Hunter College High School, earned a B.A. from Yale University in 1995, a D.Phil. in modern languages (French literature) in 1999 from Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar, and a J.D. In 2002 she graduated from Harvard Law School where she studied as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2006, she served as a law clerk to Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court, and to Judge Harry Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit. She served as an assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. She has written three books and many articles in scholarly journals and general media. Her book, At Home in the Law, was awarded the Law and Society Association’s Herbert Jacob Prize for the best law and society book of the year. In 2010, she became the first Asian American woman to receive tenure at Harvard Law School. She is married to Jacob Gersen, has two children and two stepchildren, and lives in Cambridge, MA.
Christine Gross-Loh
Christine Gross-Loh is a journalist and author. Her most recent book is The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, coauthored with Professor Michael Puett. The Path, a New York Times and international bestseller, is being published in more than 25 countries, including the U.S. (Simon & Schuster) and the U.K. (Viking). Christine is also the author of Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Things Parents Around the World Can Teach Us.
She writes on history, education, philosophy, and global parenting and has been published in the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Vox. She has a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in East Asian history.
Elliott Holt
Elliott Holt is the author of the novel You Are One of Them, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard award for a first book. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Slate, Time, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Guernica, and she has won a Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, and MacDowell.
Holt has worked as a copywriter and brand strategist for international advertising agencies in Moscow, London, Paris, and New York; as a creative writing professor at American University and NYU; and as an editor at One Story and The Kenyon Review. She is deputy editor of The Yale Review.
Laura Ives Colony
Laura Ives Colony is a strategic and creative leader who thrives in the intersection of brand development and revenue generating initiatives through high level partnerships. With deep cross-category experience and cross-sector exposure in sales, marketing, brand strategy, and partnerships, she joined Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2022 to focus on innovation in the arts, bringing new initiatives to life through key partnerships and a renewed approach to business development. Today, Laura co-leads Lincoln Center’s brilliant Advancement & Innovation team, primarily responsible for Corporate Sponsorship/Business Development, Institutional Giving, Research & Operations, and the Lincoln Center Corporate Fund.
During her tenure at Hearst, Laura was an initiating member of the innovative Partnerships & Brand Development team for Hearst’s Luxury & Design Collection which supported a suite of global brands including Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Town & Country, and Veranda. Much of her team's work prioritized brand positioning through social impact partnerships with notable non-profits, charities, and philanthropic organizations from around the world. Highlights from this chapter include the Luxury & Design Collection’s Design Unites COVID Relief campaign raising money for organizations like Habitat for Humanity; Town & Country’s New York Philanthropy Summit, The Obsidian Virtual Concept House in partnership with The Black Artists + Designers Guild, T&C Talks Boston, T&C Talks Palm Beach, T&C Talks Los Angeles, and the newly launched Design University accessible education platform for design students and lifelong enthusiasts.
She is a trustee of Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, and earned her executive M.B.A. from Columbia Business School in May 2023.
Julia Jacquette
Julia Jacquette is an American artist based in New York City and Amsterdam. Her work has been shown extensively at galleries and museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and The RISD Museum among other institutions. Jacquette’s work was included in the first installment of PS1's "Greater New York" exhibition, and was the subject of retrospectives at the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, NY; The Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY; and the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit, NJ. She received her B.A. from Skidmore College and her M.F.A. from Hunter College in New York City. She has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Princeton University, and is currently on the faculty at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and serves on MacDowell's Executive Committee..
Emily Noelle Lambert
American artist Emily Noelle Lambert creates abstract paintings, totemic sculptures, and installations that echo an evocative interrelation between color and form. Inspired by automatic drawings and plein air painting, Lambert’s gestural compositions reflect different aspects of her surroundings. Robust with geometric and biomorphic flat planes of color, each canvas expresses a unique portrayal of nature. Her sculptures, which function as a metaphor for the environment, use found objects to reveal a sense of temporality and impermanence.
Both celebratory and introspective, Lambert’s work invites the viewer to look beyond the scope of their surroundings and into the realm of possibility.
Lambert received her M.F.A. in painting from Hunter College and her B.A. in visual art from Antioch College. Lambert has shown nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions in New York City, Chicago, and South Korea. Lambert’s work has been reviewed in The International New York Times, The Observer, The Brooklyn Rail, Modern Painters, The Washington Post, Art in America, and artforum.com. She lives in Peterborough, NH and became a MacDowell Fellow in 2014.
Monica Lehner
Monica Lehner received her B.A. from Wheaton College in 1984 and received her M.A. from the School for International Training in International/Intercultural Administration in 1990. She subsequently worked in the United States, Kenya, and Italy in the nonprofit sector in a variety of capacities. She is currently board president of the Monadnock Conservancy, a land trust in southern New Hampshire. In 2017, she launched the New Hampshire chapter of Mothers Out Front, a grassroots environmental organization mobilizing for a livable planet. As a trustee and volunteer of the Himalayan Education Foundation, she regularly travels to India to visit women’s cooperatives and schools in Uttarakhand.
Anne Stark Locher
Anne Stark Locher, principal of Stark Communications, LLC, is an independent marketing communications consultant specializing in the non-profit sector. Among her client base of arts and social service organizations, she is known for integrating communications and development strategies to advance the mission and promote institutional sustainability. Her clients have included Aperture Foundation, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, and the Museum for African Art, where she also served as deputy director. Anne began her career in corporate communications at Drexel Burnham and was a vice president at Fleishman-Hillard Public Relations. Anne holds an M.S. in strategic communications from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She serves on MacDowell's Executive Committee.
Scott Manning
Scott Manning currently heads Scott Manning & Associates, which provides public relations services on behalf of publishers, authors, and literary organizations. Throughout a career in book publishing that has spanned more than 35 years, Manning has handled publicity efforts on behalf of authors such as P.J. O’Rourke, Norman Mailer, Mark Bowden, and National Book Award finalists Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Sy Montgomery; and companies such as GroveAtlantic, Simon & Schuster, and Barnes & Noble; and organizations including the Pritzker Military Museum & Library and the Publishing Triangle. Manning founded the Books for a Better Life Awards that for 21 years honored the best self-help books and raised funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has taught on the faculties of the NYU Center for Publishing and the Denver Publishing Institute, and served on MacDowell's Executive Committee. He divides his time between New York City and Hancock, NH with his partner Frank.
Terrance McKnight
Terrance McKnight has one of the more familiar voices in New York as an evening host at classical radio station WQXR. He moved to New York in 2008 to work for WNYC and a year later joined the lineup at its sister public-radio station WQXR. Some of McKnight’s most notable work is a series of hour-long audio documentaries for which he was writer, producer, and host. They include profiles of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the place music held in his life; Florence Price, the first African-American woman composer to have a piece played by a major symphony orchestra; poet Langston Hughes and his collaborations with composers and musicians; and Leonard Bernstein as viewed through his commitment to racial justice in classical music. McKnight has been programming music and other audio for the Museum of Modern Art as part of exhibitions of artwork by Jacob Lawrence, Francis Picabia, Robert Rauschenberg, and Charles White.
Mollie Miller
Mollie Miller was born in Baltimore and graduated with honors from Brown University in 1977, double majoring in comparative literature and studio art. After a few years in Providence making documentaries funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, she moved to Los Angeles to get an M.F.A. in film production at USC. Mollie started in the film industry as a screenwriter, working at various studios before moving into directing television movies for Disney and The Closed Set, a short story adaptation for public television. She and her husband have three sons and currently live in Cambridge, MA, where she writes screenplays.
Carlos Murillo
Carlos Murillo is a playwright, director, and educator based in Chicago. He is a full professor at The Theatre School of DePaul University where he serves as the chair of theatre studies and head of playwriting. His plays have been produced widely throughout the U.S. and Europe, and are published by 53rd State Press, Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing and Smith & Kraus. American Theatre magazine called his trilogy, The Javier Plays “an absolutely extraordinary achievement.” Murillo is the recipient of numerous awards including a Doris Duke Impact Award, a Mellon Foundation National Playwright Residency Program Fellowship, a Met Life/Nuestros Voces Award from Repertorio Español, a Jerome Fellowship from The Playwrights’ Center, and two National Latino Playwriting Awards from Arizona Theatre Company. He has received commissions from The Goodman, Steppenwolf, Playwrights Horizons, The Public, South Coast Rep, Berkeley Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and The Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis. He has guest taught at the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon, The University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, the Kennedy Center, UT Austin, the Newberry Library, George Mason University, and Transylvania University. Carlos is a proud alumnus of New Dramatists where he was a resident playwright from 2007-2014. He has been a member of the MacDowell board since 2017 and serves on the Executive Committee. He lives in the south side of Chicago with his wife Lisa Portes and their two children Eva and Carlos.
Julie Orringer
Julie Orringer, a three-time MacDowell Fellow, is the author The Invisible Bridge, a novel, and How to Breathe Underwater, both New York Times Notable Books. She is the winner of The Paris Review’s Discovery Prize and the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Her novel, The Flight Portfolio, was published in May 2019. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, MacDowell Fellow Ryan Harty, and their children.
Ileana Perez Velazquez
Cuban-born composer Ileana Perez Velazquez is a professor of music composition at Williams College and a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. The New York Times has praised the “imaginative strength and musical consistency” of her compositions. She was awarded a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University in 2015, and has written works for numerous ensembles. She has also composed for performers such as Joan La Barbara, Miranda Cuckson, Sally Pinkas, Joanna Kurkowicz, Tom Chiu, Adrian Morejon, and Matt Gold. Her music has been featured regularly in numerous international festivals and concerts as well as professional composers’ congresses. Velázquez graduated from the Higher Institute of Arts (ISA) in Havana, obtained her master’s in electroacoustic music from Dartmouth College, and received her D.M.A. in music composition from Indiana University. Albany Records released two CD portraits of her music in 2008, and 2017.
Jessica Lawrence Quinn
Jessica Lawrence Quinn is currently the CEO of the Putnam Foundation and the 1911 Office (a single-family office). Previously, Jessica was the Executive Director of Civic Hall, a one-of-a-kind non-profit collaborative community center in New York City that advanced the use of technology for the public good. Prior to joining Civic Hall, Jessica served as CEO of NY Tech Alliance, a non-profit organization supporting New York’s growing technology community, and she was the organizer of NY Tech Meetup, the world’s largest Meetup group.
Before moving to New York, Jessica was the CEO of Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council in southern California, where she supported a community of 75 staff, 5,000 volunteers, and 15,000 girls. Jessica’s writing has been featured on the Harvard Business Review blog, Forbes.com, The Next Web, The Huffington Post, and in a weekly column in The Press-Enterprise. She has also done substantial speaking on the tech sector, the future of work, and organizational development and culture at events such as PopTech, SXSW, and TEDx. Jessica is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in leadership for sustainability with the University of Vermont (expected 2025). She is also active in her community, including serving on the NH Community Committee for MacDowell and as a member of the Board of Trustees for The Well School.
Paul Reyes
Paul Reyes is the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, where he develops a variety of content, including investigative reporting, essays, photography portfolios, poetry, criticism, and fiction. Before joining VQR, he was a senior editor with The Oxford American. His work as an editor has led to several nominations for the National Magazine Award, Overseas Press Club Awards, and inclusion in the Pushcart Prize as well as several Best American anthologies. His book, Exiles in Eden, an investigative narrative of the 2008 housing crisis, was praised as “a wrenching chronicle of our new hard times” (Publishers Weekly) and “an engrossing memoir of American dreaming and financial devastation” (Mother Jones). His essays and reporting have appeared in VQR, The Oxford American, Harper’s, The New York Times, Literary Hub, Mother Jones, and elsewhere. His writing has earned him a Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction from the National Endowment for the Arts, a nomination for the Harry Chapin Media Award, and a nomination for the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing.
Andrew M. Senchak
Andrew Senchak served as president of MacDowell’s Board of Directors from 2017-2023 and serves on its Executive Committee. He also serves on the Board and Executive Committee of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. He retired as chairman of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. in 2018. Before joining KBW in 1985 he was an assistant professor of economics at Rutgers University and spent two and a half years in Brazil with the Peace Corps. He received a B.A. in liberal arts from Lafayette College and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.
Josh Siegel
Josh Siegel serves on MacDowell's Executive Committee and is a film curator at The Museum of Modern Art. He has organized or co-organized more than 90 film, media, and gallery exhibitions including “Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction” (2017); “A Road Three Hundred Years Long: Cinema and the Great Migration” (2015); “Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1962-1986” (2013), and monographic retrospectives on everyone from Jeanne Moreau to Frederick Wiseman. Siegel co-founded To Save and Project: The MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation in 2003, and he serves on the selection committee of New Directors/New Films, a festival founded in 1972 by MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He has also acquired more than 400 films and media installations for MoMA’s permanent collection.
Sam Wathen
Sam Wathen was born in Boston and raised in Maine. He earned a B.A. in economics with minor concentrations in urban studies and art history at Trinity College (CT). Sam is a founding partner of Melodeon Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on legal and financial services investing, and serves on the Board of Directors of Cartiga, a provider of financial services and technology solutions to the legal sector. Earlier, he served as a senior vice president at Melody Capital Partners, L.P. Prior to joining Melody, Sam was an investment banking director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. (“KBW”) for more than a decade. He lives in New York City and Bellport, NY.
Mabel Wilson
Mabel O. Wilson is a professor in architecture and African American and African diasporic studies, a co-director of Global Africa Lab, and the associate director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia University. She has authored Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016) and Negro Building: African Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums (2012). With her practice Studio &, she is a collaborator in the architectural team currently developing designs for the Memorial to Enslaved African American Laborers at the University of Virginia. Her work has been featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Architekturmuseum der TU Mūnchen, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Art Institute of Chicago, Istanbul Design Biennale, Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum’s Triennial.
Lisa Kron
Lisa Kron is a playwright and performer who wrote the book and lyrics for the multiple Tony Award-winning musical, Fun Home. Other plays include In The Wake, Well, and the Obie Award-winning 2.5 Minute Ride. Acting credits include Well (receiving a Tony nomination for best actress) and Good Person of Szechuan (winning a Lortel Award). She has received Guggenheim, Sundance and MacDowell fellowships, Doris Duke, Cal Arts/Alpert, and Helen Merrill awards, and grants from Creative Capital and NYFA. She is a founding member of the OBIE and Bessie Award-winning theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers and the artist/activist-led resistance music initiative Chant Bank. She currently serves as vice president of the Dramatists Guild of America, and serves on MacDowell's Executive Committee.
Tania León
Tania León is highly regarded as a composer and conductor, and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. Her first opera, Scourge of Hyacinths, based on a play by Wole Soyinka with staging and design by Robert Wilson, received more than 20 performances in France, Switzerland, Austria, and Mexico. A longtime resident of New York, she has played important roles at its institutions, such as the Dance Theater of Harlem, Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, where she served as new music advisor. León is the founder and artistic director of Composers Now, a nonprofit in New York City that celebrates the diversity of composers in the city and honors their contributions to the cultural fabric of society. A professor at Brooklyn College since 1985 and the Graduate Center of CUNY, she was named distinguished professor of the City University of New York in 2006.
Paul Moravec
Paul Moravec is a New York-based composer, creating orchestral, chamber, choral, and lyric compositions, as well as several film scores and electro-acoustic pieces. Moravec is the recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Tempest Fantasy, an original contemporary classic score based on the Shakespeare play, The Tempest. Moravec received a B.A. from Harvard and a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University. He has taught at Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Hunter College, and Adelphi University, where he is currently university professor. In 2007-9, he was artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton.
Thomas P. Putnam
Thomas Putnam received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in industrial management from the University of Denver. He completed the Stanford University Business School Executive Program, along with numerous other business-related courses. Putnam is an incorporator of the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston and served for 10 years on the Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering Board of Overseers. He retired from serving as the president of Markem Corporation, an industrial printing company, in 2006. Putnam joined the company in 1968, after serving for two years in the U.S. Army Airborne Artillery from 1968 to 1970.
Alvin Singleton
Alvin Singleton is a composer who was born in Brooklyn, NY and attended NYU and Yale. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. Singleton has amassed numerous awards and commissions throughout his compositional life. He is the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis by the City of Darmstadt, Germany, and twice the Musikprotokoll Kompositionpreis from Austrian Radio. In 2014, Singleton was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music is published by Schott Music Corp. His music is recorded on the Albany Records, Elektra/Nonesuch, First Edition, Tzadik, and Innova labels.
Robert Storr
Robert Storr is an artist, curator, and critic, who received a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1972 and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978. From 1990 to 2002 he was curator then senior curator of painting and sculpture of the Museum of Modern Art, NY. He is currently a professor of painting/printmaking and dean at the Yale School of Art after serving 10 years as the dean. Mr. Storr has also taught at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies as well as the Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, New York Studio School, and Harvard University, and has been a frequent lecturer in this country and abroad. From 2005 to 2007 he was director of visual arts of the Venice Biennale.
William N. Banks
Longtime MacDowell Board member and writer William Nathaniel Banks, Jr. died November 15, 2019 at his home in Newnan, Georgia. He was 95. Banks was in residence at MacDowell in 1958, twice in 1964, and in 1965. He was the longest standing member of MacDowell’s Board of Directors, having served since 1966. He served as MacDowell’s Vice President from 1974-1982, and was a Vice Chairman since 1987. He was a life member of the Board of Directors of the High Museum of Art, and was also a playwright, art historian, author, and lecturer, specializing in historic communities and architecture, whose work was featured regularly in the magazine Antiques. He was proudest of the 1820s Federal-style home that he and his mother had rescued from Milledgeville, Georgia and meticulously restored and reconstructed on his family’s property in Newnan. He also maintained an important 19th century residence in Temple, New Hampshire. His plays “The Curate’s Play” and “The Glad Girls” were both professionally produced. Banks earned degrees at Dartmouth and Yale (Phi Beta Kappa) and was admired by friends and scholars for his deep knowledge of American architecture and the decorative arts as well as for his genial temperament and hospitality.
Anne Cox Chambers
Philanthropist and Ambassador Anne Cox Chambers, a member of MacDowell's Board of Directors for 32 years, died at home in Atlanta on January 31, 2020. She was 100. She was the heiress to the Cox family media empire, campaigned for Democratic politicians, and served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium under one of those politicians, President Jimmy Carter. She also received the French Legion of Honour. She served as director of the Coca-Cola Company from 1981-1991 and the Bank of the South from 1977-1982. Her interest in the business community was recognized in 1973 when she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Fulton National Bank—the first woman in Atlanta to become a bank director. She was also the first woman to serve on the Board of Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
Edmée de M. Firth
Edmée de Montmollin Firth was the executive director of the Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation since 1991 and served on the Board of Directors of MacDowell from 1992 to 2021. From 1982 to 1989, Firth was the first executive director of the Shakespeare Globe Center North America, the effort to rebuild the Globe in South London. She was also executive director of the Musician’s Emergency Fund and subsequently executive director of the Wethersfield Foundation. Edmée Firth served on the Board of the Metropolitan Opera Guild and was also on the Advisory Board of the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the New York Council for Weill Cornell Medicine.
Vartan Gregorian
Vartan Gregorian (1934-2021) was a trustee emeritus at MacDowell and the president of the Carnegie Corporation. Gregorian led MacDowell as board chairman from 1990 to 1993, on the heels of his historic rejuvenation of the New York Public Library and during his momentous tenure as president of Brown University. In his appeals for the NYPL, "Dr. Gregorian often sounded like a voice of conscience,” Robert McFadden wrote in his New York Times obituary, and this was true for MacDowell as well. In an essay for MacDowell's 2007 centennial publication, A Place for the Arts, Gregorian wrote, "...individually we will all pass by, but the art we experience, create, and partake of will remain. The arts will outlast us; they will reach beyond our temporality. They are witness to the fact that we are not mere socioeconomic units, not sociobiological entities, and not just consumers of entertainment, but moral beings with aspirations, cravings, anxieties, desires, and dreams." He was born in Tabriz, Iran, to Armenian parents, receiving his elementary education in Iran and his secondary education in Lebanon. In 1956, he entered Stanford University, where he majored in history and the humanities, graduating with honors in 1958. He was awarded a Ph.D. in history and humanities from Stanford in 1964. He was also an author and professor of European and Middle Eastern history.
Robert MacNeil
Robert MacNeil (1931-2024) was chairman of board of MacDowell from 1993 to 2010. Born and educated in Canada, he was a journalist for 40 years with, successively, Reuters News Agency, NBC News, and the BBC, culminating in 20 years as executive editor of the “MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” on PBS. He is the author of four novels, Burden of Desire, The Voyage, Breaking News, and Portrait of Julia; three memoirs, The Right Place at the Right Time, Wordstruck, and Looking For My Country; and co-author of The Story of English and the sequel, Do You Speak American?
Robert M. Olmsted
Robert Olmsted (1942-2024), Bob, was a financial analyst and private investor and a resident of New York City. He was a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Business School. For most of his life he was affiliated with Auchincloss and Lawrence, Inc. as an investment advisor. He also served on the boards of the Spence School, the Pomfret School, and the Windham Foundation. He was married to Stephanie L. Olmsted. The couple have two daughters and five grandchildren.
Leslie E. Robertson
Dr. Leslie E. Robertson (1928-2021) was a member of the Board of Directors of MacDowell from 2004-2019, and was an American engineer. He was responsible for the structural design of the World Trade Center (New York), the United States Steel Headquarters (Pittsburgh), the Bank of China Tower (Hong Kong), and the Puerta de Europa (Madrid) as well as exceptional museums and the award-winning Miho Museum Bridge (Japan). Robertson served on the board of several cultural and professional organizations including New York City’s Skyscraper Museum. The University of Notre Dame; Lehigh University; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, awarded him honorary doctorate degrees in engineering, and the University of Western Ontario in Canada presented him with an honorary doctorate in science. Read more at his MacDowell page.
Helen S. Tucker
Helen Tucker (1926 - 2022) was the president of the Gramercy Park Foundation, through which most of her philanthropy is distributed (recipients include: Jazz at Lincoln Center, Alliance for the Arts, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America, Manhattan Theatre Club, among many others). She was a former board member and co-chair of the benefit dinner at the New York Public Library, and a former vice chair at the Municipal Art Society. She has served on the boards of the Victorian Society Scholarship Fund, Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, and Louise Wise Services. After joining MacDowell’s Board, she served as co-chair of the New York National Benefit for 18 years and was active on several committees. In 2020, Helen was unanimously voted as MacDowell Trustee Emerita for her long-standing support and dedication to MacDowell.
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© 50 Playwrights Project, 2016-2018. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any original material on this website belonging to 50 Playwrights Project without express and written permission from Trevor Boffone is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may, of course, be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to 50 Playwrights Project and Trevor Boffone with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Thank you for reading. Please comment, share, and return regularly.
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We're starting the year with the Godmother of Creativity: Julia Cameron. Julia is the author of The Artist’s Way…which has inspired more creativity than any other document except the shareholder’s report of Theranos. Hailed by the New York Times as "The Queen of Change," she is the bestselling author of more than forty books as well as musicals and plays including her latest, Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection (A Six-Week Artist's Way Program.) A perfect way to start the new year! Enjoy Julia Cameron with host Guy Kawasaki on this week's Remarkable People podcast.
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Guy Kawasaki:
Hello, it's Guy Kawasaki.
This is the Remarkable People podcast.
It is January 2022, and I want to begin the year with an interview of the best person in the world to get us off to a remarkable start.
And that person is none other than Julia Cameron.
She's the author of The Artist's Way. This has inspired more creativity than any other document, except maybe the shareholder's report of Theranos.
Julia is the godmother of creativity.
She's the author of more than forty books, as well as the creator of musicals, plays, and movies.
Thirty years after The Artist's Way, she turns her attention to creative prayer in her new book, Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection.
In this episode, we cover; personal prayer, carnal knowledge, the analog nature of Morning Pages, the spirituality of gardening, the awesomeness of Brenda Ueland, and how to get deer to lick a lick.
Yep. There's something for everyone in this episode.
I'm Guy Kawasaki.
This is Remarkable People. And now here is the remarkable, truly remarkable, Julia Cameron.
Testing 1, 2, 3. Testing 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.
So first of all, is Nigel in the box.
Julia Cameron:
Nigel is my inner critic and Nigel has plenty to say. I try to say, "Nigel, thank you for sharing" and ignore the advice.
Guy Kawasaki:
Good for you.
And how is Lily?
Julia Cameron:
Oh, Lily is excellent. She's a very enjoyable dog. She keeps me great company. Maybe she'll come in and we'll be able to see her.
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope so. I hope so.
So I learned a little fact about you, which I just loved, which is that you were born on March fourth as in F O R T H and F O U R T H.
Julia Cameron:
Right.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is that perfect or what?
Julia Cameron:
It's a wonderful direction. March forth young woman.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yep. That was divine.
I have two more off the beaten path questions.
Julia Cameron:
Well, we'll try.
Guy Kawasaki:
I love the concept of the four dear day and I am sitting with a window that looks out into a little forest preserve and I put a salt block out there to attract deer, but no deer have come. And I know there are deer around here because I see them when I drive.
So do you have any deer tips? Like how do I get the deer to come to my window?
Julia Cameron:
I don't know that I have any deer tips except to say that the expectation of deer probably calls deer.
So I think you're putting out the salt lick and you're expecting that any moment you're going to see them is a Clarion call and I believe they'll come.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, one more question that, as you can tell, I just enjoy interviewing you. So I'm asking you questions that probably no other podcaster would ever ask you, but I'm going to read to you from your book and I want you to answer, perhaps an off color question.
Is that all right?
Julia Cameron:
We'll see.
Guy Kawasaki:
So first let me read, "Once again, Eve plucks the apple and offers it to Adam for a delicious bite. Then what happens? The sky's part and a booming voice declares, ‘Far out took you long enough. I made that apple red for a reason. Enjoy it, for that matter enjoy each other. All is well."’
So my question is, are you saying with “Enjoy each other”, what I think you're saying?
Julia Cameron:
I think so. I believe in a higher power that's sensual, and that gave us our sexual abilities as an extra gift. And so when I say enjoy each other, I mean it in the fullest most carnal sense of the word.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I could stop this interview right there and put it out there.
I love that. Oh, all right.
So now we'll get serious, but that was a serious question actually.
So first serious question is, please tell us about the God that you pray to, the characteristics of that God.
Julia Cameron:
I want to say, first of all, that the God I pray to is encouraging, compassionate, kind, humorous, far seeing, tolerant, tender, patient, passionate, a lot of wonderful traits.
And I believe in a line from Dylan Thomas, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”, and that force, that creative energy is what I pray to.
Guy Kawasaki:
And why is it that so many people have a concept of God that is basically opposite of what you just said.
Julia Cameron:
We've inherited a Calvinistic worldview. We've inherited a view of God that's negative, and authoritarian, and difficult, and forbidding.
And I think that our ancestors believed that it was necessarily that kind of God they were trying to please. And so we grew up "trying to please a God that there was no pleasing".
Guy Kawasaki:
And if someone were to make a movie depicting your God, who would you have play that part?
Julia Cameron:
Aha. Meryl Streep.
I did make a movie called God's Will. It was a romantic comedy. It's available on my website. People can watch it for fun and for free. And in the movie, God is an attractive red-haired lady golfer.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why golf?
Julia Cameron:
Because it's a relaxing sport.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
How does one go about creating a personal definition of God?
Julia Cameron:
I would say, first of all, take a pen and paper and start with the negatives and jot down all the negative God concepts that you may have grown up with. Then make another column and jot down all the positive attributes you would like a creative God to have.
And just the act of saying "I want a God who's funny", gives us a step in the right direction.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is the link between creativity and spirituality?
Julia Cameron:
I would hesitate to say “The link between”, because I feel that they're actually one and the same. And what I have found is that if I have people work on their creativity, their spirituality wakes up. And if I have people work on their spirituality, their creativity wakes up.
So I see the two things as being closely married.
Guy Kawasaki:
So do you think that all spiritual people are creative and all creative people are spiritual?
Julia Cameron:
Yes. In a nutshell.
Guy Kawasaki:
That simple?
Julia Cameron:
Yes.
But one of the things that I wrote in my book, The Artist's Way was that everyone is creative, and therefore, everyone is spiritual.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would anticipate that most people know what Morning Pages are who listen to this, but just in case, perhaps you can define it.
And then my question about it is, in this day and age, is it okay to type it in?
Julia Cameron:
No, handwritten is best. There's a direct link between our hand and our heart.
And when you type, you tend to go whizzing past important events.
So I think I should explain what Morning Pages are. They are the bedrock tool of a creative recovery.
They are three pages of long hand morning writing that you do first thing on waking up. You may get a cup of coffee, but that's about it. And you write this is what I like, this is what I don't like, this is what I want more of, this is what I want less of.
And it's as if you're giving your coordinates, like you're on a little life raft and you're in the middle of the ocean, and you're giving your coordinates to the big ship to come and save.
So I think morning pages are a very practical form of meditation.
A lot of westerners have a hard time sitting for twenty minutes doing nothing. So I say, sit for twenty minutes and do something. And it appeals to our work ethic.
Guy Kawasaki:
Since we're going down the tools here, that's one of the four, and it's been a year since we talked last, has anything changed about Artist Dates, any update on how to have a good Artist Date?
Julia Cameron:
What happened was that we were in COVID lockdown.
So ordinarily an artist date is taken outside of your house, and it's something that's festive, solo, enjoyable, and you go out and you do it and you expand your sense of self.
But then all of a sudden we had COVID and we were told, “Now you must stay home.”
So then we had to turn our imagination on what we could do right in our own home. And it might be take a bubble bath, listen to some drum music, dance barefoot, make a pot of homemade soup, make a pie.
So we turned our creativity close into home. And that was a difference in the artist date from a year ago.
Guy Kawasaki:
How about the walk?
Julia Cameron:
Walking again, sometimes it was forbidden, and then you couldn't do it, but other times you could do it, but you could do it masked.
And so I like to think I have legions of masked Artist Way followers, trudging to get a sense of connection to the higher power.
Guy Kawasaki:
You think God would get vaccinated?
Julia Cameron:
Do I think God would get vaccinated?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Julia Cameron:
Yes. To set a good example.
Guy Kawasaki:
There you go.
As only Julia Cameron could possibly say in one sentence, there you go. That's a drop the mic moment.
Next question. Perhaps you could please give us a prayer for dummies, short course on prayer. Why, what for, how you do it.
Julia Cameron:
I have a short prayer for dummies, which I'll happily recite.
It was published in 1942 by a man named James Dillet Freeman. And it goes, "The light of God surrounds me, the love of God enfolds me, the power of God protects me, the presence of God watches over me, wherever I am, God is".
And I use that prayer myself. And I love it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can you give us a short course on people who are listening to this, who aren't praying, how and why.
Julia Cameron:
People who aren't praying are depriving themselves of a great source of strength. And now I want you to try, and I would say, take a pen and paper, which I always say “Take a pen and paper”, and write for guidance, which is one of the fourth tools and say, “Can I have guidance about X”, and then write the issue that's eddying through your mind.
And then I want you to listen and hear if you hear a response. And what we find is that it's much easier to get guidance than we think. And therefore it's much easier to pray than we would imagine.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think that all prayers are created equal?
For example, praying for wants, success, car, whatever, versus difficult issues, bad news, sickness.
Are all prayers created equal?
Julia Cameron:
I think that the higher power welcomes any and all prayers. So they may not be considered equal in our mind, but they're given equal attention as they cross the holy desk.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's a busy desk.
What is your reaction when a politician or any kind of leader says “Our thoughts and prayers are with you after a tragedy?”
Julia Cameron:
I'm delighted to have them opening the door to a higher power. And I'm delighted to think that our politicians do perhaps make a conscious contact with a higher power in a time of adversity.
And not to get too political. It was nonetheless after the last election, a relief to hear the spiritual grounding of our leader.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have a negative reaction when I hear that, because I think that many politicians say our thoughts and prayers as if that's the most, and the best, and what they should do, but they do not address the fundamental issue that created the adversity.
I say, thoughts and prayers, next, done.
Julia Cameron:
This is where we need discernment. And we need to start judging our politicians by their actions and not simply by their words.
So I think you and I are saying the same thing essentially.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think that prayer is more for the person praying or for the higher power we are praying to?
Julia Cameron:
It's a two way street. When we pray, we reach out and we make contact. And that creates, for us, an inner peace and guidance.
And again, I believe in a humorous God. So I believe God chuckles at some of our requests.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you ever think that God is up there thinking “I really made a mistake? I should not have let so much free will happen. I should have controlled the situation more because these humans are clueless.”
Julia Cameron:
I don't think God thinks he made a mistake, but it takes patience on our part to try and take the long view and to say, “Despite apparent adversity, things are working out for the better.”
And despite everything, I'm an optimist. I think that prayer invites further optimism.
Guy Kawasaki:
And why do you remain an optimist in global warming, political divisiveness, racism? How do you maintain optimism despite all of that?
Julia Cameron:
This is where I sound like a fanatic. Ready.
I maintain optimism by writing Morning Pages. I find that the daily practice of pages tutors me in optimism. And I find that when I use the fourth tool of guidance and say, "Can I have guidance about X?”
I hear back something that's benign, gentle, forward looking, optimistic. And I find myself saying, "Oh, maybe the world isn't such a rotten place after all".
Guy Kawasaki:
What do you think is the place of prayer in the Catholic sense, in the sense of there's these exact words that you use versus praying in your own words?
Julia Cameron:
Speaking for myself, I had sixteen years of Catholic education. So when they said pray, they meant say the, our father. And what I found was that I didn't have a God concept that meshed very clearly with this. I didn't know that I thought God was our father, or that a father was necessarily a benign figure.
So what happened for me was when I got sober, I was told that I had to pray and I thought, “Oh dear God, no.” And they said, just pray in your own words.
So suddenly I started being candid. And instead of being formal, I found myself saying, “Dear God, I'm miserable today". And what I found was that when I was candid, I believed that the higher power was listening.
It closed the gap between me and a deity if you would.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you believe that formal or formalistic prayer has any place or any role?
Julia Cameron:
It's fine if you're comfortable with it. And there are many powerful prayer.
There's a prayer that they use in AA, which goes, "God, I offer myself to thee, to build with me and do with me what you will". And that's a pretty profound prayer.
I believe there's a place for formal prayer, and a place for informal prayer where you might just say a one word prayer, which would be "Help".
Guy Kawasaki:
When I do a podcast interview, usually I read the person's latest book, and many times it's an author. And I will tell you that just reading the forward of this book provided me with enough material to do this interview. I didn't even have to read the whole rest of the book. That was such a powerful forward.
So I just want to tell you that because as a writer, I truly appreciate the power of your forward there.
Julia Cameron:
Thank you. And I had something happen. I have a friend who's a British publisher and I sent him the book and he called me up and he said, "Julia, I'm an atheist and a Jew, hardly you're two target audiences. But the book spoke to me. I found it personally relevant".
And I thought, “Oh, he's a great gardener, and I don't see how you can garden without coming away with a sense of the higher power.” But maybe for him, it's a creative energy that he feels no need to call God.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, wait. Why do you have to believe in a higher power to be a gardener?
Julia Cameron:
I think you don't have to believe in a higher power to be a gardener, but to be a gardener is to come in contact with a higher power.
Are you a gardener?
Guy Kawasaki:
I can't claim to be a gardener. No, sorry.
Julia Cameron:
Maybe we could put out some plants that the deer would like to nibble.
Guy Kawasaki:
As a matter of fact, I go and pick figs from our fig tree and throw them out there right next to the salt lick and something eats the figs, but there's nothing out there licking the lick. Maybe I should pray that I have some deer lick my lick.
So that's personal prayer, right?
Julia Cameron:
That would be a prayer petition, “Dear God.”
Guy Kawasaki:
So Julia, this is more statement than anything else, but I read this book and I know you've written dozens of other books, but I really see this book as just the culmination. This is where you brought everything together. Do you think that?
Julia Cameron:
Thank you. But I will tell you that since I wrote this book, I've written another book.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my.
Julia Cameron:
So I felt clearly there was something else to say. And the book that I wrote after this prayer book was a book called Write for Life.
And it's a gentle, direct, hopefully persuasive writing guide. I felt like I had tools to share about writing. And so I did.
Guy Kawasaki:
So are you going to replace Brenda Ueland in my life for inspiring writing books?
Julia Cameron:
I don't think anybody can replace Brenda Ueland. And we should maybe tell our audience that she said a couple of things that were really powerful.
She's a great walker. And she said, "I will tell you what works for me. It's a long five or six mile walk and one must go alone, and every day."
So I thought that was laying down quite a challenge for people. I believe that you don't have to go five or six miles.
You maybe only have to go twenty minutes.
And the other thing she said is when you are dealing with the higher power you are perhaps being talked to in an incandescent way, by God and his messengers. So maybe she was a gardener.
Guy Kawasaki:
I will tell you that if you want to write, the Brenda Ueland book, Change my Life, literally that book changed my life. My wife gave that to me as I was writing my first book and no other book has ever empowered me as much as that book.
Julia Cameron:
I didn't read the book before I wrote The Artist's Way. I read it after. And I found myself thinking, yes, yes.
She talks about taking artist dates. I have different words. She talks about morning writing. She talks about going on festive expeditions.
And these were tools that I had thought that I devised myself. But instead I found that she had beat me to the punch. I was grateful for her book. It was reinforcement.
Guy Kawasaki:
And when is your book coming out?
Julia Cameron:
It'll be a year from now.
Guy Kawasaki:
So we'll do this again.
Julia Cameron:
That would be fun. I get to hear if you had your deer show up.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes. If I can't get deer to show up in the next year, I don't deserve to interview you, Julia.
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope you enjoyed this interview of Julia Cameron.
She is truly remarkable.
I will keep you posted on whether I get the deer to lick the lick. I know you'll constantly be wondering about that issue.
In the meantime, be creative, write those Morning Pages, dent the universe, all that good stuff.
My thanks to Jeff Sieh, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shannon Hernandez, Alexis Nishimura, Luis Magana, and Madisun drop in queen Nuismer.
By the way, this is the second time that Julia has been on the Remarkable People podcast.
If you like this episode, go to our archives at remarkablepeople.com and listen her first episode. It's also truly remarkable.
Anyway, it's 2022. I hope this is the best year of your life.
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Episode 413 of da Playwriting Podcast: Inside and Outside Problems vith Professor Albert.
“I have stolen da podcast forever. Dis is no longer Mr. Volf's podcast. He is locked in da basement until da end of time or sooner!
GET BACK IN DERE OR I WILL SING TO YOU!!!!! GET IN DERE NOW!
"Edelveiss...
Edelveiss...
Every morning you kiss me
Small und vite clean und bright
You look happy to miss me!"
Come listen to me as I teach da amazing playwriting, und tell you da secrets to the Universe so you can be da greatest playwright in da vurld, almost as good as me!
Dis time on dis podcast I talk about Inside Problems und Outside problems vatever dat is.
You are a very special and beautiful human being. (I am only saying dat for I want you to listen to dis podcast. He He He!)
Do you have vat it takes to be great playwright?
Do you have da supreme motivation?
Do you have indigestion?
Den listen to dis podcast and learn from da greatest playwriting coach in da vurld:
Professor Albert, da greatest playwriting coach in da vurld! Dat's me!”
In this episode, I share some very cool techniques for you to Get into that Elusive Creativity Zone consistently, and if you are in the Creativity Zone consistently, your creative output is going to soar! Check this out and change your life!
Bio:
Playwright/ Screenwriter, Director and Producer Sarah T. Schwab
Initially developed for the stage, the film Sarah wrote and produced “A Stage of Twilight” stars Karen Allen and William Sadler. This film is a love story set in the final chapter of Cora and Barry's lives. The film premiered in a limited theater run this March and is now available to stream on demand on Amazon, Vudu, Vubiquity/Verizon Fios, Hoopla, Charter/Spectrum, Comcast/Xfinity, and Cox.
Sarah is an active member of the Playwright/Directors unit at the Actors Studio in New York City and has previously won Best Director in an English Language Feature Film at the Madrid International Film Festival in 2020 for her first feature film, “Life After You.” Sarah was also honored in 2022 with the Best Emerging Director award at the Woods Hole Film Festival for "A Stage of Twilight.” In 2023, “A Stage of Twilight” won the Filmmaker Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival.
In this awesome episode, I interview Playwright, Director and Producer, Freedom Farlow Cooke! She talks about her writing workflow, her new play which is being produced in Philadelphia in June, and both Freedom and I, invite you to direct some of your own work for it will change your life. Check out this episode. Freedom is a fantastic creator and she has a lot of wonderful insights to share!
More about Freedom:
Bio
Playwright - Freedom Farlow Cooke
I have written several plays (a number of which have been produced) that relate to social issues within the African American community. I have also received a grant for my short film entitled “AMELIKA.”
I write because it allows me to tell stories that are not only relatable, but encourage others to explore their own perspectives of thought.
Playwriting is a gift that allows the audience to view stories through the lens and imagination of others, a wonderful journey into unique life experiences told through beautiful and compelling stories. While some stories have been told, many have yet to be explored - so anytime I can be a conduit to bridge the gap, I am willing to write!
In this very cool episode of The Playwriting Podcast, I talk about how to make BIG and congruent choices in your work, so that you are not a mediocre playwright! Wow! Tough love! But heck, wimpy choices create wimpy plays, and yes, you have to risk being over the top, in order to land on the precipice called BIG and PERFECT. Do you have the Beach Balls to make some big choices and take a risk? You only live once, so what are you waiting for?
And in this process of talking BIG Choices…
I talk about WITCHLAND which Manhattan Rep is producing and bringing to stunning life.
What better than a play about and EVIL WITCH in a town maybe poisioned by Nuclear waste?
Sound like the perfect play to make some big choices!
Check this out!
Listen online at the button below.
And get your tickets to Witchland at the link below opening April 5th in NYC!
https://witchlandplay.com/get-tickets/
In this exciting episode, I talk about editing, and I offer my 10 Editing Questions again as a means of editing your work as you write and editing your first draft, second draft and more. Editing is often tedious but it is one of the most important things you can do to refine your play. And with my 10 Editing Questions (Below) - Wow! Editing your play will be more effective and faster than you have ever experienced before!
My 10 Editing Questions:
These questions are like filters to refine your play and make it more concise.
And concise is good.
1. Is there a clear problem & action related to the problem that needs to be solved in each scene? If not, fix it.
2. Does this scene top the scene before? If not, fix it.
3. Are your characters saying too many words? Do they need to say three sentences when they could say the same thing in one sentence?
4. Do your characters speak in clear and distinctly different ways? If not, how can you make them consistently different?
5. Are your characters telling stories that don’t have a dramatic event attached to the telling of the story? If not, cut them or make them two sentences tops. I’m serious. (A story with a dramatic event attached could be a Coming Out story, or a Break Up story.)
6. Are the characters saying too little? Is it clear what is happening in each EVENT?
7. Are you telling BACK STORY to the audience that is not intrinsically told during a dramatic action moment in the scene? If not, fix it!
8. Is the scene too long? Could it be a page or two shorter and still convey all the important information and ACTION that will propel this play to its dramatic conclusion?
9. Is the scene too short? Are the actions and events in this scene big enough?
10. Do you need this scene? Does this scene top the scene before, and propel the dramatic action of the play? If you answer yes to this - keep the scene. If no, cut it!
In this episode, I talk about how you can take IDEAS from plays, film and TV and make those ideas your own and put them into your plays. This is not plagiarism, for you are not taking lines, just concepts and adapting them for your own amazing uses. I talk about FROM SCRATCH on Netflix that steals from Chekhov in an incredible and amazing way, but if you don’t know The Three Sisters as well as I know it, you would never see it. (BTW, FROM SCRATCH is one of the best TV series I have ever seen. It is brilliant and so beautifully constructed, and acted. Bravo!). And then I talk about all the ways you can take these concepts and ideas to improve your playwriting. This one is fun!
In this episode, I talk about the opportunities for playwrights in this very Brave New Normal. The Theatre world has been disrupted by the pandemic, making now the perfect time to connect with theatres and producers and Theatre ANGELS, to get your play produced.
I talk about Powerhouse by David Harms which we are producing OFF-BROADWAY in October and I talk about the wild process of reaching out to Agents to find Name Talent for the lead, and how that process too has changed because of this pandemic. Then I tell a quick Zen story, and invite you to use this time to get your plays produced! This nutty new time is filled with opportunity if you look at this world as it is and not as you think it was. Don’t miss this one. Super Fun!
My old pal, Professor Albert is back and he has hijacked the podcast again to talk to playwrights all over the world about creating specific characters, and to demonstrate his intense acting abilities in the process.
Aren’t you tired of Ken Wolf on this podcast telling you that you need to do this and you need to do that to propel your playwriting career to the next level? Now you can listen to Motivational Music Superstar Professor Albert as he tells you that you need to do this, and you need to do that to propel your playwriting career to the next level. And then for the first time on this podcast, Professor Albert shares a hypnosis meditation so that you can write better characters and also, become one with the universe! Don’t miss this exciting episode!
In this episode, I rail about how often writers will play with new ways to TELL a story at the expense of creating a clear context, so that the people watching will actually UNDERSTAND what is going on! I see it in movies, TV and alas, in plays.
Then I talk about the importance of creating a clear context and how it will ultimately be the foundation on which to build your play. And as usual, I tell a cool story to illustrate all.
Then, I talk about Powerhouse by David Harms, the Off-Broadway show we are producing opening next October in Midtown Manhattan. I talk about working on the script and how my intention is to create a perfect rehearsal draft for this play.
And lastly, I offer up really good reasons why you need to take one of my Master Academy Zoom Courses: The Playwright’s Reading, or Rewriting Your Play, and I share the wonders of a great playwright website and how we will build it for you.
All this in under 18 minutes. What fun!
In this episode, I talk about FEAR, our old Pal who often comes a callin’ when we are moving forward in our lives and doing new things.
I take you through a process to challenge your FEAR and find a better emotional answer, so you can move forward in your playwriting career with new clarity and passion, and BE MORE.
Becoming a working playwright is not just about writing a great play. You need to become FEARLESS and relentless and connect to theatres, producers, agents and more.
And to do that, often, you have to change how you think.
Wow, a podcast about playwriting that is not about playwriting…
…and it is.
Check this out. Do the work. Change your thinking and get your work out into the world!
In this episode, I talk about Amsterdam’s Orange Theatre Company’s Short Zoom Theatre Film - FEVER DREAMS, which was one of the most exciting and creative Zoom presentations that I have ever seen! (It is a part of Manhattan Rep’s Stories Film Festival in May. Don’t miss it!)
In this amazing Zoom Film there was a Big Problem, Big Events happening in the story (AND ON THE COMPUTER!) It was so well rehearsed and filled with INSANE PASSION!!
I outline these FOUR STEPS to take your PLAY to the next level. How can you go further with your work? And get your work out into the world as we move into this NEW RENAISSANCE OF THEATRE! Don’t miss this!
In the episode, I ask the BIG QUESTION: Do you want to join the REVOLUTION?
Do you want to be part of tomorrow’s theatre, a vibrant and passionate community of artists writing plays that make a difference? Do you want to be a part of this NEW AGE of live storytelling? Are you willing to do the work to write like you have never written before to help transform this BRAVE NEW WORLD?
As storytellers, we have more power to create a shift in consciousness than all the politicians in the world. Playwrights are magicians and miracle makers. (Yes, you are!) So are you ready to create some miracles with your work? Are you willing to be bigger, bolder, more passionate and work harder than ever before to create some transformational plays for this New Age? How can you with your storytelling skills be a part of the solution as we return to live theatre?
Ah yes, that is the question!
In this episode, I interview Broadway Producer, Ken Davenport, about the road back for Broadway and for theatre opening around the world. This interview is inspiring and sheds some glorious light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. Ken talks about what is happening now, and what the process moving forward might look like as theatre reopens! Don’t miss this episode!
Ken Davenport’s Bio:
Ken Davenport is a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer whose credits include Once On This Island (Tony Award), Gettin’ the Band Back Together, The Play that Goes Wrong, Groundhog Day (Tony nomination), Deaf West Theatre’s Spring Awakening (Tony nomination), It’s Only a Play, Macbeth starring Alan Cumming, Godspell, Kinky Boots (Broadway - Tony Award, National Tour, Toronto, Australia, and West End), The Visit (Tony nomination), Mothers and Sons (Tony nomination), The Bridges of Madison County (National Tour), Allegiance, Chinglish, Oleanna starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, Speed-the-Plow, Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America (Tony nomination), Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury (Broadway, West End and National Tour), and 13.
Off-Broadway, Ken has produced Daddy Long Legs, Altar Boyz (Co-Conceiver), My First Time (Author), The Awesome 80’s Prom (Creator), That Bachelorette Show! (Creator), and Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating, & Marriage (Author). Ken's productions have been produced internationally in over 25 countries around the world.
In 2019, Inc. 5000 named Ken’s production company, Davenport Theatrical Enterprises, one of America’s fastest-growing private companies.
He is the founder of TheaterMakersStudio.com, a one-of-a-kind "masterclass" community that provides training and inspiration from Broadway's best to writers, directors, producers and more.
Ken also serves as the Executive Producer for North America for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group.
Outside of theatre, he has produced the award-winning These Magnificent Miles: On the Long Road with Red Wanting Blue, a documentary on one of the top unsigned rock bands in the country, and an award-winning TV pilot entitled The Bunny Hole which has appeared in the LA Indie Film Festival, the Orlando Film Festival, the LA Comedy Festival and more. Ken was featured on a national commercial for Apple’s iPhone, named one of Crain’s “Forty Under 40” and is one of the co-founders of TEDxBroadway. He created the best-selling Broadway board game Be A Broadway Star. His blog, TheProducersPerspective.com, has been featured in Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, The Gothamist and more. He has written articles for Forbes, Mashable, and many others. Ken’s unique production and marketing style has garnered him international attention, including two front page articles in the NY Times and features on MSNBC, Rock Center, Fox News, BBC, and his favorite, a mention in Jay Leno’s monologue on “The Tonight Show.”
Upcoming projects include Broadway Vacation, Joy the Musical, My Life In Pink, a revival of The Great White Hope, Harmony: A New Musical written by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, a musical based on the life and songs of Neil Diamond, and a musical based on the life of Harry Belafonte.
Prior to his career as a Producer, Ken was a Company Manager and General Manager for Broadway shows and National Tours including Show Boat, Ragtime, Jekyll & Hyde, Chicago, Candide, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Gypsy and others.
Get ready for a really wild ride as I talk to actors Dave Silberger & Florence Pape about Play Development, specifically on their work on Mike Zielinski’s awesome comedy entitled “HE’S YOUR DADDY” which Manhattan Rep produced in March 2019, directed by yours truly. Florence and Dave have worked with me on a myriad of productions over the past 3 years, and they are fantastic actors and awesome human beings. This episode is great fun, and an inside look at what happens in rehearsal.
My intention with this episode is for playwrights to get a real sense of what play development is, as we talk about the process of bringing this comedy to life.
Florence’s Bio
Florence Pape Theatre: Marti, Mints by George Cameron Grant (Best Actress-Think Fast Festival, Secret Theatre, Best Play-Manhattan Rep., United Solo Festival, Theatre Row), Wendy, Grant’s Lovers Kiss (Manhattan Rep. & Think Fast Festival - Best Actress nom.), Mae West, Laugh Supper, Connie Conrad, He’s Your Daddy (Manhattan Rep); Doris, Can You Hear Me Now?, Dottie,It Gets Better, Lucy, Criminally Insane, Mrs. Mendelson,Sorry For Your Loss, Grandma,Family Secrets, God,Strong Meds and Jewish Guilt (Alternative Theater), Helene Berman, Significant Other (nom. best actress BroadwayWorld.com Regional Awards, NJ Theater), Lavinia Penniman,The Heiress and Marietta Claypoole, Regrets Only, Nutley Little Theatre, Motherhood Out Loud and Virginia,Three Viewings, Hackensack Performing Arts/Hoboken Library. Favorite roles Hudson Theatre Ensemble: Joanne, Company, Martha,Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Reba, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Ouisier, Steel Magnolias. Commercials/TV/Film: Major Pharmaceutical Commercial (also print/ internet), Immersive Installation Facebook Portal, Twin Chef Infomercial, Comedy Central Mini-Mocks, Comcast Spotlight. Film: Wendy, Lovers Kiss (filmed/directed Michael Stever) florence@fpls.com
Dave’s Bio
Dave Silberger has been entertaining audiences at Renaissance Festivals for eons as Half Wit Henry in The Sturdy Beggars Mud Show. He has also performed with Theater Companies in Chicago, New Jersey and New York, as well as indie films and the occasional commercial. There is nothing he likes better then collaborating on exciting projects with generous and talented people.
In this episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Playwright Coni Koepfinger, who is one of our Resident Playwrights at Manhattan Rep. We talk about her plays, how she writes and what she often writes about, and the future of theatre as we move into this Brave New World.
Coni Koepfinger (Playwright in residence at Manhattan Rep and Cosmic Orchid)
A recent finalist in Playbill’s inaugural Virtual Theatre Festival, 2020,
Coni Koepfinger is the host of AIRPLAY, a weekly theatre program now in its 12th season that gives voice to artists worldwide and DETERMINED WOMEN, a monthly feature that interviews women who share stories to encourage and inspire. In addition to teaching theatre and composition at prominent universities, Koepfinger is an internationally published and produced playwright, theatre theorist, and librettist. Coni is a Media Advisor for the Lifeboat Foundation who recently published her play, Get the Message in their Visions of the Future anthology; a contributing writer for the Center of Conscious Creativity in LA; a Member of The Dramatists Guild, and an instrumental member of the International Center for Women Playwrights and the League of Professional Theatre Women. Recent work includes three new powerful pieces with her writing partner Joe Izen: including Eve of Beltane -a fresh look at political corruption in the face of ancient Celtic mythology that was given a 29 hr AEA staged reading at Broadway Bound Festival (2019),; Schoolhouse - an ultramodern musical that takes the young victim of a school shooting through a magical journey into an imaginary schoolhouse to find compassion and joy; and the new age musical, Kingdom Come, where technology meets its match in matchmaking with TED, the world's first transhuman who falls in love with boss only to reveal a bigger, brighter picture for all humanity. She has written well over 40 plays, short stories , books and commissions such as Takin’ It Back, a ten-minute play for THE ME TOO PROJECT in Harlem, and Playing House a commissioned one-act about Bella Abzug for the UNTOLD STORIES OF JEWISH WOMEN and Playing Fate which was accepted for New Blood Series at Theatre for the New City. In 2020 Koepfinger is virtually all over, with Caging the Spirit, a short James Scheider at Walls & Bridges at California State University's \\ and her new full-length, My Dinner with Mary, which was read online for The Producer’s Circle in March, and will be produced in the Dream Up Festival in 2021 at Theatre for the New City. Simonyt, New Blood Series at TNC; Caging the Spirit at California State University and My Dinner with Mary, read for cutworms The Producer’s Circle and was chosen for the Dream Up Festival 2021 at Theatre for the New City and The Simon Says in the Playbill VTF.
On this Episode, I talk about how to refine your play and make it absolutely perfect! I offer these 10 Editing questions below, along with the process of editing and I talk about the importance of having a reading of your play after you finish your first draft, that is a reading for you, not for feedback. And I talk about this website How To Write Plays.com.
Here are the 10 Editing Questions to refine your first draft:
1. Is there a clear problem & action related to the problem that needs to be solved in each scene? If not, fix it.
2. Does this scene top the scene before? If not, fix it.
3. Are your characters saying too many words? Do they need to say three sentences when they could say the same thing in one sentence?
4. Do your characters speak in clear and distinctly different ways? If not, how can you make them consistently different?
5. Are your characters telling stories that don’t have a dramatic event attached to the telling of the story? If not, cut them or make them two sentences tops. I’m serious. (A story with a dramatic event attached could be a Coming Out story, or a Break Up story.)
6. Are the characters saying too little? Is it clear what is happening in each EVENT?
7. Are you telling BACK STORY to the audience that is not intrinsically told during a dramatic action moment in the scene? If not, fix it!
8. Is the scene too long? Could it be a page or two shorter and still convey all the important information and ACTION that will propel this play to its dramatic conclusion?
9. Is the scene too short? Are the actions and events in this scene big enough?
10. Do you need this scene? Does this scene top the scene before, and propel the dramatic action of the play? If you answer yes to this - keep the scene. If no, cut it!
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Table of Contents
Toggle
Asian American Plays, by Authors (L)
History for
East West Players
Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
Northwest Asian American Theatre
Authors
Lam, Greg
Stick and Move (Boston Theatre Marathon, 2008)
Ten minute play: A couple on their first date learn that when the date is on, it’s always good to have someone in your corner.
Chaplin & Keaton on the Set of Limelight
Silent Comedy legends Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton worked together only once, on Chaplin’s last movie before being exiled from the United States. For the deeply autobiographical Limelight, Chaplin cast the down on his luck Keaton to play a small part in his nostalgic story of an old comedian doing one last performance. This play explores the tension between the desire to entertain and the need to fight for a greater world in politically dangerous times. What responsibilities does an artist have beyond bringing a smile to the face of an audience?
Repossessed (Pork Filled Productions, 2017)
Rich and Gretchen seem to have the ideal marriage, until they learn that it was manufactured by a mysterious biotech company which installed it into their brains. Because they can no longer afford this service, the company must repossess their improvements.
The Trouble With Maise
10 MINUTE – The relationship of two siblings is threatened by the reappearance of a ventriloquist’s dummy named Maisie. Co-authored by Walt McGough. THE TROUBLE WITH MAISIE is an outrageous look at the perils of relationships, familial, human, and otherwise.
Interventions (Fantastic Z, 2019)
10 MINUTE- A couple on a hike find their special plans interrupted by a succession of time travelers, each with a different message from the future.
INTERVENTIONS is a funny, fast paced romp about time travel, romance, and the consequences of decisions. Because time travel is hard, but parenting is harder
Golden Record
10 MINUTE – Two friends have their day interrupted by the arrival of an alien object.
The Fallout
10 MINUTE – In 1962, a couple feverishly pack to escape a coming doom- When a knock on the door is heard. They prepare themselves for the worst, but it turns out it’s just their neighbors who haven’t seen the evening paper… yet.
Crossover Fiction
10 MINUTE – A sci-fi heroine takes a journey into a strange new world… Earth!
The Line
10 MINUTE – People wait in a very long line that doesn’t move for a very long time. We find out why.
The Dowry of Princess Talia
ONE ACT – A sweet but hapless and dimwitted suitor wants to win the hand of the feisty and intelligent Princess Talia, and so he must complete several daunting quests. He has no chance, unless the resourceful princess gives him a hand without his knowledge.
Lampitoc, Sunshine Pearl
A Virgin/Whore Duplex (EWP, 2001)
Surrounded by porn movies, the demise of marriage, and apple martinis, one young woman lies her way to the truth.
Landayan, Rudy
I Heart Hell A (EPW, 2009)
Dreams, stars, smog & traffic. An ensemble driven performance art piece about the love hate relationship with the city we call Los Angeles.
Le, Dan Sach
Saigon Sisters (Mu 2012)
Come hear the first act of this new play inspired by Anton Chekov’s, The Three Sisters.
Le, Viet
Rage (EWP, 2003)
Family. Felon. Is Tommy Nguyen a good boy or a gang banger?
Lee, Alex
Three Lives (1999)
Lee, Annette
A Dirty Secret Between Your Toes (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)
Chuck and Helen — the new Asian American couple — have moved into this picture-perfect cul de sac with a dirty secret. Jose, the gardener, helps to keep their insatiable desires and clandestine activities hidden from this upper class neighborhood… all the while harboring his own little secret. When the neighborhood association president comes knocking, watch sweet little suburbia flip into a new picture of disturbing, disruptive and deliciously dirty revelations!
Walk the Mountain (Wells Fargo Radio Theater 2000) –
A radio play about a Chinese man’s journey to 1880’s San Franciso to bring his father home to China.
One Cold Dark Night (Wells Fargo Radio Theater 2001) –
A radio play comedy about a 1950’s Chinese American family and the Chinese ghost stories they share.
Lynn 1, Lynn 2 (Marianne Murphy Women & Philanthropy Play Reading Series. 2007)
Lynn things she lives alone – or does she?
29/12 (Upper Reaches Theater 2007)
Casey looks like any other seventh grader, but he shares a secret with his grandfather that keeps his demons at bay.
Negation Delirium on Toast Points (UCLA, 2007)
A woman comes home and finds it mysteriously redecorated. Is it her imagination, another demension, or the stranger on her couch?
Life Outside the Body (UCLA 2008)
Chuck’s body has always been breaking down on him, but that’s nothing compared to what’s really broken. Can one magic drug fix it all? (one-act)
Hacinda Heights (Lodestone, 2008)
The Hsiungs have always been a strange family, but things get stranger when the Census Taker arrives. (One Act)
Higher Up (Theater Masters 2008)
When the ‘new guy’ shows up for work, Toi and Charlie experience firsthand what it’s like to be in the dog house. (10-min)
English Only (UCLA, 2008)
1986. Everything is big. The hair, the shoulder pads, the prom dresses… but nothing is bigger to 17 year old Scarlett Wong than what’s going on at City Hall. A look into race, culture, and the Official English referendum in Monterey Park, California.
Happy Talk: a romantic urban fairytale (Another Chicago Theatre Company, 2008)
Gina loves Bob, but Bob isn’t free to love anyone until he’s free of his mother. Could the answer be in a pair of a fabulous ladies shoes? (One Act)
Lee, C. Y.
Author of The Flower Drum Song.
The Body and Soul of a Chinese Woman (Stella Adler Theatre, 2006)
It tells the story of Amy Wu, a recently divorced, young traditional folk dancer from China who struggles to reconcile her sensuality and intellectual nature while dealing with a traditional Asian American aunt and an ex-husband who wants to come back into her life.
The Fan Tan King (Pan Asian Rep, 2006) A musical with music by Douglas Lackey
The Fan Tan King is adapted from Mr. Lee’s novel, DAYS OF THE TONG WARS, set in late 19th century San Francisco, when Chinese pioneers arrived to the Land of the Golden Mountain in their quest for the American Dream. The Fan Tan King is Peter Fong, a gambling czar and businessman; Peter has a wife, who pines for a simpler life and more children to join her only son. His authority is challenged by his rival, Sam Fat, who wants control of Chinatown. There are a dozen colorful supporting characters who epitomize the diverse Chinatown community.
Lee, Cherylene
A former child performer, dancer/actress, paleontologist/geologist, and wastewater (yes, sewage) treatment consultant, Cherylene Lee’s writing also includes poetry, short fiction, and a novel. A fourth generation Chinese-American, her writing examines the broad spectrum of Asian-American experience. Her poetry and fiction have been widely published and her short stories anthologized in American Dragons (Harper Collins, 1993) and Charlie Chan is Dead (Viking/Penguin, 1993).
Recipient of a San Francisco Art Council Grant in Literature, she has also received a Fund for New American Plays Grant, a Rockefeller MAP Grant and has been a co-winner of the Mixed Blood Theater’s Playwrights competition. She was also chosen for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, the Sundance Playwrights Lab, an Asian Theater Workshop Fellowship with the Mark Taper Forum, and a San Francisco Grants for Arts Commission through Z Space Studio. In 2015 Cherylene published her personal memoir Just Like Really An Uncommon Chinese American Memoir. On March 18, 2016, Cherylene died in her sleep with her two sisters at her side
Pyros (1983)
Aesop’s Fantastic Fables (1984)
Wong Bow Rides Again (East West, 1987)
The Ballad of Doc Hay (Marin Playhouse, 1987)
Overtones (Kuma Kahua, 1988)
Bitter Melon (1990)
Yin Chin Bow (Pan Asian, 1990)
Memory Square (1991)
Arthur & Leila (East West, 1993)
In the Spirit (Mayer Theatre, 1993)
Knock Off Balance (1995)
Lost Vegas Acts (1997)
Carry the Tiger to the Mountain (1998, Contemporary Theater Festival)
In June of 1982 Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two unemployed Detroit auto workers. Carry the Tiger to the Mountain is an epic dramatization of the true life story o the victim’s mother, Lily Chin, and her journey from postwar picture bride to civil rights activist in search of justice for her son.
The Legacy Codes (Theatreworks, 2003)
Inspired by the stunning saga of nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee, this fascinating new drama is as hot as today’s headlines. Underscored by a brilliant fusion of Chinese, jazz, and hip-hop music, it weaves our era’s mystifying codes of law, culture, computers, and romance into a masterful family drama, the tantalizing tale of a Taiwanese-born scientist accused of compromising America’s national security.
Antigone Falun Gong (Aurora Theatre Company, 2004)
This adaptation of Sophocles’s great tragedy is re-set in contemporary China and explores how the past connects to the present, the persecution of the Falun Gong, and how there may be more to America’s global reach than we imagine. Utilizing forms of Tai Chi, Wu Shu, Kung Fu, Chinese opera movement as well as the five Falun Gong exercises, this world premiere dramatizes the story of a lone woman defying a repressive government in a beautifully unique and provocative way.
Mixed Messages (EWP, 2004)
Mixed Messages explores the journey of a “mixed” woman (Japanese, Chinese and British) who discovers that her cranial features are extremely similar to that of the 9,000 year-old women fossil found in the La Brea Tar Pits in 1914. The realization sparks emotional duels pitting science against culture, ethnicity against heritage, and the individual against institutions in defining those of “mixed” backgrounds.
Lee, Edward Bok
ED BOK LEE’s first book, Real Karaoke People (New Rivers Press), was a recipient of the Many Voices Project (MVP) Award and “contains outrage…tenderness [and] searing honesty…vital to the American landscape. The vitality of the country, its capacity to absorb the rich and the strange, is nowhere clearer…” (San Francisco Chronicle).
Lee attended kindergarten in Seoul, grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota, and has since lived in a half-dozen cities around the world. He has studied Slavics at the Universities of California—Berkeley, Minnesota, Kazakh State—Almaty, Indiana University, and holds an MFA from Brown University. Various writing awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Loft Literary Center, SASE, and the Jerome Foundation.
Athens County (Brown University, 1997)
A farce, where Mommy Kills Daddy.
St. Petersburg (The Public, 2000)
Passage (Theater Mu, 2001)
The story follows a daughter’s return to her homeland to visit her father, who is near death. But before the old man can be released from this world, he must clear up secrets and business with his daughter. It’s a mythic version of the need to reconcile and remember the past, Kim said.
Whorled ()
Leavetaker ()
El Santo Americano ()
Ten Minute play. Clay, a washed-up professional wrestler, kidnaps his estranged wife Evalana and their child, and heads for the border. He hopes to re-invent himself in Mexico as a champion wrestler, and save his failing family from certain doom. An unexpected rest stop in the middle of the desert throws a monkey wrench in his plans, when Evalana finds herself with an opportunity to escape — but not before Clay articulates his love for her and their child one last time. Will she go, or stay? Or will something more mysterious happen in the darkest heart and hour of this magical vision of the post-American Dream?
Glow III (Mu Performing Arts, 2007)
At a time when soldiers lessen the effects of post traumatic stress disorder by the practice of first maiming animals, and McDonalds offers a popular Spirit Burger, a shape-shifting cast of Everyday People attempt to navigate their troubled lives through futuristic dysfunction. Ethics, Philosophy, Pop-psychology, Race, Socio-economics and Religion all serve as launching pads into the absurd.
Lee, Gene
We Used To Toast To The Dreamers…Now We Just Drink (East West 2010)
“We used to toast…” is dark and familiar. It broods fiery and unsettling like one too many shots of bourbon. Its voice is harsh and one gets the impression that the author does not want to step lightly over the graves of artists.
Ladies and Gentlemen (East West, 2013)
A heavyweight contender gets the opportunity of a lifetime, but must choose between the two men she loves.
Lee, J.
Wooing Annie (East West, 2001)
“Welcome to L.A! Now go home.” For Canadian Annie Woo, it’s hard to leave a place with “spicy kimchi” like Josh and “green tea and ham” like Mason. Should she stay or should she go?
Lee, JC
Luce (Lincoln Center Theatre, 2013)
When a teacher makes an alarming discovery about Luce, an all-star high school student, Luce’s parents are forced to reckon with their idealized image of their son, adopted years ago from a war-torn African country.
Crane (Ferocious Lotus, 2015)
When Sadako stumbles into a cabin in the mountains in the dead of winter, she meets Bradley, a young, hermitic artist who once created a great work but has since descended into mediocrity. He now risks being dropped by his pushy agent if he doesn’t produce another masterpiece. After taking in this mysterious woman, Bradley soon discovers that Sadako has her own secret talent that could potentially save him. But at what cost?
Lee, Ji Hyun
Ji Hyun is a playwright moonlighting as investigative reporter. She has covered the University of Michigan’s affirmative action trials for Asian Diversity and the recent sweatshop cases in California for Hyphen magazine. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
The Superfirends of Flushing Queens (AATC, 1999)
Picture four Asian friends: a Korean, a Chinese, a Japanese and a Vietnamese, who struggle for the perfect grade in the academically advanced Flushing High School. But underneath all the ethnic stereotypes, the girls endure dysfunctional home lives and long to escape from their oppressing families with that scholarship to Harvard. As soon as one friend is in trouble, they morph into their altar egos Wonder Girl,, Slut Girl, Dyke Girl and Nerd Girl and jump into their Invisible BMW to rescue those friends in need. Because whatever may ail them at home, when they’re together and in school, they will always be the Superfriends of Flushing Queens.
Lee, JJ
Measure of a Man (Vancouver Canadian Theatre, 2013)
Lee, John K.
From Berdoo to Bonneville (EWP, 2016)
Chino Kim, a talented but unheralded custom motorcycle builder, has a Harley Davidson sized chip on his shoulder that he can’t seem to cut, grind, or weld away. After seven years of uncompromising dedication to his aesthetic vision, a personal tragedy and the fear of lifelong anonymity force him to reconsider his hardline stance.
Lee, John Quincy
Merica (Pan Asian, 2008)
A comedy of haves and have-nots. Constance visits Beijing in hopes to meet her only granddaughter, Merica, for the first time. Ming Quan,Merica’s other grandmother will the meeting to take place if certain conditions are met.
Lee, Kimber
Her work has also been presented by The Lark, Page 73, Hedgebrook, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Old Globe Theater, and Magic Theatre. Lark Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop Fellow, Dramatists Guild Fellow, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and recipient of the 2014 Ruby Prize, 2013-2014 PoNY Fellowship, 2014-2015 Hartford Stage New Voices Fellowship, and the inaugural 2015 PoNY/Bush Theatre Playwright Residency in London. MFA: UT Austin.
Topper
Fight (ACT, 2012)
brownsville song (b-side for tray) (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2013)
In a Brooklyn neighborhood housing project, time moves in scattered rhythms, pivoting unpredictably between before and after. As members of Tray¹s family struggle with his untimely death, they stumble through loss, find each other, and fight their way toward hope.
different words for the same thing (Center Theatre Group, 2015)
Thirteen years and 1,800 miles separate Alice from her childhood home. But after one phone call, the small-town streets and characters that once shaped her come rushing back and threaten to never let her go.
Tokyo Fish Story (Theatrworks, 2014)
Generations, gender, and tradition collide as a Sushi Master struggles to preserve ancient artistry in a society obsessed with change. In pursuit of perfection, a brilliant protégé, eager apprentices, and the master himself have much to learn.
to the yellow house (The Lark, 2016/La Jolla Playhouse, 2021)
“It’s February 1886. Vincent Van Gogh is broke again. Trailing past due notices and annoyed innkeepers, he arrives unexpectedly at his brother’s doorstep in Montmartre determined to make another fresh start. Caught in the colorful whirl of the Parisian art scene, he drinks too much, falls in love with the wrong woman, argues with everyone — and paints.
Lee, Kristina Haruna
Suicide Forest (Bushwick Star, 2019)
the play is about Japanese salaryman desperately searching for his self-worth, and a lonely teenage girl grappling with her sexuality in a nightmarish, male-defined society.
Lee, Maggie
Maggie Lee is a writer, actor, producer, lighting designer, and puppet mistress for the Pork Filled Players, Seattle’s only Asian American sketch comedy group. She has also designed lights and puppets for other local theater companies, such as ReAct, GreenStage, Open Circle Theater, and SIS Productions.
In 2006, she adapted a stage version of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep for OCT’s The Colour Out of Space, and will be a contributing writer for their original Lovecraft-inspired show Necronomicon in October 2008. She has a BA in English and a minor in Lighting Design from UC Berkeley.
Kindred Spirits, formerly Light the Corners of My Mind (SIS Productions, 2008)
What does it mean to truly be haunted? Three tenants of a lonely old house, all with lingering pasts determined never to let go, will discover the answer in this modern ghost story (Also known as Kindred Spirits).
A Long Fatal Love Chase On A Distant Star (SIS Productions, 2009)
On a remote sentry ship at the edge of the universe, poised on the brink of intergalactic war, Louisa May Alcott’s forgotten scandalous novel of love and obsession finds new life being shared by a unit of rookie mecha pilots, blurring the line between science fiction and “sensational” fiction.
The Clockwork Professor (SIS Productions, 2010)
First of the New Providence Chronicles. Seamus Pemberton, otherwise known as the Clockwork Professor, is a humble inventor, a quiet, eccentric man of science. But now, buried secrets and forbidden technology from the past threaten to destroy everything he holds dear, perhaps even rocking the very foundations of the city of New Providence. From underground laboratories to royal airships to dimension-hopping portals, come join the Clockwork Professor on this whirlwind adventure of fantastical science fiction with a steampunk twist!
The Tumbleweed Zephyr (SIS Productions, 2011)
Part of the New Providence Chronicles. Two brothers set off from the city of New Providence for the Western Territories on the transcontinental train, the Tumbleweed Zephyr. But a simple journey by rail soon leads to adventure, romance, and long-lost echoes from the past, like a lonely train whistle through the deep desert sky. All aboard for a sci-fi Old West yarn with shiny brass steampunk trim!
The Sunshower Bride (Live Girls, 2012)
About a zoomorphic pre-wedding revelation
A Hand of Talons (SIS Productions, 2012)
Part of the New Providence Chronicles. For generations, the Yao family has been the ruling crime syndicate of the city. But now, Wilhelmina and her two siblings must do whatever it takes to win at a high stakes game of power and betrayal as the family empire threatens to crumble around them. Ante up for a hand of sci-fi noir in the seedy underbelly of the steampunk-inspired world of New Providence. If you can’t trust family, who can you trust?
A Silver Key and The Roots Run Deep (SIS Productions, 2015)
An evening of one-act plays inspired by the fantastical dreamscapes and creeping horrors of H.P. Lovecraft. In A Silver Key” a mysterious key opens a door into the dream world on Eleanor’s 30th birthday, as she wavers on the threshold of modern day adulthood. In The Roots Run Deep, Iris searches for her lost sister, who disappeared after the discovery of a strange mask tied to the dark secrets of their unknown ancestors.
The Echo Maidens (SPT, 2016)
The Journey of the Bell
Ida and Lisbeth have always been best friends, until the sound of a mysterious bell leads them apart on very different paths. As they journey through Hans Christian Andersen’s timeless fairy tales, will Ida and Lisbeth ever find their way back to each other, or will their friendship be lost forever? Stories include The Bell, The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep, The Ugly Duckling, What the Good Man Does Is Always Right, The Flea and the Professor, and The Nightingale.
Paper and Ink (Live Girls)
Two sisters unlock an ancient lurking evil from within the pages of a dusty old book. But how can the madness be real if it’s only just paper and ink?
The Blindman’s Daughter (SIS Productions)
A Korean American father shares the story of Shim Chung with his young daughter, and discovers a new lesson for himself in a fun, modern retelling of this time-honored tale of familial duty and sacrifice.
The Flight Before Xmas (Seattle Public Theatre, 2017)
Sheathed (Macha Theatre Works, 2019)
In the aftermath of a devastating war between clans, two swordswomen try to find their way forward in this strange new world of peace: one trying to escape her past, and the other driven by an inherited thirst for revenge. When your very existence is defined by your blade, how do you keep the violence within yourself sheathed? A tale of an unlikely friendship tested by the bonds of honor and the terrible price of forgiveness, “Sheathed” combines movement and storytelling in an exciting new way to explore the emotional depths of why we fight.
Rainshadow Dispatch (Pork Filled Productions/Cafe Nordo, 2022)
Lee-Yang, May M.
MAY LEE-YANG is an award-winning playwright, poet, prose writer, and performance artist. She has been hailed by Twin Cities Metro Magazine as “on the way to becoming one of the most powerful and colorful voices in local theater.” Her theater-based works have been presented locally at Mu Performing Arts, the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT), Intermedia Arts as well as nationally at Out North Theater (Anchorage) and the National Asian American Theater Festivals in Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
Her plays include Hmong-Lao Friendship Play or Lao-Hmong Friendship Play, Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman and Ten Reasons Why I’d Be a Bad Porn Star. In 2012, her company, Lazy Hmong Woman Productions, produced a Hmong-language version of Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman to create accessibility for people who spoke little/no English, were new Americans, or had never seen theater before. In 2014, she launched Letters to Our Grandchildren, a theater/food/storytelling/video project with Hmong elders.
She is the author of the children’s book The Imaginary Day (MN Humanities Center/Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans) and has been published Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing By Hmong Americans, Water~Stone Literary Journal, The Saint Paul Almanac, and others.
She is a 2016 recipient of the Ordway Sally Award for Arts Access and a 2011 Bush Leadership Fellow. She has received additional support for her artwork from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the MRAC Next Steps Grant, the Jerome Travel Grant, the National Performance Network, the Midwestern Voices and Visions Residency Award, the Playwright Center, and the Kundiman Retreat.
She also teaches creative writing and theater to teens and elders through COMPAS, St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, and Mu Performing Arts. In other parts of her life, she is a co-founder of Community Artist Leadership Initiative (C.A.L.I.), an organization whose mission is to build the leadership capacity of marginalized artist and is a co-founder of F.A.W.K. (Funny Asian Women…K), a collaborative to empower Asian women through comedy.
Anatomy of Hmong Girl: A Memoir Told in Body Parts (Mu Performing Arts, 2007)
The Hmong believe that when someone is born their placentas are buried underneath their homes, so when someone dies, they can find their way back home. What happens when you don’t know where your placenta is? ANATOMY is an exploration into the search for home. Part memoir, part political statement, this peice focuses on how Hmong Americans have been continuously dissected and how we attempt to flesh out and re-assemble our real voices and experiences.
The Divorcee Diaries (Mu, 2014)
The new play chronicles the Hmong sexual revolution. Set against the backdrop of a nightclub, four people explore the fun, the fear, and the fantasy of divorce as they drink, flirt, fight, and try to make sense of lives in transition.
The Moon Embraces the Song (Mu, 2017)
When a k-drama addict with a secret meets a Korean heir who has been banished to the Midwest, fantasy collides with reality in this romantic comedy about fate, cultural clashes, and the art of losing one’s virginity.
A Long Time Ago Today (Mu Performing Arts, 2018)
Writer May Lee-Yang weaves history, folktales, and her personal life to show how Hmong people use stories to make sense of the world around them: How did the Moon and Sun come to rule Night and Day? Why are some people left-handed and others right-handed? How do you keep culture and stories alive without books? What happens to people if they forget where they’re from?
The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide To Losing Your Virginity (Theater Mu, 2018)
She’s a Hmong personality coach addicted to Korean Dramas (Korean soap operas). He’s the heir to a Korean manufacturing giant banished to the new Midwest office. Will she find a man before the magic hour of her 30th birthday? Will he buck tradition and embrace his musical dreams? Fantasy collides with reality in this romantic comedy about fate, cultural clashes, and the art of losing one’s virginity.
Dandelion Girl (Theater Mu, 2019)
When a bully tells 8 year-old Payton she’s nothing more than a dandelion (a weed, ordinary, and yellow on top of that), she turns to her dad for help. Dad share his own experience growing up in the United States as a first generation refugee. Back in the day–the eighties–Dad taught himself martial arts by watching and practicing Kung Fu. But Payton doesn’t care for Kung Fu and must learn how to face bullies without fists.
Lee, Minna
One Horse Town (2020, Annex)
After the apocalypse, a trio of queer ranchers are protecting the last horse on earth from a group of starving runaways, who are trying their best not to become cannibals. All of them, ranchers and runaways alike, struggle to remember what makes them human in a world urging them to forget their compassion and their sanity. Minna Lee (The Devil and Sarah Blackwater,Rovers!), Grace Carmack (Silhouette, Puny Humans), and Omar Faust (Nite Skool) helm an ensemble in a story about survival and transformation.
Lee, Robert
Heading East (East West, 1998) libretto
A funny, slightly off beat musical about a family retracing its footsteps from 1848 to the present.
Lee, Soo-Jin
Soo-Jin Lee is a playwright and an English teacher.
Her plays include The Men My Mother Loved, Why Koreans Don’t Hug, Peaches, and Tigers, Dragons, and Other Wise “Tails.” Her work has been produced at the Discovery Theater, George Mason University, the University of Houston, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Born in South Korea, Ms. Lee was raised in Virginia. She holds a BA from George Mason University and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild.
Peaches (University of Houson, 2005)
This play explores the relationship between two Korean American best friends, Ji Hae and Robert, as they discuss interracial dating, growing up Asian in America, and finding love in their 20s. The play chronicles one summer weekend they spend together, starting with a wedding and ending in a peach orchard that changes their lives.
Tigers, Dragons and Other Wise Tails! (Discover Theatre, 2005)
A world premiere by playwright Soo-Jin Lee, dances by acclaimed Washington choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess, DT artist Michael (Black Diamond) Bobbitt directing. Animal tales blend the beauty, wisdom, and fun of ancient Asian culture in this original musical play created to celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Ages 4–10
Why Koreans Don’t Hug (University of Texas New Theatre, 2008)
Intimacy. Betrayal. Misplaced love. A Korean immigrant family, through an unexpected act from their Reverend, is forced to deal with the elephant in their room.
The Men My Mother Loved (Pipeline Playwrights, 2017)
A vacation to Korea turns a mother-daughter exploration into a fantastical exploration of why it’s worth reuniting with ex-boyfriends.
Lee, Suzanne
Bio: Suzanne Lee is a LA-grown and New York-based playwright/screenwriter/entrepreneur. Her current project is adapting WORTH into a screenplay. She is a MFA candidate at the Yale School of Drama.
Ancestors (NY Theatre Workshop, 2000)
Byung holds a terrible secret from her past. Suni, her daughter, doesn’t know anything about it. When the father commits a terrible act, however, information comes flying out of the woodwork. As a family dynasty unravels, a nation and culture re-build.
Witness (NY Theatre Workshop, 2000)
Dolores and Antonia are two Dominican New Yorker sisters. One is terrifically straight, the other is terrifically gay. After a devastating love affair gone wrong, Dolores rebounds into the arms of a traditional Irish Catholic man who has less than modern ideas of how to raise a family. Choices have to be made – what do you do when the consequences of your choice are less than beautiful?
S/h-E (Asian American Alliance, 2001)
A one act genderfest.
Worth (Mark Taper, 2003)
America’s gone bankrupt, Enron-style. The rights to the fantasy are up for sale. A family fracas comprised of a father, a daughter, a rich widow and a best friend ensues. In the gamble of life, when you’ve lost everything you built your dreams on, how much more does it cost to lose yourself? Served Korean buffet style, striptease and karoake not included.
Ancestors (Ma-Yi, 2006)
Lee, Young Jean
Young Jean Lee has directed her plays at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and Soho Rep. She has performed with the National Theater of the United States of America (What’s That On My Head!?!), studies playwriting with Mac Wellman at Brooklyn College, and is a member of 13P. With her Straight White Men, she became the first female Asian American playwright to appear on Broadway.
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (Ontological-Hysteric Theater)
The Appeal (Soho Rep)
We find Wordsworth as a guest of Coleridge and his sister Dorothy at Grasmere. Later, the “action” will move to the castle of Lord Byron in the Swiss Alps. Poetry, it seems, is borne of an admixture of thought, anxiety and booze.
Pullman, WA (PS122, 2005)
Pullman, WA is a play about what to do if you’re unhappy and everyone around you is kind of an asshole, including yourself.
Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven (Cowboy Vampire Theatre, 2006)
Church (2007)
The Shipment (2009)
Lear (2010)
A collision between Shakespeare’s King Lear, Sesame Street, and Young Jean Lee’s own take on the theme of dealing with a father’s mortality, Lee’s LEAR focuses not on the aging Lear and Gloucester, but rather on their adult children who turned their backs on their fathers’ suffering. An absurdist tragedy about familial piety, despair, and the end of life.
We’re Gonna Die (2011)
Untitled Feminist Play (2012)
Straight White Men (2014)
The play follows a middle-class father and his three sons as they celebrate Christmas together while each facing his own issues.
Leichman, Seymour
Freddie the Pigeon (NWAAT, 1975)
Leo, Katie
Jess and Sally are Back in Town (Mu Performing Arts, 2007)
Jess and Sally are as different as can be, yet know each other as only two sisters can. After years of estrangement, they convene at the home of their mother for her funeral, only to discover that the past never truly dies. Jess and Sally are Back in Town explores the complex, often humorous, relationship between two adopted Korean sisters as they sift through relics of family, heritage, assimilation, choices, and their own strained lives.
Four Destinies (Mu Performing Arts, 2010)
Destiny Jones is a Korean adoptee growing up in Minnesota…no, Destiny Jones is an African American adoptee growing up in Minnesota…no, Destiny was born in Guatemala…no, Destiny is a Caucasian boy…! In this satirical exploration of fate, DNA, arrival stories and the families that love them, playwright Katie Leo represents every adoptee ever born and gives all her characters exactly what they want.
Leong, Page
attraction (Cornerstone, 2008)
Explore what draws people to place, to one another, and what pulls them apart, at the intersection of an urban global village experiment- at Traction Avenue. Dive in to our neighborhood’s kaleidoscopic spirit, its magic, history and mystery.
Lew, Andy
Welcome to the Wongs (NWAAT, 1999)
Welcome to the Wongs is a hilarious story of a family dinner spinning out of control and the interesting twists and mishaps in the lives of three generations of Chinese in America. The story is told from the point-of-view of a young Chinese American boy who is constantly bombarded with inter-generational family politics and traditional culture while questioning his own ideas about relationships, culture and family. With a cast that will have you laughing and crying in your seats, this is a workshop presentation not to be missed!
Lew, Michael
Michael Lew was a 2003-2004 directing resident at Playwrights Horizons, assisting on Craig Lucas’ Small Tragedy, Jon Robin Baitz’s Chinese Friends, and Erin Cressida Wilson’s Wilder. He assistant directed the Drama Dept’s 2004 Downtown Plays, and has also assistant directed at the Mark Taper Forum and for Primary Stages. He has held literary residencies at Playwrights Horizons and La Jolla Playhouse and was associate artistic director of Gorilla Repertory Theater, producing their 2003 season. He holds a B.A. in English and Theater Studies from Yale University and was in the 2005 Lincoln Center Director’s Lab.
Yit, Ngay (One, Two) (Women of Color Arts and Film Festival, 2003)
This one-woman show is based on the separated childhood of four Chinese women; two were born and raised in Toi San, China and two were born and raised in Fresno, CA.
Paper Gods (Ma-Yi, 2006)
Moustache Guys (2g, 2008)
Ali is worried. Her husband Paul has just joined the International Order of the Moustache Guys. So she dons a fake moustache and pursues her husband, exposing a secret world of shady characters and shadier facial hair.
A Better Babylon (Victory Gardens, 2008)
In 1960s UC Berkeley, a wave of student radicalism engulfs a young Chinese couple, a black protester, and a Chicana biologist. Personal dreams collide with political conscience, testing the limits of mentorship, friendship, and love.
Bury the Iron Horse (2g, 2009)
“This is it, bitches: Iron Horse Park.”
This is the Seattle park where three sisters reunite after a long estrangement.
This is where their parents fell in love and started a salmon cannery.
This is where Dad took them on hikes and Mom skinned salmon.
This is where Dad left them.
Through six interwoven camping trips, a family comes together and falls apart, and three sisters return to
BURY THE IRON HORSE
Bike America (Julliard, 2012)
Penny is damaged. She doesn’t know who she is or her place in the world. So she drops everything to go on a cross-country bike trip from Boston to Santa Barbara. Along the way she befriends fellow adventurers, from the lesbian couple who’ve decided to get a marriage license in every state to the mysterious Man with the Van who transports their belongings. Set in iconic towns from the deep North down to the deep South (and the highways between), Bike America captures the restlessness of a Millennial generation that will go to any length to find a place that always seems just out of reach.
Collin (Ma-Yi, 2012)
David is a successful New York casting director and Collin is a hot young star on the rise. The attraction is chemical, but the combination is potentially deadly. A love letter to the theater where the highs and lows of romance echo the highs and lows of a life on the stage.
Teenage Dick (Ma-Yi, 2015)
Teenage Dick is a re-imagination of Richard III set in high school. The play uses the most famous disabled character of all time as a means for re-examining more contemporary tropes about the handicapped, via the tale of Richard (junior class secretary) and his quest to become senior class president of Roseland High.
Tiger Style (Alliance Theatre, 2015)
Star students and squabbling siblings Albert and Jennifer Chen used to represent the pinnacle of adolescent achievement. When it comes to adulthood, they’re epic failures. Albert’s just been passed up for promotion and Jennifer’s been dumped by her loser boyfriend. So they do what any reasonable egghead brother and sister would do and go on an Asian Freedom Tour! Travelling from California to China, Tiger Style! embraces the inner slacker and the outer tiger parent in all of us.
British Raj – Just the Fun Parts (Ma-Yi, 2017)
5 Desis cover 350 years of history in 2 hours.
Bhangin’ It, book with Rehana Lew Mirza, music by Sam Willmott (La Jolla Playhouse, 2019)
“Bhangin’ It” draws inspiration from the high-stakes world of intercollegiate competitive bhangra – a traditional Indian folk dance morphed into a good ole American dance-off. The story follows a biracial student, Mary, who gets kicked off her bhangra team for not being “Indian enough”. When she forms a team of her own, cultural authenticity and cultural pluralism are set on a collision course in this brash, intoxicating and gripping new musical. Winner of the 2018 Richard Rodgers Award.
Li, Melissa
Interstate (Mixed Blood, 2020)
Interstate is a Queer Asian-American pop-rock musical about two trans people at different stages of their journeys, navigating love, family, masculinity, and finding community in the era of social media. It charts Dash, a transgender spoken word performer as he goes on a cross-country tour with Adrian, a lesbian singer-songwriter, as the activist band, Queer Malady, fueled by the allure of fame and a desire to connect with the Queer Asian community. The band’s fiercely political and deeply personal music touches Henry, a transgender teenage blogger living in middle America, who finds solace in their art as he struggles with his own identity and family. With Kit Yan.
Li, Yan
Bethune (NAAP, 2019)
Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune finds his passion and purpose renewed when he travels to 1930s China and aids the Communists in their struggle for liberation. Aided by his staff and local militiamen, he learns the price of belonging to two worlds and captures a glimpse of Mao’s vision for the future.
Liang, West
The Atmosphere of Henry (Ivar Brickbox Theatre, 2004)
The play explores the mind of a young man named Henry and his relationship with his wife, Joanne, which has been paralyzed by their lack of communication. What does he do to compensate, and where does he find connection? Four lives converge in this quick-paced drama set in a San Francisco high-rise.
The Legend of Jane and Joe (Ricardo Montalbán Theatre, 2005)
An intriguing and clever play that explores the relationship between two artists in contemporary Los Angeles, beginning with thier brief but riotous first encounter. Follow these two young lovers, as they discover lust and vanity, fear and happiness, ambition and disipline, and love and fate.
Lim, Dean
An Unbreakable Illusion of History (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)
Lim, Genny
Genny Lim lives in San Francisco. She is the author of a bilingual children’s book, Wings of Lai Ho, and co-author of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island. BA/MA San Francisco State University, English with Creative Writing Emphasis; Broadcast Journalism Certificate from Columbia University 1973. Profession: Faculty at New College of California, Playwright, Poet, and Performer. Awards: Bay Guardian Goldie, Creative Work Fund and Rockefeller for Songline: The Spiritual Tributary of Paul Robeson Jr. and Mei Lanfang, collaboration with Jon Jang and James Newton. James Wong Howe Award for Paper Angels (Premiered July 2000, UC Zellerbach Playhouse).
Paper Angels (AATC, 1980)
This is the story of the first generation of Chinese American immigrants, caught between disaster in China and anti-Chinese backlash in America after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882…
Bitter Crane (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 1989 )
Pins and Noodles (1989, Persona Grata)
Daughter of Han (Bay Area Playwrights Festival,1983)
I Remember Clifford (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 1983)
Pigeons (SF Chinese Culture Center, 1985)
XX (The Lab, 1987)
The Pumpkin Girl (Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 1989)
Winter Place (Hatley-Martin Gallery, 1988)
Faceless (Magic Theatre, 1989)
The Magic Brush (World of Tales, 1990)
SenseUs, The Rainbow Anthems (Life on the Water, 1990)
Lim, Sean
Fresh off the Plane (AATC)
World Premiere! Newsflash! FOBs don’t come from boats these days, they get dropped off in planes! Join three young Asian Americans in this newly adapted tale of the modern FOB – the FOP. Asia and America. Ah, sometimes it feels like you’re floating between the two – which is exactly what these three punks do on their quest to become ‘fobulous.’
Lin, David
Yellow Flight (EWP, 2003)
Interracial sex, Canadian rock music, and ecumenical drug use are the tip of the iceberg in this wretched tale of race, real estate, and college admissions. Guaranteed to generate controversy.
Lin, I-Jong
The God of Tobacco (Poets Theatre, 1999)
Grand Unification Theory (2002)
A couple come to a New England bed and breakfast for a three-day physics conference. The couple is made up of a sometimes-working Asian-American actor (Tsuhan) and girlfriend (Chintz), a graduate student in Theoretical Physics. Unfortunately, his credit card has bounced and he makes a quick deal with the owner (Mrs. Chin) to work off his debt through manual labor and recounting how he met Chintz. The first night, Mrs. Chin find Chintz in the dark and swap stories about how they met their respective significant others. The second night, Tsuhan recounts his side of the story. The third night, Chintz and Tsuhan fight and resolve their relationship once and for all.
Martyrs, Victims, Fighters And Theives: The Myth Of The Model Minority (Medicine Show, 2002)
X and Francis are brothers; Francis is about to be married to Kim and X is in a “special” relationship with K. As well as being romantically involved, X and K break into each other’s apartment and steal things from each other.
Lin, Kenneth
Kenneth Lin is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose plays Warrior Class, Pancakes, Pancakes!, Po Boy Tango, said Saïd, Agency*, Intelligence-Slave, Genius in Love and The Lynching of a White Man In Rural, CA have been performed throughout the world. He is a member of the theater/music/film collective New Neighborhood.
Po Boy Tango (Searchlight Theatre, 2009)
A celebration of the human spirit and the joy of cooking, Po Boy Tango tells the story of Richie Po – a Chinese immigrant who turns to his estranged friend Gloria to help him recreate his mother’s “Great Banquet.” Despite the challenges of shark fin soup, duck po boy sandwiches and underlying cultural tensions, Richie and Gloria find common ground through their shared humor and the interaction of traditional Taiwanese cuisine and African-American “Soul Food.” With the help of lessons from Po Mama’s television cooking show, the two discover a deeper understanding of food, culture and the nature of friendship
Warrior Class (Second Stage, 2012)
When Assemblyman Julius Lee makes a bid for Congress, the ghosts of his college days come back to haunt him. Nothing reveals true colors like a sprint to the finish, when friends become enemies and allies can turn on a dime.
Intelligence-Slave
Inspired by a true story, Intelligence-Slavetakes place underground in an abandoned salt mine where the Nazis have moved the Buchenwald machine factory at the end of World War II to avoid Allied bombing. In this salt mine, the Austrian industrialist and concentration camp prisoner, Curt Herzstark tinkers with an amazing device. A small, black metal cylinder, no bigger than the palm of his hand, the device is a technical marvel… it’s also what’s keeping Curt alive; the device is the world’s first handheld four function calculator and the Nazis have designated Curt an “intelligence-slave” and are keeping him alive to present it as a gift to Adolf Hitler.
said Saïd
Algerian poet and essayist Andre Saïd has immigrated to the United States and built a life for himself. He has been named the Poet Laureate of the United States Library of Congress, and has won a Nobel Prize for Literature. But, these are controversial because Saïd was accused of being a terrorist during the French-Algerian War. A prison where Saïd was held in Algiers is torn down, and pages and pages of poetry are discovered. But, the poetry is written in an obscure dialect of Berber, of which Saïd is the last remaining speaker. He is asked to translate, but refuses. Why?
Agency*
A Catholic priest, turned assassin is given a new assignment — his next target is a computer that has become conscious and barracaded itself in the home of an autistic child.
About Me:
Cameron and Libby, two aspiring writers, meet each other on a online dating site, and go through a necessary New York City rite of passage: dating someone you thoroughly dislike. Initially, they last six months. But, years later, after the city and life has ground them into their respective destinies, they reunite when Libby’s dying. What if missed chances and connections are all that’s left to see you to the end?
Life On Paper
After his proof for the Riemanm Hypothesis (one of the world’s last great math puzzles) disastrously flames out, Mitch Bloom, a brilliant mathematician finds himself working as a consultant using complex algorithms to set the value of human lives in wrongful death cases. His knack for de-valuing lives has made him the darling of the insurance companies, but what will he do when the wrongful death of a billionaire philanthropist crosses his desk, and the future of a small town hangs in the balance?
Farewell My Concubine
Set against the backdrop of China’s painful transformation away from imperial rule, Farewell My Concubine, based on the acclaimed film and novel, tells the story of a Peking opera troupe whose members must contend with changing political winds via an artform that has defined their lives, but whose relevancy is threatened in a strange new world.
Pancakes, Pancakes
Created in residency at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Pancakes, Pancakes! tells the story of Jack, a young boy who is hungry for breakfast, and the journey his busy mother sends him on to collect the ingredients for the perfect pancakes. Written with support and permission from the author in conjunction with a perspective at the High Museum of Art, this adaption is not currently available for licensing.
A book images are copyrighted images that belong to Eric Carle.
The Lynching of a White Man In Rural, CA,
This tells the story of Aaron Hayes, a well-heeled young American who casts off his Ivy-League pedigree when a summer job as a beekeeper turns into a journey through the American heartland as a migrant farm worker. His journey ends in California where he is mistaken as Mexican by White Supremacists who beat him to death in a hate crime. The play follows Aaron’s transformation as he travels from farm to farm and his mother Elizabeth’s, transformation as she journeys, in a gypsy cab, to meet her son’s killers. Ultimately, they trace similar paths of discovery, longing, hope and grief.
Genius in Love
Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, fierce rivals and towers of the Enlightenment come together at the ends of their lives to complete the world’s greatest invention — a love potion.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Alley Theatre, 2017)
A reworking of Twain’s novel focusing on the relationship between Huck and his father Pap. Artistic director Gregory Boyd will direct.
Kleptocracy (Arena Stage, 2019)
The world premiere of Kenneth Lin’s play is set after the fall of the Soviet Union when a new ruling class that includes a hyper-ambitious Vladimir Putin takes hold of the country.
Exclusion (Arena Stage, 2023)
The second Power Play of the season by Kenneth Lin is a hilarious peek into the world of filmmaking and Hollywood. The workplace politics will immediately strike a chord.
Lin, P. H.
Sweet Ginger: Hot And Blue A play in two acts by P.H. Lin
(4 W, 2 M ) A coming of age story, but from an Asian point of view. Can a Taiwanese immigrant family adjust to an American way of life without destroying what’s left of their family? Complicating things are a 95 year-old Jewish woman, a female Buddha, and the spirit-apparitions of Ginger’s mother and brother.
Lin, Serena
Left Unsaid (East West, 2008)
Sonia’s family and beloved community crumbles under the weight of intrigue, violence, and racial tension under the new moon of Ramadan. This is a story about one woman coming outside in a Los Angeles neighborhood and all we can never say, but long to say anyway.
A Traditional Girl (A Radio Play set to Asian Jazz Fusion) (EWP, 2009)
Once upon a time a group of friends got together at a bar to dish about fairy tales, closets, changing your gender, and true love…
Lin, Weiko
Based in Los Angeles, Weiko Lin holds a MFA in Film and TV from UCLA. As a member of WGA-west, he is also the recipient of a Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award. Weiko is a visiting lecturer in screenwriting at UC San Diego and an instructor at East West Players.
Tracks of Tears (1997, Veteran’s Wadsworth Theater)
Heavenly Peace (1999, UCLA Royce Hall)
Parachute Kid (2001, UCLA Royce Hall)
Blind Street (Riverscope, 2003)
On a street corner in LA, a blind musician plays on as an eclectic group of hardened city natives meet by pure chance. Through the eyes of a dying British backpacker and his pregnant girlfriend, the lives of a homeless vet, a delusional prostitute actress, a grave digger, a Beverly Hills runaway, a sex-craving bully, and a Hollywood screenwriter intersect via love, sex, and death.
Mommy’s Special (2004)
Set in the back lot of a Chinatown dive bar, two complete strangers confront their dark pasts and discover the secret ties between them.
The Best Man (2005)
Mitchell spends the evening before his wedding at a New York hotel suite with his best man, Danny, a musician burnout who makes his money prostituting his young, naïve girlfriend, Misty. Mitchell’s marrying Julia, who is also Danny’s ex-wife. When the women arrive, the charade begins. The drinks flow and suddenly inhibitions melt. Beneath its high-stakes surface and temptation, a dark vengeful secret explodes as the night unfolds.
Linmark, R. Zamora
Rolling The Rs (Kumu Kahua, 2008)
Edgar Ramirez, a Kalihi teenager “who looks like a Filipino John Travolta,” knows that he is gay and isn’t bothered by his schoolmates’ taunts. Rolling the Rs is set in the disco ’80s, when high school students had posters of Scott Baio and Leif Garrett, listened to Peaches and Herb, read Sixteen and Teen Beat, and struggled with their identities. Edgar and his friends Katrina and Vicente exchange words with their classmates, dance, sing and experiment with sex in a free-floating, surrealistic story punctuated by the disciplinary voice of the schoolteacher, Mrs. Takemoto, and the judgmental gossip of Philippine-born and raised friends Mrs. Kayabyab and Mrs. Arayat.
Liu, Yilong
Yilong is a New York-based bilingual playwright, originally from Chongqing, China. Currently, he is a resident playwright at The Flea Theatre and a proud member of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Obie Award-winning playwrights group Youngblood.
Awards include Kennedy Center’s Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award (The Book of Mountains and Seas), Paula Vogel Playwriting Award (June is The First Fall, 2nd place), National Partners of the American Theatre Award for Playwriting (Joker), and Po’okela Award for Best New Play (Joker). He is a EST/Sloan New Play Commission recipient, a SPACE on Ryder Farm resident, and the Asian Pacific American Friends of The Theatre Playwright Scholarship recipient.
His work has been produced or developed at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, East West Players, Queens Theatre, FringeNYC, Union Theatre (London), CAATA, New Ohio Theatre, Kumu Kahua Theatre, New Conservatory Theatre Center, and others. When he’s not writing, he’s usually Netflixing, people watching, or compulsively liking cat pics on Instagram.
The Book of Mountains and Seas (East West Players, 2017)
(3m)
Two years after losing his son, a California dad teams up with the son’s last boyfriend in New York for an impossible mission to visit all the restaurants on the son’s Yelp page, but each with their own agenda. The dad is Chinese. The boyfriend is American. A comic drama about two people dealing with loss, differences, and their unlikely friendship in a digital and global age. Winner of Kennedy Center’s Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award, a semifinalist for O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and a finalist for The New Harmony Project.
Flood in the Valley
FLOOD IN THE VALLEY is a bilingual folk musical set in the hills of Appalachia and Sichuan and created by a collaborative of six playwrights and composers from China and the United States. Performed in Mandarin, English, and Nuosu by a diverse cast of eight performers from both countries and a live band, the play follows two pairs of lovers as they contend with the rigid traditions of their mountainside communities and the struggle to find one’s home in a changing world.
Joker (Kumu Kahua, 2015)
Set around the fight for marriage equality in Hawai’i, Joe’s normal, simple life unravels as a promise kept is threatened by a visit of a man from his past.
Spring is the First Fall (Queens Theatre, 2017)
Inspired by a portrait of Afong Moy, the first female Chinese immigrant to the United States, this play explores love, loss, and the power of our memories. When a breakup brings back a painful past, a Chinese American gay man returns home to Hawaii, where he must confront his sister, his father, and himself about a dark family history that reopens old wounds.
Lo, D.
First String (EWP, 2004)
Blending fast-paced scenes and rhythmic monologues, this piece of hip-hop theater shines a light on the friendships and love lives of a group of butch and femme women.
Lo, Jeffrey
Jeffrey Lo is a Filipino-American playwright and director based in the Bay Area. He is the recipient of the 2014 Leigh Weimers Emerging Arist Award, the 2012 Emerging Artist Laureate by Arts Council Silicon Valley and Theatre Bay Area Director’s TITAN Award. His plays have been produced and workshopped at The BindleStiff Studio, City Lights Theatre Company and Custom Made Theatre Company. His play Writing Fragments Home was a finalist for the Bay Area Playwright’s Conference and a semi-finalist for the O’Neill Playwright’s Conference.
Recent directing credits include The Santaland Diaries at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Peter and the Starcatcher at Hillbarn Theatre, The Crucible, Yellow Face and Dead Man’s Cell Phone at Los Altos Stage Company, Uncle Vanya at the Pear Theatre (BATCC award for Best Production)Eurydice at Palo Alto Players (TBA Awards finalist for Best Direction) and The Drunken City at Renegade Theatre Experiment. Jeffrey has also worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Repertory and is a company member of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company and SF Playground. He is the Casting Director at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, a graduate of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute and a proud alumnus of the UC Irvine Drama Department.
A Kind of Sad Love Story (Bindlestiff, 2013)
Andrew and Emily are a mid-twentysomething couple whose time together is about to run its course as the realities of maturing sensibilities set in. A Kind of Sad Love Story is the bittersweet story about a relationship between two nice kids who, in order to move on with their lives, must first break each other’s heart.
Writing Fragments Home (2014)
Dealing Dreams (Custom Made Theatre 2014)
A Kind of Sad Love Story (Bindlestiff Studios, 2016)
Angel in a Red Dress (Impact, 2012)
Spending the End of the World on OKCupid (Ohlone College, 2016)
Waiting for Next (Dragon Theatre Productions, 2016)
Locsin, Aurelio
Aurelio Locsin is a writer and actor, and a company member of the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company. More information including reviews at rgasian.blogspot.com
Asian-Acting: an Evening of One-Act Plays by Aurelio Locsin:
a wild assortment of World Premiere plays, dance pieces, monologues and puppetry. (Nominated Best New Play for the 2005 Orange County Theater awards.)Rude Guerrilla Theater Company (Orange County, CA.) in January 2005:
Mrs. M’s Tea
A woman sits down for a last cup of tea before going to a Japanese internment camp;
Marriage Monkey
A man fights in court for the right to marry outside of his race;
Midnight Manuever –
A timid woman decides to stand up to the bigots in her neighborhood
How China Diffused the Cuban Missile Crisis
A dance piece.
Tongue Lashing
A vicious killer and his victim have a little conversation before getting down to business;
American Express –
A visit the Thai sex industry
Legend of the Banana
Filipino fable comes magically to life.
Helltown Buffet (formerly Consent)(East West, 2006)
Can two gay Filipinos: a wimpy assistant manager and a hunky demon, fall in love through their real and imagined histories? This dark comedy propels them from the Hometown Buffet to several afterlives, prompting encounters with a sexy demon boss, a fabulous stylist, hungry homeless people, bewildered tribesmen and talking trees.
Head Aches (East West, 2010)
Middle-aged Ricardo, a Filipino-American canine cop, wants to make peace with his son, wife, father and dog. Unfortunately, his coma makes communication impossible. Can the objects of his affection help him handle family, child-rearing, sexuality and love before it’s too late?
Family Affair (East West 2011)
Filipino-American LD and Anglo Kenny decide to break up their long-term gay relationship. LD’s family, who like Kenny better than LD, are thrown into turmoil. Do they try to get them together or push for the separation?
Loh, Sandra Tsing
Sandra Tsing Loh is an L.A.based writer/performer/musician. Her books, published by Riverhead Books, include a novel, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now, which the Los Angeles Times named one of the best books of 1997, Depth Takes A Holiday: Essays From Lesser Los Angeles, and Aliens In America. The latter is based on Loh’s solo Off Broadway show which ran at Second Stage Theatre in New York in summer, 1996. Loh has also been featured at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, the HBO New Writers Project, and on NPR’s “This American Life.” She is also a regular commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” a show which coincidentally has used segments from Pianovision as buttons.
Currently, Loh is most musically active as a composer for film. She composed and performed on the score for Jessica Yu’s 1997 Oscar-winning documentary Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien, and is scoring Ms. Yu’s next documentary on HBO of the Living Museum. Loh began in the mid’80s as a performance artist; her piano concert “spectacles” were covered by such outlets as People, the Wall Street Journal, GQ, Glamour, the Associated Press, CNN, and even in Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show monologue.
Nearly 1,000 people attended “Night of the Grunion” (March 1989), in which Loh and the Topanga Symphony played a concerto for spawning fish on a Malibu beach at midnight. In “Self Promotion” (March 1988), an assistant flung $1,000 in autographed $1 bills over her as she performed before a stampeding crowd. “Spontaneous Demographics” (September 1987) featured Loh playing a piano abord a flatbed truck in a concert for rush hour commuters on the Harbor Freeway.
Aliens in America (Second Stage, 1996)
Bad Sex with Bud Kemp (Second Stage, 1998)
Sugar Plum Fairy (Seattle Repertory Theatre, 2003)
A one-woman show about an ungainly 12-year-old girl who longs to dance the role of Clara in “The Nutcracker.”
Language Will Be Used (Mark Taper, 2004)
This is not for the faint of heart. Wit, writer, performer and radio personality Sandra Tsing Loh’s Language Will Be Used will unleash a fast rumination on topics such as the FCC, Lenny Bruce, the Van Nuys Courthouse, the danger of Peet’s lattes, the horror of pledge drives, places to shove your public radio coffee mug, multicultural nose flutes, Gino Vanelli’sunderpants, if Melissa Rivers were a camel jockey, if Rodney King were Caucasian and of course, just in time for summer, the Palestinian woman joke.
Lottman, Anh
Anh Lottman lives in Monrovia, CA. Ms. Lottman graduated from USC as a Master of Professional Writing, in May of 2003. She is also degreed in English, History, the Liberal Arts, and has studied and written for the East West Players. She has worked as a teacher, a grant writer, and a journalist.
V (East West, 2001)
A Vietnamese-American family battles to vanquish the vampiric shadows from their past.
I Start At A (2003)
I Start at A is a uniquely staged fairytale about the value of first being true to one’s self.
Loughran, Keira
Little Dragon (fu-GEN, 2005)
Little Dragon is a fierce, biting comedy. It tells the story of a young third-generation Chinese-Canadian woman who goes to university and discovers she’s Chinese. Her ensuing search for a cultural identity, of which she can be proud, surfaces a long-repressed pain stemming from the death of her father in her early childhood and generations of family shame and secrets. Through her journey, she comes to believe that her father was actually Bruce Lee, and she turns to the martial arts legend for solace and strength. It is a story of! longing, belonging, and ultimately, self-love.
Louie, Daniel
Baby Dearest ()
Short play.
Sasha Says (2000)
“Sasha Says” is a dark and haunting fantasy tale about the fate and rivalry of two brothers, both oppressed by their domineering mother. One day Cyrus rescues a mysterious mute girl named Sasha and falls in love with her, awakening a desire he never knew existed. Just as Sasha begins to return his feelings, Cyrus’ younger, better-looking, and more talented brother Lucien returns, igniting Cyrus’s slow descent into madness and plunging all three headlong into destruction.
Never Cry Zombie (Washington, DC, 2000)
A Ten Minute Show: Trapped in a basement, friends deal with a zombie friend.
Acceptance (Love Creek Productions, 2001)
Goodbye with Hope (Love Creek Productions, 2001)
Paying Regrets (Love Creek Productions, 2001)
Louis, Nikki
Made in America (NWAAT, 1985)
Breaking the Silence (NWAAT, 1986)
Lounibos, Tim
Be Happy (Lodestone, 2008)
Ten years of torment cast a woman and her therapist into a psychological pandora’s box during a perverse struggle for happiness. One Act.
Lowe, Andy
The Cultural Hyphenate ()
Lum, Benjamin
Angst, Adolesence and Alone (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)
Of Dreams, Mangos and Rycroft Street (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)
perceived (and short scenes) (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 2000)
Searching for Paradise (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 2000)
Lum, Darrel H. Y.
DARRELL H. Y. LUM is co-publisher and co-editor of Bamboo Ridge, which he helped found in 1978. He is author of both prose fiction and plays. He has published two collections of short fiction, short stories and drama. Pass On, No Pass Back was awarded the Asian American Studies Book Award in 1992. His work has been widely anthologized, and frequently used in English, Speech, and Asian American Studies classes in secondary school and college classes in Hawai‘i, and on the mainland. Oranges Are Lucky was his first play, and has been staged three times by KKT, in 1976, 1986, and 1996.
Dr. Lum received the Cades Award in 1991 and the Hawai‘i Award for Literature, the state’s highest award for literature, in 1998. He holds a Doctorate in Education from UHM.
Oranges Are Lucky (Kumu Kahua, 1976)
Magic Mango
My Home is Down the Street (1987)
A Litle Bit Like You (Kumu Kanua, 1991)
Fighting Fire (Kumu Kahua, 1996)
David Caradine: Not Chinese (Kumu Kahua Theatre, 2005)
Playwright Lum, who has a talent for dealing with serious issues in a lighthearted style, is at his comic best in this tale of convoluted racial stereotypes, local attitudes and pun-ridden dialogue, culminating in a hilarious evening at the Wat-Chu Society annual banquet.
Beer Can Hat (Kumu Kanua, 2019)
Bobo is a little slow. His abusive father wants to send him away. Selling newspapers on the street, Bobo scrounges for a little money. Despite injuries, harassment, and discrimination, Bobo never complains—after all, he may not have much—but Bobo does have one thing: a true friend. Da Beer Can Hat is based on Darrell Lum’s original short story of a mentally handicapped individual and his one, best friend.
Lum, Leslie
Geomancer (NWAAT, 1999)
A Chinese scientist is accused of espionage and stealing atomic secrets. The year? 1952…The more things change…
Ly, Minh
Ga Ting (2013)
This heartbreaking story of two parents struggling to come to terms with their sons’ sexuality in the wake of his death
Ly, Oskar
Oskar Ly is a Hmong French-American Artist and Organizer. She is a Fashion Artist and Singer-Songwriter with a focus on social justice. She uses the arts and community organizing as a foundation to build community spaces that celebrate authenticity, discovery, and our stories. Her vision is to achieve responsible recognition of her communities, create space for original narratives and lift multi-dimensional identities through creative exploration. She enjoys crafting to liberate beyond words, sharing food, culture and conversations.
Womn + Womn (Mu, 2015)
Nana (Soul), Huab (Body) and Jules (Spirit) journey through queerness, haircuts, cassette tapes and their intertwined fates hidden in memories and explorations of their unbeknownst affection for women.
Ly-Cuong, Stephane
Lemon Twist (A Musical) (Mu Performing Arts, 2015)
Lemon Twist tells the story of Yvonne, an American-Vietnamese woman living in New York who is torn between her very traditional Vietnamese family and her desire to be a “normal” American. She longs to be an actress – to star in a musical! To light up the silver screen! – but roles for Asians are few and far between. Should she give in to her mother’s pressure to become a pharmacist? Luckily, her sharp sense of humour comes to her aid as she finds herself between jobs, between relationships, feeling neither wholly American nor entirely Vietnamese…
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https://www.mcclernan.com/2014/05/
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Heavens to Mergatroyd
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https://www.mcclernan.com/favicon.ico
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https://www.mcclernan.com/favicon.ico
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[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[] | null |
Heavens to Mergatroyd, the website and blog of Nancy McClernan, playwright, egalitarian, and advocate for civil and human rights.
|
en
|
https://www.mcclernan.com/favicon.ico
|
https://www.mcclernan.com/2014/05/
|
Bruce Barton, Winnie the Pooh,
Nick Fondulis in POOH STORY The view from the penthouse
Seen down the street Lear
Cordelia
King of France
Kent
Edgar
Albany
Gloucester
The servant who stabs Cornwall Goneril
Regan
Edmund
Cornwall
Oswald
Duke of Burgundy
Edmund's henchman Waiting to start the race - the start line was next to the Queensborough Bridge. Feelin' groovy! Hey, who says only Brooklyn has nice things? Somebody's clown doll collection in the window -
OK, that's disturbing...
|
|||
692
|
dbpedia
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0
| 86 |
https://quarantineplayers.org/home/
|
en
|
A NEW KIND OF THEATER COMPANY – Quarantine Players
|
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[] |
[
""
] | null |
[
"Cassandra Complex"
] |
2021-08-09T09:06:25-04:00
|
A Virtual Theater Company
|
en
|
Quarantine Players
|
https://quarantineplayers.org/?page_id=2
|
Please take a second to support The Quarantine Players with a donation to help us keep putting on great new plays like this one:
https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/quarantine-players-a-virtual-theater-company/general_support
Also available on our podcast Links here:
A group of people gathers for a songwriters’ retreat in the Rocky Mountains in the mid-2000s. Their “mentor” is an abrasive, charismatic country singer/songwriter named Kyle Samperson. He humiliates some for their songwriting, personally offends some and clashes about politics with others. By the time Kyle turns up dead in Act Two, everyone has a motive for killing him. Snowed in, without internet or phone, the other characters size each other up and wonder whodunit.
Judy Klass, Playwright, A. J. Campbell Producer Katy Blake, Director Clint Aphin as Brice Laurie Canaan as Roberta Lane Wright as Charlie Jack E. Chambers as Kyle Kathy Kerns as Martha Sophia Sutton as Tiffany Judy Jackson as Denise Alyssa Borg as Liz Robert Beard as Ed
Judy Klass Bio:
Eight of Judy’s full-length plays have been produced onstage, including Country Fried Murder. Another full-length murder mystery of hers, Cell, was in a mystery festival in Kentucky, got nominated for an Edgar and is published by Samuel French/Concord:
https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/836/cell-klass
Most of her plays are dramas and comedies. Thirty-six of her one-act plays have been produced onstage, many with multiple productions, all over the US, and a few have gone up in the UK and Ireland. Three will be produced in Canada in 2022. Three of her short plays are published, each as a stand-alone script, by Brooklyn Publishers. Others have appeared in magazines and in anthologies like Seven Hills Review and The Art of the One-Act. During the pandemic, Judy got involved more with podcasts, Zoom plays and streaming platforms; two of her short plays, A Different Kind of Strong and Tourists in Dystopia, are on The Shelter Plays platform: https://www.theshelterplays.com/current-productions Judy is from NYC and New Jersey, and she now lives in Nashville (since, like the characters in this play, she does write country songs!) and she teaches at Vanderbilt University.
http://www.judyklass.com
https://newplayexchange.org/users/5340/judy-klass
Author’s Note: I wrote this play with a mystery festival in mind, but that festival disappeared during the Recession, and mystery plays can be hard to place. I am delighted, ten years later, to see Country Fried Murder produced at last, here at the Shawnee Playhouse. I have made it into a period piece, set in 2006, since it is of that moment – but there are parallels and connections between that moment and this one. I have one request to make of audience members. As with any mystery – after seeing the play, please don’t tell people whodunit!
About the Quarantine Players
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Website https://quarantineplayers.org/
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/qplayers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePlayers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantineplayers
Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/
We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like they matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.
In the aftermath of a massive miscommunication about biology, iguana Arthur comes to the conclusion that his best friend, a human named Mari, must be dying. He makes up his mind to take the most “noble” course of action—whether Mari likes it or not. Part madcap comedy, part menstrual health PSA.
The play with an Iguana has a Sequel by Liz Dooley
Since the last… adventure, Arthur the iguana has done everything in his power to research human biology so he doesn’t make any more big mistakes. Armed with his newfound information, he sets out to protect Mari from a new threat: himself. But was she ever really in danger? And is she actually any safer now? Part madcap comedy, part menstrual health PSA—part two. Followed by a talkback with the cast and writer/
Directed by Monica Cross
Monica Cross is a playwright and theatre maker in Gainesville, FL. She earned her Master of Letters and Master of Fine Arts from Mary Baldwin University (formerly Mary Baldwin College) in 2012 and 2013, respectively, and her Bachelors of Arts from New College of Florida in 2010. Her plays include “Cyrano on the Moon” (Tampa International Fringe Festival 2017, Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018, and Femme Fatale Play Festival 2020 on Zoom), Wonder of Our Stage (winner of The Players New Play Festival 2018, The Players Summer Sizzlers Series 2019), and The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny (Semifinalist O’Neill New Play Conference 2021 and American Shakespeare Center’s Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries 2021). She is a board member for the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, where she heads their Homegrown Local Playwrights’ Showcase, and spearheaded their Sunday Sci-fi Serials project online in 2020. This is her third time directing for Quarantine Players. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America and her work can be found on the New Play Exchange.
Director’s Statement:
Sometimes we put on plays because they have an important message, sometimes we put on plays because of their sheer entertainment value, but it is always an absolute delight to work on a play with both. “This Play Has an Iguana for a Protagonist” and “The Play With the Iguana Has a Sequel Now” are absolutely that! Liz Dooley finds a way to discuss the stigma and misinformation around discussions of menstrual health through the perspective of a pet iguana named Arthur. As Mari, Arthur’s Human, points out: as a reptile, it’s a stretch to assume an iguana would automatically know what a period is. So this play does an outstanding and hilarious job of explaining menstruation in a way that would be appropriate for your closest reptilian friend. Dooley highlights how avoiding topics that we might feel are “awkward” leads the way for misinformation to creep in and take hold. So check out “This Play Has an Iguana for a Protagonist” and “The Play With the Iguana Has a Sequel Now” to set the record straight. Also, we have puppets!
About The Playwright, Liz Dooley
Liz Dooley is an asexual- and female-identifying theatre artist based in Atlanta. Her Young Adult Play, FIDGET AND TILDY, has been featured at Synchronicity Theatre through Working Title Playwright’s First Light Series, and her work (WHEREVER) has been featured at Actor’s Express as part of the One-Minute Play Festival. In addition, her short play THIS PLAY HAS AN IGUANA FOR A PROTAGONIST has been produced across the country, including through Quarantine Players and as part of Iowa State University’s Undergrad Director Showcase. She is an active member of Working Title Playwrights and a founding member of the Cultivators, an Atlanta-based new-work development organization for theatre and film. Liz graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014 with a dual major BA in Theatre Arts and Psychology. She studied as a playwriting apprentice at Horizon Theatre during the 2014-2015 season, under Addae Moon.https://newplayexchange.org/users/28626/liz-dooley
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About the Quarantine Players
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Website https://quarantineplayers.org/
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/qplayers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePlayers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantineplayers
Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/
We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like they matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.
Cast
Voice of Iguana: Scott Sickles
The puppeteer is Clayton Bauldree
Elizabeth Rossen as Mari
Draper Harris as Jeff Stage
Direction: Gayle Grimes
Draper Harris
Draper Harris (Jeff). Theatre credits include: Much Ado About Nothing, Dutchman, …and jesus moonwalks the mississippi, Ondine, West Side Story, and Golden Lotus. Film: Night School, Trial By Fire, The Hate U Give, Come Sunday. TV:”Star”, “The Resident”, “Quad”, “Insatiable”. BA Theatre UMASS. www.draperharris.weebly.com
Gayle Grimes
The Iguana plays were an extremely fun experience and Gayle is grateful to Monica for letting her be a part! Gayle has quite a lot of live theater experience and awards in the Northern Virginia area pre-pandemic and, hopefully, post- pandemic. Her most recent production was in November 2020 as Effie in ‘Waiting for the Host’ with The Arlington Players on Zoom.
Gayle has been a member of Quarantine Players since it’s inception back in March 2020 Pandemic lockdown. Some favorite on camera performance readings include Bette Davis in ‘Legends and Bridge’, Rep. Katie Porter in ‘The Washington Squares’, and Ka-wren Fuchs -Busey in the continuing Youtube production of ‘Offstage’. Gayle hopes to continue working with the Quarantine Players and other play reading groups in the future and can’t wait for Live Theater to again be part of her life!
Scott C. Sickles
(Voice of Arthur) does not usually act, but when he does it’s frequently on book. Memorized roles include Todd the artistic director in the webseries pilot Off-Off-Kilter, Gluttony in Martin Alper’s Seven Deadly Sins, and Phil Dezarian in Shooting Johnson Roebling. He was grateful for multiple takes. Primarily a playwright, recent publications include Playing on the Periphery: Monologues and Scenes for and About Queer Kids (Amazon/KDP), Hairdresser on Fire and Composure (Next Stage Press), and Badger and Frame (Applause). A nine-time Emmy nominee and five-time WGA Award winner for General Hospital, Sickles is a proud LGBTQ, neurodivergent, mixed-race Korean American. NPX.
Elizabeth Rossen
Elizabeth Rossen has appeared in several productions both on stage and online with the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre in Gainesville, FL. She recently appeared in the online Sci-Fi series The Visionaire and last appeared on stage as Lois/Savannah in the murder mystery comedy You Have the Right to Remain Dead. Elizabeth has shared her voice and dance skills as Florinda the evil stepsister in Into the Woods and as a Transylvanian in the stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. Elizabeth is grateful to her husband Brent, their daughter, and their family for their continued support and inspiration..
Clayton Bauldree
Clayton Bauldree is a queer theatre artist and playwright. Most recently, Bauldree’s Sci-fi/Horror play, The Graveyard Shift has been produced by The Garden of Voices, a podcast theatre troupe. While usually behind the scenes as a designer, they were happy to lend both their building skills and hands to this wonderful production.
Two brothers competing for the love of the same woman never goes well. A wife’s betrayal has consequences. Treachery, however, benign sometimes ends in tragedy. And the truth… well who really knows what good can come of it? Brandon is having an affair with Annie, Arthurs wife. Arthur comes home from work one day to find his younger brother and wife alone again in the apartment. Has he always had his suspicions? Later that week, Arthur escorts his young wife to an on-stage production of his new work about a younger brother having an affair with the older brother’s wife…and someone gets murdered. A play within a play, but who gets played?
written by Tom David Barna & Christine Barna
directed by Scott Olson
produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Starring Ricardo Padilla Lisette Gabrielle Tyler Brown
About the Quarantine Players Website https://quarantineplayers.org/ Podcast: https://anchor.fm/qplayers Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePl… Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantinep… Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/
We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like they matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.
Christine Marie Barna is the author of several short plays, songs, essays and has completed her first novel. This is also Christine’s first collaboration with Tom David Barna on a full-length play. Christine resides in North Carolina and has had numerous featured an movies such as We’re the Millers, Safe Haven and From Faith to Freedom, the NBC TV series, background roles in Revolution and commercials for Pepsi and Daddy Dolls. Christine has an Associate of Arts Degree (Criminal Justice) from Coastal Carolina, a double Bachelor of Arts Degree (Psychology and Criminology) from the University of NC, Wilmington and is currently working on her Master of Social Work from Boston University.
Tom David Barna, playwright and lyricist and recipient of the 2021 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Grant. He is a four-time McKnight Foundation Grant recipient (most recently–2019), a recent Resident Playwright at the Twin Rivers Center for the Arts and two-time McKnight Artist Career Development Grant recipient. Barna is a five-time invitee to the international playwright conference, the VALDEZ THEATRE CONFERENCE. He has written twenty-seven full length plays, twenty-four short plays, co-author for a 13-part radio series and is the author of four children’s books (Cantata Publishing) and five eBooks (Rakuten Kobo Publishing). He has accepted commissioned work as varied as episodic radio and children’s musicals. He is the recipient of more than twenty-six regional non-equity and/or festival productions and/or staged readings since writing his first play in 2009. Tom is a twenty-two-year Marine Corps Veteran and earned his Bachelor of Arts at New Mexico State University. Tom has also directed, produced and performed on stage.
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WHORTICULTURE is an unflinching look at the ways women/girls go through life.
Using narrative and spoken word, this all-female feminist production follows 3 girls coming of age in a toxic culture.
Produced by AJ Campbell, Quarantine Players.
Directed by Sophia Menconi.
Starring Tzena Nicole Egblomasse, Sarah Wiesehahn, and Teresa Hui. Written by Emma Goldman-Sherman.
From the director: Whorticulture is a play that confronts the dark truth of being raised a girl within rape culture. Throughout the process, I had the privilege of working with a team of three phenomenally smart and talented women on a play that is not only empowering but also challenging and complex. It is rare to find a play in the theatrical canon written just for women, let alone one that so deftly handles themes of sexual violence, abuse, and survival while still maintaining a strong sense of humor.
Emma Goldman-Sherman has distilled what being a young woman is like in the age of social media. She affirms the pain of growing up against a backdrop of the male gaze while also upholding the strength of young women to endure and to grow. The dizzying journey from childhood to womanhood is captured completely by Goldman-Sherman, who never shies away from the harsh and violent realities of life. What she captures at the heart of the play is the irreparable harm of sexualizing girls in childhood, a specter that hangs over the life of every woman. The rise of the #MeToo movement in 2017 shook the foundations of America’s media culture, and brought sexual harassment and violence to the forefront of the national conversation. It has become increasingly difficult to ignore allegations of abuse and harm, a reckoning that was a long time coming in Hollywood and beyond.
The #MeToo movement asks us to interrogate celebrity culture and those we look up, as well as investigate the ways sexualization and patriarchy have harmed our own lives. Women’s voices, and the voices of all those harmed by sexual violence, are now taking center stage, as we begin a collective effort to reframe the ways in which rape culture has been able to shape our narratives. Whorticulture, like Framing Britney Spears and Allen V. Farrow, explores power, our understandings of familial abuse, and how young people articulate trauma and pain. I am incredibly thankful to Emma Goldman-Sherman, AJ Campbell and the Quarantine Players for programming this work in 2021 and equally as grateful to the team at The Tank for giving it a second life. I’d also like to thank the team at Theatrical Intimacy Education, whose training in theatrical intimacy was invaluable to me during this process. This show was made by an all woman creative team and cast who were hard-working, generous, and remarkable. When we sat together and interrogated the ways in which the play spoke to us, not one of us could remember a time before we held hostage by the male gaze. Rape culture is pervasive and sinister, and it is the work of all of us to fight for a better future. To all survivors of sexual violence: you are seen, you are heard, and you are believed. Thank you. Sophia Menconi – Director
This is the story of a couple that has broken up who gets caught at a resort during a storm and now has no choice but to face the ghosts of the past relationship. Both come clean in a hilarious, high-stakes autopsy of their failed relationship.
Original Concept by Matthew Garlin & Samantha Davekos
Writing Supervision by Rebecca Greene
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Sometimes (maybe most of the time) a first love, that one that got away, leaves an indelible mark that shapes all future relationships. Matthew Garlin gives us a deep dive into one such relationship when David and Jessica are forced to share a hotel room during a storm. As these two rehash their four-year relationship, we see not only why they didn’t work but also why they did. In their reminiscing, I think audiences will find reflections of their own romantic past. Those times when you fell hard and fast and got a little scared of it; those times when you thought you were a clear communicator only to find out the message the other person was getting was complete gibberish; those times when you realized that you had hurt someone just as much as they had hurt you. These are the moments that shape and define us from that point forward, and as we watch Jessica and David come to terms with the “what was” and the “could have been,” we are invited to reflect on our own relationships and how they shape who we are now.
Hope you enjoy the show!
Monica Cross
Director
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A. J. Campbell
I am a playwright first and a producer second. I conceived of the Quarantine Players as a way to center playwrights in the production process. All of our playwrights are invited to rehearsals and are included in feedback sessions.
If you want to produce any of my plays find me on New Play Exchange or check out my performances below.
New Play Exchange Profile
.
Monica Cross
Monica Cross is a playwright and director living in Gainesville, Florida. She earned her MFA from Mary Baldwin University (formerly Mary Baldwin College) in 2013. Her plays have been produced across the United States and online. Some of her most notable plays are “Cyrano on the Moon,”The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny,and Wonder of Our Stage. She curates the Homegrown Local Playwrights Showcase at the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre which highlights work by North Florida Playwrights. She has taught theatre at New College of Florida, Ringling College of Art and Design, and University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. She was recently a fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and also the recipient of the 2019 John Ringling Towers Individual Artist Award for Performing Arts.
Ricardo Padilla
(David)
Elizabeth Rossen
Elizabeth Rossen has appeared in several productions both on stage and online with the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre in Gainesville, FL. She recently appeared in the online Sci-Fi series The Visionaire and last appeared on stage as Lois/Savannah in the murder mystery comedy You Have the Right to Remain Dead. Elizabeth has shared her voice and dance skills as Florinda the evil stepsister in Into the Woods and as a Transylvanian in the stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. Elizabeth is grateful to her husband Brent, their daughter, and their family for their continued support and inspiration.
Tamara Peters
Tamara (Tammy) Peters minored in dramatic arts at Loyola University in Maryland and has recently been keeping busy doing play readings with several virtual theatre groups, including the Quarantine Players. She made her community theatre debut with Prince William Little Theatre in 2019 as Maria Wallner in Judgment at Nuremberg, for which she received a WATCH award nomination.
Bryan Wohlust
Bryan is an award-winning actor working in the South Florida Theater scene for many years. Thrilled to make his debut with The Quarantine Players, his previous shows include “The Odd Couple” (Oscar), “I Hate Hamlet” (Barrymore), “Young Frankenstein” (Frederick) Tick, Tick… Boom! (Jonathan) and he is currently in his seventh season with The Palm Beach Opera. Bryan would like to thank Melissa and Madison for their unwavering support, and Monica for the opportunity to be in such a great piece of theater.
Zachary Hanna
Zachary is a 23 year old actor currently based out of Sarasota, Florida. They have previously worked with the Quarantine Players as Ryan in Growth in Isolation. They have also been involved in other virtual performances over quarantine, including performing in Sweet Tea Shakespeare’s Gallatea as Telusa, and reading for Lysimachus in Braving The Bard’s performance of Pericles..
@officialzacharythomashanna
Matthew Garlin Author
This is his first time working with Quarantine Players. His acting credit include working with theaters: Quannapowitt Players in Reading, MA Theatre to Go in Melrose, MA New England School of Performing Arts The Bard Brigade in Saugus, MA Revolutionary Theatre in Danvers, MA Still Small theatre’s repertory company in Beverly, MA. His directing credits include Enchanted April for Theatre to Go Inc., Almost Maine and It’s a Wonderful Life for Theater Company of Saugus, Godspell for Sherwood Entertainment, Side by Side by Sondheim for Colonial Chorus Players, Twelfth Night for The Bard Brigade, and a short film Project Invisible. His playwright credits include: Online Dating (one act play) and Curtain Call (Full length play) at Acting Out Company in Lawrence, How Do You Know (one act play) at River’s Edge Arts Alliance, Woods (full length play) at Theater@First, and A Christmas Gift (one act play) & A Christmas Carol: A Radio Play (full length adaptation) at Theater company of Saugus and Love in the Snow: Stories for Christmas at Walpole Footlighters. Author credits: Woods, Curtain Call, And the Oscar Goes To, and Just Get Over it (self-published) available also on Amazon.com in Kindle, Paperback, and Large Print. He currently host his own podcast Everything You Never Needed to Know about Movies, Music, and Theater and is the creator, writer and plays “Jim Henry” of The Movie Critics: A Webseries, you can find both on Anchor, Spotify, and every place else you get your podcasts.
About the Quarantine Players
Website https://quarantineplayers.org/
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/qplayers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePl…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantinep…
Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/
We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like they matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.
About the Play
Gary hopes to re-connect with his estranged older sister Kay, who is visiting Kansas City, where Gary now lives, for an academic conference. Gary lives with Eytan, who was Kay’s high school best friend; now Eytan and Kay hate each other. Eytan and Gary write humorous songs which Gary sings as a character called Ovaria Strange. Kay considers drag to be misogynist: a caricature of women – a kind of minstrel show. Eytan considers Kay a humorless feminist spouting tiresome theory and jargon, ridiculously teaching African-American studies when she’s white, (which is also a kind of minstrel show, he argues), though Kay is married to Curtis, who’s black, and Eytan has a problem with Kay teaching Women & Gender Studies when (he contends) she’s too uptight and homophobic to talk to college kids about gender.
Directed by Lori Muhlstein
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Musical Director Mikayla Trimpey
Musical Arrangement: Matthew Scarborough
Our Cast
Sara Lucchini
(Kay) Sara Lucchini is an East Coast native who migrated West to the sun and sea of San Diego 8 years ago. She last performed on stage in La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival with Blindspot Collective’s Hall Pass, and has been grateful for the opportunities to continue to perform safely via Zoom in Quarantine Player’s Spooky Saturday, Wildly Successful Theatre Company’s Guilty Party, and others. Sara looks forward to returning to the stage and wishes everyone safety and sanity in the meantime!.
Trevor Butler
(Curtis) Trevor Butler is an alumnus of the School at Steppenwolf in 2014, and the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University in 2016. Being grateful is an understatement for him making his debut with The Quarantine Players as Curtis in The Politics of Fabulousness. AJ Campbell is a treasure of a producer, Lori Muhlstein is a prayer of a director, and Judy Klass is a blessing for this heaven-sent play he’s been gifted to be a part of.
Cameron Lee Conlan
(Gary and Ovaria Strange) Cameron Lee Conlan has been performing since the age of twelve when he starred as Lysander in his school play. Since then he has trained in musical theatre, Shakespeare, improv and stand-up comedy. Some of his credits include Dauntless in “Once Upon a Mattress”, Jack in “Into the Woods”, Iago in “Othello”, Frank-n-furter in “The Rocky Horror Show”, Rooster in “Annie” along with stand up appearances in NYC at the Greenwich Village Comedy Club, Broadway Comedy Club, and performing in the “YAS Queer Comedy Fest”.
Michael K. Young
(Eytan) Mike is very happy to be working with the Quarantine Players in The Politics of Fabulousness. He really enjoys playing an argumentative asshole in this show, a part he plays all too often in real life. Mike has decades of improv theatre experience and has performed with a number of community theaters in Virginia. Mike has previously been seen in Diamonds to Die For, Dead Tuesday, Fatal Error, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Urinetown The Musical.
Director’s Notes
I was drawn to this play because while it explores the necessary and critical issues of our time, it all comes down to the need for family, acceptance, understanding, and love. These are things basic to every human experience and the characters in this play are no exception. It also shows us that like people, relationships are complicated and flawed and sometimes don’t work out the way we hope. You’ll learn a lot from the dialogue, you’ll be touched by the humanity of the people (and wonderful acting by our players), and thoroughly entertained by Ovaria Strange. Thank you Judy and Quarantine Players for entrusting me to direct this reading. Thank you, Cameron, Sara, Mike, and Trevor for your talent to bringing it to life. About Judy Klass Eight of Judy’s full-length plays have been produced. One, Cell, was nominated for an Edgar and is published by Samuel French/Concord. Country Fried Murder won the S.O.P.S. competition and was produced at the Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania. Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One won the Dorothy Silver Award. Thirty-six of her one-act plays have been produced, many with multiple productions, all over the country, and a few have gone up in the UK and Ireland. Three are slated to be produced in Canada. Three of Judy’s short plays are published, each as a stand-alone script, by Brooklyn Publishers. Some of her short plays have become podcasts. Filmed versions of several can be viewed on the Shelter Plays platform. Her plays have been published in Seven Hills Review, the Rockhurst Review, The Courtship of Winds, The Art of the One-Act — and one is in press in The Best New Ten-Minute Plays 2021. Website: http://www.judy-klass.com NPX: https://newplayexchange.org/users/534…
About the Quarantine Players
Website https://quarantineplayers.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePl…
Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantinep…
Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/
Podcast: http://anchor.fm/qplayers (also available on Google podcasts, apple podcasts, audible iheart radio and spotify.
We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like we matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.
A dark twist on the Gift of the Magi. Della and Jim Young desperately long to be parents. After years of failed fertility treatments and then finding out they are not eligible to be adoptive parents due to Della’s medical history, both embark on their own individual quests to achieve the goal they both believe will bring them the true fulfillment and the happiness they’ve been missing. Each keeps their plan secret from the other- but the hidden costs of their journeys eventually overwhelm their relationship. The consequences of their choices come to fruition and leave them longing for another, less treacherous path.
JACOB DANIEL SINCLAIR
DIRECTOR’S NOTE:
What would you do for the person you love most? This is the central theme for couple Della & Jim Young in this new play by Emily McClain. I was drawn in by this seemingly simple, yet complicated, question that drives these two characters and the decisions they make. As humans, we tend to block out threats to our own self when it comes to family or the loved ones we hold most dear; almost as if we are invincible. Unfortunately, invincibility is not achievable. But the beauty of Emily’s play is that it asks us to think about what love and compassion really is for each other: Is it selfish? Selfless? Without fault? Does it makes us blind to what’s directly in front of us? As Della & Jim struggle to have the life and family they’ve both been craving – putting themselves in positions that risk both of their lives, what emerges is the human need to find happiness. Pure and unfiltered happiness. In this brutally honest and comedically-dark re-imagining of THE GIFT OF MAGI, Emily has created a rich cast of characters who, tragically, fight for their life with deep ferocity, who struggle to see the dangers ahead of them, who will go as far as possible to have the life they want for their love – come to to find that maybe they’ve gone too far.
JACOB DANIEL SINCLAIR (Director) Previous credits include HAMLET (Edinburgh Fringe Participant), Freak Show (also writer), Life is a Dream. He is based out of San Diego, CA; a full-time staff member at the Tony Award Winning Regional Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse – as well as a founding member of the developmental theatre company Wildly Successful Theatre Co. Graduate of Juniata College
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT, EMILY MCCLAIN
Emily McClain is a professional playwright and theatre educator. Emily is a proud member of Working Title Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild and currently serves as Board President for Gwinnett Classic Theatre. Her play SLAYING HOLOFERNES was co-winner of Essential Theatre’s New Play Festival and received a world premiere production in 2019. The Pumphouse Players held readings of MY BROTHER’S SECRET KEEPER and PARADISE, STAYED. She was a featured playwright with Elephant Room Productions for her play CHEEK BY JOWL. CHEEK BY JOWL was also featured as Essential Theatre’s Bare Essential Reading Series in October 2020. Her full length comedy JULIE’S PLACE was selected for the JOOKMS Spotlight Series in July 2020 and later went on to be a semi-finalist with the New American Voices with The Landing Theatre Company. Her tragedy TERMINUS ANDRONICUS was a finalist at the American Shakespeare Center Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition in 2019. Her Risk Theatre play CHILDREN OF COMBS AND WATCH CHAINS was named a finalist for the Risk Theatre International Competition in August 2020. Her short plays have been staged at many professional theaters across the country including Mississippi, California, Wisconsin, Virginia, New York, and numerous venues in Georgia. Her historical drama COPPER ANGEL will be presented by borderless productions as an audio drama in March 2021. She is published through ArtAge, Smiths Scripts, and Stage-Rights and more of her work may be found on New Play Exchange:
https://newplayexchange.org/users/27781/emily-mcclain
Hannah Reinert
(DELLA YOUNG )
Quarantine Players Debut.
Regional: THE GREAT EXPERIMENT (Geffen Playhouse- Staged Reading). San Diego: YOU’RE SAFE HERE (Ma’Arte Theatre Collective). LOBBY HERO and RAPTURE BLISTER BURN (San Diego Actor’s Theater- Staged Readings); WOYZECK (OnTheLine Collective); kNOw MORE! (PLNU Center for Justice & Reconciliation); THE UNAVOIDABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM DURNIN (La Jolla Theatre Ensemble- Staged Reading), THE GUILTY PARTY (Wildly Successful Theatre Company- Staged Reading). UC San Diego: GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES (Kayleen), SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION (Dementia), SOCIAL SUICIDE (Maureen/ Janitor). Training: UC San Diego Theatre & Dance (B.A.). Hannah is currently a full-time arts administrator and teaching artist for La Jolla Playhouse’s Education and Outreach Department. Follow along on Instagram at: @hannahreinert
Erin Rae Li
(TRICIA MCDONALD )
Erin Rae Li is a Los Angeles based actor and writer who recently graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a BA degree in Theatre. She is super excited to be a part of this amazing project and is incredibly grateful to The Quarantine Players for this opportunity to work on this wonderful play! Instagram: @erinnnli
Cornelius Franklin
(JIM YOUNG)
Corneilus Franklin is a third-year MFA Acting candidate at UC San Diego. The South Carolinian started his artistry as a cellist with an Artist diploma from the SCGSAH and then later received a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. UC San Diego credits: Ironbound, Balm in Gilead, Incendiary (staged reading) and The Gradient (WNPF ‘19), Everybody Black. Other select credits: Measure for Measure (Shakespeare Academy at Stratford), The Tempest (Shakespeare Academy), No One Asked Me (Soho Playhouse), You Don’t Matter (NY Fringe Festival), Secret Bonds (NYU Experimental Theater Wing), The NYU Reality Show (Beacon Theater/Radio City Music Hall) Sweeney Todd (NYU New Studio on Broadway), Out Cry (NYU Tisch), Spring Awakening (NYU Tisch Mainstage). Regional credit: Put Your House in Order (ACD) at La Jolla Playhouse.
Website: www.CorneilusFranklin.com
Holly Souchack
(POLLY AMANTE)
Holly Souchack is a Chicago based actor originally from New York. Her recent work includes writing and directing an independent sketch show (opening night was that weekend in March everything shut down, wah-wah), joining a Comedysportz virtual rec team, and playing Catie Cecil Carrons in “White Elephant” produced by Possibilities Theatre company. She is currently blessed to be working with Quicksilver Shakespeare Company in their BIPOC virtual reading of “Comedy of Errors”. When she’s not running down Lake Shore path or trying to smile at dogs through her mask, she’s sitting on the couch with her boyfriend, Andrew, binging Avatar: The Last Airbender. Vote, always lend a helping hand, and eat a lot of dark chocolate.
Deborah Marlowe
(ESTER SALGADO)
DEBORAH MARLOWE (Esther Salgado) is a voice actor, stage actor and Zoom actor (thank you, 2020). This is Deborah’s second appearance with Quarantine Players. Deborah’s VO credits include StarWars: Squadrons, Disney’s Duck Tales, World of Warcraft, RIFT, HIT MAN and commercials for Lexus, Popeye’s Chicken, McDonald’s, Charter Communications, Toyota, American Airlines. Stage credits include Steel Magnolias (Ouiser), Collected Stories (Ruth Steiner), Jekyll & Hyde (Hyde#4), Lend Me a Tenor (Julia), Pride & Prejudice (Mrs. Bennett), Our Town (Mrs. Soames). deborahmarlowe.net SAG-AFTRA
Thank you Producer AJ and Director Jacob!!
Sara Lucchini
(Stage Direction)
Sara Lucchini is an East Coast native who migrated West to the sun and sea of San Diego 8 years ago. She last performed on stage in La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival with Blindspot Collective’s Hall Pass, and has been grateful for the opportunities to continue to perform safely via Zoom in Quarantine Player’s Spooky Saturday, Wildly Successful Theatre Company’s Guilty Party, and others. Sara looks forward to returning to the stage and wishes everyone safety and sanity in the meantime!
Robert Coe
(JAMIE BULLARD)
Robert is very excited to be part of this project. It has been fun working with everyone involved. He has previously played J. Finch in Puffs, Bazzard in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Chewebacca in Phantom of the Empire. When he isnt doing theater he is doing research for his true crime podcast Spookytown, USA.
JANEY SMITH: A FOOTBALL FAN MONOLOGUE by Asher Wyndham | A virtual play reading (explicit)’
Please note: there is adult language and themes including explicit language, sex act description, and the realities of sex work in America
Janey Smith is a Vikings fan and she’s ready for Super Bowl week. An entire week of sex in houses around Minneapolis. She wants to make sure she gets paid what she deserves–so she can provide for her baby. Part of the second volume of SOME AMERICANS: SOME MONOLOGUES.
.Genre: drama, tragedy
Subject Matter Keywords: prostitution, Sex, football, Super Bowl, NFL, women, motherhood, sex workers, Vikings, Football fans
Length: ten minutes
Narrative Attributes: Centers Female Characters
About Asher Wyndham
Website: http://www.robotwriter.co Twitter: https://twitter.com/asherwyndham
Asher Wyndham (he/him/his) is an American/Canadian playwright. His plays have been produced and staged read all over the United States, also Canada, England, Costa Rica, Denmark, and Australia. Theatres that have developed his work include Theatre InspiraTO in Toronto; Movement Theatre Company in NYC; Wordsmyth Theater Company and Mildred’s Umbrella in Houston. In 2010 he was awarded the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Play and a fellowship to the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference from the Kennedy Center, and a mainstage reading and the Holland New Voices Award from the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha. He has been a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and a national finalist for the David Cohen Award from the Kennedy Center’s ACTF. His short plays are published by Original Works Publishing, Smith & Kraus, Dramatic Publishing, and Applause. He studied playwriting under the late Lanford Wilson at the Edward Albee New Playwrights Workshop at the University of Houston. He lives in Arizona.
The Redemption of a Football Widow by Hank Kimmel
(Warning: References Suicide)
A woman threatens to kill herself during the 1991 Super Bowl, and her husband, a life-long New York Giants fan, is caught between divided loyalties.
Starring: Jon and Jess Roberts
Written by: Hank Kimmel
Directed by Scott Olson
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Genre: comedy, dark comedy Subject Matter Keywords: comedy, football, New York Giants, troubled marriage
A virtual Play Reading by the Quarantine Players It’s the waning moments of the AFC Championship Game, and MECO, a life-long Jets fan who watches the game on TV, must decide if the price to win is worth paying.
Starring:
Adam Frost-Venrick as Dan
Adam Ressa as Meco
Written by: Hank Kimmel
Directed by Scott Olson
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Genre: comedy, dark comedy Subject Matter Keywords: comedy, football, JETS, dogs, football fan, the devil
About the playwright, Hank Kimmel
Website: http://www.hankkimmel.com
New Play Exchange https://newplayexchange.org/users/231…
Hank Kimmel (also known as Henry W. Kimmel) is an Atlanta-based playwright who is a founding member and serves as board president for Working Title Playwrights, an Atlanta-based theatre company dedicated to the development of playwrights and new plays. Hank also serves as the board president for the Alliance for Jewish Theatre (www.alljewishtheatre.org). Hank has been a long-time member of the Dramatists Guild. Always aspiring to craft deeper and more meaningful work, Hank has written dozens of plays of various lengths, mostly addressing people’s obsession with status and money, including his own. Hank also works as a dramaturg.
Cynthia, a public school teacher, faces a day of personal and professional trials, including a husband with a nightshift, a job evaluation, and her tween daughter’s determination to switch schools.
Written by Ricardo Soltero-Brown
Directed by Billy Christopher Maupin
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Qurantine Players
CAST
DEAN KNIGHT ………………………Todd
HALIYA ROBERTS………………….Cynthia
JACQUELINE JONES ………………Denise
MICHAEL GOODWIN ……………………..Fox
NANCY KENT COLLIE ……………………..Janie
PATRICIA ALLI ……………………..Anne
CORRIE L. YARBROUGH ……………..Stage Manager
MICHAEL GOODWIN (Fox) most recently appeared in the Netflix Original Series Dolly
Parton’s Heartstrings. Other appearances include Falcon Crest, Dynasty, and All My
Children, as well as Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Law & Order:
SVU. Films include Lolita, The Dead Pool, and Fair Game.
DEAN KNIGHT (Todd) has been acting on Richmond-area stages for the past fifteen
years. Some of his favorite roles are Trigorin in The Seagull and Clarence in Richard
III (Henley Street Theatre Company); Manus in Translations, Bottom in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, and Reverend Parris in The Crucible (Sycamore Rouge); Roderigo
in Othello (Quill Theatre); Captain Alford in The Human Terrain (5th Wall Theatre) and
his RTCC Best Leading Actor award-winning performance as Ever Montgomery
in Dancing Lessons (Virginia Repertory Theatre).
NANCY KENT COLLIE (Janie) is an actor based in NYC. She is thrilled to be working
with Quarantine Players again. Last seen in Animal Control and Tracy Jones, she’s
grateful for the opportunity to share theatre during this crazy time. Stay safe, wear your
masks, and enjoy!
HALIYA ROBERTS (Cynthia) is an actor and voiceover artist who has performed in
numerous independent films, commercials, and plays. At the 2019 Richmond Theatre
Critics Circle Awards, she was awarded Best Actress in a Leading Role – Play, for her
role in the one woman show Pretty Fire. Haliya also hosted the Emmy winning show,
The Art Scene, on VPM (Central Virginia’s PBS affiliate). She is a graduate of The
Honors Acting Conservatory at The Theatre Lab: School of the Dramatic Arts in
Washington, DC.
JACQUELINE JONES (Denise) graces the stage, airwaves, web, and silver screen, big
and small. Cherished for dozens of original characters and quirky portrayals, the native
Virginian specializes in solo shows including Ann Richards in Ann, Golda Meir in Golda’s Balcony, and Jocelyn in Sedaris’s Season’s Greetings. Jackie sparkled as beautician Maylene opposite Rainn Wilson in Colette Burson’s feature, Permanent, and
voiced Confederate Jewish spy, Eugenia Phillips, for the Smithsonian Institute. Jackie
is a Standardized Patient at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine’s Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety, and mentors with the Richmond Jewish Coalition for Literacy. www.JacquelineJones.net
PATRICIA ALLI (Anne) was recently heard in Ann starring Jacqueline Jones at
Firehouse Theatre, where she also appeared as Mother in Passing Strange and
Jocasta in Oedipus. She starred as Hillary in Hillary and Clinton with HATTheatre, the
Player Queen in Hamlet with Quill Theatre and WCVE, the Nurse in The Lyons with 5 th
Wall Theatre, and Alma in Yellowman with Henley Street Theatre.
Chris Russell
BILLY CHRISTOPHER MAUPIN (Director) was featured this summer in The Washington Post and The New York Times for his one-man adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Favorite directing credits include Nicky Silver’s The
Lyons, Holland Taylor’s Ann, and Douglas Jones’ Jack and the Beanstalk. He is a
two-time RTCC Award Winner for Best Director of a Musical for Carrie the Musical with 5 th Wall Theatre and Dave Malloy’s Preludes with Firehouse Theatre. He won a Tabby Award for his direction of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour and was named one of Richmond’s “Top 40 Under 40” by STYLE Weekly.
.
CORRIE L. YARBROUGH (Stage Manager) Previous stage management credits
include Carrie the Musical, The Busy World Is Hushed, 5 Lesbians Eating a
Quiche, and The Children’s Hour.
A. J. Campbell (Producer) Founder of the Quarantine Players. A playwright, advocate and activist.
About the Playwright
Ricardo Soltero-Brown is a playwright, actor, and director. He is a graduate of University of South Florida, where he staged THE JACKET. He won the Florida Playwrights Competition for JEALOUSY (Valencia College; Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival, Jeremy Seghers). He was an apprentice at Horizon Theatre Company, where THE AMBASSADOR, OR: THE DISARMAMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS and NOTHING BUT CHEESE were performed. THE PRINCESS OF CASPIA had a staged reading at Dixon Place. SICK DAY was presented as a reading at the Dramatists Guild’s Equality Festival (freeFall Theatre). His plays, including BELDAM & GAFFER (Pipsqueak Collective), GRIEF, and THE LAST PLAY (Jeremy Seghers), have been performed at various colleges, theatres, and festivals. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
https://newplayexchange.org/users/7279/ricardo-soltero-brown
twitter @RSolteroBrown
About the Quarantine Players
https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePlayers
https://quarantineplayers.org/
https://www.instagram.com/quarantineplayers/
We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Playres are a scrappy theater start-up who is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like we matter, make them part of the process and value our input.
We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are diffferent because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehersaals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulise.
Let’s make theater together.
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"Gina Piccalo"
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2006-06-23T00:00:00
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The creator of the bestseller never divulged her extreme struggles -- until now.
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en
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Los Angeles Times
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https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-23-et-cameron23-story.html
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Julia Cameron’s journey to guru-dom began, perhaps predictably, in Los Angeles in the 1970s after a failed celebrity marriage and a scotch-and-cocaine binge had brought her to rock bottom. Back then, she was best known as the lush whom Martin Scorsese left for Liza Minnelli, the hotshot writer who swore like a sailor and matched Hunter S. Thompson drink-for-drink.
This was before sobriety became Cameron’s religion and her own recovery inspired her “creative unblocking” seminars, before her 1992 bestseller “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” sold more than 2 million copies, before the book spawned a movement, before strangers approached her in airports with home-recorded CDs, self-published poetry, handmade jewelry and the words, “You saved my life.”
Back then, no one knew of Cameron’s own struggles, the nervous breakdowns that got progressively worse and the traumatic episodes so severe she found herself talking to trees in a London park and darting naked down her driveway in Taos, N.M. No one knew of the conflicted personality behind “The Artist’s Way,” part bawdy truth-teller, part mystical, 12-stepping mentor.
It’s all there in her 405-page memoir “Floor Sample,” published last month, Cameron’s attempt to marry her public life with the very fragile private one, and to use her own wrenching experiences -- and her resiliency through them -- as proof that the “Artist’s Way” works. The book’s brutal candor might, at first glance, seem self-indulgent and overwrought (one reviewer dismissed it as “febrile New Age rhetoric”). But if all celebrity memoirists these days have a goal well beyond nostalgic reverie, Cameron’s is to radically demystify her image for the fans who have over-idealized their teacher. “They read my books and picture me walking serenely through the sage fields,” she told a group of ardent admirers at a recent Santa Monica reading. “I thought it was time to duck out from under the persona.”
Cameron, 58, arrived at a Los Feliz cafe one recent afternoon looking a bit flustered, her hair slightly windblown, wearing a navy ensemble that she later joked would make any nun proud -- a long-sleeved blouse, ankle-length skirt, black stockings and sensible shoes. She stood out amid the pastels-and-denim lunch crowd, and was recognized immediately by one gushing fan who claimed to carry the memoir in her purse.
As she began to talk about her decision to write a memoir, Cameron projected something fragile, marching out her words with such deliberateness she might have been reading them from a script. Or maybe she was just tired. She had, after all, whipped through nine book signings that morning in San Francisco on the way to the airport and had nine more scheduled before she took a red-eye home to Manhattan the next day.
But Cameron spoke thoughtfully about a variety of subjects, including her own psychic abilities (she has what she believes is “medical intuition”) and the always-lurking mental illness she called a “time bomb.”
“They have very effective medicine now, but there have been periods where I have felt as if I were coming apart and the medicine was the wall between me and ... “ She left the sentence dangling, but added, “You’re just hoping it will hold.”
Until now, this tentativeness has been kept secret from her followers, the struggling professional actors and writers of L.A., New York and Chicago and the dreamers everywhere else. In the book, Cameron characterizes that decision as one of survival. She had work to do and seminars to teach. And remarkably, it got done despite the breakdowns.
The first big one came in the mid-1990s just as she became known as a recovery guru, after the end of her second marriage to Mark Bryan, her inspiration for writing “The Artist’s Way.”
“Cast as a ‘spiritual teacher’ and desperate for answers myself in the wake of the loss of Mark, I embarked on a series of ill-considered fasts,” she writes of that time. “ I went as long as a week or ten days without solid food. I went for very long walks praying with every footfall. Although I didn’t see it at the time, mine was a punishing” regimen.
This search eventually led her to London, where she began writing her first musical, this one about Merlin. Things soon started unraveling.
Cameron stopped wearing her glasses and contacts, because “with nothing and no one to care for, who needed to see clearly?” She did yoga obsessively. She succumbed to delusions so intense that during one of her aimless walks in Regent’s Park, she wrote, she became the victim of a “very gentle rape.” Later that day after Bryan reported the incident, the London police arrived at her door, took one look at her “giant bird’s nest” of an apartment and led her off to a mental hospital. She was diagnosed as manic depressive, which American doctors later said was wrong. Cameron still hasn’t gotten a new diagnosis.
There were other episodes -- “allergies” to electricity and walking barefoot in the desert in Taos and talking flowers and more fasts on Venice Beach -- before Cameron found the right combination of medications and the stabilizing regimen to keep them at bay.
Still, they left the people closest to her traumatized. Her daughter, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, now 29, and her assistant and collaborator, Emma Lively, recall Cameron’s breakdowns with terror. “I have to look back at it and say, ‘Thank God we made it through,’ ” her daughter said.
Today, Cameron and Lively share a Manhattan apartment, where they keep up an impressive pace. In their eight years working together, the two women have collaborated on three musicals, plus drafts of three more, plus two albums of children’s music, all while Cameron taught weekly at the Open Center in Manhattan, traveled a few days every month to lecture, wrote a novel and her memoir.
A cynic might note that only the memoir has been released. The musicals are still awaiting buyers. The albums haven’t been distributed. But Cameron would insist that’s beside the point. “People get so focused on the big dream,” she said, “that they forget about the process.”
Indeed, a week after Cameron made that point, her novel -- rejected 41 times -- got offers from several publishers, and she accepted one from Thomas Dunne Books, a division of St. Martin’s Press. But this is just the most recent late-arriving break in a lifetime spent dutifully trusting “the process.” At 21, her parents suffered simultaneous breakdowns, and Cameron was charged with the care of her six siblings. She started her first novel the same week.
When it was clear her marriage to Scorsese was over, (Cameron discovered Minnelli’s silk blouses in her closet), she went on a years-long alcohol and drug binge. She reemerged in 1978 as a sober single mom in Hollywood with a screenwriting job at Paramount Studios. Out of all this came the creative unblocking seminars that would make her famous.
Cameron still describes herself as “fragile” and said she’s gripped by anxiety in the days before an appearance. But there was no sign of hesitancy at two recent events in Santa Monica. She was funny and self-deprecating and even a little risque, peppering her lecture with choice expletives. Her guru side wasn’t evident, really, until her students lured it out of her.
At a book signing on the Third Street Promenade, a modest crowd of mostly women in their 40s and 50s listened politely to bracing excerpts from her memoir. Then, without once referring to the reading, they poured their hearts out, pelting Cameron with questions on how to land an agent, how to publish a novel, how to keep at it long enough to write one.
One woman talked about her sobriety and her move to L.A. and the crippling anxiety she still faced. Cameron empathized, then told her: “You’re stuck with the vulnerability, so you might as well do something with it.”
Two weeks later, at a seminar in a Santa Monica hotel, she stood before the usual suspects -- struggling actors, a life coach or two, an environmentalist and the girlfriends who met in yoga class -- and joked about Los Angeles being “in the heart of darkness.” Then she spent the next 45 minutes reassuring these vulnerables, quoting Carl Jung, and telling them, “It takes courage to live here.”
She stressed the importance of morning pages, an “Artist’s Way” daily writing regimen that, she teaches, not only clears the mind but often inspires divine intervention into stalled careers and lonely lives. When she opened the floor for questions, a furniture store owner piped up from the crowd.
“Fifteen minutes from writing about George Harrison,” he exclaimed, “I’m meeting his personal guitar-maker!”
It was, as promised in “The Artist’s Way,” the synchronicity that “creative recovery” usually brings.
Cameron then launched in on the “responsive universe” and how she had a student with a manuscript who went to a dinner party and -- poof! -- landed a book deal. And another one, a screenwriter, who went to the gym one day and -- pow! -- met “one of [Tom] Cruise’s people.” Even the chatty yoga friends were rapt.
It was comforting, accessible stuff for these “dreamers just looking for a way to survive,” as Cameron called them a day earlier. And to hear Cameron speak, it seemed “The Artist’s Way” could be an undertaking virtually guaranteed to change your life. That is, unless you’re like the guy in the third row who claimed that after 5 1/2 years of morning pages he gave up on his creative project and started running.
“It sounds like you’re having a lack of faith,” she told him.
Later, Cameron explained that this student’s predicament -- being stuck in traditional notions of “success” -- was quintessentially L.A.
“There’s a lot of pain in Los Angeles,” she said.
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https://bookauthority.org/books/best-theater-books
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20 Best Theater Books of All Time
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[
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The 20 best theater books recommended by Emma Watson, The New Yorker, Arlan, Booklist, Tina Howe, Moss Hart, Tim Walker and Beth Behrs.
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/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon.png?v=almeA543QQ
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BookAuthority
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https://bookauthority.org/books/best-theater-books
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692
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https://dokumen.pub/modern-american-drama-playwriting-20002009-voices-documents-new-interpretations-9781474208246-9781472571472.html
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en
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Modern American Drama: Playwriting 2000–2009: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations 9781474208246, 9781472571472
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The Decades of Modern American Drama series provides a comprehensive survey and study of the theatre produced in each de...
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dokumen.pub
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https://dokumen.pub/modern-american-drama-playwriting-20002009-voices-documents-new-interpretations-9781474208246-9781472571472.html
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Citation preview
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank our colleagues Wendy Arons, Dorothy Chansky and Scott T. Cummings for their excellent contributions to this book. We appreciate their enthusiasm for the project and value their scholarly input throughout the process. The chapters they have contributed provide important critical perspectives on the playwrights featured in this book. The playwrights, Chuck Mee, Lynn Nottage, Theresa Rebeck and Sarah Ruhl, graciously agreed to be interviewed for the book, and we thank them for their time and critical insight. We would also like to thank Theresa Rebeck for giving us permission to publish her essay in the book. We are grateful to the series editor Brenda Murphy for her invaluable editorial feedback. Our editors at Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, Mark Dudgeon and Emily Hockley, helped us bring this project to life, and we are thankful for their guidance and generous advice. We would like to acknowledge support offered by our respective academic institutions – the University of Central Florida and Hofstra University. Our research assistants, Alex Hodson, Elizabeth Horn, Ann Kinnebrew, Mark Nichols and Tori Oakes, were instrumental in gathering background research and bibliographic materials. Their voices undoubtedly had an impact on the shaping of the book. This project would not have been completed without the unconditional love, support and patience of our families. We dedicate this book to them.
9781472571472_txt_print.indd 10
10/11/2016 14:45
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE AND NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Julia Listengarten is Professor of Theatre and Artistic Director at the University of Central Florida, USA. She has worked professionally as a director and dramaturg and her translation of Christmas at the Ivanovs’ premiered Off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company (1997) and was included in Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1890–1950 (2001). Her research interests include modern and contemporary American theatre, avant-garde theory and performance, Russian theatre, translation theory, and nationalism in theatre. She is the author of Russian Tragifarce: Its Cultural and Political Roots (2000) and co-editor of Theater of the Avant-Garde: 1950–2000 (2011) and Playing with Theory in Theatre Practice (2012). She has also contributed to many academic journals and edited collections including Women, Collective Creation, and Devised Performance (2016), National Theatres in a Changing Europe (2008) and A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama (2004). Cindy Rosenthal is Professor of Drama and Dance at Hofstra University, USA. She is a scholar, theatre director, dramaturg and performer. She has directed Off-Off-Broadway (Cynthia Sophiea’s Everyone Has Tears, TBG Theatre, NYC, 2012) and has performed professionally Off-Broadway and in regional theatre. She is a founding member of the Equity ensemble at the Bread Loaf Theatre, Vermont. Rosenthal has written on political theatre, on the avant-garde and on women playwrights and directors in the New York Times, Women and Performance, Theatre Survey and TDR. She is co-editor with James Harding of Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theatres and Their Legacies (2006) and The Rise of Performance Studies: Rethinking Richard Schechner’s Broad Spectrum (2011). With Hanon Reznikov, she co-edited Living on the Street: Plays of the Living Theatre from 1989–92 (2008). Current work includes Ellen Stewart Presents: Fifty Years of La Mama Experimental Theatre (forthcoming 2017).
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xii
Biographical Note and Notes on Contributors
Wendy Arons is Professor of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. Her research interests include German theatre, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theatre history, feminist theatre and performance and ecology. She is author of Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women’s Writing: The Impossible Act (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and co-editor, with Theresa J. May, of Readings in Performance and Ecology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). She has published articles in Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, The German Quarterly, Communications from the International Brecht Society, 1650–1850, Text and Presentation and Theatre Journal, as well as chapters in a number of anthologies. Dorothy Chansky is Associate Professor and Director of the Humanities Center at Texas Tech University, USA. She writes about American theatre, audiences and feminist theatre, and, most recently, about translation. Her most recent book is Kitchen Sink Realisms: Domestic Labor, Dining, and Drama in American Theatre (University of Iowa Press, 2015). She co-edited Food and Theatre on the World Stage (Routledge, 2015) with Ann Folino White. Her book Composing Ourselves: The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience won a President’s Book Award at Texas Tech in 2006. Her work has appeared in Theatre Journal, TDR, Text and Performance Quarterly, Women and Performance, the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Theatre History Studies and the Journal of Adaptation in Performance and Film. Scott T. Cummings is Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature in the Theatre Department of Boston College, USA, where he served as Chair from 2010 to 2014. His directing work for Boston College includes four different programmes of fully produced one-acts by BC student playwrights, an original devised work called Ashley’s Purpose, and plays by Shakespeare, Marivaux, Beckett, Fornes and Mee. He is the author of Charles Mee, Anne Bogart and the SITI Company (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Maria Irene Fornes (Routledge, 2013) and the co-editor (with Erica Stevens Abbitt) of The Theatre of Naomi Wallace: Embodied Dialogues (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).
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GENERAL PREFACE
Decades of Modern American Drama: Playwriting from the 1930s to 2009 is a series of eight volumes about American theatre and drama, each focusing on a particular decade during the period between 1930 and 2010. It begins with the 1930s, the decade when Eugene O’Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and American theatre came of age. This is followed by the decade of the country’s most acclaimed theatre, when O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller were writing their most distinguished work, and a theatrical idiom known as ‘the American style’ was seen in theatres throughout the world. Its place in the world repertoire established, American playwriting has taken many turns since 1950. The aim of this series is to focus attention on individual playwrights or collaborative teams who together reflect the variety and range of American drama during the eighty-year period it covers. In each volume, contributing experts offer detailed critical essays on four playwrights or collaborators and the significant work they produced during the decade. The essays on playwrights are presented in a rich interpretive context, which provides a contemporary perspective on both the theatre and American life and culture during the decade. The careers of the playwrights before and after the decade are summarized as well, and a section of documents, including interviews, manuscripts, reviews, brief essays and other items, sheds further light on the playwrights and their plays. The process of choosing such a limited number of playwrights to represent the American theatre of this period has been a difficult but revealing one. In selecting them, the series editors and volume authors have been guided by several principles: highlighting the most significant playwrights, in terms both historical and aesthetic, who contributed at least two interesting and important plays during
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General Preface
the decade; providing a wide-ranging view of the decade’s theatre, including both Broadway and alternative venues; examining many historical trends in playwriting and theatrical production during the decade; and reflecting the theatre’s diversity in gender and ethnicity, both across the decade and across the period as a whole. In some decades, the choices are obvious. It is hard to argue with O’Neill, Williams, Miller and Wilder in the 1940s. Other decades required a good deal of thought and discussion. Readers will inevitably regret that favourite playwrights are left out. We can only respond that we regret it too, but we believe that the playwrights who are included reflect a representative sample of the best and most interesting American playwriting during the period. While each of the books has the same fundamental elements – an overview of life and culture during the decade, an overview of the decade’s theatre and drama, the four essays on the playwrights, a section of documents, an Afterword bringing the playwrights’ careers up to date, and a Bibliography of works both on the individual playwrights and on the decade in general – there are differences among the books depending on each individual volume author’s decisions about how to represent and treat the decade. The various formats chosen by the volume authors for the overview essays, the wide variety of playwrights, from the canonical to the contemporary avant-garde, and the varied perspectives of the contributors’ essays make for very different individual volumes. Each of the volumes stands on its own as a history of theatre in the decade and a critical study of the four individual playwrights or collaborative teams included. Taken together, however, the eight volumes offer a broadly representative critical and historical treatment of 80 years of American theatre and drama that is both accessible to a student first encountering the subject and informative and provocative for a seasoned expert. Brenda Murphy (Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Connecticut, USA) Julia Listengarten (Professor of Theatre at the University of Central Florida, USA) Series Editors
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1 Introduction: Living in the 2000s Julia Listengarten
Background What else could possibly have gone wrong in the first years of the twenty-first century? The country lived through the devastating terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001; major corporate bankruptcies; the collapse of the car industry; the deep economic recession; mass shootings; political and sex scandals. The unemployment rate rose above 10 per cent for the first time since 1983. Surveillance culture grew and intelligence gathering proliferated. Climate change led to environmental catastrophes, such as Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. While the fear of a massive Y2K computer meltdown did not materialize on midnight of 1 January 2000, other fears soon entered the lives of many Americans: the fear of snipers near Washington, DC, and anthrax attacks, the fear of global terrorism, the fear of losing one’s home, the fear of losing a job, the fear of losing a loved one to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ‘The noughties’, as the British sometimes refer to the decade, was a period of great calamities and inventions. Indeed, this decade of major economic and political upheavals also featured many
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groundbreaking technological discoveries, including the explosion of Internet-based culture. It was also a decade of great paradoxes: the period of conservative politics in the country coincided with a number of progressive changes toward social equality; globalism and the growth in social networking produced a sense of isolation – both national and personal – and anxiety over the loss of identity and originality. Was it ‘the lost decade’ of massive political and environmental disasters? The ‘digital decade’ of Facebook, Twitter and video games? The decade of the ‘look-at-me generation’, of reality TV and celebrity culture? This chapter explores the decade from these various perspectives and discusses key events and developments in the 2000s which include MM
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War on a global scale The Great Recession Changing perspectives on gender and sexual identity Racial politics and religious intolerance Environmental concerns The rise of neoconservatism and the Tea Party Evolving definitions of ‘family’ The emergence of digital and social media
Society War on Terror It was, we were soon told, ‘the day that changed everything’, the 21st century’s defining moment, the watershed by which we would forever divide world history: before, and after, 9/11. Jon Henley, Guardian, 9 September 2011 On 11 September 2001, nineteen Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four US airliners. Two planes were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, collapsing the Twin Towers; one was crashed into the Pentagon, seriously damaging the building; and one that was targeted at the White House or the US Capitol instead crashed in a cornfield in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers
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tried to stop the hijackers. The al-Qaeda organization, led by Osama bin Laden, was responsible. Nearly 3,000 people perished as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The long-term effects included significant physical and mental health issues. In June 2007, New York City commissioned the World Trade Center Medical Group to analyse the short-term health effects of 9/11 and project the long-term care needs of people exposed at ground zero. The report, issued in 2009, found that 15,688 people that year received publicly funded treatment for World Trade Center-related health conditions. Furthermore, over 40,000 first responders and workers were screened or monitored for disease. In response to the 9/11 attacks, the US launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, with the support of an international coalition. These would become the longest military conflicts in US history. In Iraq, US military fatalities exceeded 4,300 up to 2009. In Afghanistan, US combat deaths numbered 946 up to 2009. The immediate and long-lasting effects of the wars on the US military personnel deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq included post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), major limb amputations and self-inflicted wounds. In 2003, there were 977 cases of the PTSD diagnosis reported among the deployed personnel; by 2009, the number rose to 13,863. TBI cases reached 28,877 by 2009.1 As the country engaged in the War on Terror, various national security policies emerged, authorizing domestic surveillance as well as detention and interrogation programmes. The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security aimed to unify national security efforts. The National Security Agency (NSA) implemented the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) to intercept al-Qaeda communications, although the programme was later implicated in engaging in widespread domestic surveillance. Blackwater Security Consulting, a private security company, was contracted by the Federal government to conduct risky and at times controversial military operations in the wake of 9/11. During the 16 September 2007 Blackwater operation in Iraq, seventeen Iraqis were killed and twenty-four wounded when Blackwater operators opened fire in a traffic circle in central Baghdad.
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BOX 1.1: WAR ON TERROR The War on Terror, a phrase first used by President Bush on 20 September 2001, is an ideological concept that emerged after the 11 September attacks to fight terrorism. It also refers to the series of international military and diplomatic campaigns aimed at putting an end to international terrorism, largely associated with radical Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. The War on Terror campaigns were launched by the US, with support from NATO and other allies, in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks. In addition to the Bush administration-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the War on Terror also involved covert military operations and new security legislation, as well as efforts to block the financing of terrorist organizations. There was widespread criticism of ‘War on Terror’ as an approach to combating global terrorism and strengthening national security. Critics argued that, instead, this concept promoted an ideology of fear and mistrust, both domestically and internationally.
Economy The decade’s economy in the US was plagued by a series of crises leading to a major economic decline, also referred to as the Great Recession. The decade began with the dot-com bubble bursting and ended with the meltdown of the financial system caused by the crisis in subprime mortgages. The development of the global economy prompted the outsourcing of US service and technology, which precipitated what Thomas Friedman called the ‘flattening’ of the world.2 The rise of China and India as world financial powers presented a challenge to the US economy, as the global balance of power began to shift toward the East.
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Dot-com bubble burst The period of the dot-com bubble (also referred to as the Internet bubble or information technology bubble), which began roughly in 1997, achieved its climax on 10 March 2000, when the NASDAQ stock exchange soared to over 5,100.00 in intraday trading. The bubble was created by a combination of rising stock prices, market confidence in future profitability of dot-com companies and easily obtainable venture capital. In April 2000, inflation reports triggered the collapse of the bubble. As a result, a large number of information technology companies ran out of capital and filed for bankruptcy. Many companies were subsequently liquidated or acquired. In March 2000, the market value of NASDAQ companies peaked at $6.7 trillion; in October 2002, it reached its bottom at $1.6 trillion.3
Corporate and investment frauds The decade was marked by a significant rise in fraud involving major corporate organizations and accounting firms. These scandals stemmed from improper accounting practices: inflated revenues, overstated sales, understated earnings, misused or misdirected funds. 2001: Enron, a top energy company, and Arthur Andersen, one of the top five public accounting firms, were involved in corporate fraud that resulted in the bankruptcy of Enron and dissolution of Arthur Andersen. Shareholders lost more than $60 billion. 2002: WorldCom, a major telecommunications company, was caught in fraudulent accounting operations to maintain the price of its stock. As a result, the company filed for bankruptcy. According to investigators, the company’s total assets had been inflated by about $11 billion. 2002: Tyco, a manufacturer of electronic components and health care and safety equipment, also became engulfed in an accounting scandal when its CEO, Dennis Kozlowski, along with several other top executives, was exposed for selling shares of unauthorized stock for $450 million and smuggling these funds out of the country disguised as executives’ bonuses and benefits.
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2008: Bernard Madoff, owner of an investment advisory firm and former chairman of NASDAQ, admitted to running a huge Ponzi scheme, as a result of which his investors had been defrauded of $18 billion. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was one of the largest investment frauds in Wall Street history.
Subprime housing collapse and financial crisis In the first half of the decade, the housing market was thriving, housing values kept inflating and the phenomenon known as subprime lending began to emerge. Subprime and alternative mortgages with very low or no down payments and very low initial rates became available for people without steady jobs or with tainted credit histories who would not have qualified for regular mortgages in the past. These mortgages were then packaged into mortgage-backed securities and sold to investors. As the interest rates rose, the mortgage payments became increasingly higher, and the inflated housing prices went down. These people were unable to make their mortgage payments and were eventually crushed by debt. As a result, home foreclosures rose and the value of the mortgage-backed securities fell. As of September 2008, 25 million subprime and other mortgages were outstanding, with an unpaid principal of over $4.5 trillion. This led to the collapse of major investment banks, whose portfolios of loans were worth nothing. Some of these institutions had also been involved in fraudulent accounting practices such as deceitful transactions (in the case of Lehman Brothers). In late 2008, the Bush administration stepped in to mitigate the financial crisis by creating the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to bail out failing financial institutions.
Economic downfall of 2008 As banks had no lending ability because of their loss of assets, consumers and businesses could no longer borrow money, which affected their spending and productivity growth. New houses did not sell. The amount of foreclosures became unprecedented. Unemployment rose and consumer spending went down. By the time the Obama administration reached the White House in January of 2009, the economy was in a deep recession. The US
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national debt more than doubled (from $5,674,178,209,886.86 in 2000 to $11,909,829,003,511.75 in 2009) due in part to governmental efforts to mitigate the financial crisis. At the end of 2009, the US economy began to show some signs of recovery. A Pew Charitable Trusts report provides some relevant detail.4
BOX 1.2: PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS REPORT Income: US households lost on average $5,800 in income from September 2008 through to 2009. Government spending: Federal spending, due to government interventions to alleviate the financial crisis (Troubled Assets Relief Program), amounted to $2,050 for each household. Home values: The US lost $3.4 trillion in real estate wealth between July 2008 and March 2009, according to the Federal Reserve – $30,300 per household. The subprime mortgage crisis resulted in 500,000 more foreclosures than had been expected. Stock values: The US lost $7.4 trillion in stock wealth from July 2008 to March 2009, according to the Federal Reserve – roughly $66,200 per household. Jobs: 5.5 million more American jobs were lost during the financial crisis because of slower economic growth than had been predicted.
The economic crisis had major global repercussions. The US economy experienced significant decline in the growth of both exports and imports, which led to slowing production and employment cuts in the rest of the world.
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BOX 1.3: DEMOGRAPHICS In December 2009, the US population was 308.2 million. NonHispanic whites made up about two-thirds of the population.
Education The unsatisfactory quality of American elementary and secondary education continued to be a hot topic in political debates. To effect major changes in public education, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2002. This reform focused on four principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and teaching methods that had been proven to work. In an effort to improve elementary and secondary education, the Common Core State Standard Initiative was announced on 1 June 2009 to provide consistent and clear expectations of what students must learn. Secondary education graduation rates increased. In 2009–10, 3,128,022 public school students nationwide received a high school diploma; this resulted in an Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate of 78.2 per cent.5 In post-secondary education, between 2000 and 2008 the proportion of adults aged twenty-four and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 24 per cent to 28 per cent. The proportion of adults with an associate degree rose from 6 per cent to 8 per cent, while the number of adults completing college education without receiving a degree remained 21 per cent. Although educational achievement continued to increase among all racial and ethnic groups, there were still considerable gaps. In 2008, 31 per cent of non-Hispanic whites and 50 per cent of AsianAmericans had completed college or graduate education, compared to only 13 per cent of Hispanics and 18 per cent of blacks.6 Between 1999 and 2009, published tuition for four-year colleges increased by 39.8 per cent from the previous year; for two-year colleges, tuition increased by 3.1 per cent.
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Crime In 2002, the US incarceration rate reached the highest level in the world. The total number of prisoners continued to increase, from 6,437,400 in 2000 to 7,225,800 in 2009. While rates of violent crime declined (the homicide rate declined by nearly half, from 9.3 homicides per 100,000 residents in 1992 to 4.7 in 2011), crime involving federal offences and firearms slightly increased. In 2009, the number of people arrested on suspicion of federal offences reached 183,000, a significant rise from 140,000 in 2005. Firearm violence increased from 7.3 per cent of all violence in 2000 to 7.4 per cent in 2009; firearm homicides also increased from 1.7 per cent in 2000 to 2.7 per cent in 2009.7 Drug cases remained the most prevalent in terms of adjudication and sentencing. In 2009, five judicial districts along the US–Mexico border had more than 56 per cent of all federal arrests.
BOX 1.4: TYPES OF CRIME New types of crime involved cybercrime and online bullying. Examples of cybercrime included hacking, theft of information in electronic form, email bombing, virus/worm attacks and Trojan attacks. The decade also experienced an increase in corporate fraud and a spike in mass shootings. The deadliest mass shooting occurred in April 2007, when a student at Virginia Tech killed thirty-two people and wounded fifteen others before shooting himself.
Identity politics While the gender inequality gap continued to decrease, issues such as lower wages for women, a small percentage of women in leadership positions and a declining number of women in the labour force persisted. In 2010, women in the US on average received 81 per cent of the salary of their male counterparts, compared to about 62 per cent in 1979. In 2009, only 24 per cent of chief executive officers (CEOs) in the US were women, and their
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salaries were 74.5 per cent of what male CEOs earned.8 While women’s participation in US labour during the previous decades had increased, between 2000 and 2010 it dropped from 60 per cent of representation to 46.7 per cent.9 LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) rights evolved in varying degrees by state. Starting in 2000, some states began to recognize civil unions between same-sex couples. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples. By 2009, five states had passed same-sex marriage legislation. Many states outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Hate crimes also became punishable by federal law under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.
BOX 1.5: PROPOSITION 8 Proposition 8, or Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment that defined marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Created by opponents of same-sex marriage, it was passed in 2008 during state elections, overturning previous legalization of same-sex marriages by the state. A federal court then ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional in 2010.
The decade experienced remarkable achievements in race relations ranging from culture to politics. Colin Powell became the first African-American to serve as Secretary of State (2001); Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won the Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Actor in the same year (2002); Condoleezza Rice became the first African-American woman to serve as Secretary of State (2005); Barack Obama became the first African-American to win the presidency (2008); Sonia Sotomayor became the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice (2009). Despite these significant strides, racial and ethnic inequalities remained obdurate, especially in employment and income distribution, criminalization and immigration policies, and life expectancy.
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Table 1.1 Unemployment rates by race/ethnicity in 2009 Asian-Americans
Whites
Hispanics
Blacks
7.5%
8.7%
12.4%
15.3%
The recession of 2008 hit African-American and Latina/o communities particularly hard. The 4-percentage-point gap between unemployment rates for whites and blacks in 2000 grew to nearly 7 percentage points by 2009. The unemployment gap between whites and Latina/os increased significantly as well.10 In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, racial profiling and religious intolerance surged. A New York Times article reported in 2006 that ‘in the aftermath of Sept. 11, Arab Americans [had] a greater fear of racial profiling and immigration enforcement than of falling victim to hate crimes’.11
Environment The alarming environmental changes raised concerns about the world’s irresponsible consumption of natural resources, prompting research groups, business corporations and politicians to think of new ways to make our planet a greener, cleaner and ecologically safer place. The topic of climate change and its negative effects received much attention both domestically and globally, especially after the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and the recession of Arctic glaciers that occurred significantly faster than experts had predicted. Melting ice, drought, early springs and disappearing polar bears, among other species, were some of the disconcerting effects of the decade’s climate change. Climate change was also linked to devastating natural disasters such as the Southeast Asian tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Developing renewable energy sources and clean energy technologies became one of the principal goals of major environmental research and investment programmes. According to a 2009 United Nations Environment Program report, in 2008, $155 billion was invested globally in renewable energy, including hydropower and biofuels, a fourfold increase since 2004. While the US continued to lag in its effort to embrace green initiatives, politicians and
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businesses paid more attention to environmental protection. During all three presidential elections in the period, environmental concerns became a significant element in presidential debates. To protect the country’s key natural resources, the Obama administration launched America’s Great Outdoors Initiative in 2010. Other global environmental concerns included overpopulation, the water crisis, oil and coal ash spills, nuclear waste disposal, endangered species, pandemics and superbugs, all rooted in environmental causes.
Politics A Republican held the White House for most of the decade. George W. Bush became the 43rd US president after the Supreme Court ruling in his 2000 election dispute with Democrat Al Gore and won re-election in 2004. Barack Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, won the 2008 election and became the first AfricanAmerican president in US history. National security drove domestic and foreign policies after the 9/11 attacks. As a result of the Homeland Security Act in 2002, the Bush administration formed the US Department of Homeland Security as ‘a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur’.12 The US foreign policy after the 9/11 attacks that relied on a strategy of ‘preemptive strikes’ to protect the security of the country is often referred to as ‘the Bush Doctrine’.13
BOX 1.6: NEOCONSERVATISM Neoconservatives (at times referred to as neocons) rose to prominence during the Bush presidency and played a crucial role in promoting and planning the invasion of Iraq. Prominent neoconservatives in the administration included Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Paul Bremer. Neoconservatism advocates promotion of American interests in international affairs and adopts strategies such as the use of military force.
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The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was followed by the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom. Its main mission, according to Bush, was ‘to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people’.14 The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became increasingly unpopular, especially after the dissemination of official findings that Iraq had no chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction before the invasion. The public discontent with the wars also stemmed from the spikes in violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the rising numbers of US military casualties. In the meantime, the US grappled with the challenges of globalization, such as terrorism, growing environmental concerns and financial and economic crises. During the Bush administration, economic policies included the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 to boost the economy and prevent the recession, and the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, commonly referred to as a bailout of the US financial system.15 In 2009, President Obama formed the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry to manage the financial bailout of car manufacturers Chrysler and General Motors. Following task force recommendations, which included fuel-efficient cars, the US government loaned $25 billion to the companies.
BOX 1.7: THE TEA PARTY The Tea Party, which emerged as a grassroots political movement, consists of libertarian, populist and conservative activists. It sprang up in full force in early 2009 with multiple protests, including one at the US Capitol and National Mall, demanding reduction of government spending and taxes. (The Tea Party has also been called an ‘AstroTurf’ movement – a fake grassroots movement that actually was started and financed by elite groups.)
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Timeline of major political events16 2000 George W. Bush won the US presidency after the Supreme Court ruling despite winning fewer popular votes than Al Gore. Hillary Rodham Clinton won a United States Senate seat from New York, becoming the first First Lady to win public office. 2001 11 September: The terror attacks on the US orchestrated by Islamic fundamentalists caused nearly 3,000 deaths. 18 September: The first anthrax attacks by mail against targets among journalists and government officials were reported. 7 October: In response to the 11 September attacks, the US military, and its United Kingdom ally, began the first phase in the War on Terror by launching an offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. This war became the longest military conflict in US history. 26 October: Bush signed into law the USA PATRIOT Act. Its title stands for ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism’. 2002 21 May: The State Department declared that seven nations sponsored terrorism: Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. 2003 March: The US invaded Iraq, coordinating military operations with British, Australian, Polish and Danish ground troops. April: The US-led coalition seized control of Baghdad, driving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. He was later arrested and executed on 30 December 2006. June to November: Amnesty International and the Associated Press reported that the US military and the CIA abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information
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Act that indicated that the US government authorized the use of torture (‘enhanced interrogation techniques’) against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq. 2004 January: The CIA’s top weapons adviser in Iraq, David Kay, admitted that the country possessed no active weapons of mass destruction or related production facilities before the war – refuting the US justification of the invasion. In September, Kay’s successor as the CIA’s chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, testified before Congress that Hussein had no chemical or biological weapons and no capacity to make nuclear weapons. 2 November: Bush won re-election over Democratic Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts. 2005 29 August: Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge overwhelmed levees in greater New Orleans, flooding 80 per cent of the city: the confirmed death toll was 1,836 and the total damage was estimated at $108 billion. Katrina, arguably the greatest natural disaster in US history, prompted heated public debates about the local, state and federal governments’ lack of preparation and mismanagement of relief efforts. 2006 In the mid-term elections, the Democratic Party won control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate. This overwhelming victory was attributed to growing public discontent over the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. 2007 January: California Representative Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the US House of Representatives. January: Bush announced a ‘surge’ of additional troops into Iraq to stop attacks against coalition forces and civilians. June: A terror plot to blow up jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines at JFK International Airport in New York was foiled.
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2008 October: Bush signed into law the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act – a bailout of the US financial system. The $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase failing bank assets was the government’s response to the subprime mortgage crisis. November: Barack Obama overwhelmingly won the presidential election over John McCain. Obama became the 44th US president in January 2009. 2009 February: Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an economic stimulus package. April: Some 750 Tea Party protests emerged across the nation in response to government spending, such as the bailout of the banking and car industries that had begun during the Bush administration and expanded under Obama. October: Joblessness climbed above 10 per cent, signalling that the recession had deepened. December: Obama announced a ‘surge’ of 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan to curb increased Taliban attacks.
Terrorist attacks around the world 2001, 2002, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008,
11 September: 9/11 terrorist attacks, US (2,996 killed) October: Bali bombings, Indonesia (202 killed) October: Moscow theatre hostage crisis, Russia (130 killed) November: Istanbul bombings, Turkey (57 killed) March: Madrid train bombings, Spain (191 killed) September: Beslan school hostage crisis, Russia (334 killed) July: London bombings, UK (56 killed) August: Yazidi communities bombings, Iraq (796 killed) November: Mumbai attacks, India (164 killed)
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Everyday life Family life The definition of family continued to expand, especially with the legalization of civil unions and same-sex marriages. Despite legal hurdles concerning adoption for same-sex partners, the percentage of gays and lesbians with adopted children increased. While only about 8 per cent of same-sex couples had an adopted child in 2000, this number rose to about 19 per cent in 2009. Both marriage and divorce rates continued to decline. Whereas in 2000, the marriage rate was 8.2 per 1,000 individuals, in 2009 it dropped to 6.8. In 2000, the divorce rate was 4 per 1,000 people; in 2009 it decreased to 3.5.17 Pregnancy rates declined, reaching their lowest level in twelve years in 2009: 102.1 per 1,000 women aged fifteen to forty-four. Pregnancy rates for women younger than age thirty dropped; rates for women thirty and older increased. Rates for teenage pregnancy dropped, reaching a historically low level in 2009. Also, the abortion rate in 2009 was at its lowest level since 1976. Birth rates slightly rose in the middle of the decade but dropped again by 2009: from 2008 to 2009, the number of births declined by 3 per cent.18 Life expectancy continued to increase gradually. In 2009, life expectancy was 80.9 years for white women, 77.6 years for black women, 76.4 years for white men and 71.1 years for black men.19
What things cost From 2000 to 2009, the Consumer Price Index (the government’s inflation measure) as a whole rose by 24.5 per cent.
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Table 1.2 Consumer Price Index Product
1999 price
2009 price
Change
Slurpee, largest, 7-11
$0.99
$2.12
114.14%
Gallon of petrol
$1.30
$2.56
96.92%
Disneyland (one-day adult ticket)
$41.00
$72.00
75.61%
Average expanded basic cable (per month)
$31.22
$49.65
59.03%
Babysitting (per hour)
$7–$10
$10–$15
50.00%
Budweiser (six-pack of cans)
$4.01
$5.99
49.38%
Cinema ticket
$5.06
$7.18
41.90%
Aspirin (Bayer, 100-count)
$3.47
$4.81
38.62%
Sugar, 5 lb.
$2.13
$2.90
36.15%
Cheerios, one box
$3.89
$5.15
32.39%
Stamp, US, first class
$0.33
$0.44
33.33%
Cigarettes (Marlboro, per pack, California)
$4.65
$5.95
27.96%
$40.24
$49.57
23.19%
McDonald’s Big Mac
$2.50
$2.99
19.60%
Coca-Cola, 1 litre
$1.14
$1.34
17.54%
$18,900.00
$20,398.00
7.93%
Gallon of milk
$2.88
$3.05
5.90%
Coffee (Maxwell House, 34.5 oz.)
$9.99
$9.49
–5.01%
$329.00
$301.00
–8.51%
Mobile phone bill (average)
Wedding, average cost
Average domestic airfare Credit card average APR
15.07%
13.71%
Batteries (4 AA, Energizer)
$3.99
$3.49
–12.53%
$1,499.00
$999.00
–33.36%
iMac desktop computer
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Online shopping grew rapidly, as products were being advertised via video ads on websites, contextual ads on search engines and text messages to mobile phones.20
The gadgets we purchased iPhone, Amazon Kindle, iPod, Garmin GPS, Wii Remote, TiVo DVR, Slingbox, Blackberry, XBox, Sony PlayStation 3/Blu-Ray, Sonos Multi-room Music System, Flip Video Ultra, Jabra Bluetooth earpiece, USB flash drive.
How much we spent According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics,21 in 2008 average annual expenditures per consumer unit (i.e. family) were as follows: Average annual expenditures $50,486 Food at home $3,744 Food away from home $2,698 Housing $17,109 Petrol and motor oil $2,715 Healthcare $1,976 Apparel and services $1,801 Personal care products and services $616 Education $1,046 Entertainment $2,835 Alcoholic beverages $444 Tobacco products $317
Housing In 2008, homeownership was at 66.6 per cent, a decline from 67.2 per cent in 2007. As a result of the housing bubble and subprime mortgage crisis, foreclosures reached a record high: during the third quarter of 2009, one in every 136 housing units received a foreclosure filing.22
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Table 1.3 Median and average sales prices of new homes Year
Median
Average
2000
$169,000
$207,000
2001
$175,200
$213,200
2002
$187,600
$228,700
2003
$195,100
$246,300
2004
$221,000
$274,500
2005
$240,900
$297,000
2006
$246,500
$305,900
2007
$247,900
$313,600
2008
$232,100
$292,600
2009
$216,700
$270,900
Work Unemployment statistics From January 2000 to December 2009, unemployment rose from 4.0 per cent to 9.9 per cent, with the big hike from 2008 to 2009 due to the recession. As of October 2009, nearly 16 million people in the United States were unemployed.
Average earnings In 2000, median household income was $53,164. By 2004, it fell to $51,174, then recovered to an extent by 2007 before it fell to an even lower level by 2010: $49,445. By 2010 the (inflation-adjusted) household income level was 7 per cent below that in 2000.
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Poverty In 2008, a family with two adults and two children was considered poor if its income fell below $21,834. In 2008, the total poverty rate rose to 13 per cent, while the child poverty rate reached 19 per cent, marking the highest rates since 1997. For working-age adults, poverty increased by 1 per cent from 2007 to 2008.23
Words that entered the vocabulary and were in common usage American Dialect Society’s Words of the Year: 2000: chad (from the 2000 US presidential election controversy, in reference to fragments hanging from paper ballots during the manual recount of votes in Florida) 2001: 9/11 2002: weapons of mass destruction (or WMD, in the Iraq War) 2003: metrosexual (an urban man concerned about his grooming and fashion) 2004: red state, blue state, purple state (from US elections) 2005: truthiness (coined by television comedian Stephen Colbert) 2006: plutoed (demoted or devalued, as was the former planet Pluto) 2007: subprime (a risky loan to someone with poor credit) 2008: bailout (a government rescue of a collapsing corporation) 2009: tweet (a short post sent via Twitter) 2010: app (application software) The word of the decade was google (used as a verb). Other popular words included Y2K, dot-com, blog, texting, sustainable, embedded. New phrases included climate change, financial tsunami, ground zero, war on terror, carbon footprint, cloud computing.
Trends in smoking and drug abuse Smoking declined as a result of stricter regulations on tobacco advertising and restrictions in public places. Anti-smoking
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tobacco policies led to the significant price increase for tobacco products, which also contributed to the decline in smoking. The decade experienced unprecedented deaths from drug overdoses. Since 1980, overdose death rates increased five times. By 2009, drug overdose deaths had outnumbered deaths resulting from motor vehicle crashes. Prescription drugs, especially opioid analgesics, were increasingly involved in overdose deaths. During this period, opioid-related overdose deaths exceeded overdose deaths involving all illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Rates of emergency room visits because of pharmaceutical misuse or abuse escalated dramatically.24
Culture Corporate entertainment and technology continued to affect the development of culture. With a huge jump in broadband Internet (there were 77.4 million broadband subscribers in the US in December 2008) and an increased use of wireless networks, blogs, portals, intranets and wikis became common electronic dissemination methods for professionals, amateurs and businesses. Peer-to-peer technology such as Skype and file-sharing applications such as KaZaA and Limewire made cultural exchanges, communication and peer evaluation more effective. While the debate over the ethics of file-sharing continued, legal music download services such as iTunes and streaming services such as Spotify opened up new markets. Netflix began to provide online digital streaming in 2007 while it continued to rent DVDs to its subscribers through an online service: by 2009, its DVD collection had grown to include 1,000,000 titles and its subscriber base had exceeded 10 million users. Hulu (2007) and Amazon Instant Video (2008, initially called Amazon Video on Demand) also entered the market, providing instant streaming of selected films and TV shows. With the help of the latest technology, stand-up comedy achieved new popularity, reaching a wider audience across ages, races, genders and economic status. Comedians celebrated cultural idiosyncrasies and embraced technological innovations, employing various media. Performers such as Sarah Silverman, John
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Leguizamo and Dave Chapelle won public acclaim by confronting and subverting gender stereotypes and ethnic/racial assumptions. Dane Cook became one of the first comedians to maximize the potential of Internet marketing (such as MySpace), reaching a large young audience. Dan Whitney offered blue-collar comedy. Other noteworthy comedians included Chris Rock and Aziz Ansari.
BOX 1.8: VIDEO GAMES The video game industry’s profits surpassed the profits of the film industry in 2004. With a constant advancement of video game consoles – PlayStation 2 (2000), Xbox 360 (2005) and PlayStation 3 (2006) – the quality of 3D graphics significantly improved. As video gaming increasingly became one of the cultural markers of the 2000s, criticism emerged about the games’ violent content (as in Grand Theft Auto and Super Columbine Massacre RPG) and addictive effect.
Film The decade’s top-grossing movies included Avatar (2009), The Dark Knight (2008), Shrek 2 (2004) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Major trends encompassed the proliferation of science fiction and fantasy, the impact of technology on popular culture and the celebration of a superhero. The decade produced a considerable number of film sequels such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Shrek, as well as movies based on novels such as Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code, demonstrating a continued trend toward the mass commercialization of the film industry. Notable highlights of the Academy Awards included: 2001: The ‘Best Animated Feature Film’ category was added; Shrek won the award. The decade experienced a surge of African-American winners in the categories of Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/ Actress. Between 2000 and 2009, seven awards were presented
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to African-Americans: Denzel Washington (Best Actor, Training Day, 2001), Halle Berry (Best Actress, Monster’s Ball, 2001), Jamie Foxx (Best Actor, Ray, 2004), Morgan Freeman (Best Supporting Actor, Million Dollar Baby, 2004), Forest Whitaker (Best Actor, The Last King of Scotland, 2006), Jennifer Hudson (Best Supporting Actress, Dreamgirls, 2006) and Mo’Nique (Best Supporting Actress, Precious, 2009). 2005: Ang Lee received the Best Director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, a ‘gay cowboy movie’ about a sexual/romantic relationship between two men.
BOX 1.9: FILM INDUSTRY RESPONSE TO 9/11 The film industry’s response to 9/11 included Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002), the television movie DC 9/11: Time of Crisis (2003), Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center (2006) and Paul Greengrass’s United 93 (2006). Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), a biting commentary on Bush administration politics in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, became the biggestgrossing documentary of all time. It won major film awards including the Palme d’Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Other documentaries that raised social consciousness in the decade included Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002), exploring the roots of gun violence in the US, and Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006), pointing to the dangers of global warming.
2009: The Hurt Locker received the Best Picture Oscar, and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman to win Best Director. The film’s plot centres on the lives of American soldiers during the Iraq War. Other movies that won Best Picture from 2000 to 2009 were Gladiator (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Chicago (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Million Dollar
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Baby (2004), Crash (2005), The Departed (2006), No Country for Old Men (2007) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008). The decade also featured increased representation of foreignborn actors and directors among the Oscar winners: Benicio del Toro (Best Supporting Actor, Traffic, 2000), Roman Polanski (Best Director, The Pianist, 2002) and Javier Bardem (Best Supporting Actor, No Country for Old Men, 2007). Notable films depicting foreign settings included Slumdog Millionaire, 2008 (Best Picture and Best Director – Danny Boyle), and The Pianist, 2002 (Best Actor – Adrienne Brody, and Best Director – Polanski).
Music The decade’s technological advances made a significant impact on music’s digital distribution, marketing and public access. Napster, a free online digital music-sharing website, operated from 1999 until 2001, closing because of copyright infringement (it later reopened as a paid membership website). With the downfall of Napster, the iPod (2001) and iTunes (2001) stepped in to appeal to the younger generation. Apple claimed that the iPod became the fastest-selling music player in history. Apple’s iTunes Music Store (2003) sold individual songs in digital format for less than a dollar and became the biggest music market and most convenient way for music distribution. With the launch of YouTube (2005), music sharing entered a new era: homemade music videos went viral, bringing overnight popularity to artists. Live concerts, however, continued to draw big crowds of music fans. Music began to cross cultures, with the influence of rap, hip-hop and pop around the world. The decade offered a variety of music genres; these genres included hip-hop (Eminem, Kanye West, Jay-Z), R&B (Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Usher), Pop (Britney Spears; country style – Taylor Swift), electronic pop (Lady Gaga), pop (pop punk music – Blink 182; Emo music – Jimmy Eat World; garage rock – the Strokes, the White Stripes), jazz (Norah Jones) and others. The boy-band craze of the 1990s abated; Justin Timberlake (formerly of N’Sync) moved on to have a successful solo career as a singer and actor. The use of Auto-Tune technology (audio processor) and futuristic synthesizers changed the sound of pop music, popularized by the Black Eyed Peas with songs such as ‘I Gotta Feeling’. The
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‘mashup’ emerged as a musical form that juxtaposes several songs different in style. Children’s pop music had a strong presence, with movies, TV shows and artists such as the Cheetah Girls, High School Musical, Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.
BOX 1.10: THE GRAMMY AWARDS The Grammy Award recipients for Best New Artist were Christina Aguilera (2000), Shelby Lynne (2001), Alicia Keys (2002), Norah Jones (2003), the rock metal band Evanescence (2004), the pop rock band Maroon 5 (2005), John Legend (2006) and Carrie Underwood (2007). The 2008 and 2009 awards went to the British singers Amy Winehouse and Adele.
Notable events in music include: 2001: A tribute concert for 9/11 aired on VH1 on 20 October, with performances by Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, the Who, Billy Joel and others. After Eminem’s album The Marshall Mathers LP drew backlash from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, openly gay singer Elton John responded by performing with Eminem at the Grammy Awards in 2001. The message he sent was that he would ‘rather tear down walls between people than build them up’. 2002: American Idol – an American singing competition series based on the British series Pop Idol – became one of the most popular television shows. It is also noteworthy for its interactive feature: winners were selected by viewers voting through telephone, Internet and text messaging. Kelly Clarkson won the first season. 2003: ‘From the Big Apple to the Big Easy’ was a collaborative music event involving Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall to raise funds for the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Proceeds from the simultaneous benefit concerts reached $9 million;
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performers included Elton Jones, Irma Thomas, Lenny Kravitz and Elvis Costello. 2009: Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop’, died. His personal physician was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for administering Jackson a massive dose of the anaesthetic propofol. After his death, Jackson became the bestselling albums artist of 2009.
Art Technology permeated the decade’s art scene. The trends included multimedia installations created with new technology, virtual art tours of museums and galleries and the use of social media to spark conversations around the issues of contemporary art. Art critic Jerry Saltz, for instance, used Facebook as a platform to bolster critical debates. Museums’ efforts to become more accessible and target a new audience resulted in exhibitions displaying popular content: in 2000, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City held an exhibition of Giorgio Armani’s fashion designs; in 2002, the Brooklyn Museum organized a tribute to Star Wars.25 Artworks also explored the decade’s themes of self-conscious anxiety and isolation that emerged in response to globalization and the growing social interactivity. In addition to reflecting on issues of identity and self-reflections, contemporary art – often through site-specific installations – emphasized environmental concerns that persisted during the period. Furthermore, artists grappled with what it meant to be an artist during wartime. Dario Robleto’s ‘Caught in Man’s Amnesia’, for instance – ‘a collection of bullets made of melted and cast unused bullet casings from every American war’ – invited the viewer to contemplate ‘the notions of war, peace, memory, and salvation’.26 The art world reflected the decade’s economic bubble and its subsequent bursting: in 2006 and 2007, auctions sold artwork for outrageous prices; then in 2008, art sales sharply plummeted. During the economic bubble, the Neue Galerie in New York purchased a Klimt painting for $135 million (2006), and Damien Hirst’s ‘For the Love of God’, a human skull covered in platinum and encrusted in diamonds, sold for $100 million (2007).
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New and reconstructed museum spaces opened across the country. The reconfigured and enlarged Museum of Modern Art in New York City reopened in 2004. New York’s New Museum for Contemporary Art opened at a new location in the Bowery in 2007. Prominent collectors built their own museums: for example, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami (opened in 1996) and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in Los Angeles (opened in 2008). In February 2003, the design competition to rebuild the World Trade Center was complete. Architect Daniel Libeskind won the award.
Books The decade’s bestselling novels were The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown (about conspiracy in the Catholic Church), The Kite Runner (2003) by Khaled Hosseini (written by an Afghan writer and set in Afghanistan, it provides a global perspective to American readers), Twilight (2005) by Stephenie Meyer (the first in a series that won new popularity for the genre of vampire romance) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007) by J. K. Rowling (the final book in the Harry Potter series).
BOX 1.11: WRITERS’ RESPONSE TO 9/11 Writers began to tackle the subject of 9/11 by delving into the emotional impact of the terrorist attacks. Some of the books in this category included William Gibson’s Pattern of Recognition (2003), Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), Don DeLillo’s Falling Man (2007) and Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland (2008).
Among the Pulitzer Prize winners in the category of Fiction were The Quick and the Dead (2001) by Joy Williams, Blonde (2001) by Joyce Carol Oates, The Corrections (2002) by Jonathan
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Franzen, Evidence of Things Unseen (2004) by Marriane Wiggins, The March (2006) by E. L. Doctorow, After This (2007) by Alice McDermott, Tree of Smoke (2008) by Denis Johnson, All Souls (2009) by Christine Schutt and The Plague of Doves (2009) by Louise Erdrich. The decade experienced the trend of popularizing novels through other media such as film or musical theatre. Novels made into films included the Harry Potter series; the Twilight series; Where the Wild Things Are; The Chronicles of Narnia; The Da Vinci Code; Dr Seuss: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Cat in the Hat and Horton Hears a Who!; and The Lord of the Rings series. Remakes or adaptations of classics included Charlotte’s Web, A Christmas Carol and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Novels made into musicals included The Wild Party, Seussical the Musical, A Year with Frog and Toad, Wicked, The Color Purple, The Light in the Piazza and Little Women.
Sport Sports programmes and live events on television continued to draw a diverse viewership, although the audience that watched programmes that ranked in the top ten prime-time broadcasts was only at around 8 per cent between 2001 and 2008; in 2009, it jumped to 19.4 per cent.27 Trends in sport reflected the decade’s general concerns and developments. After 9/11, security significantly intensified at major sporting events, with more sombre moments dedicated to the military and patriotism. Increased globalization entered the sports arena, with the National Football League beginning to play games at Wembley Stadium in London, starting in 2007, and Major League Baseball playing two spring training games in China in 2008. The explosion of the Internet affected sport, as Fantasy Football websites made Fantasy Football one of the most important marketing tools for the NFL, while Twitter allowed sports commentators to debate online. Major League Baseball was put under the microscope when record-holders such as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire were suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs. American football grew in popularity, for both the NFL and college teams.
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In 2007, two African-American head coaches faced each other in the Super Bowl for the first time: Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts.
BOX 1.12: 2004 SUPER BOWL ‘ WARDROBE MALFUNCTION’ In 2004, the Super Bowl halftime show, featuring Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, turned controversial when a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ exposed Jackson’s breast (with a decorative nipple shield).
Celebrity culture and fashion Because of the explosion of Internet culture, the lives of celebrities became increasingly more public. The public were obsessed with celebrities’ relationships, pregnancies, diets, nervous breakdowns and addictions. The celebrities whose tribulations attracted most public attention were Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Couples and love triangles also garnered media interest: Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck (‘Bennifer’); Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes; Cruise and ex-wife Nicole Kidman; Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (‘Brangelina’); and Pitt and ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. The term ‘celebrity worship syndrome’ first appeared in 2003. Just as music was not dominated by any one genre, fashion also was eclectic: MM
MM
MM
Popular designers included Alexander McQueen and Vera Wang. Popular fashion styles included ‘hobo chic’, gender bending, Ugg boots, faded and torn denim, and vintage-inspired clothing. Popular stores included Old Navy, H&M and Target.
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BOX 1.13: QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a reality TV makeover show, premiered in 2003. This represented the inclusion of openly gay personalities in popular culture and appropriated the stereotype that homosexual men have superior taste in both fashion and culture.
Media The proliferation of digital and social media outlets as well as online (on-demand) access to music, television shows and films characterized the decade. The rise of digital media resulted in the steady decline of printed books, magazines and newspapers. E-readers and online blogs continued to increase in readership and popularity. Online news outlets attracted aspiring journalists and writers who embraced digital platforms; as a result, digital journalism began to emerge. The Internet and other forms of digital media became major sources of information.
Television and television journalism The way we watch television was transformed by DVR, online streaming, digital cable and video on-demand. DirectTV experienced significant growth, providing its viewers with increased access to global culture. TiVo, a digital video recorder (DVR), allowed the user to pause and rewind live TV. It also offered features such as ‘WishList’ searches or ‘Season Pass’ schedules, which could record every new episode of a television series. The advent of TiVo affected advertising: as viewers could skip through commercials, more companies invested in product placement, or embedded marketing, especially in reality TV. Reality TV became extremely popular. Among shows attracting large audiences were Survivor (receiving top ratings in 2001 and 2002) and American Idol (receiving top ratings in 2004 through
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to 2009). Reality television categories included competition shows (Big Brother, Survivor), singing/dance/talent competition shows (Dancing with the Stars, American Idol), fashion-themed series (Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model), documentary or narrative-style shows (The Hills, The Real Housewives), game shows (Deal or No Deal, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire), cooking shows (Top Chef, Chopped) and makeover shows (The Swan, for instance, depicts women undergoing extensive plastic surgery). Emmy Awards were instituted to reflect the large popularity of reality television: these included Outstanding Reality Program (2001), Outstanding Reality-Competition Program (2003) and Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program (2008). Television sitcoms and dramas that gained viewers’ popularity included Arrested Development, South Park (adult animation), The West Wing, The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost, The Office, Weeds, Mad Men, Dexter and Breaking Bad. The most popular television shows that provided commentary on current political events and affected public opinion were The Daily Show, a late-night comedy programme hosted by Jon Stewart; Saturday Night Live, a late-night live sketch comedy and variety show that started in the 1970s; and the Colbert Report, hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert. Other nightly news broadcasts included shows on the major broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC. According to the Pew Research Center findings, the difference in how the public received election news in 2000, 2004 and 2008 was considerable. In 2000, television news dominated and the Internet was ‘a relatively minor source for campaign news’, but in 2004, the Internet gained almost equal footing with news outlets such as ‘public television broadcasts, Sunday morning news programs and the weekly news magazines’. In 2008, the percentage of the population that received most of its campaign news from the Internet tripled from 2004 (from 10 per cent to 33 per cent).28
Radio and newspapers Radio declined in popularity as more listeners used MP3 players and iPods to customize music while driving. To compete with digital media, many radio stations such as National Public Radio streamed their content over the Internet to allow online users to
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gain access to their programmes. New radio technologies included satellite radio and HD radio, providing a higher quality and wider reach broadcast programming than a standard radio broadcast. Newspapers suffered a major blow with the development of the Internet, especially as free sites such as Craigslist replaced much of the need for classified advertising. As circulation of printed newspapers declined, the number of online newspapers (some were free), newspaper blogs and Twitter accounts, online newspaper archives and online magazines grew exponentially.
Social media The social media explosion offered users new and effective ways to connect, interact, post comments, share ideas and multimedia content, stage ‘flash mobs’ and influence political events. Kaplan and Haenlein, in their article ‘Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media’, identify the decade’s six different types of social media: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds and virtual social world. Social media technologies included Internet forums, wikis, blogs, podcasts, multimedia sharing, wallpostings, email and instant messaging, among others. A blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value drove social media development.29
BOX 1.14: SOCIAL NETWORKING Social networking accounted for 22 per cent of all time spent online in the US. Twitter processed more than one billion tweets in December 2009 and averaged almost 40 million tweets per day. Over 25 per cent of US Internet page views occurred at one of the top social networking sites in December 2009, up from 13.8 per cent a year before.30
As social media became more accessible, concerns grew about online bullying and the necessity of parental control. ‘Unfriend’ was the New Oxford American Dictionary word of 2009.
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Technology and science Digital media Technological innovations during the first years of the century significantly transformed the ways in which we communicate, obtain information and present ourselves to the world. Inventions such as instant text messaging, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, among others, defined this decade as a digital age. The digital revolution both simplified and complicated our ability to process and analyse data. The instant availability of unlimited informational resources improved our daily activities, but also caused a great deal of confusion and frustration, as there was no longer a single voice of authority. Computers and gadgets began to rule our lives. Video games and social networking offered people the opportunity to create alternative realities and assume virtual identities.
BOX 1.15: DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB The development of the World Wide Web marked the decade. Web 2.0 – a new phase in web technology – allowed users to interact with web content, collaborate with each other in a social media environment and generate new content. The user-generated movement became publicly acknowledged when in 2006 Time magazine named ‘You’ its Person of the Year. As Time magazine’s editor, Lev Grossman, explained, ‘It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the millionchannel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace.’31
Information technology enabled people to interact with the world with unprecedented efficiency and maintain their virtual
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presence through social media. Technological developments were also intricately connected to many political controversies, such as the post-9/11 culture of surveillance as well as the leaking of documents, photographs and videos over the Internet.
Timeline of major technological developments 2000 GPS (Global Positioning System), the satellite-based system, originally developed by the Department of Defense, became available to civilian users. Toyota Motor Corporation introduced the Prius, an affordable hybrid car, to the US market. AT&T became the first US cellular company to offer instant text messaging for mobile phones. Sony released PlayStation 2, followed by Microsoft’s Xbox in 2001. These groundbreaking video game consoles sparked the development of the video gaming industry. Trek Technology and IBM began to market the first USB flash drives with a storage capacity of 8 MB, exceeding the capacity of floppy disks by more than five times. 2001 Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Internet entrepreneurs and project developers, launched Wikipedia, a free-access, online, user-edited encyclopaedia. Despite debates over the accuracy of its content, Wikipedia remained the Internet’s most extensive and popular reference site. The launch of Wikipedia signified a new era of usergenerated content. Apple introduced the iPod, which instantly became the bestselling digital music player and a cultural icon, transforming the music industry forever. With the click of a mouse, consumers could buy and download music albums, rendering CD and record stores obsolete. Apple continued to update the model, expanding it to Shuffles, Nanos and finally the iPod Touch. While the original iPod could only hold 1,000 songs, the iPod classic model in 2009 had capacity for up to 40,000 songs.
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2002 Replacing a two-way pager that became available in 1999, BlackBerry introduced a generation of mobile devices – the BlackBerry smart phone – allowing its users to send text messages, communicate via email, access the Internet, take photographs, make phone calls, and so on. It first won popularity among corporate executives but gradually became a mainstream gadget. Friendster was launched. Based on the ‘Circle of Friends’ technique for networking people in virtual communities, Friendster triggered the social networking revolution. It was the top online social networking service until 2004. 2003 Chris De Wolfe and Tom Anderson introduced MySpace, an online social networking service that quickly outgrew Friendster and, between 2005 and 2008, became the largest networking site in the world. Second Life, a user-centred online 3D virtual world, sparked the public’s obsession with creating virtual environments populated by avatars, the users’ virtual representation of themselves. 2004 Mark Zuckerberg, with his classmates and fellow students at Harvard University, launched Facebook – an online social networking service that eventually exceeded MySpace in popularity and became a major force driving the decade’s social networking. This advanced social networking service allowed users to engage in a variety of online activities such as posting status updates and photos, sharing videos, exchanging messages and receiving notifications. 2005 The launching of the video-sharing website YouTube gave an average person unprecedented power over social media. Any person could now record and share personal stories and performances, as well as broadcast social and political controversies. With the help of an inexpensive hand-held camera or a smart phone, anyone could become a virtual sensation.
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2006 The online social networking service Twitter was launched to promote brief, instant and frequent communication. The service enables users to send and receive 140-character messages called tweets. Twitter brought brevity to social networking and increased the social and political impact of social media. Furthermore, to better facilitate student interactions in large lecture classes, Twitter was used as a learning tool in educational settings. As users were able to follow other users (not necessarily mutual friends), Twitter turned into a valuable information platform – but also a way to compromise one’s reputation. Nintendo launched Wii and Wii Sports, revolutionizing video gaming. Wii targeted a broader demographic by facilitating 3D participation in a video game: a person could play tennis or engage in a cardiovascular exercise while operating the controller. 2007 Apple released the touchscreen iPhone, whose consumer-friendly design as well as sizable memory and processing power made a significant impact on the smart phone industry. Mobile applications in smart phones – whether they are iPhones, BlackBerries, Android-powered phones or Palm devices – allowed people to perform a variety of tasks, such as playing a video game or accessing the Internet. Amazon introduced the Kindle, the first generation of e-book readers that enabled users to shop for, download, browse and read e-books and other digital media via Wi-Fi. 2008 The Retail DNA Test became available to the public, giving people access to their genetic profiles. Tesla Motors released the Tesla Roadster, the first highwaycapable battery-powered car. 2009 The solar shingle, a residential roof shingle in the form of a solar panel, became available on the market.
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BOX 1.16: TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICES Technologies and devices that were introduced in the 1990s but proliferated in the 2000s include Google Web Search, digital cameras, TiVo digital video recorders and DVDs. Toward the end of the decade, technological devices became smaller, more sophisticated and intuitive for users.
Scientific discoveries The human genome project An international scientific research project that explored the sequencing of human DNA to identify and map all human genes was completed in 2003. The project, which the US funded, is considered the world’s largest collaborative biological project. The project’s discoveries benefit multiple fields, including medicine, forensic sciences, agriculture and anthropology.
Stem cell research Stem cell research continued despite restrictions that President George W. Bush imposed in 2001 on federal funding of research on human embryonic cells. Scientists achieved significant breakthroughs in research that uses adult stem cells. In 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order on ‘Removing Barriers on Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells’. The decade’s stem cell research resulted in great success in treating spinal injuries and reversing blindness.
NASA research In NASA research, major breakthroughs included the advent of orbital space tourism in 2001, with the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito, self-sponsoring his week-long stay in the International Space Station. In 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Mission – an ongoing robotic space mission that includes two rovers – reached
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the surface of the planet Mars and communicated detailed data and images back to Earth. The mission found evidence of past water on the Martian surface. The Voyager I spacecraft entered the heliosheath, the outermost layer of the heliosphere, marking its first departure from the solar system. In 2005, with the discovery of Eris, an object in the Kuiper belt (an area beyond the solar system) larger than Pluto, Pluto was demoted to a ‘dwarf planet’. It had been considered a planet for 76 years. In 2009, the first Earth-like planet with a solid structure was discovered outside the solar system. Scientists also detected water ice on the Moon.
Medical research The decade’s significant advances included the standardization of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy, or combination therapy, for treating HIV/AIDS, as well as therapies for cancer treatment. The Food and Drug Administration approved 244 new drugs.
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2 Theatre in the 2000s Julia Listengarten
Background Mapping a landscape for the future of American theatre at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Ben Cameron – the executive director of Theatre Communications Group (TCG)1 at the time – identified challenges for theatre managers, artists and writers to address during the coming decade. He underlined the importance of serving broad communities by diversifying the audience base and identified theatre’s needs to create performance spaces to present experimental new work, to reassess the impact of technology on viewers and to commit to broader representation of traditionally marginalized groups. Asserting that ‘our audience increasingly operates from a visual, associative framework of perception’, Cameron urged practitioners to consider the implications of the increasingly developing Internet and image-driven culture for theatre, ‘long a teller of linear, narrative stories’. He acknowledged that American theatre had begun to tackle generational issues and had made significant strides in addressing racial concerns, but also said that ‘issues of gender, sexual orientation, and physical ability still tend[ed] to remain, unfortunately, on the peripheries of discussion’.2 As the country experienced devastating terrorist attacks, disastrous wars and financial meltdowns, as well as the incredible
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growth of digital and social media, Cameron’s call to re-examine the direction of American theatre resonated throughout the first decade of the 2000s. Theatre companies and practitioners looked for new ways to rethink financial and marketing strategies, increase activism locally and nationally, foster new artistic partnerships, collaborate with non-stage media and cultivate new audiences. These efforts continued into the next decade as theatre professionals, during roundtable discussions or through surveys that TCG facilitated in 2010 and 2011, pondered strategies to bring artists, institutions and communities together.3 This chapter aims to explore American theatre’s response to the unstable political, economic and cultural climate of the 2000s. While the following discussion addresses major developments on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional and experimental theatres, particular attention is paid to significant themes and trends that emerged from increased globalization, international conflicts, economic recession and national isolation. Some involved contention with identity and politics, expanded representation of marginalized voices, and moral and political relativism. Others concerned new methods of engagement with the audience, increased interdisciplinary and multicultural exchanges, and the effects of technological advancements on stage. Notably, the majority of these discussions and developments occurred across various types of theatre, often blurring the distinctions between commercial and not-for-profit organizations and encompassing traditional venues such as Broadway and regional theatres, as well as ensemble-based collectives committed to experimental work. In order to offer a wide-ranging perspective on American theatre during the decade, the chapter includes a discussion of new plays as well as a recognition of the growing importance of non-scripted, devised work created through groups’ collaborative processes. The goal of this study is to capture many facets of American theatre from 2000 to 2009: its dialogue with popular culture, questions about cultural assumptions of identity, integration of different art forms, and response to national and global concerns.
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Theatre responds to 9/11 The 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in thousands of lives lost, immense physical and financial devastation and fear of global terrorism, which drastically changed American society and had a tremendous impact on US culture. Downtown Manhattan theatre organizations near the World Trade Center were damaged and lost their homes. Theatre institutions in New York and around the nation faced financial disaster. Despite the initial shock that American theatres experienced with the rest of the country, many theatre communities stepped forward to give the public opportunities to unite and reflect. ‘Dark into Light, Light into Darkness: Atlanta Artists Respond’, at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre Company, featured readings from classic plays and famous American speeches, including excerpts from William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck and Martin Luther King Jr. The text prepared by dramaturg Megan Monaghan for this occasion was subsequently performed in Philadelphia, Iowa City, Austin and Seattle. Additionally, theatre communities in New York City and elsewhere helped by organizing relief efforts and community dialogues. Starting on 22 October 2001, the Worth Street Theater Company held a free variety show every Monday evening, primarily intended for Ground Zero rescue crews. Titled The TriBeCa Playhouse Stage-Door Canteen,4 the show included performances by Broadway celebrities such as Adam Pasqual and Kristin Chenoweth. Donations collected at each performance benefited the Twin Towers Fund. Theatres made sensitive choices by cancelling or postponing productions whose subject matter could be a painful reminder of the tragedy. Five Broadway plays were cancelled in the week of 9/11: the Rocky Horror Picture Show; If You Ever Leave Me, I’m Going with You; Stones in His Pockets; A Thousand Clowns; and Blast! The McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, cancelled a production of Richard Nelson’s The Vienna Notes – a political tale about a self-absorbed politician and his callous, ineffective response to a terrorist attack – explaining that ‘the context in which we would receive the play has changed drastically, and it would be insensitive of us to present the play at this moment in our history’.5 The Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins at the Roundabout Theatre Company was postponed until the
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spring of 2004. Zulu Time, a ‘techno-cabaret’ performance piece that Canadian theatre-maker Robert Lepage conceived to recreate unsettling experiences of air travel, was removed from the bill of the Quebec-New York 2001 multi-arts festival. One of the first shows that dealt with the 9/11 devastation, Reno’s A Rebel Without a Pause, opened in late October 2001 at La MaMa in the East Village. Reno, a comic monologist and feminist performer who lived a few blocks from the towers and experienced the unravelling of the tragedy first-hand, offered her own gut-wrenching memories of the day and contemplated her initial reactions filled with bewilderment and incomprehension. This both cathartic and witty performance was intensely personal but also included a ‘cheerfully scathing critique’ of President Bush and his administration.6 Filmmaker Nancy Savoca filmed Reno’s performance on 18 December 2001; the movie opened in May 2003. As film critic Stephen Holden observed, ‘There are no sacred cows in Reno’s cynical and absurdist take on terrorism and politics. Even Rudolph W. Giuliani is not exempt from comic scorn.’7 Just a few blocks from Ground Zero, the Flea Theater in downtown Manhattan responded twelve weeks after 9/11 with the staging of Anne Nelson’s The Guys. Prompted by Jim Simpson, the Flea Theater artistic director, Nelson – a first-time playwright – wrote a two-person play from her experience of helping a New York fire captain compose eulogies for firefighters. The production, starring Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray, was subsequently staged in other American cities and abroad. In August 2002, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins took the play to the Edinburgh Festival, where they offered three sold-out performances. Commenting on the play’s merit and the stars’ excellent performances, critic Michael Billington also noted the script’s ‘congratulatory and politically incurious’ nature.8 In 2002, the play was adapted into a film, and in 2006, it returned to the Flea Theater for a commemorative run on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Although Christopher Shinn’s Where Do We Live never references 9/11 directly, this play traces the catastrophe’s impact on young New Yorkers living on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Where Do We Live was produced in May 2002 at the Royal Court Theatre in London before making its way back to New York for the American premiere in 2004 at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre. In David Rimmer’s New York, which opened in New
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York in April 2002 at Lotus for the Disaster Psychiatry Outreach, characters engaged in personal contemplations of the tragedy as they individually reflect on their own harrowing experiences in a psychiatrist office soon after 9/11. The Bomb, a controversial piece performed by the International WOW Company in March 2002 at the Flamboyán Theater on the Lower East Side, ‘wove together material dealing with the Second World War, the atomic age, and 9/11 to create a powerful meditation on modern violence and terror’, scholar Marvin Carlson observed.9 Pointing to the significance of this work in the aftermath of 9/11, New York Times critic Lawrence Van Gelder wrote that The Bomb ‘raised questions not just about the role of the United States in creating nuclear bombs but also about responsibility, good and evil, and mankind’s seemingly ineluctable propensity for waging war and wreaking mass destruction’.10 As the country struggled with anxiety over national security and the global implications of terror, theatre addressed concerns about the role of Western democracies in world politics but also pointed to the importance of personal responsibility and the tragic consequences of silence and denial. A few theatre works written or created before the attacks resonated in a post-9/11 world by challenging the audience to weigh difficult questions of blame, complicity and agency. Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul (1999), which captures the cultural divide between the West and Afghanistan, premiered on 25 December 2001, at the New York Theatre Workshop. Subsequently, the Theatre Workshop presented the first American production of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away (2000); its opening, on 11 November 2002, perhaps intentionally followed the first anniversary of 9/11. Referring to these works as ‘the powerful achievements of the deepest kind of political theater’, critic Alisa Solomon wrote in the Village Voice that ‘Far Away – like Homebody/Kabul – is prophetic not so much in predicting catastrophe, but in exposing the devastation human beings have already wrought but failed to take responsibility for.’11 Multiple productions of Greek tragedies, specifically Medea (Milwaukee’s Chamber Theatre, the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, California, Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis and Classical Theater of Harlem in New York), compelled audiences to re-examine guilt, violence, retribution and suffering.
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As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached and Americans began to grapple with the new post-9/11 reality, more intentional responses – sometimes subtle and indirect but more often explicit and full of heartfelt commentary – emerged in playwriting and performance. Craig Wright’s Recent Tragic Events (which premiered in September 2002 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, and was produced in September 2003 by Playwrights Horizons, an Off-Broadway company) concerned a blind date on 12 September 2001; it was called the first 9/11 comedy. Neil LaBute’s The Mercy Seat, which opened in December 2002 at New York’s Acorn Theatre and starred Weaver and Liev Schreiber, is also set on the day after the tragedy and taps into darker, morally ambiguous responses that a disaster of this magnitude may have triggered. The main character, Ben, worked at the World Trade Center but happened to be away with his mistress during the attacks. Thinking that his family might believe he died, he is consumed by an egotistical urge and contemplates eloping with his mistress and starting a new life. Schreiber, who portrayed Ben in the New York production, admired LaBute’s willingness to address ‘complicated and disturbing feelings around loss and grief and terror … in their ugly and naked glory’.12 Anthems: Culture Clash in the District, commissioned and produced in August 2002 by Arena Stage in Washington, DC, offers a different perspective on post-9/11 America, in which racial and ethnic hatred dramatically increased. Richard Montoya, one of the co-founders of the Chicano troupe Culture Clash – known for biting satire of cultural stereotyping and sophisticated humour – began his research for the piece while flying to Washington, DC, six days after the attacks. He remembered how challenging it became for him, a person of colour, to negotiate the nation’s airports a few days after the terrorist attacks. As he contemplated society’s understanding and perception of terrorism, he invited the audience to step away from the immediate post-9/11 shock, look deeper into the harsh realities that various communities faced from past terror and reflect on the country’s increasing sense of alienation and fear of the ‘other’. ‘Sometimes the face of terror comes in forty-one bullets in a vestibule, sometimes the face of terror wears a white sheet over its face … sometimes terror kills transgenders in southeast D.C.’ and ‘sometimes the face of terror looks like Timothy McVeigh’,13 he said, referring to the 1999 New
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York police killing of Amadou Diallo, the Ku Klux Klan, a wave of hate crime in Washington and the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber. A year later, a number of other plays that premiered in the fall and winter of 2002 offered moving, intimate meditations and personal reflections on 9/11. Jonathan Bell’s Portraits, seven monologues in part inspired by real people and their stories of 9/11, was first produced in September 2002 at the Ridgefield Playhouse in Connecticut before moving to New York in 2003. The film version of Israel Horovitz’s 3 Weeks After Paradize aired on 11 September 2002, on the Bravo cable TV network. Written two months after the attacks, the one-person play – Horovitz’s response ‘from the heart and mind of a father worried about his children and the world they will inherit’14 – quickly won national and international attention. Also on 11 September 2002, members of the New York theatre community organized a three-day marathon, ‘Brave New World – American Theatre Responds to 9/11’, the first united artistic response to the tragedy. The event took place at Manhattan’s Town Hall where many theatre artists and playwrights embraced their artistic and social responsibility to contribute to the country’s healing process. More than 100 artists, recognized and emerging performers and writers, presented short plays, multimedia shows and music to remember the victims, reflect on the impact of the attacks on individuals and society and help the country heal. New works featured during the event included Edwin Sanchez’s Pops, about a young Hispanic man coming to terms with the death of his father, a bus boy at the Windows on the World restaurant in the World Trade Center; Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Ribbon in the Sky, a series of concurrent monologues of male and female twins who were born during construction of the Twin Towers; and Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’s A Song for LaChanze, a tribute to the singer, whose husband was killed on 9/11.15 Among short works at the event was LaBute’s Land of the Dead, in which a woman has an abortion on the day her husband died in the attacks. On the first anniversary of 9/11, critic Christopher Rawson offered his insight into the complexity and enormity of theatre’s task in addressing the current physical and emotional devastation: ‘9/11 is no single traumatic event but a complex mix of reactions, issues and fears, running from personal loss to cultural sensitivity, from heightened security to altered funding.’16 This
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task was the focus of eleven playwrights whose reflections about ‘putting 9/11 on stage’ were published in the September 2002 issue of American Theatre magazine. Playwrights such as Herman Daniel Farrell III (in Justice) and Montoya (in Anthems: Culture Clash in the District) spoke of their search for a balance between art and activism. Others, such as Brian Jucha and Caridad Svich, discussed their decision to employ technology to ‘make sense out of [the] incomprehensible’.17 Working with Houston’s Infernal Bridegroom Productions, Jucha used transcripts of air traffic controllers’ communication with pilots of the 9/11 planes to create a performance text for his interdisciplinary dance-theatre piece We Have Some Planes. Svich based her collaborative project Return to the Upright Position on a series of responses to 9/11 by a dozen theatre artists who communicated them across cyberspace. Some writers shared their personal feelings and the ways they expressed them – ferociously through grief and outrage or quietly in a more delicate, elegiac manner. Honour Kane, the author of autodelete:// beginning dump of physical memory//, remembered: I watched helplessly as my neighbors to the south began to leap from the windows of those burning towers … A woman clawed her way upward as she plunged, trying so desperately to climb the sky. For months I couldn’t write. The horrors of that day were too human. It was the day narrative was lost. But my memory of that climbing woman kept haunting me. Finally, after time, I found a way through my work to see her safely home, send her onwards, upwards and amend her brutal end.18 Other artists, the Lebanese-American Najee George Mondalek and the Iranian Gita Khashabi, considered how their works (Me No Terrorist and Chadoor, respectively), which were written before 9/11, became transformed by the attacks and inadvertently offered new political meaning. As the decade progressed and the emotional pain along with the feelings of shock and disbelief gradually subsided, new plays and production work began to interrogate the social implications and political reverberations of the 2001 terrorist attacks. In Omnium Gatherum, written by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros and first presented at the 2003 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky, a small group of
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intellectuals at a dinner party engages in a passionate dialogue about the ramifications of 9/11.19 Eve Ensl
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Julia Cameron Is Still Showing the Way
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Julia Cameron published The Artist’s Way more than 30 years ago, and she's adding new tools to her morning pages and artist dates.
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PEN America
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It has been more than 30 years since Julia Cameron published The Artist’s Way, and yes, she still writes morning pages.
Cameron’s influential guide to the writing life has sold more than 5 million copies and been translated into 40 languages. It’s recently landed back on bestseller lists, something Cameron attributes to a creative blossoming during the pandemic. It’s also spawned more than a dozen other books, including her latest, Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer, which she calls “a love letter to writing, and to writers.”
Key to her method are morning pages — a daily practice of writing three pages in longhand about whatever comes to mind. Cameron says the pages “bring you back to yourself,” and set the trajectory for the day.
“You find yourself less caught up in other people’s agendas and less caught up in social media and comparison. You begin to focus on yourself,” she says. “I’m a little bit of a fanatic. And so I will say, write morning pages and you’ll have breakthroughs.”
In an interview with PEN America, Cameron talked about what she’s added to her process from The Artist’s Way, and how the creative landscape has changed since its publication.
Do you still write morning pages in the same way, or has it changed since you began?
I went through a period where I was just using my morning pages to write out prayers. But I went back to the traditional way of writing about anything and everything, and it worked better and actually was a better prayer.
When you wrote the book and maybe now, there was some romanticism around the idea of the struggling artist. You instead embraced mental health. Do you feel like the world is catching up?
I don’t know if the world is catching up. I hope the world is catching up. But I did a podcast earlier this week with two people as hosts, and they were both blocked writers, and they had the usual blocks of fear of exposure, fear of being foolish, fear of not being able to finish. And so I felt like the book was timely.
What’s the most frequent challenge you hear about when you work with writers?
I think it’s perfectionism. “If I have to write, I want to write perfectly.” People are striving to be brilliant, and this is something I’m very familiar with, which is a desire to be beyond reproach, to not be judged. And that sets up a pretty toxic set of expectations.
Do you have a tip for somebody who’s struggling with perfectionism?
Well, I have an exercise that’s very simple, which is:
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d ________________
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d ________________
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d ________________
And you fill in the blank 10 times. And usually by the end of it you realize, “Oh, there’s no doing it perfectly. I don’t need to do it perfectly. I can just try.”
What’s your best advice for silencing the inner critic?
Well, I don’t think you can silence the inner critic. I think you can miniaturize the inner critic and you can change its voice from being the voice of doom to being sort of a wee, peeping cartoon voice. This, again, is something that happens with morning pages because there’s no wrong way to write morning pages. When your inner critic says, “You’re boring,” you just say, “Thank you for sharing.” As you say, thank you for sharing, you acknowledge the critic, but discount the critic. It miniaturizes it. And I think I have a fun thing for people to do, which is to name their critic. Mine is named Nigel, and Nigel is a gay British interior decorator. And Nigel has high standards and Nigel always has a negative comment. And so I have been living with Nigel for 55 years as a writer. And now Nigel is like a negative relative at a picnic, somebody who always has something nasty to say. And I’ve learned to discount Nigel.
Those familiar with The Artist’s Way know about morning pages and artist dates. And you’ve added some new tools. What inspired the additions?
When I wrote The Artists Way — it’s a 12 week course and it was always in the 12th week when I said, “Oh, P.S., exercise.” In the 30 years since the book has come out, I recognized that exercising is actually far more important. And so I’ve added a walk and I suggest you go out twice a week for a walk, 20 minutes at a crack, without a dog, without a headphone, without music unspooling in your ears. Just you and your consciousness. And what I find is that people wake up to their environment and wake up to a sense of expansion.
The world has changed so dramatically since you published The Artist’s Way, with everyone now carrying the internet in their pockets. I wonder if it’s affected the creative process.
I think the blocks are largely the same, with the difference being that with computers and iPhones and all manner of social media, people can tend to blast themselves pretty thoroughly out of having time to write.
“I think the blocks are largely the same, with the difference being that with computers and iPhones and all manner of social media, people can tend to blast themselves pretty thoroughly out of having time to write.”
Do you think people struggled to find inspiration during the pandemic?
Well, I have a tool, which is called an artist date, which is once a week, go out and do something festive and fun and enjoyable for your inner artist, for your inner youngster. And during the pandemic, we weren’t allowed to go out, so people had to focus on what they could do right in their house. So they refilled the well by baking pies, by making soup, by painting their toenails, by taking a bubble bath, by listening to an unfamiliar piece of music, by dancing barefoot. And these activities were enjoyable and fun and kept people from feeling too trapped and claustrophobic.
So you haven’t seen a worsening in creative problems?
I think the opposite is true. I think that what the pandemic did was sort of cast people back on their own resources and cause them to say, well, I’m looking around for a way to be more creative, more inspired, more healthy. So instead of worsening during the pandemic, I think our creativity actually blossomed.
There’s so much conversation around creativity on podcasts and other media now. Are you surprised by the volume of that conversation?
At this point, The Artist’s Way has sold 5 million books, and that means that 5 million people have experimented with the tools. And I think that they constitute a pretty powerful example of creativity becoming unblocked – and this is contagious. I think that people find themselves drawn to the methods that have worked for others.
So it’s a little bit like visiting the garden, where you see all these different flowers blooming. And it’s as if I scattered the seeds and then the flowers grow.
Lisa Tolin is the editorial director of PEN America and the author of the picture book How to Be a Rock Star.
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The Part Taken by Women in American History/Playwrights and Authors
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Playwrights.
At the organization of the Women's Playwright Club, of New York City, there were forty women eligible for admission. This vocation for women is especially an American institution. In no other country are there so many who have obtained recognition in a field where the compensation is the same for women as for men. The New Theatre when opened made its bow to the public with a play from the pen of an American woman.
Mary Hunter Austin, the newest woman dramatist, has spent the greater part of her life in the West, and many of her plays deal with the border life.
Margaret Mayo is another successful playwright, who was the author of "Baby Mine" and "Polly of the Circus," two of the biggest New York successes. In private life Miss Mayo is the wife of Edgar Selwyn, a successful writer and playwright of distinction. He is the author of "The Country Boy."
Kate Douglas Wiggin, whose writings we are all familiar with, dramatized her "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."
Charlotte Thompson made a most successful dramatization of "The Awakening of Helena Richie," in which Margaret Anglin starred.
Another successful playwright is the author of "The Nest Egg"—Anne Caldwell, who has been an actress, opera singer, musician, composer, magazine and newspaper writer.
The music of "The Top of the World" is her composition, position.
Another talented writer of plays is Rida Johnson Young, who in five years has successfully produced "Brown of Harvard," 'The Boys of Company B," "Glorious Betsey," "The Lottery Man," as well as two plays for Chauncey Olcott. One of the New York successes, "Naughty Marietta," was written by her, Victor Herbert writing the music. Mrs. Young is the wife of Mr. James Young, leading man, who has appeared with E. H. Sothern. He was formerly a newspaper man on the staff of a daily newspaper of Baltimore, Md. Mrs. Young before her marriage was Rida Johnson.
Lottie Blair Parker is another successful professional woman, whose husband, Harry Doel Parker, attends entirely to the production and the leasing of her plays. "Way Down East," written in 1897, is still being played throughout the country. "Under Southern Skies" is another one from her pen. Among others by this same author are "A War Correspondent," "The Lights of Home," a dramatization of "The Redemption of David Corson," a number of one-act plays, and a novel entitled "Homespun."
Miss Alice Ives, the author of "The Village Postmaster," has done every phase of literary work, art criticisms, music notes, deep articles for the Forum and similar magazines, as well as some light verse. She has written ten plays. "The Village Postmaster" was on the road for ten successive seasons. Miss Ives wrote a clever one-act play, a satire on women's clubs, introducing all the famous women characters of popular plays. She is the first vice-president of the Society of Women Dramatists, to which all these playwrights belong.
The pioneer playwright of her sex is Miss Martha Morton. Some dozen years ago, the New York World offered prizes for the cleverest scenarios to be submitted under assumed names. It was a general surprise when a woman secured one of the prizes. This successful person was Miss Morton. Some of the most distinguished American actors have appeared in her plays, the best known of which are, "Brother John," "His Wife's Father," and "A Bachelor's Romance." Miss Morton was the first vice-president of the Society of Dramatic Authors. Off the stage she is Mrs. Herman Conheim, and is one of the most popular dramatists in New York City.
Another successful prize winner, who ultimately made this her profession, was Mrs. Martha Fletcher Bellinger, a graduate of Mount Holyoke. The title of her scenario was "A Woman's Sphere."
Mrs. Mary Rider Mechtold, also a college woman and successful winner of newspaper prizes, wrote her first plays when she was still a student at the Chicago University. She is the author of a clever play, "The Little Lady."
The thousand-dollar prize offered by the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in England a year or two ago was won by an American woman, Josephine Preston Peabody. The contest for the best play in English verse dealing with a romantic subject was won by a graduate of Radcliffe. It is said that this college has long been famous for its unusually clever plays, in which its students take part.
Beulah Dix is also a graduate of Radcliffe. She was author of "Hugh Gwyeth." She collaborated with Evelyn Greenleaf in a number of successful plays, "The Rose o' Plymouth Town," and "The Road to Yesterday."
Another Radcliffe graduate, who has become a successful playwright, is Agnes Morgan, who wrote "When Two Write History."
Another is Rebecca Lane Hooper. Miss Hooper not only stages these performances herself, but has often played comedy roles.
The exception to the rule of directors for theatrical performances, which are usually men, is Miss Edith Ellis, author of "Mary Jane's Pa," one of the most successful plays produced. She began her career as a child actress. She is one of the few successful stage managers, and has frequently strengthened lines in places and made a possible success from what seemed an inevitable failure.
Rachel Crothers is another who supervises much of the rehearsing of her own plays. She began her authorship of plays while a teacher in the Wheatcroft School of Acting. Among her plays are "The Coming of Mrs. Patrick," "Myself Bettina," and "The Inferior Sex," which were written for Maxine Elliott. "The Man on the Box" was dramatized by Grace Livingston Furniss, who with the late Abby Sage Richardson dramatized "The Pride of Jennico." Since then she has written a number of other plays, including, "Mrs. Jack," "The Colonial Girl," and "Gretna Green."
Frances Hodgson Burnett writes her books and then dramatizes them. This she has done most successfully in the case of "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "The Little Princess," "A Lady of Quality," "That Lass o' Lowries," "The Pretty Sister of Jose," and "The Dawn of a To-morrow."
Harriet Ford has successfully dramatized many books, among them: "The Gentleman of France," "Audrey," and with Mr. Joseph Medill Patterson, she wrote the most successful play of last season (1910-1911), "The Fourth Estate." This play brought forth more favorable comment and discussion from the press than any other produced.
Miss Mary Roberts Rinehart has written three plays, two of which were in co-authorship, "Double Life," "The Avenger," and "Seven Days." Her husband, Dr. Stanley Rinehart, contributed to "The Avenger," and Avery Hapgood to "Seven Days." This was one of the season's successes.
Two successful playwrights, Pauline Phelps and Marion Short, have formed a partnership and turned out a number of most successful plays. Miss Phelps, a country girl, deals with life in the country, and Miss Short, with city life and its problems. Their greatest success is "The Grand Army Man," in which David Warfield starred last season. They are also the authors of "The Girl from Out Yonder," "At Cozy Corners," "Sweet Clover," the latter used largely for stock companies.
Anne Warner's "Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary" is familiar to everyone.
Frances Aymar Matthews, as well as being a successful dramatist, is a writer of poetry and books. One of her plays, "Julie Bon Bon," was starred by Clara Lipman.
Among others that may be mentioned are : Cora Maynard, Kate Jordan, and Mrs. Doremus.
MARY W. CALKINS.
Miss Calkins is head of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Wellesley College. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1863, and is the daughter of Wolcott and Charlotte Grosvenor Whiton Calkins. Miss Calkins is a graduate of Smith College of the Class of 1885, where she received the degrees of A.B. and A.M. She has written several books on psychology and numerous monographs and papers on psychological and philosophical questions.
VIDA D. SCUDDER.
Miss Scudder is to-day professor of English at Wellesley College and a well-known writer on literary and social topics. She was born in Southern India, December 15, 1861, and is the daughter of David Coit and Harriet L. Dutton Scudder. She received the degree of A.B. at Smith College in 1884 and that of A.M. in 1889, graduated at Oxford and Paris, and was the originator of the College Settlement in New York City. She is the author of "The Life of the Spirit in Modern English Poets," "Social Ideals in English Letters," "Introduction to the Study of English Literature" and "Selected Letters of Saint Catherine," and was the editor of Macaulay's "Lord Give," and also of the introduction to the writings of John Ruskin, Shelly's "Prometheus Unbound," works of John Woolman and Everybody's Library.
HANNAH ADAMS.
Miss Adams is believed to be the first woman in the United States to make literature a profession. She was born in Medfield, Massachusetts, in 1755, and died in Brookline, Mass., November 15, 1832. She was the daughter of a well-to do farmer, of good education and culture. In her childhood she was very fond of writing and a close student, memorizing the works of Milton, Pope, Thomson, Young and others. She was a good Latin and Greek scholar and instructed divinity students who made their home in her family. In 1772, her father losing his property, the children were forced to provide for themselves. During the Revolutionary War, Miss Adams had taught school and after the close of the war she opened a school to prepare young men for college, which was very successful. She wrote quite extensively. One of her books, "A View of Religious Opinions" appeared in 1784, and passed through several editions in the United States and was also published in England and became a standard work. In 1799 she published her second work, "A History of England," and in 1801 "Evidences of Christianity." In 1812, her "History of the Jews" appeared, being followed by "A Controversy with Dr. Morse," and in 1826 "Letters on the Gospels." She spent a quiet, secluded life, and it is said her only journeys were trips from Boston to Nahant and from Boston to Chelmsford. Notwithstanding the many books which she published, her business abilities seemed to have been very limited and in the last years of her life she was supported by an annuity settled upon her by three wealthy residents of Boston. She was buried at Mount Auburn, being the first person buried in that beautiful cemetery.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD.
Lydia Maria Francis was born in Medford, Massachusetts, February II, 1802. Her ancestor, Richard Francis, came from England in 1636 and settled in Cambridge, where his tombstone may be still seen in the burial ground. Her paternal grandfather, a weaver by trade, was in the Concord fight. Her father, Convers Francis, was a baker, first in West Cambridge, then in Medford, where he first introduced the article of food still known as "Medford crackers." He was a man of strong character and great industry. Though without much cultivation he had an uncommon love of reading and his anti-slavery convictions were deeply rooted and must have influenced his child's later career. He married Susanah Rand, of whom it is only recorded that "She had a simple, loving heart and a spirit busy in doing good." They had six children of whom Lydia Maria was the youngest. While her brother Convers was fitting for college she was his faithful companion, though more than six years younger. They read together and she was constantly bringing him Milton and Shakespeare to explain so that it may well be granted that the foundation of Miss Lydia's intellectual attainments was laid in this companionship. Apart from her brother's help the young girl had, as was then usual, a very subordinate share of educational opportunities, attending only the public schools with one year at the private seminary of Miss Swan, in Medford. In 1819 Convers Francis was ordained for the first parish, in Watertcwn, and there occurred in his city, in 1824, an incident which was to determine the whole life of his sister. Doctor G. G. Palfrey had written in the North American Review, for April, 1821, a "Review" of the now forgotten poem of "Yamoyden," in which he ably pointed out the use that might be made of early American History for the purpose of fictitious writing. Miss Francis read this article at her brother's house one summer Sunday morning. Before attending afternoon service she wrote the first chapter of a novel. It was soon finished and was published that year, then came "Hobomak," a tale of early times.
In juding of this little book it is to be remembered that it marked the very dawn of American imaginative literature. Irving had printed only his "Sketchbook"; Cooper only "Precaution." This new production was the hurried work of a young woman of nineteen, an Indian tale by one who had scarcely even seen an Indian. Accordingly "Hobomak" now seems very crude in execution, very improbable in plot and is redeemed only by a sincere attempt at local coloring.
The success of this first effort was, however, such as to encourage the publication of a second tale in the following year. This was "The Rebels; The Boston before the Revolution, by the Author of Hobomak." It was a great advance on its predecessor, and can even be compared, favorably, with Cooper's Revolutionary novels.
In October, 1828, Miss Francis married David Lee Child, a lawyer of Boston. In that day it seemed to be held necessary for American women to work their passage into literature by first completing some kind of cookery book, so Mrs. Child published in 1829 her "Frugal Housewife," a book which proved so popular that in 1855 it had reached its thirty-third edition.
The "Biographies of Good Wives" reached a fifth edition in the course of time as did her "History of Woman," and in 1833 Mrs. Child was brought to one of those bold steps which made successive eras of her literary life—the publication of her "Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans." It was just at the most dangerous moment of the rising storm of the slavery question that Mrs. Child wrote this and it brought down upon her unending censure. It is evident that this result was not unexpected for the preface to the book explicitly recognizes the probable dissatisfaction of the public. She says, "I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, I cannot fear them. Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothschild's wealth or Sir Walter's fame." These words have in them a genuine ring; and the book is really worthy of them. The tone is calm and strong, the treatment systematic, the points well put, the statements well guarded.
It was the first anti-slavery work ever printed in America and it appears to be the ablest, covering the whole ground better than any other. During the next year she published the "Oasis," also about this time appeared from her hand the "Anti-slavery Catechism" and a small book called "Authentic Anecdotes of American Slavery."
While seemingly absorbed in reformatory work she still kept an outlook in the direction of pure literature and was employed for several years on "Philothea," which appeared in 1836. The scene of this novel was laid in Greece, and in spite of the unpopularity that Mrs. Child's slavery appeal had created it went through three editions.
In 1841 Mr. and Mrs. Child were engaged by the American Anti-Slavery Standard, a weekly newspaper published in New York. Mr. Child's health being impaired his wife undertook the task alone and conducted the newspaper in that manner for two years, after which she aided her husband in the work, remaining there for eight years. She was a very successful editor. Her management proved efficient while her cultivated taste made the Standard pleasing to many who were not attracted by the plainer fare of the Liberator. During all this period she was a member of the family of the well-known Quaker philanthropist, Isaac T. Hopper, whose biographer she afterwards became. This must have been the most important and satisfactory time in Mrs. Child's whole life. She was placed where her sympathetic nature found abundant outlet and earnest co-operation. Here she also found an opportunity for her best eloquence in writing letters to the Distant Courier. This was the source of "Letters from New York," that afterwards became famous. They were the precursors of that modern school of newspaper correspondence in which women now have so large a share, and which has something of the charm of women's private letters.
Her last publication, and perhaps her favorite among the whole series, appeared in 1867—"A Romance of the Republic." It was received with great cordiality and is in some respects her best fictitious work. In later life Mrs. Child left New York and took up her abode in Wayland, Massachusetts. She outlived her husband six years and died October 20, 1880.
ALMIRA LINCOLN PHELPS.
There were but two among all the early distinguished literary women of America who had the honor of being members of the American Association for the advancement of science, and these two women were Maria Mitchell and Almira Lincoln Phelps,—one from the North and one from the South. Mrs. Phelp's father, Samuel Harte, was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the first minister of Hartford and founder of Connecticut. She was the youngest child and was born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1793, educated at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and later married to Simeon Lincoln, editor of the Connecticut Mirror, in Hartford. She was early left a widow with two children. Finding the estates of both her husband and father insolvent, she took up the study of Latin and Greek, the natural sciences, art of drawing and painting, in order to perfect herself for the work which she had in comtemplation, namely, the education of the young. She was a student under Miss Willard for seven years. In 1831, she married Honorable John Phelps, a distinguished lawyer and statesman of Vermont. In 1839 she accepted a position at the head of the female seminary at West Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1841 she and her husband established the Patapsco Female Institute of Maryland. Pupils came to them from all parts of the West and South. In 1849 she was again left a widow. In 1855 her daughter's death so saddened her that she resigned her position and removed to the city of Baltimore. Her best known works are: "Lectures on Botany," "Botany for Beginners," "Lectures on Chemistry." "Chemistry for Beginners," "Lectures on Natural Philosophy," "Philosophy for Beginners," "Female Students," "A Fireside Friend," "A Juvenile Story," "Geology for Beginners," "Translation of the Works of Benedicte de Saussure," "Progressive Education," with a mothers' journal by Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Phelps, "Ada Norman, or Trials and Their Uses," "Hours with My Pupils," and "Christian Households." She probably had as much to do with the education of the young of this country as any woman, her works having been largely used in the schools.
SARAH BUELL (MRS. DAVID HALE).
Author and magazine editor, was born in Newport, New Hampshire. When a young girl, the first regular novel she read was "Mysteries of Udolpho," which, noting it was written by a woman, awakened in her an ardent desire to become an author herself. Her first work, however, was a small volume of fugitive poetry ; then "Northward," in two volumes. Her first novel was issued in 1827. Afterwards she was given charge of the editorial department of the Lady's Magazine, then published in Boston. In 1837 the Lady's Magazine united with the Lady's Book, published by Godey, in Philadelphia, and in 1841 Mrs. Hill removed to that city editing the double magazine. She has written a large number of books. The most notable of these are "Sketches of American Character," "Traits of American Life," "Flora's Interpreter," "The Lady's Wreath," a selection from the familiar poets of England and America; "The Way to Live Well and be Well While You Live," "Grosvenor," "Alice Ray," a romance in rhyme; "Harry Guy," "The Widow's Son," a story of the sea; "Three Hours or Vigils of Love," and other poems, and, finally, "Woman's Regret."
LYDIA HUNTLY SIGOURNEY.
Born in Norwich, Connecticut, September 1, 1791, and died in Hartford, Connecticut, June 10, 1865; was the daughter of Ezekiel Huntly, a soldier of the Revolution. It is said that she wrote verses at the age of seven. She taught a private girls' school in Hartford for five years, and in 1815 published her first volume "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse." In 1819 she became the wife of Charles Sigourney, a gentleman of literary and artistic tastes, a resident of Hartford. After her marriage she devoted herself to literature. She wrote forty-six separate works, besides two thousand articles, which she contributed to about three hundred periodicals. She was a favorite poetess in England and France, as well as in her own country. Mrs. Sigourney was always an active worker in charity and philanthropy. Her best known works are "Letters to Young Ladies," "Pocahontas, and Other Poems," and "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands."
LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON.
Lucretia Maria Davidson was born in Plattsburg, New York, September 27, 1808, and was the daughter of Dr. Oliver Davidson, a lover of science. Her mother, Margaret Davidson, whose maiden name was Miller, came of a good family and had received the best education that times afforded at the school of the celebrated Scotch lady, Isabella Graham, in New York City. The family of Miss Davidson lived in seclusion. Their pleasures were intellectual. Her mother suffered for years from ill health. Miss Davidson was delicate from infancy. When eighteen months old, she suffered from typhus fever which threatened her life. Her first literary acquisition indicated her after course. Her application to her studies at school was intense. Her early poems were of great merit. While devoting her time and attention to her invalid mother, she wrote many beautiful poems, the best known of which is her "Amir Khan" and a tale of some length called "The Recluse of Saranac." "Amir Khan" has long been before the public. Its versification is graceful and the story of orientalism beautifully developed and well sustained; as a production of a girl of fifteen it is considered prodigious. Many of her poems are addressed to her mother. "The Fear of Madness" was written by her while confined to her bed and was the last piece she ever wrote. The records of the last scenes of Lucretia Davidson's life are scanty. Her poetical writings which have been collected amount in all to 278 pieces of various length. The following tribute paid her by Mr. Southey is from the London Quarterly Review, whose scant praise of American productions is well known. "In these poems ("Amir Khan," etc.) there is enough of originality, enough of aspiration, enough of conscientious energy, enough of growing power to warrant any expectations, however sanguine, which the patron and the friends and parents of the deceased could have formed." Her death occurred August 27, 1825, in Plattsburg, New York.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
Few women of America enjoy greater fame than Julia Ward Howe, the author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." She can be classed as an essayist, poetess, philanthropist, and public speaker. She was born in New York City, May 27, 1819. Her parents were Samuel and Julia Cuttler Ward. She included among her ancestors some of the descendants of the Huguenots, the Marions of South Carolina, Governor Sam Ward of Rhode Island, and Roger Williams, the apostle of religious tolerance. Her father being a banker and a man of means gave her every advantage of education and accomplishment. In 1843 she married Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, and they spent some time abroad. In 1852 she published her first volume of poems; in 1853 a drama in blank verse, and during the war other works and patriotic songs. In 1867 while she and her husband were visitors in Greece they won the affection and gratitude of the people by aiding them in their struggle for national independence. In 1868 she took an active part in the suffrage movement. She preached, wrote and lectured for many years. She died in the summer of 1910, but her fame will ever be linked with the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
LOUISA M. ALCOTT.
No name is more beloved among the girls of America of former days and present times than that of Louisa May Alcott, the author of "Little Women," a book dear to the heart of every American girl. Miss Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 29, 1832. Her parents were charming, cultivated people. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, became a teacher. He taught in Boston for eleven years, Margaret Fuller being one of his assistants. The atmosphere of the Alcott home was always one of culture and refinement, though their life was one of extreme simplicity. Whittier, Phillips, Garrison, Mrs. Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau and Oliver Wendell Holmes were frequent guests. Louisa was the eldest child, full of activity and enthusiasm, constantly in trouble from her frankness and lack of policy, but enjoying many friends from her generous heart, and it has not been difficult to recognize the picture of herself in the character of Joe in "Little Women." In this little home in Concord were enacted many of the scenes, sports and amusements pictured in Miss Alcott's stories. At sixteen she began to teach school, having but twenty pupils, and to these she told many of the stories which were later woven into her books. Her restless disposition gave her many occupations; sometimes she acted as a governess, sometimes she did sewing, and again writing. At nineteen she published one of her early stories in Gleason's Pictorial. For this she received five dollars. Later appeared "The Rival Prima Donna," and though she received but ten dollars for this, the request from the editor for another story was more to her than a larger check would have been. Another story appeared in the Saturday Evening Gazette. This was announced in the most sensational way by means of large yellow posters which spread terror to Miss Alcott's heart. Finding, however, that sensational stories paid, she turned them out at the rate of ten or twelve a month. But she soon tired of this unstable kind of fame, and she began work upon a novel which appeared under the name of "Moods" but was not a success. At this time the Civil War broke out. She offered herself as a nurse in the hospitals and was accepted, just after the defeat at Fredericksburg. After a time she became ill from overwork and was obliged to return home, and in 1865 published her hospital sketches, which made it possible for her to take a rest by a trip to Europe. Here she met many of the distinguished writers of her day. In 1868 her father submitted a collection of her stories to her publishers who declined them, and asked for a single story for girls, which was the occasion for the writing of "Little Women." It was simply the story of herself and her three sisters and she became at once famous. Girls from all over the country wrote her. When "Little Men" was announced, fifty thousand copies were ordered in advance of its publication. Among her other stories are those entitled, "Shawl Straps," "Under the Lilacs," "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag," "Jack and Jill," and the greatest after "Little Women," "An Old-Fashioned Girl." Most of her stories were written in Boston and depict her life in Concord. Miss Alcott's devotion to her sex made her a strong supporter of the women's suffrage movement, no one has done more for the women of her own generation than she. The pleasure which her books have given, and will ever continue to give, make her one of the most beloved of our American literary women. Miss Alcott died in Boston, March 6, 1888.
MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE.
Mrs. Terhune is more familiar to the public under the pen name of "Marion Harland." She was born December 21, 1831, in Amelia County, Vir ginia, her father Samuel P. Hawes, having removed there from Massachusetts. In 1856 she was married to Rev. E. P. Terhune, and since 1859 has lived in the North, but her stories have dealt largely with Southern life. She wrote her book "The Story of Mary Washington" to get funds to aid in the effort to erect a monument to the mother of Washington, which was unveiled on May 10, 1894. She has been a most industrious writer. Among her works are "Alone," "Nemesis," "The Hidden Path," "Miriam," "Husks," "Husbands and Home," "Sunnybank," "Helen Gardner's Wedding Day," "At Last," "The Empty Heart," "Common Sense in the Household." Her novel "Sunnybank" was very severely criticised by Southern editors, when it appeared soon after the Civil War. Mrs. Terhune's younger brothers were in the Confederate Army.
Mrs. Terhune has three children, with all of whom she has collaborated in literary work.
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD.
Mrs. Ward was born in Andover, Massachusetts, August 31, 1844, and inherited literary talent from both of her parents. Her mother was the writer of a number of stories for children, and her father, Rev. Austin Phelps, a professor of sacred rhetoric in the Theological Seminary of Andover, was the writer of many lectures which in book form have become classics and to-day are accepted text-books. At the age of thirteen Mrs. Ward made her first literary venture in a story which was accepted by the Youths' Companion. Her first novel, "Gates Ajar," 1869, met with unprecedented success. In 1888, she married Rev. Herbert D. Ward, and with him has written several novels, the most important of which are, "The Last of the Magicans," "Come Forth," "A Singular Life," and what she regards as her most important work, "The Story of Jesus Christ," which appeared in 1897. Some of Mrs. Ward's books are, "Ellen's Idol," "Up Hill," "A Singular Life," "The Gipsy Series," "Mercy Glidden's Works," "I Don't Know How," "Men, Women and Ghosts," "The Silent Partner," "Walled In," "The Story of Avis," "My Cousin and I," "The Madonna of the Tubs," "Sealed Waters," "Jack, the Fisherman," "The Master of Magicians," and many sketches, stories and poems for magazines.
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.
Was born in Manchester, England, November 24, 1849. Her father was a well-to-do merchant. He died when she was but ten years old. Soon after his death the family removed to Tennessee to reside with an uncle. They settled in Knoxville, but her uncle having lost everything by the war, they made their home in the country and experienced the greatest poverty. Her mother's health failed under these trying conditions, and she died about two years after. Frances Hodgson obtained a position as school teacher, receiving her pay in flour, bacon, eggs and potatoes. She had early shown much talent in story writing, and at thirteen she wrote quite a creditable story, which her sister insisted on sending to a publisher. The only difficulty in the way of accomplishing this was how to procure the necessary postage, and a basket of wild grapes was sold by these
DISTINGUISHED WOMEN POETS.
two girls to pay for the mailing of the manuscript to Ballon's Magazine. As the publisher did not wish to pay for the printing of the story, which he had complimented in his letter to Frances, it was returned and sent to Godey's Ladies' Book, and from this source she received her first remuneration. Later she became a regular contributor to Peterson's Magazine and the publication of "Mrs. Carruther's Engagement" and another story entitled "Hearts and Diamonds" fixed the author's vocation. In 1873, she married Swan Moses Burnett. They had two children, the heroes of "Little Lord Fauntleroy," Mrs. Burnett's most famous story. The one named Lionel died in Paris, Vivian was the little Lord Fauntleroy of her story. "That Lass o' Lowrie's," "Pretty Polly Pemberton," "The Fair at Grantley Mills," "A Fair Barbarian" and "A Lady of Quality," are some of Mrs. Burnett's novels. Among her plays are : "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "The First Gentleman of Europe" and "A Lady of Quality." Her work has brought to Mrs. Burnett quite a handsome fortune. She now makes her home in England.
SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
Was born in South Berwick, Maine, on September 3, 1849. Her father was Dr. Theodore Herman Jewett, a physician, and her mother was the daughter of Dr. Perry of Exeter, also a prominent physician of that section of New England. Most of the characters and life of the people in her story have been taken from the simple New England life about the little village of Berwick. She frequently went about with her father on his errands of mercy and through these was enabled to gain much data for her stories. Her father was the hero of "A Country Doctor" from her pen. She first wrote short stories for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is said was but fourteen years of age when she wrote "Lucy Garron's Lovers." Her first great success was "Deephaven" which appeared in 1877. Lowell and Whittier were among her friends and admirers as a writer. Whittier attended the Friends' meeting in Berwick, and it was here Miss Jewett met him. The old sea-faring life of these New England towns has been preserved to us by Miss Jewett. Her grandfather was a sea captain, and in his home she met and enjoyed the companionship and heard the tales of this old sea captain's friends. Miss Jewett died in 1909.
MRS. BURTON HARRISON.
Was before her marriage Constance Cary, of Virginia, and on her father's side she is descended from Colonel Miles Carey of Devonshire, England, who emigrated to America and settled in Virginia about the middle of the seventeenth century, and during the rule of Sir William Berkeley was one of the king's council. Her father, Archibald Cary, of Cary's Brook, Virginia, was the son of Virginia Randolph, who was the ward and pupil of Thomas Jefferson and sister of his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph. Her mother was the youngest daughter of Thomas Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, who resided upon a large plantation in Fairfax, Virginia. It is said Mrs. Harrison inherits her literary taste from her grandmother on her father's side, Mrs. Wilson Jefferson Cary, who was herself a writer, and whose father's writings exerted quite an influence over Thomas Jefferson. Mrs. Harrison's first story was written when she was but seventeen years of age. The Civil War brought an end to her literary aspirations and the loss of her home necessitated her mother and herself living abroad for some years. After her return to this country she married Burton Harrison, a prominent member of the New York Bar. Charles A. Dana was a great friend of Mrs. Harrison and gave her the agreeable task of editing "Monticello Letters," and from this she gleaned the matter which was the basis of her story, "The Old Dominion." Some of the stories that she has written are : "Helen of Troy," "The Old-Fashioned Fairy Book," "Short Comedies for American Players," a translation; "The Anglomaniacs," "Flower-de-Hundred," "Sweet Bells Out of Tune," "A Bachelor Maid," "An Errant Wooing," "A Princess of the Hills," "A Daughter of the South." Mrs. Harrison resides in New York, and is still busy with her pen.
MARY N. MURFREE.
"Charles Egbert Craddock."
For several years of her early literary life both publishers and public were in ignorance of the fact that she was a woman. She was born at Grantsland, near Murfreesborough, Tennessee, in 1850, at the family home, which had been inherited from her great-grandfather, Colonel Hardy Murfree, a soldier of the Revolution, who, in 1807, had moved from his native state of North Carolina to the new state of Tennessee. Miss Murfree's father, William Law Murfree, was a lawyer, and her mother, Priscilla Murfree, was the daughter of Judge Dickinson. The family suffered greatly from the effects of the war. Mary Murfree had poor health but began to write of the people she found about her in the Tennessee mountains, and her novel, "In the Tennessee Mountains" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and was supposed to have been written by a man. When Mr. Howells assumed the editorial chair in the Atlantic Monthly office he requested further contributions from Charles Egbert Craddock, and a series of excellent stories from her pen were published: "Where the Battle was Fought," "The Prophet of the Great Stony Mountain," "The Star in the Valley," "The Romance of Sunrise Rock," "Over on Tother Mounting," "Electioneering on Big Injun Mounting," "A-Playing of Old Sledge at Settlement," "Adnfting down Lost Creek,"vhich ran through three numbers of the Atlantic, "Down the Ravine," a story for young people. It was possible for Miss Murfree to cover her identity in her nom de plume, for her style of writing and even her penmanship were masculine and she appreciated the fact that, at that time, men in the literary world had a great advantage over women writers. No one was more surprised than her own publishers at the discovery that Charles Egbert Craddock was a woman. Her great skill lies in vitalizing the picturesque characters who are the subjects of her stories.
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN ROHLFS.
Was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November II, 1846, and was thirty-two years of age when her famous story, "The Leavenworth Case" was published. Her father was a famous lawyer, and from him she is supposed to have gained the knowledge which she had in handling the details of this story. It was questioned for some time, although her maiden name, Anna Katharine Green, was signed to the story, whether it was possible that this story could have been written by a woman. She was a graduate of the Ripley Female College in Poultney, Vermont, and received the degree of B.A. In her early days she wrote poems, but her fame has come from her detective stories. "The Affair Next Door," "The Filigree Ball," and other stories from her pen are well known. In November, 1884, she became Mrs. Charles Rohlfs.
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
Miss Seawell's uncle was an officer in the United States navy before the Civil War, and served in the Confederate Army with distinction during the entire war. From him she heard the tales of our early navy which gave her inspiration to write her nautical sketches. Some of these are "Decatur and Somers," "Paul Jones," "Midshipman Paulding," "Quarter-deck," "Fo'c'sle," and "Little Jarvis," the latter winning the prize of five hundred dollars for the best story for boys offered by the Youths' Companion, in 1890. She was a constant reader of Shakespeare, Rousseau and other writers. Byron, Shelley, Thackeray, Macaulay, Jane Austen, Boswell's "Johnson" all formed a part of her home education. In 1895, she received a prize of $3,000 from the New York Herald for the best novelette, "The Sprightly Romance of Marsac." Her "Maid Marian" is a well-known and an amusing story of the Knickerbocker element of New York.
AMELIA E. BARR.
Among the foremost of American writers is Amelia Barr. She was born in Ulverston, Lancashire, England, in 183 1. Her maiden name was Amelia Edith Huddleston. Her father was the Reverend Doctor William Henry Huddleston, and her first introduction into the literary field was when she served as a reader to her father. She was educated in Glasgow and in 1850 married Robert Barr, a Scotchman, and four years later they came to this country. They made their residence in several states, in New York, the South and West, finally settling in Austin, Texas. In 1867, the yellow fever was epidemic in Austin. Mr. Barr became famous through his work among the Indians and white settlers of this city. Doctors and nurses dying on all sides, he gave up his life in his unselfish devotion to poor suffering humanity. Mrs. Barr lost not only her husband but three sons in this terrible epidemic, and after it was over she returned to New York City. Her first literary venture was brought out through the kind personal interest of the editor of the New York Ledger, Mr. Robert Bonner, and was a story published in the Christian Union. She did all kinds of literary work, wrote advertisements, circulars, paragraphs and verses. Her first great success came in 1885 in the publication of "Jan Vedder's Wife." Three other books followed: "Scottish Sketches," "Cluny MacPherson," and "Pawl and Christina," but none equalled "Jan Vedder's Wife." "The Bow of Orange Ribbon" is a delightful picture of New York in provincial days, as is "The Maid of Maiden Lane." One of her later books, "The Lion's Whelp," a story of Cromwell's time, is considered one of her strongest books.
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN.
Was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, in 1862. Her father was a native of Salem, and was a descendant of Bray Wilkins of good old Puritan stock. Her mother was a Holbrook, one of the old families of Massachusetts. The family early removed to Brattleboro, Vermont, and with Mr. J. E. Chamberland she wrote "The Long Arm" for which they received a two thousand dollar prize offered by a newspaper. Like many other writers she was largely influenced by the people about her and associated with her early life and that of her family. Barnabas, one of the characters in her story, "Pembroke," was drawn from Randolph. Losing her father and mother and sister, she returned to Randolph and took up her residence. Her story "A Humble Romance" was considered by Phillips Brooks the best short story ever written. In 1893, she wrote a play, "Giles Corey, Yeoman" a drama of the early Puritan days. "The Heart's Highway" is another of her stories of Colonial times, and "The Portion of Labor." In 1902 she married Dr. Charles Manning Freeman, of Metuchen, New Jersey, where she now resides.
ALICE FRENCH.
"Octave Thanet."
Miss French took a nom de plume to hide her identity, there being an unmistakably masculine tinge in many of her writings. Her real name is Alice French, she was born in Andover, Massachusetts, March 19, 1850. Her father was George Henry French, a man of important business connections and comfortable means. The family were descended from Sir William French who settled in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, and one of his descendants took part in the Revolutionary War, receiving the name of the "Fighting Parson of Andover." Miss French's grandfather on her mother's side was Governor Marcus Morton, and some of her ancestors were numbered among those who came to this country in the Mayflower. Miss French is a graduate of Vassar College. Her first story was printed in Godey's Magazine. Her story entitled "The Bishop's Vagabond," published in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1884, was the beginning of her substantial literary fame. Her story "Expiation" is considered very strong, as is "Knitters in the Sun "
KATE DOUGLASS WIGGIN (MRS. RIGGS.)
Her family were people of prominence in church and politics and at the New England Bar. She was born in Philadelphia and educated in New England, transplanted to California, and returned again to the Atlantic coast. Her first article appeared in St. Nicholas and was written at the age of eighteen. This she wrote while studying kindergarten work under the celebrated Marshall in California. After the death of her stepfather, she taught in the Santa Barbara College and organized the first free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. Soon after the successful establishment of this work, she was married to Mr. Samuel Bradley Wiggin, a talented young lawyer. She gave up her work in the kindergarten but continued to give lectures. One of the stories written at this time was the story of "Patsy," which she wrote to obtain money for the work in which was so much interested, to be followed by "The Birds' Christmas Carol," written for the same purpose. After removing to New York, in 1888, she was urged to offer these two books to an eastern publisher, and Houghton, Mifflin and Company reprinted them in book form, and they met with remarkable success. "The Birds' Christmas Carol" has been translated into Japanese, French, German and Swedish, even being put into raised type for the blind. Her story "Timothy's Quest" met with great success as also "Polly Oliver's Problem." Mr. Wiggin's death soon after they left San Francisco necessitated her taking up the kindergarten work in the East with great energy. She does much of her work at her old home in Maine, and many of the scenes and descriptions in the "Village Watch Tower" were taken from this neighborhood. In 1895 she married Mr. George Christopher Riggs, and has spent much of her time since then in England. "Penelope's English Experience" is a story of her own experiences among her English friends, as were those of "Penelope's Irish Experiences," "Penelope's Progress in Scotland" which followed a period of her life in these countries.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON.
Was born in Rincon Hill, a part of San Francisco, in 1857. Her mother was the daughter of Stephen Franklin, a descendant of one of the brothers of Benjamin Franklin. His daughter was quite famous in California as a beauty. She married Thomas L. Horn, a prominent citizen of San Francisco from Stonington, Connecticut, and a member of the famous Vigilant Committee. The daughter Gertrude was educated in California and married George Henry Bowen Atherton of Menlo Park, California, a Chilian by birth. Her first story, "The Randolphs of Redwoods," was published in the San Francisco Argonaut, but among her many stories perhaps the best known is "Senator North." Her story of the life of Alexander Hamilton under the title "The Conqueror" is considered her best work.
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES (MRS. CRAIGIE.)
Mrs. Pearl Mary Theresa Craigie was born in Boston, Massachusetts, November 3, 1867. Her mother's maiden name was Laura Hortense Arnold. Her father was John Morgan Richards, the son of Reverend Doctor James Richards, the founder of Auburn Theological Seminary, of New York. She received her early education from tutors, later studying in Paris, and then in London. She was an enthusiastic student of classical literature, and through the advice of Professor Goodwin, she took up literature as a profession. In 1887, she was married to Mr. Reginald Walpole Craigie of a well-to-do English family. "Rohert of Orange" was one of her early and most notable books. Mrs. Craigie did some writing for the stage and one of her plays, "The Ambassador," was considered very good. Her story "Love and Soul Hunters," has not been excelled by any of her contemporaries.
LILIAN BELL.
Was born in Chicago in 1867, but spent her early years in Atlanta. Daughter of Major William Bell, an officer of the Civil War. Her grandfather, General Joseph Warren Bell, was a Southerner, but sold and freed his slaves before the war, brought his family North to Illinois. He organized the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry. Her first literary work was "The Expatriates." Probably her best known book is "The Love Affairs of an Old Maid." In 1893 she married Arthur Hoyt Bogue of Chicago. They now make their home in New York City, where Mrs. Bogue is still engaged in literary work under her maiden name.
RUTH McENERY STUART.
Mrs. Stuart was born at Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, the daughter of a wealthy planter. Her family had always been slave holders and her life was spent on a plantation where she gained her familiarity and knowledge of the negro character. She was educated at a school in New Orleans where she remained after her marriage in 1879 to Alfred O. Stuart, a cotton planter, and her early life was spent near their plantation in a small Arkansas town. Her first story was sent by Charles Dudley Warner to the Princeton Review in which it appeared, and the second was published in Harper's Magazine. Her stories are of the la-ry life of the Creoles and the plantation negroes. They give a true picture of a peculiar race of people fast disappearing in the South. They are largely dialect stories. Since her husband's death Mrs. Stuart has resided in New York City and here most of her literary work has been done. "Moriah's Mourning," "In Simpkinsville," "A Golden Wedding." "Charlotta's Intended," "Solomon Crow's Christmas Box," "The Story of Babette," "Sonny," "Uncle Eph's Advice to Brer Rabbit," "Holly and Pizen," are some of her well-known stories. Charles Dudley Warner says, "her pictures of Louisiana life both white and colored are indeed the best we have."
ANNA FARQUHAR BERGENGREN.
Mrs. Bergengren was of Scotch-English ancestry, her people coming to America in Lord Baltimore's time and settling in Maryland, near Baltimore. She was born December 23, 1865, near Brookville, Indiana, her father being a lawyer, a member of Congress, and during her life in Washington, she obtained the material for her book called "Her Washington Experiences." Her father's death made her determine upon a career for herself and she chose a musical education, but her health failed while studying in Boston, and she was ultimately obliged to give up singing, in which she had already attained fair success. Her story "The Singer's Heart" expressed her professional ambitions. "The Professor's Daughter" was published in The Saturday Evening Post and was very popular. "Her Boston Experiences" appeared in a magazine and ultimately in book form. Her book, "The Devil's Plough," is a story of the early French missionaries of North America. In January, 1900, she was married to Ralph Bergengren, a Boston Journalist, and has continued her literary labors.
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE HOPKINS.
Mrs. Hopkins is a writer of historical fiction. For two years after her graduation from the Toledo High School she was engaged as a writer on the Toledo Blade. She soon abandoned this for a literary career, and most of her stories have appeared in magazines and newspapers. "Mademoiselle de Berny" and "Ye Lyttle Salem Maide" were, after most trying experiences with publishers, printed in book form. "A Georgian Actress" was written in Berkeley, California, where Mrs. Hopkins had gone with her husband, Dr. Herbert Müller Hopkins, now occupying the chair of Latin in Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. Here she also wrote two novels of Washington life during the Civil War. Mrs. Hopkins was born in Connecticut in 1873. Her father, Rev. Andrew Mackie, was an Episcopal clergyman and a very scholarly man, from whom she inherited her literary talent.
MARY JOHNSTON.
The publication of "Prisoners of Hope" brought, in 1898, a new star into the literary firmament, and instantly made Mary Johnston's name famous. At the time of the publication of her first novel Miss Johnston was but twenty-eight years of age. She was born in Buchanan, Virginia, November 21, 1870. Her great-great-great-grandfather, Peter Johnston, came to Virginia early in the Eighteenth Century and was a man of wealth and influence. He donated the land on which the Hampden Sidney College now stands, and Peter, his eldest son, rode in "light-horse," Harry Lee's legion and was the father of General Joseph E. Johnston. Her family numbered among its members some of the most distinguished men of the early Virginia history. "Prisoners of Hope" was hardly more famous than her second book, "To Have and To Hold." The latter established a record of sales among books unprecedented for any work by an American woman. Her latest novel is "The Long Roll," a story of the Confederacy during the war.
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW.
Miss Glasgow is a Virginia writer who has become a member of the literary life of the New South. "The Descendant," "The Phases of an Inferior Planet" and "The Voice of the People" are among her best works. She was born in Richmond, Virginia, April 22, 1874, and lived the greater part of her life at the family home. Her father was a lawyer, and the majority of her male ancestors were either lawyers, judges or men of literary tastes and talents.
BERTHA RUNKLE.
One of the most famous novels of the past few years was "The Helmet of Navarre," and was written, when its author, Bertha Runkle, was a little over twenty years of age. One of the most remarkable facts in this connection is that the authoress had never seen the shores of France, in fact had seldom been beyond the boundaries of New York State. Miss Runkle was born in New Jersey, but in 1888 she and her mother moved to New York City. Her father, Cornelius A. Runkle, a well-known New York lawyer, was for many years counsel for the New York Tribune, and her mother, Lucia Isabella Runkle, had been, previous to her marriage, an editorial writer on the same paper, in fact she was the first American woman to be placed on the staff of a great Metropolitan daily. In 1904 Miss Runkle married Captain Louis H. Bash, United States Army. She is very fond of outdoor life and spends much of her time in such sports as golf, riding, driving and tennis.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
In the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811, one of the most famous literary women, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was born. She was the seventh child of her parents Rev. Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Beecher. Her father was an eminent divine, but her early childhood days were filled with the privations of great poverty. When Harriet Stowe was but five years of age, her mother died and she went to live for a short time with her aunt and grandmother, until Mr. Beecher's second marriage. At twelve years of age she was sent to the school of Mr. John P. Brace, a well-known teacher, where she soon began to show a great love for composition, and one of her essays, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be Proved by the Light of Nature," was considered quite a literary triumph, and won great admiration from her father who was ignorant of its authorship. Her sister Catherine went to Hartford, Connecticut, where her brother was teaching, and decided she would build a female seminary that women might have equal opportunities with men. She raised the money and built the Hartford Female Seminary, and Harriet Beecher at the age of twelve attended her sister Catherine's school. She soon became one of the pupil teachers. Mr. Beecher's fame as a revivalist and brilliant preacher took him to Boston, but his heart was in the temperance work and he longed to go West. When called to Ohio to become president of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati he accepted, and perhaps we owe to this circumstance Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous book "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In 1836, Harriet married the Professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Literature in that seminary, Calvin E. Stowe. At this time the question of slavery was uppermost in the minds of Christian people. In 1850 the Beecher family and the Stowes moved to Brunswick, Maine, where Mr. Stowe had accepted a professorship at Bowdoin College. The fugitive slave law was in operation and the people of the North seemed lacking in effort. Mrs. Stowe felt she must do something to arouse the people on this question, and we are told that one Sunday while sitting in church the picture of Uncle Tom came to her mind. When she went home she wrote the chapter on his death and read it to her two sons, ten and twelve years of age. This so affected them that they burst into tears. After two or three more chapters were ready she wrote to Dr. Bailey, her old friend of Cincinnati days, who had removed his press to Washington and was editing the National Era in that city. He accepted her manuscript and it was published as a serial. Mr. Jewett of Boston feared to undertake the work in book form, thinking it too long to be popular, but Uncle Tom's Cabin was published March 20, 1852, as a book. In less than a year over three hundred thousand copies had been sold. Congratulations came from crown heads and the literary world. In 1853, when Professor Stowe and his wife visited England no crowned head was shown greater honor. Other books followed from her pen on her return to America, her husband having taken a position as Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. Her other works are: "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," "Dread," an anti-slavery story; "The Minister's Wooing," "Agnes of Sorrento," an Italian story; "Pearl of Orr's Island," a New England coast tale; "Old Town Folks," "House and Home Papers," "My Wife and I," "Pink and White Tyranny," but none has added to the fame of her great work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This book has been translated into almost all the languages. The latter years of Mrs. Stowe's life was spent between her home among the orange groves of Florida, and her summer residence in Hartford, Connecticut. On her seventy-first birthday her publishers, Houghton Mifflin & Company, gave her a monster garden party in Newton, Massachusetts, at the home of Governor Claflin. Poets, artists, statesmen, and our country's greatest men and women came to do her honor, and when her life went out at Hartford, Connecticut, July 1, 1896, we lost one of the famous women of America.
HELEN HUNT JACKSON.
She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, October 18, 1831. Her father, Nathan W. Fiske, was a professor of languages and philosophy in the college of that town. When twelve years of age both her father and mother died, leaving her to the care of her grandfather. She entered the school of Rev. J. S. C. Abbott of New York. At twenty-one she married a young army officer, Captain, afterward Major, Edward B. Hunt. They lived much of their time at West Point and Newport. Major Hunt was killed in Brooklyn, October 2, 1863, while experimenting with a submarine gun of his own invention. After a year abroad and a long illness in Rome, she returned to this country in 1870. In her first small book of verses she was obliged to pay for the plates when they appeared, and it was only after years of hard work that she succeeded in her literary career. Her health becoming somewhat impaired, she moved to Colorado, and here in 1876 she married Mr. William Sharpless Jackson, a banker and cultured gentleman. They made their home at Colorado Springs, and it became one of the attractions of the place, her great love for flowers beautifying her surroundings. Here she wrote her first novels, "Mercy Philbrick's Choice" and "Hetty's Strange History," also, later "Ramona," but her strongest work was brought about through her intense interest and indignation over the wrongs of the Indians inflicted upon them by the white race. She advocated education and christianization of the race rather than their extermination. Leaving home, she spent three months in New York in the Astor Library gathering facts and material for her "Century of Dishonor." When published she sent a copy to each member of Congress at her own expense to awaken interest in her favorite theme, and this resulted in her being appointed special commissioner with Abbott Kinney, her friend, to examine and report on the condition of the Indians in California. She went into the work with enthusiasm and energy and the report was most exhaustive and convincing. In the winter of 1883, she began to write her famous novel, "Ramona," and we quote her own language when she says of it "I put my heart and soul into it." The book enjoyed wonderful popularity not only in this country but in England. In June, 1884, a fall caused a long, severe and painful illness. She was taken to Los Angeles, for the winter, but a slow malarial fever followed and she was removed to San Francisco and on the evening of August 12, 1885, she died. Her two works "Ramona," and "The Century of Dishonor" will ever preserve her name among the famous literary women of America. "The Century of Dishonor," has placed her name among the up-builders of our nation. She was buried near the summit of Cheyenne Mountain, four miles from Colorado Springs, a spot of her own choosing, and which is to-day one of the shrines of America.
THE CARY SISTERS.
The Cary sisters stand out as the most prominent poetical writers of the state of Ohio. Alice Cary was born April 26, 1820, on the farm of her father, situated within the present limits of Mount Healthy, Ohio. In 1832, the family moved to a larger residence near their former home, and it was christened "Clover Nook." Alice Cary had only the advantages of ordinary school education, but began early in life to contribute literary compositions, and at the age of eighteen, her first poetical adventure, "The Child of Sorrow," to the Sentinel and Star, a universalist paper of Cincinnati. Gradually her reputation spread and she contributed to many papers, among them, the National Mirror of Washington, D. C, the editor of which, Dr. Bailey, was the first to consider her writings worthy of pecuniary reward. In 1848, her name appeared first among the female poets of America, and in 1850, a small collection of poems by Alice and Phoebe Cary made their first appearance. Horace Greeley and John G. Whittier were among the warm friends and literary admirers of the Cary sisters. In 1860, Alice moved to New York City, and on February 12, 1870, she died.
PHOEBE CARY.
Was born September 4, 1824, in the old homestead at Clover Nook, Hamilton County, Ohio. Her writings were noted for their sincerity and sweetness. Her gifts were hardly inferior to those of her sister, Alice, whom she outlived but one year and a half, dying July 31, 1871.
ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON.
Daughter of Alfred Baldwin Williams and Ruth Hoge Johnson Williams, was born at Cambridge, Indiana, her parents removing to Cincinnati, Ohio, when she was quite young. Her education was received mainly from the grammar and high schools of Cincinnati. She was married October 18, 1876, to Mr. William Ernest Brotherton of that city. She has been a constant contributor to newspapers and magazines, a prominent college woman, and has devoted much time to essays and writings on Shakespeare, delivering lectures before women's colleges and dramatic schools.
EDITH MATILDA THOMAS.
Was born in Chatham, Ohio, August 12, 1854. Daughter of Frederick J. Thomas and Jane Louisa Sturges Thomas, both natives of New England, her great-grandfather being a soldier in the Revolutionary War. The family lived for a short time at Kenton, Ohio, and also at Bowling Green, where her father died in 1861. Soon after this, her mother and sisters moved to Geneva, Ohio, where Edith received her education at the Normal Institute. She taught for a short time in Geneva, but soon decided to make literature her profession. She had, while a student, contributed to the newspapers, and her first admirer was Helen Hunt Jackson, who brought her to the attention of the editors of the Atlantic Monthly and Century. In 1888, Miss Thomas moved to New York City, making her home on Staten Island, and has devoted her entire time to literature, being a frequent contributor to the prominent magazines of the day.
ALICE ARCHER SEWALL JAMES.
Daughter of Frank Sewall, an eminent Swedenborgian divine, and Thedia Redelia Gilchrist Sewall, and was born at Glendale, Ohio, in 1870, where her father was in charge of a church. The family removed to Urbana, Ohio, that year, and Doctor Sewall became president of Urbana University. Here Alice received her early education. At sixteen, she studied in the art schools of Glasgow, Scotland, traveling later on the Continent. In 1899, her home was in Washington, D. C, and here she met Mr. John H. James, a prominent attorney of Urbana, Ohio, whom she married. As an artist, Mrs. James' work has received much favorable comment and honors from the New York Architectural League, the Philadelphia Academy of Art, the Chicago World's Fair, the Expositions of Atlanta and Nashville, and at the Salon, Paris. Her illustrative work is of a high order, and she has contributed designs to the Century Magazine, Harper's Monthly, and the Cosmopolitan. She is hardly less noted as a poet than as a painter, and has published several volumes of verses. She was the authoress of the "Centennial Ode" of Champagne County, Ohio.
MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON.
Daughter of Rev. Dr. Junkin, the founder of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, was born in Philadelphia in 1820. Her father moved to Virginia in 1848, and became the president of Washington College in Lexington, now known as the Washington and Lee University. He was succeeded in this position by Robert E. Lee. In 1857, Miss Junkin married Professor J. T. L. Preston, one of the professors of the Virginia Military Institute. Mrs. Preston belonged to a very noted family of the South, her brother being General Stonewall Jackson, who was also one of the professors of this famous college of the South. A few years prior to her death, she removed to Baltimore, her son being a prominent physician and surgeon of that city, and here she died March 28, 1897. She was a great admirer of the Scotch writers and produced some valuable literary work in verse and prose, which appeared in the magazines and journals of the day. she also published five volumes of poems. "Her Centennial Ode" for the Washington and Lee University was considered a very notable production. Much of her writings were of a religious character, and all breathed a very pure, simple and sweet nature.
MARGARET FULLER. (MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI.)
Margaret Fuller was a woman of most eccentric genius and great mental powers. She was born May 23, 1810, the daughter of Timothy Fuller, Esq., of Cambridge, Mass. In very early life Miss Fuller was put to the study of classical languages and showed wonderful power of acquisition. She then turned to living tongues and before she reached a mature age she was accounted a giant of philological accomplishments. Indeed she poured over the German philosophers until her very being became imbued with their transcendental doctrines. She was the best educated woman in the country and devoted her life to raising the standard of woman's intellectual training. To this effect she opened classes for women's instruction in several of the larger towns of New England. Her first publication was a translation of Goethe's "Conversation," which appeared in 1839. In the following year she was employed by the publisher of the "Dial," at whose head was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and she aided in the editorship of that journal for several years. In 1843 Miss Fuller moved to New York and entered into arrangement with the publishers of the Tribune, to aid in its literary department. This same year she made public her best literary effort, her "Summer on the Lakes," a journal of a journey to the West.
MARTHA JOANNA LAMB.
Mrs. Martha Joanna Lamb was born on August 18, 1829, at Plainfield, Massachusetts. She was at one time considered the leading woman historian of the nineteenth century. She is a life member of the American Historical Association and a Fellow of the Clarendon Association of Edinburgh, Scotland. Was editor of the Magazine of American History for eleven years. Her father was Arvin Nash and her mother was Lucinda Vinton. Her grandfather, Jacob Nash, was a Revolutionary soldier. The family is an old English one and to it belong the Rev. Treadway Nash D.D., the historian, and his wife, Joanna Reade, and to her family belongs Charles Reade, the well-known novelist. The ancestors of the Reade family came to America in the "Mayflower." Mrs. Lamb made her home at different times at Goshen, Massachusetts, Northampton and Easthampton. In 1882 she became the wife of Charles A. Lamb, and became conspicuous in charitable work in the city of Chicago, in which they resided from 1857 to 1866. She was an active worker after the great fire of 1863. In 1866 the Lambs made their home in New York City. Mrs. Lamb had always been a woman of remarkable mathematical talent and training. In 1879 she prepared for Harper's Magazine a notable paper translating to unlearned readers the mysteries and work of the Coast Survey. She has written a remarkable history of the city of New York, in two volumes, which was pronounced by competent authorities to be the best history ever written on any great city in the world. The preparation of this work required fifteen years of study and research. The list of Mrs. Lamb's works is long and distinguished, among them many historical sketches. Some titles are: "Lyme, a Chapter of American Genealogy"; "Chimes of Old Trinity," "State and Society in Washington," "The Coast Survey," "The Homes of America," "Memorial to Dr. Rust" and the "Philanthropist;" several sketches for magazines, "Unsuccessful candidates for the Presidential Nomination," sketch of Major-General John A. Dix, "Historical Homes in Lafayette Place," "The Historical Homes of Our Presidents." It is said that Mrs. Lamb wrote upwards of two hundred articles, essays and short stories, for weekly and monthly periodicals, but her greatest work was her "History of the City of New York," which is a standard authority and will be throughout all time. Mrs. Lamb died in 1893.
EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.
Emma D. E. Nevitt was the eldest daughter of Captain Charles Nevitt, of Alexandria, Virginia. Was born in Washington, D. C, December 26, 1819. The family was descended from those of high rank in England and France. Her people had emigrated to this country in 1632, and were conspicuous in the American Revolution. Her father served at the head of a company in the War of 1812, receiving a wound from which he never recovered. At the age of forty-five, Captain Nevitt married his second wife, a young girl of but fifteen years and removed to Washington, where they leased a large house said to have been occupied at one time by General Washington. Mrs. Nevitt, after Captain Nevitt's death, married the second time, her husband being Joshua L. Henshaw of Boston, and to him Mrs. Southworth says she is indebted almost entirely for her education. Among her early writings is "The Irish Refugee," which was accepted by the editor of the Baltimore Saturday Visitor, who so encouraged the young writer that she wrote "The Wife's Victory." A few of her early stories were printed in the National Era of Washington City, its editor engaging her as a regular writer for that paper. She then commenced her third novel "Sibyl's Brother, or The Temptation," and in 1849 "Retribution" was published by Harper Brothers, and in five years after its appearance she had written "The Deserted Wife," "Shannondale," "The Mother-in-Law," "Children of the Isle," "The Foster Sisters," "The Courts of Clifton," "Old Neighbors in New Settlements," "The Lost Heiress" and "Hickory Hall." Her prolific pen was latterly engaged exclu sively for the New York Ledger. In 1853 Mrs. Southworth moved to a beautiful old home on the heights above the Potomac in Georgetown, and this became the rendezvous of distinguished people from all parts of the country. Here, in what was known as Prospect Cottage, Mrs. Southworth spent the last years of her life, dying there June 30, 1899.
MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN.
The wife of the distinguished Admiral Dahlgren was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, about 1835. She was the only daughter of Samuel F. Vinton, who served with distinction as a member of Congress for some years. At an early age she became the wife of Daniel Convers Goddard, who left her a widow with two children. On the 2nd of August, 1865, she became the wife of Admiral Dahlgren, and three children were born of this marriage. Admiral Dahlgren died in 1870. Her first contributions to the press were written in 1859 under the signature "Corinne." She also used the pen-name "Cornelia." Her first book was a little book entitled "Idealities." She made several translations from the French, Spanish and Italian languages, among them, "Montalembert's Brochure," "Pius IX," and the philosophical works of Donoso Cortes from the Spanish. These translations brought her many complimentary notices and an autographed letter from Pope Pius IX, and the thanks of the Queen of Spain. She was also the author of a voluminous biograph of Admiral Dahlgren and a number of novels including, "The South-Mountain Magic," "A Washington Winter," "The Lost Name," "Lights and Shadows of a Life," "Divorced," "South Sea Sketches," and a volume on "Etiquette of Social Life in Washington," and quite a number of essays, reviews, and short stories for the leading papers and periodicals of the day. She was a woman of fine talent and a thorough scholar, and in the social circles of Washington of which she was a conspicuous figure, she was considered a literary authority, and the Literary Society of Washington, of which she was one of the founders, had about the only "Salon" ever in existence in Washington. Her house was the center of a brilliant circle of official and literary life of the Capital city. In 1870-1873 she actively opposed the movement for female suffrage, presenting a petition to Congress which had been extensively signed asking that the right to vote should not be extended to women. Mrs. Dahlgren was a devout Catholic, and was for some time president of the Ladies' Catholic Missionary Society of Washington, and built a chapel at her summer home on South Mountain, Maryland, near the battlefield, known as St. Joseph's of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
EMILY LEE SHERWOOD.
Mrs. Sherwood was born in 1843, in Madison, Indiana, where she spent her childhood. Her father, Monroe Wells Lee, was a native of Ohio; her mother, of the state of Massachusetts. At the age of sixteen she entered the office of her brother, who published the Herald and Era, a religious weekly paper in Indianapolis. Here she did most creditably whatever work she was asked to do in the various departments of this paper. At the age of twenty she became the wife of Henry Lee Sherwood, a young attorney of Indianapolis, and later they made their home in Washington, D. C. Mrs. Sherwood became one of the most prominent newspaper correspondents of the Capital city. She sent letters to the various papers over the country and was a contributor of stories and miscellaneous articles to the general press. In 1889 she became a member of the staff of the Sunday Herald, of Washington, D. C, and contributed articles also to the New York Sun and World. She is an all-round author, writing in connection with her newspaper work, books, reviews, stories, character sketches, society notes and reports. She published a novel entitled "Willis Peyton's Inheritance"; is an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, National Press League and the Triennial Council of Women.
JULIA HOLMES SMITH.
Born in Savannah, Georgia, December 23, 1839. On her mother's side, her grandfather was Captain George Raynall Turner, United States Navy. She was educated in the famous seminary of Gorman D. Abbott, and after graduating, married Waldo Abbott, eldest son of the historian, John S. C. Abbott. Mrs. Abbott was the organizer and first president of the Woman's Medical Association, the only society of its kind in America. In 1889 she contributed to the New York Ledger a series of articles on "Common Sense in the Nursery." She was at one time the only woman who contributed to the Arndts System of Medicine.
MARY STUART SMITH.
Mrs. Mary Stuart Smith was born at the University of Virginia, February 10, 1834. Was the second daughter of Professor Gessner Harrison and his wife, Eliza Lewis Carter Tucker. In 1853 she became the wife of Professor Francis H. Smith, of the University of Virginia. Besides original articles, her translations from the German for leading periodicals form a long list. She is a most pleasing writer for children.
MARY ELIZABETH SHERWOOD.
Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sherwood was born in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1830. Her father, General James Wilson, served as a member of Congress from New Hampshire. Her mother, Mary Richardson, was well known for her great beauty and fine intellect. Mrs. Sherwood was a woman of strong personality and distinguished appearance. While living in Washington she became the wife of John Sherwood and soon obtained a prominent place among literary people. She was a contributor to all the leading magazines of the day, a writer of several well-known novels, among them, "A Transplanted Rose," "Sweet Briar," and "Royal Girls and Royal Courts," but is best known for her books on etiquette, being considered an authority on that subject. During Mrs. Sherwood's residence abroad she was prominent in the literary circles of Europe. In 1885 she gave readings in her New York home for the benefit of the Mt. Vernon Fund. Mrs. Sherwood was active in many of the charities of New York City, and through her pen raised sums of money for many in which she was interested. Mrs. Sherwood died in 1903.
KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD.
Mrs. Kate B. Sherwood was born in Mahoning County, Ohio, September 24, 1841. Of Scotch descent, her maiden name was Brownlee. Before graduating from the Poland Union Seminary, she became the wife of Isaac R. Sherwood, afterward General Secretary of the State, and at present Congressman from Ohio. Her husband was the owner and editor of the Canton Daily News Democrat.
She has always taken an active interest in all public and philanthropic questions for the soldiers and her state. While her husband served his first term in Congress, she was correspondent for the Ohio papers, and at one time contributed to the columns of the National 'tribune, Washington, D. C, published for the benefit of the Grand Army of the Republic and the soldiers of the country.
Mrs. Sherwood has done valiant work for her state and the Woman's Relief Corps, being one of the founders of the latter organization. She was at one time its national president; organized the Department of Relief and instituted the National Home for Army Nurses in Geneva, Ohio.
In her earlier years she was well known by her very melodious voice and frequently sang at meetings of military organizations. There is no woman better known or whose ability is more universally conceded or who wields a wider influence in the organizations of women for the advancement of her sex and the progress of our country.
EVA MUNSON SMITH.
Mrs. Eva Munson Smith was born July 12, 1843. She was the daughter of William Chandler Munson and Hannah Bailey Munson. Her mother was a direct descendant of Hannah Bailey of Revolutionary fame, who tore up her flannel petticoat to make wadding for the guns in battle. Mrs. Smith has made a collection of sacred compositions of women under the title "Women in Sacred Song." She has written quite a number of musical selections.
AMELIE RIVES. (PRINCESS TROUBETZKOY).
Princess Troubetzkoy was born in Richmond, Virginia, August 23, 1863, but her early life was passed at the family home, Castle Hill, Albermarle County. She is a granddaughter of William Cabell Rives, once minister to France and who wrote the "Life of Madison." Her grandmother, Mrs. Judith Walker Rives, left some writings entitled "Home and the World" and "Residence in Europe." Amelie Rives was married in 1899 to John Armstrong Chanler, of New York. Her most conspicuous story was "The Quick and the Dead." She wrote "A Brother to Dragons," "Virginia of Virginia," "According to St. John," "Barbara Dering," "Tanis" and several other well known stories. Her first marriage proved unhappy and she was divorced, and has since married Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy, a Russian artist, and continues her literary work.
GRACE ELIZABETH KING.
Miss King was born in New Orleans, in 1852, and is the daughter of William W. and Sarah Ann King. She has attained a distinguished reputation as the writer of short stories of Creole life. Among them are: "Monsieur Mottee," "Tales of Time and Place," "New Orleans, the Place and the People," "Jean Baptiste Lemoine, Founder of New Orleans," "Balcony Stories," "De Soto and His Men in the Land of Florida," "Stories from the History of Louisiana."
ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER.
Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer was born in London, England, in July, 1822. Her father was Rear Admiral Ralph Randolph Wormeley of the English navy, and her mother was Caroline Preble, of Boston, Massachusetts. In 1842 she was a member of the family of George Ticknor, of Boston, and her first literary work was the appendix to Prescott's Conquest, of Mexico. Her father's death occurred at Niagara Falls, in 1852. In 1856 Miss Wormeley married Randolph Brandt Latimer and they later made their home in Howard County, Maryland. Mrs. Latimer's works have been quite numerous. Among them are "Cousin Veronica," "Amabel," "My Wife and My Wife's Sister," "A Chain of Errors," and "France in the Nineteenth Century." Mrs. Latimer died in 1904.
MARY A. RIPLEY.
Was born January n, 1831, and was the daughter of John Huntington Ripley and Eliza L. Spalding Ripley. The Huntington family was very prominent in New England, one of its members, Samuel Huntington, signed the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Federation. On her mother's side Miss Ripley is descended from a distinguished French Huguenot family. She taught school in Buffalo for many years and contributed letters, articles on questions of the day and short poems. Her poems are characterized by sweetness and vigor. Her articles attracted much attention and exerted a wide influence. In 1867 she published a small book entitled "Parsing Lessons for School Room Use," which was followed by "Household Service," published under the auspices of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, of Buffalo. Her health failing, she resigned her position and removed to Carney, Nebraska, where she took an active part in every good work of that state, and was later made state superintendent of Scientific Temperance Instruction in the public schools and colleges of Nebraska.
EMMA WINNER ROGERS.
Was a native of Plainfield, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Reverend John Ogden Winner and granddaughter of Reverend Isaac Winner, D.D., both clergymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For six years she was the corresponding secretary of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Detroit Conference and later honorary president of the Rock River Conference, Woman's Home Missionary Society. She is specially interested in literary work on the lines of social science and political economy and has been a contributor on these subjects to various papers and periodicals. She has written a monograph entitled "Deaconesses in the Early and Modern Church." Mrs. Rogers is a woman of marked ability and specially endowed with strong logical faculties and the power of dispassionate judgment. She is of the type of American College women who, with the advantage of higher training and higher education, bring their disciplined faculties to bear with equally good effect upon the amenities of social life and the philanthropic and economic questions of the day. She is the wife of Henry Wade Rogers, of Buffalo, New York, dean of the Law School of the University of Michigan, and later president of the Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois. As the wife of the president of a great University her influence upon the young men and women connected with it was marked and advantageous. Mrs. Rogers has left an impress upon the life of her times that is both salutary and permanent.
ELLEN SARGENT RUDE.
Born March 17, 1838, in Sodus, New York. Her mother died when she was an infant. Educated in the public schools of Sodus and Lima, New York. She became the wife of Benton C. Rude, in 1859. She won a prize for a temperance story from the Temperance Patriot. Some of the choicest poems of the "Arbor Day Manual" are from her pen.
GRACE ATKINSON OLIVER.
Born in Boston, September 24, 1844. In 1869 she became the wife of John Harvard Ellis, the son of Reverend John E. Ellis, of Boston, who died a year after they were married. She was for some years a regular contributor to the Boston Transcript. In 1874 Mrs. Ellis spent a season in London and while there met some of the members of the family of Maria Edgeworth, who suggested her writing the life of Miss Edgeworth. This she did, and the book was published in the famous old corner book store in Boston, in 1882. In 1879 she became the wife of Doctor Joseph P. Oliver, of Boston. Subsequently she wrote a memoir of the Reverend Dean Stanley, which was brought out both in Boston and London. Mrs. Oliver is a member of the New England Woman's Press Association and the New England Woman's Club; vice-president of the Thought and Work Clnb, in Salem, and a member of the Essex Institute, in Salem. Mrs. Oliver died in 1899.
ELIZABETH MARTHA OLMSTED.
Born December 31, 1825, in Caledonia, New York. Her father, Oliver Allen, belonged to the family of Ethan Allen. In 1853 she became the wife of John R. Olmsted, of LeRoy, New York. The Olmsteds were descended from the first settlers of Hartford, Connecticut, and pioneers of the Genesee Valley, New York. Her poems were well known during the war, and appeared in the newspapers and magazines of that period.
MARY FROST ORMSBY.
Was born in 1852 in Albany, New York. Her family connections included many distinguished persons. She opened a school known as the Seabury Institute, in New York City, a private school for young women. She has been active in reforms and movements on social and philanthropic lines. Mrs. Ormsby is a member of the Sorosis Club also of the American Society of Authors, Woman's National Press Association, an officer and member of the Pan Republican Congress and Human Freedom League, a member of the executive committee of the Universal Peace Union and in 1891 was a delegate from the United States to the Universal Peace Congress, in Rome, Italy. Writer of short stories and a contributor of articles to various publications.
REGINA ARMSTRONG NIEHAUS.
Was born in Virginia, March 4, 1869. Daughter of Thomas J. and Jane Ann Welch. Married Charles Henry Niehaus, in 1900. Has contributed poems, stories and critiques to leading New York magazine since 1896, also to The Studio, London.
MARIA I. JOHNSTON.
Mrs. Maria I. Johnston was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, May, 1835. Her father was Judge Richard Barnett, of Fredericksburg, who later removed to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and here Mrs. Johnston was a resident during the terrible forty days' siege of that city during the Civil War. That experience was made the subject of her first novel, "The Siege of Vicksburg." She was a contributor to the New Orleans Picayune, The Times Democrat and to the Boston Women's Journal. Since the death of her husband, Doctor W. R. Johnston, Mrs. Johnston has supported herself by her pen. She has educated her children, one son, a graduate of Yale, becoming a Judge of the Circuit Court of Montana. She was editor at one time of St. Louis Spectator, a weekly family paper. She has made her home in St. Louis, Missouri, for some time.
CORNELIA JANE MATTHEWS JORDAN.
Mrs. Cornelia Jane Matthews Jordan was born at Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1830. Her father was Edwin Matthews and her mother, Emily Goggin Matthews. Her parents dying when she was young, she was brought up by her grandmother. In 1851 she married F. H. Jordan, a lawyer of Luray, Virginia. She is the author of many poems and some quite stirring lyrics of the Civil War. Her book of poems entitled "Corinth, and other Poems," published after the surrender was seized by the military commander of Richmond and suppressed. She has published a volume entitled "Richmond, Her Glory and Her Graves." Has also contributed many articles to magazines and newspapers, the best of which are "The Battle of Manassas," "The Death of Jackson and Appeal for Jefferson Davis." She is a member of the Alumni of the Convent of the Visitation, Georgetown, District of Columbia, her Alma Mater.
RUTH WARD KAHN.
Mrs. Ruth Ward Kahn was born in August, 1870, in Jackson, Michigan. She is a contributor to magazines and local newspapers. She is one of the youngest members of the Incorporated Society of Authors, of London, England. She is a member of the Authors' and Artists' Club, of Kansas City, and the Women's National Press Association.
MAREA WOOD JEFFERIS.
Mrs. Marea Wood Jefferis was born at Providence, Rhode Island, and is a descendant of William Brewster, of Mayflower fame. Her father is Doctor J. F. B. Flagg, a distinguished physician, who is well known through his work on anesthetics, and to whom is justly due the credit of making them practicable in the United States.
Her grandfather, Doctor Josiah Foster Flagg, was one of the early pioneers in dental surgery in the United States. Mrs. Jefferis' first husband was Thomas Wood; her second husband, Professor William Walter Jefferis, distinguished scientist and mineralogist. Mrs. Jefferis has published a volume of verses in memory of her daughter, the proceeds of which she has devoted to charity. She is a prominent resident of Philadelphia and is actively interested in all charitable work.
LUCY LARCOM.
Miss Lucy Larcom was born in Beverley, Massachusetts, in 1826. Her father died when she was but a child. In her early life Miss Larcom worked in the factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, and in her books "Idyls of Work" and a "New England Girlhood" she describes the life in these places. During her work she had constantly before her textbooks to further her education, and in 1842 the operatives in the Lowell mills published a paper known as the Offering. Miss Larcom became one of the corps of writers for this paper and in it appeared many of her first poems; also verses and essays which were afterwards collected and published in book form. Miss Larcom holds an honored place among the women poets of America. Among her earliest contributions to the Atlantic Monthly was the "Rose Enthroned" which was attributed to Emerson, as it was published anonymously. "A Loyal Woman's Party" attracted considerable attention during the Civil War; also her poems entitled "Childhood's Songs." She was at one time a teacher in one of the young women's seminaries of Massachusetts. She was also a contributor to Our Young Folks, and at one time was the associate editor and later the editor of this periodical. She also collected and published in two volumes a compilation from the world's greatest religious thinkers, under the title of "Breathings of the Better Life." She was the author of a number of religious works. Her death occurred in Boston, April 17, 1893.
JOSEPHINE B. THOMAS PORTUONDO.
Was born in Belleville, Illinois, November 23, 1867. Her grandfather was William H. Bissell, the first Republican Governor of Illinois. Writer of short stories and contributor to Benziger's Magazine and the Catholic Standard and Times.
MARY F. NIXON ROULET.
Author, journalist, musician, art critic, and noted linguist. On her father's side she is descended from a distinguished English family who were prominent in the Revolution of 1812. On her mother's side, the family were prominent in Connecticut, and fought in the Revolutionary War. She was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and educated in Philadelphia. She married Alfred de Roulet, B.S. and M.D. She is the author of several books, "The Harp of Many Chords," "Lasca and Other Stories," "The Blue Lady's Knight," "St. Anthony in Art," books on Spain, Alaska, Brazil, Greece, and Australia, also Japanese Folk and Fairy Tales, Indian Folk and Fairy Tales, and a contributor to the Ladies' Home Journal, The Messenger, The Catholic World, The Rosary, New York Sun, New York World, Boston Transcript and Ave Maria. Secretary of the Illinois Women's Press Association.
MARGARET ELLEN HENRY RUFFIN.
Was born in Alabama and is the daughter of Thomas Henry, of Kilglas, Ireland, who was a prominent merchant and banker of Mobile, Alabama. Her mother was a cousin of Archbishop Corrigan, of New York. One of her ancestors was the last Spanish Governor of Mobile. In 1887 she married Francis Gildart Ruffin, Jr., of Richmond, Virginia, who was the son of Francis G. Ruffin auditor of the state of Virginia for many years, and a great-great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and related to almost all the prominent families in Virginia, the Randolphs, Harrisons, Carys, Fairfaxes, and others. Mrs. Ruffin has written several books, one of which, "The North Star," a Norwegian historical work, was translated into the Norwegian language for the schools of that country, and she had the honor of receiving the congratulations of the King and Queen of Norway for this work; also having her name mentioned among the writers of consequence by the Society of Gens de Lettres, of Paris, in the Bibliotheque Nationale and given acclaim by the department of Belles Lettres of the Sorbonne, University of Paris, after receiving the degree of Doctor of Literature. Is the author of a small volume of poems entitled, "Drifting Leaves," and a story in verse, "John Gildart." Is a contributor to the magazines and papers of both the secular and religious press.
MARGARET LYNCH SENN.
Was born in 1882 in Chicago. Was the wife of a distinguished surgeon of that city, the late Doctor William Nicholas Senn. Mrs. Senn after her husband's death presented to the Newberry Library, of Chicago, the cygne noir edition number one of H. H. Bancroft's "Book of Health" in ten massive volumes. She is a contributor to the Rosary Magazine and Times.
HELEN GRACE SMITH.
Daughter of General Thomas Kilby Smith and was born in December, 1865, at Torresdale, Pennsylvania. Contributor of poems to various magazines, The Atlantic Monthly, Lippincott's, The Rosary, Catholic World and other religious papers.
MARY AGNES EASBY SMITH.
Was born in Washington, District of Columbia, February, 1855, when her father, Honorable William Russell Smith, was serving as a member of Congress from Alabama. Writes under the pen-name of Agnes Hampton. Has written sketches for several newspapers. In 1887 she married Milton E. Smith, editor of the Church News. Is the author of romances, poems, sketches, which have appeared in her husband's paper, and also Donahoe's Magazine, The Messenger uf the Sacred Heart, and other church publications. Wrote some of the sketches which appeared in the "National Cyclopedia of Biography." Is at present one of the expert indexers of the Agricultural Department.
ALICE J. STEVENS.
Editor of The Tidings, Los Angeles, California. She was born March 10, i860. Was at one time notary public for Los Angeles County. Was also engaged in the real estate business prior to becoming editor of The Tidings. Is a contributor to Harper's, Sunset, Overland, and Los Angeles Times Magazine, also edited the Children's Department, of the Tidings for a number of years. Is conspicuous in patriotic and philanthropic work.
MARY FLORENCE TANEY.
Was born at Newport, Kentucky, May 15, 1861. Her father, Peter Taney, was a grand-nephew of Roger B. Taney, chief justice of the United States. Her mother, Catherine Alphonse Taney, was descended from a distinguished Maryland family which came to this country with Lord Baltimore, in 1632. Miss Taney has been a teacher, president of a commercial college, newspaper correspondent, private secretary, and assistant editor of the Woman's Club Magazine. Has written an' operetta, the state song of Kentucky, and has contributed to the well-known Catholic magazines.
CAROLINE WADSWORTH THOMPSON
Was born in 1856 in New York City. Married Charles Otis Thompson, whose mother was a great-granddaughter of General Israel Putnam and daughter of Lemuel Grosvenor, of Boston. Her grandfather on her father's side was John Wadsworth, of New York. The wife of her maternal grandfather, Howard Henderson, was of French descent and her great-grandfather was one of the original signers of the Louisiana Purchase. Mrs. Thompson is a contributor to the Ave Maria, Benziger's, and Sacred Heart Review, and is a prominent woman socially and in the charitable works of the Catholic Church.
FRANCIS FISHER TIERNAN.
Is the daughter of Colonel Charles F. Fisher, of Salisbury, North Carolina. Married James M. Tiernan, of Maryland. Mrs. Tiernan is a writer of note and some of her novels, under the pen-name of "Christian Reid," are "A Daughter of Bohemia," "Valerie Aylmer," "Morton House," "The Lady of Las Cruces," and a "Little Maid of Arcady," and many others.
ELEANOR ELIZABETH TONG.
Daughter of Lucius G. Tong, at one time professor in the Notre Dame University. She is a descendant of William Tong, one of the Revolutionary heroes, and related also to Archbishop Punket. She is the author of the new manual of Catholic devotions under the title, "The Catholics' Manual, a New Manual of Prayer."
HONOR WALSH.
Associate editor of the Catholic Standard and Times. Is related to Daniel O'Connell and is the wife of Charles Thomas Walsh, of Philadelphia. She has charge of the home and school page of the Young Crusader. Is the author of "The Story Book House," and contributor to the New York Sun, Youth's Companion, Benziger's, Donahoe's, The Rosary, Irish Monthly and other publications of the Roman Catholic Church.
PAULINE WILLIS.
Was born in 1870, in Boston, Massachusetts. Daughter of Hamilton and Helen Phillips. Was a direct descendant on her mother's side, of Reverend George Phillips, of Watertown, Massachusetts, who came to this country in 1630 in Governor Winthrop's Massachusetts Colony from Norfolk, England. The descendants of this Doctor Phillips were the founders of the Phillips' Academy, at Andover, Massachusetts. Miss Willis is the author of "The Willis' Records, or Records of the Willis Family of Haverhill, Portland, and Boston"; also a memoir of her late brother, Hamilton Willis, and is a contributor to the Catholic and secular press, and active worker in the charitable works and the foreign missions of the Roman Catholic Church.
CELIA LOGAN.
Was born in 1840, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When quite young she filled a highly responsible position as critical reader of manuscripts in a large publishing house of London. While here she was a regular correspondent of the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette and the Golden Era of San Francisco, and was well-known as a writer of short stories for magazines in the United States and England. After the war, on her return to America, she became associate editor of the Capital, Don Piatt's paper published in Washington, District of Columbia. She did a great deal of translating from French and Italian. She was a writer of plays, the first of which was entitled "Rose," followed by "An American Marriage." In one of her plays Fay Templeton made her appearance and won success as a child actress. She wrote several stories and arranged and adapted from the French several plays. Her first husband was Minor K. Kellogg, an artist. After his death she married James H. Connelly, an author. She died in 1904.
HARRIET M. LOTHROP.
Was born June 22, 1844, in New Haven, Connecticut. She is best known under her pen-name "Margaret Sidney." Daughter of Sidney Mason Stone and Harriet Mulford Stone, and is connected with some of the most distinguished of the Puritan families. Her genius for writing began to develop early and the products of her pen have had wide circulation and enjoyed an enviable reputation. She is the author of the well-known "Five Little Pepper Stories," stories for children and young people. Mrs. Lothrop has written many books. Her story, "A New Departure for Girls" was written for those who are left without the means of support with the object of having them see their opportunities. In October 1881, she married Daniel Lothrop, the publisher and founder of the D. Lothrop Company. Their home at Wayside, in Concord, New Hampshire, is well-known, having been the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mr. Lothrop's death occurred March 18, 1892, and since that time Mrs. Lothrop has devoted herself entirely to literary work, the education of her daughter, and to the patriotic societies of which she is a member. She i
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[
"Lesley Rodriguez"
] |
2021-01-14T09:35:25-05:00
|
Hailed by the New York Times as “The Queen of Change,” Julia Cameron is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream conversation—in the arts, in business and in everyday life. She is the best-selling author of more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction; a poet, songwriter, […]
|
en
|
The Open Center
|
https://www.opencenter.org/julia-cameron/
|
Hailed by the New York Times as “The Queen of Change,” Julia Cameron is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream conversation—in the arts, in business and in everyday life. She is the best-selling author of more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction; a poet, songwriter, filmmaker and playwright. Commonly referred to as “The Godmother” or “High Priestess” of creativity, her tools are based in practice, not theory and she considers herself “the floor sample of her own toolkit.” The Artist’s Way has been translated into forty languages and sold over five million copies to date.
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692
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dbpedia
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2
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https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-playwrights/reference
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en
|
List of 100+ Famous Female Playwrights
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2009-11-24T00:00:00
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Embodying creativity, passion, and dedication, illustrious women playwrights have significantly contributed to the evolution of theater, enriching the art ...
|
en
|
/img/icons/touch-icon-iphone.png
|
Ranker
|
https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-playwrights/reference
|
Embodying creativity, passion, and dedication, illustrious women playwrights have significantly contributed to the evolution of theater, enriching the art form with their unforgettable stories and intricate characterizations. From captivating dramas to thought-provoking comedies, these female playwrights have transcended boundaries and left their mark on the stage, weaving stories that resonate with audiences across the globe. With diverse backgrounds and distinctive voices, these playwrights have generated plays that have captivated generations, earning well-deserved recognition for their exceptional talents.
The illustrious careers of Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, and Agatha Christie serve as shining examples of the creative prowess and lasting impact that female playwrights have had on the world of theater, shaping its narrative fabric with their unforgettable stories.. Delving into the lives and accomplishments of these famous women playwrights, readers will discover intricacies of each playwright's journey to success, as well as the ways in which they have shaped the landscape of theater. With a keen understanding of human emotions and experiences, these trailblazing women playwrights have crafted masterpieces that continue to be revered and enjoyed by theater enthusiasts today.
Examining the wealth of talent among famous female playwrights, Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, and Agatha Christie emerge as iconic figures whose exceptional works have inspired generations of theatergoers and fellow playwrights alike. Maya Angelou, a celebrated American playwright, poet, and civil rights activist, used her powerful voice to create captivating works that spoke to the human experience, tackling themes of identity, racism, and empowerment. Ayn Rand, acclaimed for her novels and philosophical writings, also made her mark as a playwright with her profoundly thought-provoking dramas that tackled issues of individualism and the role of the state in people's lives. Meanwhile, Agatha Christie is best known as the queen of mystery fiction, yet her prowess extended to the world of theater with her skillfully crafted and suspenseful plays that continue to captivate audiences with their intricate plots and compelling characters.
In paying homage to the extraordinary contributions of these distinguished female playwrights, we recognize the invaluable role they have played in shaping the landscape of theater, leaving behind a legacy of inspiration and artistic achievement for generations to come. As a testament to their lasting impact on the world of theater, their exceptional works have not only entertained countless audiences but have also paved the way for future generations of playwrights to express their creativity and tell stories that resonate with the human spirit.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, was a seminal figure in the field of literature and activism. She is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences, the first and most highly acclaimed of which, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of seventeen and brought her international recognition and acclaim. Angelou's life was marked by a series of remarkable metamorphoses: from a child victim of racism, to a single mother working odd jobs to secure her son's future; from a nightclub dancer and performer to a renowned poet and author; from a coordinator for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to a friend and advisor to two U.S. Presidents. She mastered several languages and worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded her the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for her collected works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Maya Angelou's contributions to literature and culture were not limited to her prolific writing. She also held a successful career in the arts, including stage performance, directing, producing, and acting in film and television. A trailblazer in the truest sense, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in the 1973 play Look Away and for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie. Maya Angelou passed away on May 28, 2014, but her words and influence continue to resonate, inspiring countless individuals worldwide.
Age : Dec. at 86 (1928-2014)
Birthplace : St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Ayn Rand (; born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including property rights. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals.Literary critics received Rand's fiction with mixed reviews and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, though academic interest has increased in recent decades. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. She has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
Age : Dec. at 77 (1905-1982)
Birthplace : Saint Petersburg, Russia
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright renowned for her versatility, talent, and charisma. Born on May 21, 1966, in Boston, Massachusetts, she discovered her passion for acting at a tender age. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Edelstein quickly became an established figure within the theater circuit before transitioning to television and film. Edelstein's breakthrough role came when she was cast as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit medical drama series House. Her performance over seven seasons (2004-2011) brought her critical acclaim and recognition, earning her a People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Drama Actress in 2011. Despite her success on House, Edelstein never allowed herself to be typecast. She has consistently demonstrated her range, playing diverse characters across numerous genres, such as her notable roles in The West Wing, Ally McBeal, and Felicity. In addition to her acting career, Edelstein is also a talented writer and an ardent activist. She authored, composed, and performed the musical Positive Me in response to the growing AIDS crisis during the late 1980s. As for her activism, Edelstein is known for using her platform to advocate for various causes, including animal rights and LGBTQ+ issues.
Age : 58
Birthplace : Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and as of April 2019 is still running after more than 27,000 performances.In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association. On 15 September 2015, coinciding with her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.
Age : Dec. at 85 (1890-1976)
Birthplace : Torquay, Devon, England, UK
Mae West, born Mary Jane West in August 1893, was a renowned American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose career spanned seven decades. Originating from Brooklyn, New York, West's uncanny ability to captivate an audience began at the tender age of seven when she first graced a public stage. By the time she turned fourteen, she had become a professional vaudeville performer and created an alter ego by the name "Baby Mae". West's career took another leap forward as she delved into playwriting under the pen name Jane Mast. Her early plays, like Sex and The Drag, were often deemed scandalous due to their bold explorations of sexuality and gender roles, compelling the authorities to prosecute her on moral charges. However, this only served to fuel her popularity. By the mid-1930s, West had transitioned to Hollywood and quickly made her mark with memorable performances in films such as She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel. Her sharp wit, sultry persona, and iconic one-liners propelled her to stardom, making her one of the highest-paid people in the United States. Despite the strict censorship rules of the era that sought to limit her provocative style, West continually pushed boundaries, redefining the portrayal of women in entertainment. Even into her 80s, she continued to perform, refusing to let age define her. Her legacy is marked by her fearless approach to challenging societal norms and her immense contributions to the entertainment industry. Mae West passed away in November 1980, but her influence continues to resonate, marking her as a true icon of 20th-century pop culture.
Age : Dec. at 87 (1893-1980)
Birthplace : New York City, USA, New York, Bushwick
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1962 and has since published 58 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize (2019). Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) and short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates has taught at Princeton University since 1978 and is currently the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing.
Age : 86
Birthplace : Lockport, New York
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692
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dbpedia
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https://www.takeheartshop.com/products/the-listening-path-by-julia-cameron
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en
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The Listening Path by Julia Cameron
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The Listening Path by Julia Cameron The newest book from beloved author Julia Cameron, The Listening Path is a transformational journey to deeper, more profound listening and creativity. Over six weeks readers will be given the tools to become better listeners—to their environment, the people around them, and themselve
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take heart shop
|
https://www.takeheartshop.com/products/the-listening-path-by-julia-cameron
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The newest book from beloved author Julia Cameron, The Listening Path is a transformational journey to deeper, more profound listening and creativity. Over six weeks readers will be given the tools to become better listeners—to their environment, the people around them, and themselves. The reward for learning to truly listen is immense. As we learn to listen, our attention is heightened and we gain healing, insight, clarity. But above all, listening creates connections and ignites a creativity that will resonate through every aspect of our lives.
Each week, readers will be challenged to expand their ability to listen in a new way, beginning by listening to their environment and culminating in learning to listen to silence. These weekly practices open up a new world of connection and fulfillment. In a culture of bustle and constant sound, The Listening Path is a deeply necessary reminder of the power of truly hearing.
Julia Cameron is the author of the explosively successful book The Artist’s Way, which has transformed the creative lives of millions of readers since it was first published. Incorporating tools from The Artist’s Way, The Listening Path offers a new method of creative and personal transformation.
10" x 7". 180 pages
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WP Lab 2016-18
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en
|
https://wptheater.org/cast-category/wp-lab-2016-18/
|
MJ Kaufman
(Galatea Playwright) MJ Kaufman is a playwright and devised theater artist working in New York and Philadelphia. Their work has been seen at the Huntington Theatre, New York Theater Workshop, the New Museum, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Page73, Colt Coeur, Yale School of Drama, Lark Play Development Center and performed in
Russian in Moscow. MJ is currently a member of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers’ Group, WP Theater Lab, and a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Originally from Portland, Oregon, MJ attended Wesleyan University and Yale School of Drama. MJ co-curated the 2016 and 2017 Trans Theater Festivals at The Brick.
Mo Zhou
(Galatea Director) Originally from China, Mo Zhou is a stage director based in New York City. She directs plays, musicals, and opera. Ms. Zhou is a 2016/17 NYTW 2050 Fellow and a member of the Directors’ Lab with WP Theater. She has developed and presented works at New York Theatre Workshop, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown Theater Festival, Manhattan School of Music, among others. She was the James Marcus Opera Directing Fellow at the Juilliard School, where she apprenticed alongside Stephen Wadsworth. She has worked and trained with Houston Grand Opera, Merola Opera Program, Wolf Trap Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, to name a few. MFA in Directing, Columbia University; BA, Bowdoin College.
Yuvika Tolani
(Galatea Producer) Yuvika Tolani is a producer and dramaturg interested in developing new work. She is currently a Line Producer at The Public Theater, where she collaborates with artists throughout the year on projects ranging from one-day events to mainstage productions in the season. Prior to working at The Public she was part of the fundraising team at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard. Yuvika began her exploration of the role of a producer in developing new work while pursuing Theater Studies at Yale University. Yuvika comes to New York with an already-split allegiance to her original hometowns: Mumbai and Singapore. A product of disparate cultures, she is a big believer in the universal impact of a powerful story.
Donnetta Lavinia Grays
(The Review Playwright) Donnetta Lavinia Grays Plays include LAST NIGHT AND THE NIGHT BEFORE (Kilroys List, Denver Center’s Colorado New Play Summit, NNPN Showcase, Todd McNerney National Playwriting Contest Winner, O’Neill Center Semifinalist), LAID TO REST (Kilroys List – Honorable Mention. Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep Residency, Space on Ryder Farm Creative Residency), THE REVIEW (O’Neill Center Finalist). Developed work with The Public, Labyrinth Theater, New York Theater Workshop, KC Rep, Portland Stage, Pure Theatre, and Naked Angels. 2016-2018 Time Warner Foundation WP Playwrights Lab Resident. Civilians R&D Group and terraNova Collective Groundbreakers Playwright group alumna. Inaugural recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. www.donnettagrays.com
Melissa Crespo
(The Review Director) Melissa Crespo is a NYC based director of theater, opera and film. Recent credits include: Jill Abramovitz & Brad Alexander’s Bread and Roses (Amas Musical Theatre), MJ Kaufman’s Eat and You Belong To Us (NYU Tisch), Vid Guerrerio’s ¡Figaro! (90210) (The Duke on 42nd Street, LA Opera), Karen Zacarías’ Destiny of Desire (Garden Theatre), Tar Baby written and performed by Desiree Burch with Dan Kitrosser and The ABC Talent Showcase. Upcoming: Brother Toad by Nathan Louis Jackson (Kansas City Repertory Theatre). Melissa is an alum of the Drama League, current NYTW Usual Suspect and received her MFA in Directing from The New School for Drama. www.melissacrespo.com
Roxanna Barrios
(The Review Producer) Roxanna Barrios currently resides at The Public Theater as the Program Manager of the Mobile Unit, a program that brings free year-round programming to the five boroughs of NYC. She is about to manage her eighth tour, bringing Henry V to community centers, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, and more. As a producer, she has worked with the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, UglyRhino Productions, and the producing department of The Public Theater. Prior to her time in New York, she did a brief stint in film in Los Angeles and spent just under a decade working for a children’s performing arts training company in South Florida. She is a graduate of the University of Florida and a proud South Florida native.
Ellie Heyman
(Afloat Director) Ellie Heyman is a NYC theater director. Credits include: The Traveling Imaginary, theatrical rock show with Julian Koster (Neutral Milk Hotel) rated “Top 5 shows of the year” by NPR; narrative podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (Of the Air) featuring John Cameron Mitchell, Tim Robbins, and Mandy Patinkin, downloaded over 2 million times and rated #1 in iTunes (Night Vale Presents); Jason Craig & Dave Malloy’s Beardo (Pipeline Theater) Erin Markey: Boner Killer (Under the Radar/The Public Theater); Becca Blackwell’s They, Themself and Schmerm,(Under the Radar/The Public Theater); Adrienne Truscott’s THIS (NYLA). International credits include: Elevation 506 in Bulgaria with Yasen Vasilev and Home/Yuva in Istanbul with Sami Berat Marcali. Her work has been presented by The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, New York Theater Workshop, The Kennedy Center, Abrons Art Center, The Bushwick Starr, Banana, Bag & Bodice, La Mama, New World Stages, The Drama League, Big Theater, Boston Center for American Performance, The Laguardia Performing Arts Center, NYLA, En Garde Arts, and indie rock clubs across America. She is a graduate of Northwestern and Boston Universities (MFA), a Drama League Directing Fellow, a Drama League Artist in Residence, and a Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women’s Project Theatre.
Nidia Medina
(Afloat Producer) Nidia Medina is currently the Line Producer at The Public Theater. Before landing there, she had the pleasure of being Associate Producer at INTAR, and also produced an internationally touring one-woman show for charity called “The God Box” that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities all over. Other independent producing projects include off-off Broadway shows, fundraiser performances, and some wacky variety shows. But that’s not all! She’s held a variety of other positions in the theater, and has spent the past ten years backstage, onstage and in the offices of some great NYC theater companies — including Cherry Lane, Ars Nova, MCC, MTC, Theater for a New Audience, and LAByrinth Theatre Company. She makes art, too. It’s probably best to just call her a “Theatre Person.” She holds a Master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute.
Sylvia Khoury
(Power Strip Playwright) Sylvia Khoury is a New York-born writer of French and Lebanese descent living in Manhattan. Her plays include Against the Hillside (EST premiere, Lark Playwrights’ Week, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, 2016 Kilroys List, Roundabout Theater’s Underground Reading Series, NNPN National Showcase of New Plays) and Selling Kabul (2017 Kilroys List, Noor Theater’s Highlight Reading Series, La Jolla Playhouse’s DNA Reading Series). She is a member of the 2016-2018 Womens’ Project Lab, EST/Youngblood, and a 2015-2016 Dramatists’ Guild Fellow. BA, Columbia University; MFA, New School for Drama. She is currently a student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Tyne Rafaeli
(Power Strip Director) Tyne Rafaeli is a New York based director of new plays, classics and musicals. Recent productions include the world premiere of Michael Yates Crowley’s THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN BY GRACE B MATTHIAS with Playwright’s Realm, the New York premiere of IN A WORD by Lauren Yee with Lesser America and the world premiere of Anna Ziegler’s ACTUALLY at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles (Ovation nominated). Her work has also been seen at: Classic Stage Company, The Atlantic Theatre, Roundabout Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Two River Theatre, New York Stage & Film, PlayMaker’s Rep, Goodspeed, Julliard, Great Lakes Theatre, American Players Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, The O’Neill Playwright’s Conference and PlayPenn, amongst others. Tyne is a 2016-2018 Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women’s Project Theatre and was awarded the 2013-14 SDCF Sir John Gielgud Fellowship for Classical Direction. She previously served as Bartlett Sher’s Associate Director on various Broadway and West End productions. Tyne trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and Columbia University. Upcoming projects include IRONBOUND by Martyna Majok at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles.
Laura Ramadei
(Power Strip Producer) Laura Ramadei is a Founding Member of The Nola Project, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, a current Time Warner Producing Fellow at Women’s Project Theatre, and Producing Director and Co-Founder of Lesser America, which recently wrapped an inaugural company residency at Cherry Lane Theatre. Ramadei also currently serves as the Director of Creative Development for the American Playwriting Foundation, created in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman. A graduate of Denver School of the Arts and NYU, Tisch, she’s performed and worked behind the scenes at The Public Theater, HERE Arts Center, Theater for the New City, Theater 80, Ensemble Studio Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Fault Line Theatre, The Barrow Group, and with LAByrinth, among others.
Leah Nanako Winkler
(Two Mile Hollow Playwright) Leah Nanako Winkler is a Japanese-American playwright from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington Kentucky Plays include Kentucky (2015 Kilroys List, World Premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre in coproduction with Page 73 and the Radio Drama Network), Two Mile Hollow (2017 Kilroys List, 2017-2018 Simultaneous World Premiere at Artists At Play in La, Mixed Blood/Theater Mu in Minneapolis, First Floor Theater in Chicago and Ferocious Lotus in SF) and God Said This (World Premiere: 2018 Humana Festival). She a member of the Ma Yi lab, the Dorothy Streslin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages and EST. She was awarded the first-ever Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons and is currently one of the inaugural playwrights to receive a commission from Audible’s emerging playwrights fund. She is the 2017-2019 recipient of the Lark’s Jerome New York Fellowship.
Morgan Gould
(Two Mile Hollow Director) Morgan Gould is a playwright and director. She is currently in the playwriting program at Juilliard, a New Dramatists resident playwright, a 2017-18 Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellow, a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, a member of the Women’s Project Lab, the former Associate Artistic Director of Young Jean Lee’s Theatre Company (co-creator Untitled Feminist Show), and the Artistic Director of Morgan Gould & Friends – her theater company with 9 actors, 3 designers, and a filmmaker (www.morgangouldandfriends.com). In 2016, she directed Leah Nanako Winkler’s Kentucky (P73/ EST) and her play I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart won the 2016 Beatrice Terry/ Drama League Award and premiered the next winter at Studio Theatre in DC (with Morgan directing), where DC Theatre Arts said Morgan “shows every bit as much promise as Edward Albee’s early work, arguably more.” Upcoming directing: God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler (Humana Festival 2018) and Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee (Marin Theatre Company).
Sally Cade Holmes
(Two Mile Hollow Producer) Sally Cade Holmes is a New York-based creative producer. Credits include: Anastasia (Broadway), Puffs (off-Broadway), Boy Gets Violent (Ars Nova’s AntFest), Summer Valley Fair (NYMF), Hi, Are You Single (2016 Under The Radar), and Here’s Hoover! (Les Freres Corbusier & Alex Timbers). She is the Associate Producer at Tom Kirdahy Productions (White Rabbit Red Rabbit, The Visit, It’s Only A Play) and prior to that served as Producing Associate at Williamstown Theatre Festival. She also works with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a Line Producer for their Play On! initiative. BFA: University of Evansville.
Zoe Sarnak
(Playwright) Zoe Sarnak Works include: Secret Soldiers (with Marsha Norman), Afterwords (Village Theatre Beta Series Production 2018, Playwrights Horizons-MTF lab), The Years Between (with Kirsten Guenther, T-Fellowship), Across the Great Divide (with Michele Lowe, Transport Group’s 20th Century Commission), Galileo (with Danny Strong, Michael Weiner and dir. Michael Mayer), Teddy & Max (with Brian Crawley), A Crossing (with Josh Bergasse, Barrington Stage Company commission) and musical short films Landed, Alma Mater, and Hold Your Peace. (with Emily Kaczmarek, New York Film Academy commissions). Awards include: 2018 Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist (with Emily Kaczmarek, winners to be announced), Davenport Songwriting contest winner, NY Stage & Film’s Founders Award finalist, Fred Ebb Award finalist, two time Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award Honoree, Women’s Project Lab Artist, SWAN song contest award. Residencies include: The Public Theater at Vineyards Arts, Goodspeed Writers Colony, Williamstown Theatre Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theater Residency, Prospect Theatre Company, Eugene O’Neill Artist Residency, and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat. Music featured: NY Times Live, Lilly Awards, Women of Note, Cutting Edge Composers and more. Education: Harvard University.
|
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dbpedia
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| 86 |
https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/b/bontemps_aw.htm
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en
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Arna Bontemps Papers An inventory of his papers at Syracuse University
|
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Scope and Contents of the Collection
Spanning 1888 to 1997, the Arna Wendell Bontemps Papers comprises correspondence, writings and memorabilia of the educator, historian, librarian and Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist, playwright, and critic (1902-1973). While documenting Bontemps 21-year career as librarian at Fisk University, the collection also illuminates the life and work of this early chronicler of African-American culture. With the exception of some late 19th century secondary sources associated with Bontemps' research, the bulk of the original documentation dates from 1935 forward.
Arranged alphabetically, the Correspondence-Subject Files (Boxes 1-30) contains incoming letters and outgoing carbons as well as publicity, programs, and other printed material relating to lecture engagements, play productions, and writing projects. Correspondents whose letters are of greatest depth and duration include Paul Breman, publisher of Bontemps' book of poetry, Personals; Anvil editor Jack Conroy, Bontemps' collaborator on They Seek a City and three children's books; playwright Owen Dodson, with whom Bontemps served on the American Film Center's Committee for Mass Communication in Race Relations; poet Countee Cullen, Bontemps' collaborator on the play "St. Louis Woman"; composer W. C. Handy, for whom Bontemps acted as ghost writer for his autobiography, Father of the Blues; literary agents Maxim Lieber and John B. Turner; and Harlem Renaissance critic and photographer Carl Van Vechten. Bontemps' other correspondents include artists (Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence); civil rights activists (Julian Bond, Mary White Ovington, Mary Church Terrell, Walter White, Roy Wilkins); composers (Harold Arlen, Verna Arvey, Thomas A. Dorsey, Ulysses Kay, William Grant Still, John W. Work); critics (Herbert Hill, Nick Aaron Ford, John T. Frederick, Blyden Jackson, Alain Locke, J. Saunders Redding, Darwin Turner); editors and journalists (Horace R. Cayton, Frank M. Davis, Hoyt W. Fuller, Harold Jackman, Roi Ottley, George S. Schuyler); historians (August Meier, Lawrence Dunbar Reddick); juvenile literature authors (Erick Berry, Mari Evans, Florence Crannell Means, Milton Meltzer, Charlemae Rollins, Ellen Tarry); novelists (William Demby, Ralph Ellison, John O. Killens, Clarence Major, Alice Walker); playwrights (Georgia Douglas Johnson, Robert Lucas, Schuyler Watts); poets (Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Brown, Lucille Clifton, Marcus Christian, Frank S. Horne, Melvin B. Tolson); and sociologists (C. Eric Lincoln, Ira DeAugustine Reid). Although not characterized by a large number of letters, the Correspondence-Subject Files relating to educator W.E.B. Du Bois, novelist Jean Toomer, poet and playwright Langston Hughes, and sociologist Charles S. Johnson constitutes a unique group of documents which includes third-party correspondence, printed material by and about these figures, and manuscript writings.
Organizational correspondence includes that of cultural associations (American Society of African Culture, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc.); educational institutions (Dillard University, Fisk University, George Peabody College for Teachers, University of California, University of Chicago); fraternal organizations (Omega Psi Phi, Sigma Pi Phi); newspapers (The Chicago Defender, The Chicago Sun, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Herald-Tribune); periodicals (Common Ground, The Crisis, Ebony, Negro Digest, The Saturday Review of Literature); publishers (American Book Company, Dodd, Mead & Company, Doubleday & Company, Follett Publishing Company, Grolier, Inc., Hill and Wang, Inc., Houghton Mifflin Company, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Macmillan Com pany, John C. Winston Company); professional organizations (American Library Association, Association for Childhood Education, Authors League of America, P.E.N.); religious groups (American Friends Service Committee, Seventh-day Adventists, the Methodist Church); and theatrical companies (Establishment Theatre Company, Inc., Karamu Theatre). Of particular interest among the organizational files are the materials relating to the Julius Rosenwald Fund, a philanthropic institution which awarded Bontemps a fellowship, and for which he later served on its selection committee.
Arranged by format, Writings (Boxes 31-76) includes research material, notes, drafts, manuscripts and/or published material for articles and essays, book reviews, books, play and radio scripts, poems, song lyrics, speeches and stories. Articles and essays range from biographical sketches ("Rock, Church, Rock") to medical pamphlets ("The Low-Down on TB"), personal reminiscences ("The Awakening: a Memoir") to professional publications ("Special Collections of Negroana"). As both a librarian and a creative writer, Bontemps was uniquely qualified (and therefore often called upon) to contribute to a variety of publications that included American Scholar, Arts in Childhood, Film News, The Message Magazine, Phylon, and Tomorrow. Reflecting his eclectic interests and extending them to the book format, Bontemps produced anthologies (The Book of Negro Folklore, Great Slave Narratives, The Poetry of the Negro); histories (They Seek a City, 100 Years of Negro Freedom); children's fiction (Lonesome Boy, Sam Patch, Slappy Hooper); juvenile biographies (George Washington Carver, Young Booker); novels (Chariot in the Sky, Drums at Dusk); and collections of his poems (Personals) and stories (The Old South). Written mostly as collaborative efforts, playscripts include "Creole Square" (with Schuyler Watts); "The Great Speckled Bird" (with Jack Conroy); "St. Louis Woman" (with Countee Cullen); and "When the Jack Hollers" and "Jubilee" (with Langston Hughes), the latter staged for the 1940 Negro Exposition in Chicago, and subsequently produced for radio broadcast. Spanning 1939 to 1966, the radio and television scripts document Bontemps' media appearances and book promotions. His close association with Harlem Renaissance figures, together with his practical knowledge of both librarianship and book publishing, brought Bontemps a steady barrage of invitations to deliver speeches at church services, public school assemblies, librarians' conferences, teachers' convocations, university seminars, and writers' symposiums. Characterized by an anecdotal prose style, Bontemps' stories aren't reliably distinguishable from his essays, at least one of which, "3 Pennies for Luck," was published as both fiction and non-fiction. Unpublished biography ("Young King Cole"), juvenile literature ("Bon-Bon Buddy"; "Boy of the Border"; "Tom-Tom Treasure"), novels ("The Chariot in the Cloud"; "Of Many Waters"; "Yielding Seed"); anthologies ("Rat Tales"; "Sugar Hill") and unfinished projects constitute Miscellaneous Writings.
Memorabilia (Boxes 77-85) includes address books, citations, financial material, clippings about Bontemps, reviews, travel-related items, including guidebooks and souvenirs, and research material, mostly printed, on Africa, civil rights in the U.S., and Langston Hughes. Periodical issues of The Colored American Magazine, The Crisis, The Messenger, Opportunity , andThe Voice of the Negro, as well as small amount of ephemera, have been added to the Library's rare book collection.
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https://www.findthepathbooks.com/product/living-the-artist-s-way-by-julia-cameron-paperback-/6293
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Living the Artist's Way - by Julia Cameron (Paperback)
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<p><strong>Discover the revolutionary new Artist's Way tool, from "the Queen of Change" (<em>New York Times</em>)</strong></p><p>In her internationally bestselling book, <em>The Artist's Way</em>, Julia Cameron shared with her millions of readers the three main tools needed to unlock creativity. Now, in her revolutionary new book, <em>Living the Artist's Way</em>, Cameron finally reveals the vital fourth Artist's Way tool that she relies upon daily to find creative inspiration: writing for guidance. Over the course of six weeks, readers learn the radical new skill needed to take their creativity and their creative work to the next level: how to connect with the intuitive power within themselves and trust the answers they receive. For followers of the Artist's Way program and newcomers alike, this exciting new guidebook will teach readers how to find greater happiness, productivity, and creative inspiration.</p>
|
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/uploads/b/4a8e7020-a410-11ed-83bd-63b9529616f6/favicon-32x32.png
|
Find The Path Books
|
https://www.findthepathbooks.com/product/living-the-artist-s-way-by-julia-cameron-paperback-/6293
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| 27 |
https://nadiarahman.medium.com/transform-your-life-the-artists-way-by-julia-cameron-37cf97c72b4f
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Transform Your Life: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
|
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[
"Nadia Rahman",
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2024-05-06T01:23:30.713000+00:00
|
In January, I completed the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The full program is 12 weeks long and each week has a different theme/framework to adopt and explore about yourself. Staple tools to utilize…
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en
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https://miro.medium.com/v2/5d8de952517e8160e40ef9841c781cdc14a5db313057fa3c3de41c6f5b494b19
|
Medium
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https://nadiarahman.medium.com/transform-your-life-the-artists-way-by-julia-cameron-37cf97c72b4f
|
The twelve week program that became a five month support system through a very dark period of time.
In January, I completed the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The full program is 12 weeks long and each week has a different theme/framework to adopt and explore about yourself. Staple tools to utilize throughout the program are 1) Morning Pages (journaling) and 2) weekly Artist’s Dates (solo creative sessions or experiences).
If done correctly, the result is complete transformation.
Although the program is focused on creativity, the principles that you learn and practice during it are meant to transform how you think and how you approach life to bring you in line with your most authentic self.
The program addresses the aspects of life that block creativity and throw us out of alignment of our authentic selves — toxic friends, limiting beliefs and mindset, escapism (like workaholism, drinking, etc.), and our relationship with fear.
I began this program at the beginning of September and completed it mid-January. It took me roughly 7 additional weeks to complete.
Weeks 5 (Sense of Possibility) and 6 (Sense of Abundance) each stretched on for weeks on end, respectively, as the 10/7 attack and resulting siege of and genocide in Gaza became my focus and priority.
I kept up my Morning Pages during these stretched out weeks; they became a safe place for me to express my disbelief, sadness, anger, and heartbreak in the initial months of the siege.
This program ended up carrying me through the darkest months I’ve experienced in a long time — since the end of my marriage. It supported me through the complete emotional upheaval I experienced in October and November in which I questioned the morality of the world, its governments, my government, leaders of industry, and the people around me. And my own place within systems and structures that I no longer had any trust or faith in.
I do believe in divine timing and believe that I was meant to do this program at a time I would end up questioning everything in the world and everyone in my life.
Most importantly, I’m really clear on my priorities and boundaries and what I am and am not willing to accept from people, no matter who they are. It’s really easy to lose your authentic self and boundaries in politics, but then you just end up losing yourself and nothing ends up changing. Looking around at our world today, understanding that sad truth explains so much.
As a result, I became much more clear on my business during this time, and honed my services to be exactly what I needed them to be.
I am a writer and I produced more passion project writing over the course of my Artist’s Way months (5 months of calendar time) than I had in the 5 years prior.
During the program, I published my first op-ed on Muslim & Jewish safety in San Francisco as a co-author in the initial weeks of the Gaza siege; I turned my essays on occupation & apartheid in Palestine into videos; and leaned into content creation for the cause.
Since the end of the program, I have been creating A LOT — I published my first solo op-ed on how the toxic culture of SF politics enables abuse, and created a 30 day video series that served as a ‘Ramadan 101’ and ‘Islam 101’ to combat the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment that we are currently seeing here in the U.S.
I highly recommend the Artist’s Way. If any of this resonates with you, I recommend you give the program a try. It will change your life — guaranteed.
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https://www.londonpubtheatres.com/interview-graham-watts-on-lost-ladies-of-theatre
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Interview with Director Graham Watts on lost ladies of theatre and his work dedicated to giving them the prominence they deserve.
|
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"Githa Sowerby",
"THE MASSACRE by Elisabeth Inchbald",
"Elisabeth Inchbald",
"MAKESHIFTS (1908) and REALITIES by Gertrude L Robins",
"Gertrude l Robins",
"THE NEW YEAR by Florence Henrietta Darwin",
"Florencey Henrietta Darwin"
] | null |
[] | null |
Director GRAHAM WATTS talks about founding LOST LADIES OF THEATRE with a You Tube channel dedicated to performances of their work.
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https://static.cdn-website.com/runtime/favicon_d1_res.ico
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https://www.londonpubtheatres.com/interview-graham-watts-on-lost-ladies-of-theatre
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“David Hare could write out his shopping list and they’d give it a production in the Olivier” jokes Watts. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers, a nonfiction book describing a present-day slum of Mumbai, was a prime opportunity to get a young Indian woman to adapt it but it went to David Hare”, explains Watts. “He’s had about 20 plays on at the National - the plays I’ve been doing are a much better quality” he adds with sincerity. Watts admits that plays of this calibre “don’t just come your way”. It takes a lot of research to discover the plays and he’s spent more than a few hours at the British Library and elsewhere chasing them down. “If we could start to put them on and show the quality, we can give these ladies the recognition they deserve,” says Watts. “There has to be a more gender balanced repertoire and all of these plays deserve a place at the table,” he adds.
With perseverance the interest in these lost ladies of theatre has started to awaken. If it had not been for the pandemic, Watts would have completed a trilogy of women’s plays at the White Bear Theatre with the World Premiere of DIRECT ACTION by Githa Sowerby (1876 – 1970), subsequently presented via Zoom. Now Watts is ensuring that the plays have a dedicated platform to become accessible to a world-wide audience. He is making them freely available on a You Tube Channel LOST LADIES (found)
On the You Tube page he encourages others to join the campaign and as a result two plays are in the pipeline. They will be streamed live this month and then made freely available to watch on the You Tube channel. He has already directed Margaret Cavendish’s play THE UNNATURAL TRAGEDY on zoom with an all-Indian cast. Part of the beauty of it is that people can sit and watch the play performed with a cast from Kerala to Calcutta, New Delhi to Mumbai.
He is tremendously excited about the possibilities offered by Zoom. “It’s working brilliantly well in terms of theatre practice and it’s changing our way of thinking.” says Watts. He is rightly proud of the results of his first zoom play and is frankly astonished to discover it is opening up new ways of presenting theatre. One actor was caught in traffic in the back of a taxi in Calcutta and you can hear the background noise which adds a layer of authenticity. On another occasion an actor in Colorado (US) who has new-born twins was able to put the babies down to sleep and work with another actor in Florida for two hours. Watts explains that “Apart from that, she probably wouldn’t have been able to do any kind of acting (in a theatre) for years.”
His interest in lost plays from female writers began when he was asked to direct plays at the British American Drama Academy. “The students came over from all over the States” he explains “most of them a cohort of young females of 19 or 20 and I couldn’t see the point of bringing them from America just to do ordinary plays.” He didn’t want these great female actors playing men, painting on moustaches, so he started to research parts that would work for them. “It was that WTF phrase when I found the plays and I could not believe that they hadn’t been produced” says Watts with some relish.
The plays are not centred around women, although some are about limitations put on women and the pressure to get married. They cover all concerns from political to comedy and are often about social issues. Actress, novelist, and dramatist Elisabeth Inchbald’s play THE MASSACRE is about migrants to an unnamed country. “The local populace turns on them and tries to massacre them” says Watts. “It’s about 200 years old and comes off the page really fresh. Nigel Farage is nothing new….What we’ve found out is just how imaginative these women are” he says. “They don’t form any set pattern because they weren’t produced so they aren’t inside the system. If they were, they would tend to reflect the politics of the male-dominated theatre companies, but they don’t.”
It is hard to imagine why these plays have been overlooked. “It didn’t used to be like that” explains Watts. “Some women did have their plays staged. Two years after the first female actors were permitted, in the early Restoration period, there were all-female casts”. Today all-female casts are deemed radical but Watts found a newspaper article about this trend in the late 1700s. Unfortunately, it did not last. “11 actresses and one man wanted to change the repertoire back then and they came up with a list of plays that they thought would be appropriate for female actors” Watts explains. “They presented it to Mr Sheridan at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, but he wasn’t interested.”
Watts is hoping that Zoom is here to stay as a new form of theatre, in the same way that radio has achieved this. “It’s much more flexible than people realise. It’s a powerful weapon. Each actor has an individual camera and can use 2 or 3 devices.” He’d like to see it become part of popular entertainment because it is possible to do things you cannot do on stage or could not afford to do such as filmed extracts or changing the background for every scene. “It’s important to avoid the University Challenge look,” he jokes. Zoom offers all the same thrills as live performance with first night nerves and learning lines.
Watts is particularly conscious of the benefit of these plays to teachers at Universities or Drama Schools. Cavendish’s THE UNNATURAL TRAGEDY has 9 roles for young women and a cast for 13. It would seem to be an ideal play for theatre studies and students everywhere. Texts are available from Watts and he just asks that people acknowledge LOST LADIES (found) and support the work. “Plays are chosen on the basis of their quality. Not because they are written by women; they’re up there because they’re written by extraordinary women” he says.
NOTE: Graham Watts would be pleased to hear from anyone who would like to collaborate, contribute, act, or direct. At the moment participation is entirely voluntarily and unpaid.
He also welcomes plays by women from the past written in their original language. Graham can be contacted via his email address: grahamwatts@supanet.com
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https://thekilroys.org/list-2015/
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en
|
THE LIST 2015
|
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2015-04-27T23:02:47+00:00
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en
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The Kilroys
|
https://thekilroys.org/list-2015/
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THE LIST 2015: The Top 7%
The following are the 53 most recommended un- and underproduced new plays by woman, trans, and non-binary authors per our survey results. Each play received between 4 and 20 nominations. For more about the selection process, visit our About the List page. Playwrights have been encouraged to list their plays on the New Play Exchange to make them as accessible as possible.
Sorted by Nominations
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https://www.middlebury.edu/schools-abroad/schools/united-kingdom/academics/tutorials
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en
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Tutorials
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https://www.middlebury.edu/schools-abroad/themes/custom/schools_abroad_theme/favicon.ico?fv=QIOYMdwP
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https://www.middlebury.edu/schools-abroad/themes/custom/schools_abroad_theme/favicon.ico?fv=QIOYMdwP
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2022-03-16T16:41:45-04:00
|
The Oxford tutorial is a creative and flexible teaching method that enables the teacher to adapt a course to the precise requirements of a particular student.
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/schools-abroad/themes/custom/schools_abroad_theme/favicon.ico?fv=QIOYMdwP
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Middlebury Schools Abroad
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https://www.middlebury.edu/schools-abroad/schools/united-kingdom/academics/tutorials
|
Students select two tutorial courses each semester from a wide range of options. A tutorial is a weekly meeting of one or, very occasionally two students, with the tutor responsible for a particular area of study. The tutorial is a creative and flexible teaching method that enables the teacher to adapt a course to the precise requirements of a particular student, and to give that student individual attention and supervision.
At the weekly meeting with each tutor, the student normally presents a formal essay, based on reading in primary and secondary sources. The tutor will point the student to the most important books and articles relevant to a topic, while also encouraging initiative and judgement in their selection.
The preparation and writing of an essay is a time-consuming and exacting process, so the student must be prepared to devote the greater part of each week to this work. The purpose of this exercise is not merely to test a student’s ability to amass facts, but to develop powers of critical analysis so that they can identify and interpret significant information and present facts and conclusions in a clear and precise form.
Browse the comprehensive list of tutorials currently available.
American Studies
Arabic
Arabic
Tutorials are available in both Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic. The nature of the tutorial will depend on the level and needs of each individual student.
Note that Arabic is offered only at intermediate and advanced levels, not for beginners or near-beginners. You will be asked to clarify your linguistic skills during the admissions process.
View in the Course Database.
Chinese
Chinese
Tuition in Chinese can be arranged to accommodate a wide range of needs and interests.
Note that Chinese is offered only at intermediate and advanced levels, not for beginners or near-beginners. You will be asked to clarify your linguistic skills during the admissions process.
View in the Course Database.
Classics
Alexander the Great in Manuscript Arts from the Medieval to the Early Modern Periods
This tutorial course is going to dwell on a single figure—Alexander the Great, or Iskandar Maqdūnī (the Macedonian) as he is known in Persian—in select manuscripts produced across Central Asia and Central Europe in the medieval (1000-1500) and early-modern (1450-1750) periods. Alexander was significant in different ways to different dynasties administering different regions and in different eras. Different versions of his biography had different appeal, and at different times. By associating themselves with the hero, different rulers emphasized different facets of Alexander in their patronage of manuscripts.
In addition to being a part of popular culture and common knowledge for millennia, Alexander’s recounted exploits have particularly resonated with royals and nobles sitting in English through Indonesian courts. The course highlights a few select illustrated texts—produced between the 13th through 16th centuries—in Greek, French, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. It is essential to consider each text within its own tradition, but placing them together also allows for a broader geographic and chronological scope that can also produce interesting comparisons of cross-cultural and trans-imperial significance.
Sessions will explore the interplay of a narrative’s ancient (often imagined) past taking place in the Greek Empire (ca. 4th century BCE), with the accreted layers of time periods in which the illustrated text is produced, read, or seen. Dwelling on Alexander’s reception in various courts and dynasties professing Christian and Islamic confessions (Franco-Flemish, Italian, Byzantine, Mongol, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Abu’l-Khairid [Uzbek]), the course challenges the binaries of east and west, Christianity and Islam, through the universal appeal of the famous world conqueror. It will be of interest to students of literature, art history, religious history, culture and translation studies, medieval and early modern cultures, European and West/Central/South Asian history.
Sample Topics
Alexander as interpreted in the oldest texts and contexts: Greek, Syriac, Latin language sources, Biblical and Qur’anic versions.
New Persian and Old French—European Medieval traditions (13th-14th centuries) and early Persian literary versions (in the Shahnama, ca. 1010)
Alexander in the Byzantine and Mongol realms (13th-14th centuries.
Alexander in the Islamicate (Ottoman, Iranian, and Central Asian) realm (15th century), Turkish and Persian versions.
Alexander in the Islamicate (Ottoman, Iranian, and Central Asian) realm (16th century), Turkish and Persian versions.
Why Alexander? The appeal of superheroes.
Trip to the Weston Library to view manuscripts ((European and Turco-Persianate copies of the Alexander Romance).
Trip to British Library in London to view Old French Alexander manuscripts owned by Henry VIII, and Persian manuscript versions.
View in the Course Database.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is offered at every level, including beginners. It involves the study of grammar, syntax and readings from classical Greek literature. The precise nature of the tutorial will depend on the skills and needs of each individual student.
View in the Course Database.
Athens, Sparta, Persia
This course explores the history of the Greek states - especially Athens and Sparta - during the fifth century BCE. This was a period of political rivalry and experimentation within Greece, and a series of confrontations and/or negotiations with the massive might of the Persian Empire. This period is deeply engaging in itself, and has exercised a perennial fascination in subsequent thought, not least because of the historical writings of Herodotus and Thucydides.
Sample topics
The polis
The Persian Wars
Persians and Greeks
The Delian League and the Peloponnesian War
Comedy, tragedy and Athenian politics
Historiography: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon
Art and architecture
Economic life
View in the Course Database.
Augustus to Hadrian
This course explores the history of the Roman Empire from the first emperor, Augustus (died 14AD), until Hadrian (117-138AD). It considers political, social, cultural and economic questions, as well as foreign wars and diplomacy, during the height of the Empire’s power and prestige. Sources include writings by Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus and Pliny (read in translation), complemented by material evidence such as Trajan’s column, Hadrian’s wall, and the buried city of Pompeii.
View in the Course Database.
Classical Art and Architecture
One of the most enduring legacies of the Classical Age was the contribution to art and architecture made by the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman worlds. This course brings together the full range of visual and material culture that survives from these periods to examine an array of themes, set against the wider historical and archaeological context of continuity and change in the Mediterranean basin and beyond.
In these tutorials a range of artistic media may be studied, including statuary, relief sculpture, funerary monuments, mosaics, wall paintings, painted vases, jewellery, gems, coinage, and buildings. The uses of image, expressions of identity and power, and cultural influence and change are just a few of the themes which will be explored through an examination of the styles and traditions seen to have developed in the use of these materials.
In particular, buildings are some of the most impressive and best preserved ‘artefacts’ from the ancient world, and whose design was highly symbolic of the society within which they were built. From palaces, temples, and public buildings such as stoas, fora, basilicas, and bathhouses, to domestic buildings, the technology, materials, styles, ornament, and functions of Classical architecture provide substantial insight into ancient daily life, class structures, identity, and the culture of display.
The Ashmolean Museum (in central Oxford, five minutes’ walk from St Michael’s Hall) has a world-class array of artefacts which can be seen first-hand and might be brought into tutorial discussions, including in particular their collection of painted vases, and also the contents of the Cast Gallery, which houses plaster copies of many important sculptural monuments from the period.
View in the Course Database.
Classical Latin
This course involved the careful study of grammar, syntax and readings from classical Latin literature. It is possible to take this at any language level, including beginner. Students’ level will be assessed as part of the pre-arrival process.
View in the Course Database.
Classical Philosophy
This course charts the development of classical western philosophy from the Athenians to Augustine of Hippo, exploring the principal writers in their intellectual and historical context. At the core of this course is reading key works in translation. The cornerstones of the western intellectual tradition are scrutinised in terms of the specific questions they address, and read as part of a continuing narrative in philosophical culture.
Sample Topics:
Plato, Republic, Symposium
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics
Plotinus, Enneads
Proclus, Elements of Theology
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Lucretius, De rerum natura
Augustine, Confessions, City of God
View in the Course Database.
Classical Political Thought
This course covers the political thought of the ancient world, from Classical Athens to the Roman Empire. This period saw the formulation of fundamental elements in political thought: the state, justice, citizenship, notions of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, and the concept of politics in itself. At the end of the period, Augustine of Hippo integrated elements of classical political thought into his Christian theology. Key thinkers are explored with reference to their historical and intellectual context.
Sample topics
Plato, The Republic
Plato, The Laws
Aristotle, Politics
Epicurean political thought
Cicero’s political thought (On Duties and other texts)
Seneca’s political thought
Augustine, The City of God
View in the Course Database.
Classical Religion
This course explores the religions of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It considers religious myths, beliefs and practices in the context of the history and cultures of the classical world. Readings include some of the most powerful texts produced in the ancient world, including those by Homer, Virgil and Ovid (in English translation).
Sample Syllabus:
Ancient religion: an overview
The gods in Homer
Greek tragedy and the divine
Lyric poetry and divine inspiration
Philosophers and religion
The Aeneid and Rome’s gods
Ovid: the Metamorphoses and the Fasti
View in the Course Database.
Classics Special Topic
It is sometimes possible to arrange teaching in classics beyond the tutorials listed. This provides the opportunity to explore a subject in classics in depth, through one-to-one tutorials and writing weekly essays.
This will usually be of interest to students who have already taken classes in classics, and have a specific interest that they wish to pursue, and/or a specific requirement that they need to fulfil.
Please note that this is subject to agreement by both the programme and the applicant’s home institution. Applicants should contact the Senior Tutor directly to discuss this possibility.
View in the Course Database.
Greek Epic
The earliest texts of Western literature were created in performance by illiterate bards, and yet they offer richness and complexity in their storytelling, characterisation and moral outlook. The Iliad explores the tragedy and glory of being a hero, with martial frenzy, but also pathos and forgiveness. The Odyssey responds to the Iliad and contrasts with it, incorporating fantasy, folktale and realism, and building up to the dramatic climax of Odysseus’s revenge against the suitors of his wife Penelope.
Texts:
The Iliad
The Odyssey
Sample topics:
Divine spectators and domestic dramas on Olympus
Foreshadowing, flashbacks and the structure of the Iliad
Gods, heroes and morality
Mortal women and goddesses
The heroism of Hector and Achilles
The epic simile and formulaic structures
Stories and story-tellers in the Odyssey
The Trojan War in history and archaeology
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Greek Historical Writing
The most influential ancient Greek historians are studied from a literary perspective, with the emphasis on the presentation of their narrative and the characters in it. Thucydides and Xenophon were writing about their own time, while Herodotus’ epic ‘Histories’ explores the Persian wars in the light of the distant past, with many suggestive parallels between past and present.
Texts
Herodotus, Histories Book 3
Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War Book 3
Xenophon, Anabasis Books 1-4
Sample topics:
Leaders and leadership in historical narrative
The function of digressions in history-writing
Historians’ understanding and presentation of war
Religious issues and the depiction of the gods
The use of speeches in historical narrative
Historians’ concept of research and their presentation of their sources
The extent to which women are a marginalised group in historical narrative
The treatment of foreign cultures by Greek historians
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Greek Literature of the Fifth Century BCE
Through the genres of history, lyric and drama, this course explores the life and thinking of fifth-century BCE Greek city-states, with new ideas about morality and identity being introduced to Athens by the Sophists, while some hold on to the aristocratic values of the Homeric hero.
Texts:
Herodotus, Histories Books 1 and 7
Pindar, Pythian 1 and 9 and Olympian 1
Sophocles, Ajax
Euripides, Hippolytus
Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae
Sample topics:
Herodotus’ approach to the differences between Greeks and barbarians
Pindar’s use of myths and imagery to praise victors
The treatment of the themes of community and honour in the Ajax
Psychology and religion in the Hippolytus
Gender politics and the relationship between comedy and tragedy in the Thesmophoriazusae
How literature of the 5th century BCE approaches religion
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Greek Lyric
The lyric poetry of the Greek city-states of the Archaic period embraces a great variety of styles, with performance ranging from the public realm to the intimate setting of the symposium. The poems address themes from the very personal and intimate to the great questions which face the state.
Texts:
Semonides, Sappho, Alcaeus, Theognis, Solon and Anacreon from M.L. West, Greek Lyric Poetry
Pindar Olympian 1 and Pythian 1
Sample topics:
Semonides portrayal of women in Fragment 7 in the context of its time
The personal and introspective nature of Sappho’s poetry
Sappho and Alcaeus’ use of Homeric themes
Theognis on men, gods and morality
Solon’s political poetry
Anacreon’s use of style, structure and form to convey experiences
The theme of excellence in Pindar’s victory odes
Pindar’s use of myths
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Greek Tragedy
Greek tragedy is a genre that exemplified the artistic achievement of Athenian democracy in in the fifth century BCE, from the victory over the Persians at Marathon to the Peloponnesian War. The plays were performed to the citizens of this radical democracy and engaged with themes which were at the heart of the state. However, they went beyond politics to address fundamental questions about ethics, religion, and the gods. In the Frogs Aristophanes makes fun of Aeschylus and Euripides, but he makes a serious point, too: it is through watching plays and thinking about them that men become better citizens.
Texts:
Aeschylus, The Oresteia
Sophocles, Oedipus the King, Antigone
Euripides, Medea, Electra
Aristophanes, Frogs
Sample topics:
The theme of justice in the Oresteia
Mortals and gods in the plays of Euripides
The role of the chorus in Greek tragedy
The theme of leadership in Greek tragedy
Women in the family and state
The individual, family and the state
The mythical past and fifth-century Athens
The audience’s expectations of tragedy in the Frogs
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Latin Literature of the First Century BCE
This course examines Latin literature in the first century BCE, universally regarded as a high point in Roman culture, with authors such as Lucretius, Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Propertius. Major themes include the influence of preceding Greek literature, the place of women in society and texts, questions of politics, patronage and power, and the relation between Latin literature and philosophy and religion. The ‘book’ both as a technological and artistic fact is also an important area of interest in the period. These key authors also of course provoke study of more purely literary matters: questions of style, imagery, symbolism, allegory, convention, originality and so on.
Set texts:
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 1
Cicero, Pro Archia
Catullus, 64 and 68
Virgil, Eclogues
Horace, Odes 3
Propertius 4
Topics:
The Eclogues and the politics of their time
Lucretius: poetry and philosophy
What Cicero’s Pro Archia tells us about the value of poetry in his society or about being a Greek in Rome
The role of the poet in these texts
The landscapes and people of Italy in literature of the 1st century BC
The moral outlook of these texts
Catullus’ use of myths
Different approaches to love
Note that there is no language requirement for this course: texts are studied in translation. However, for students with the required language skills it is also possible to study these texts in the original. Please contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
New Testament Greek
This course covers the grammar, syntax and vocabulary of New Testament Greek. It is possible to take this at any language level, including beginner. Students’ level will be assessed as part of the pre-arrival process.
View in the Course Database.
Republic to Principate
This course examines the history of Roman state and society from the final decades of the republic to the establishment of Augustus’s regime. This was a period of tremendous social, political and military confrontations, as the republic overcame external opponents, while consuming itself in internal conflict. It also saw tremendous intellectual creativity, and students are able to explore writings (in translation) by public figures such as Cicero, Caesar and Sallust.
View in the Course Database.
Roman Historical Writing
This course explores history as a literary genre and examines its presentation of events and characters through description and speeches. Caesar wrote about his own experiences campaigning in Gaul, and his presentation of these events was intended as much to further his ambitions as to provide an account for posterity. Sallust and Tacitus drew on sources to record events from the past, but the present time and its political controversies were never far from their minds.
Set texts:
Livy, Book 1
Tacitus, Annals Book 15
Caesar, The Gallic War Book 7
Sallust, The Jugurthine War
Sample topics:
The treatment of myths and the distant past
The presentation of war in Roman historians
Attitudes towards foreign people and cultures
Historians’ presentation and treatment of their sources
Historians’ use of rumour and hearsay and their presentation of conspiracy
The presentation of different social classes
The presentation of the role of women in historical events
The characterisation of protagonists
Historians’ attitudes to political questions
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Virgil's Aeneid
Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ describes the epic journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas to found a new race in Italy. The epic owes much to the Iliad, Odyssey and other literature, but also reflects the concerns of Augustan Rome. Aeneas’ doomed love-affair with Dido in Book 4 is an emotional climax, while Aeneas’ visit to the ghosts in the Underworld looks forward to the eventual greatness of Rome. The gods are constantly present, as they are involved in forging the destiny of the Romans.
Sample topics:
Masculine and feminine points of view
The poet’s use of characterisation to tell his story
Religion and the gods
The role of cities
The presentation of death and the significance of the Underworld
Trojan, Roman and Greek culture and values
The structure of the epic
The morality of war
There is no language requirement for this tutorial: all texts are taught in English translation. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it can be taught through the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Comparative Literature
Epic Tales of Rivalry. Non-European Encounters in Iberian Epic Poetry and New World Plays (1500‒1700)
The early modern Spanish and Portuguese literary traditions contain a wealth of epic poems inspired by the classical Greek and Latin epics of the likes of Homer, Virgil and Ovid and by recent historical events related to crusade, conquest, and empire building. There are also a number of Spanish and Portuguese plays by Gil Vicente, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Ricardo de Turia and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz that deal with the relationship between the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in India, Africa, and the New World. Collectively, these works explore aspects of cultural exchange and conflict that arose from the encounters of conquistadors, pioneers and governors with other cultures, races and religions. By choosing to study a selection of these texts, students will explore how early modern Spain and Portugal related to the peoples that they encountered, and they will discuss the multiple perspectives held on issues relating to crusade and conquest. The module aims to challenge some of the long-standing assumptions made about colonization and empire building and re-evaluates the texts through a postcolonial lens where appropriate.
Sample topics:
Race and Religion in Luís de Camões’s Os Lusíadas.
Confrontation between the Portuguese and Ottaman Empires in Jerónimo Corte-Real’s Segundo cerco de Diu.
Patriotism and Sympathy in Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga’s Araucana.
Portrayals of the Indigenous in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado.
The Exploits of Hernán Cortés in Gabriel Lasso de la Vega’s Mexicana.
Non-European Encounters in the Final Voyage of Sir Francis Drake in Lope de Vega’s La Dragontea.
European Quarrels in a New World Context in Lope de Vega’s Brazil restituído.
Medieval Religious Conflict in Gaspar García Oriolano’s Murgetana.
Allegory and Symbolism in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s El divino Narciso.
A good number of the texts to be studied are available in English translations and, therefore, knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese is not a prerequisite for the course. However, if you do have the relevant language skills then it should be taught using the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Introduction to Middle English
This course studies selected verse and prose in Middle English, from the later middle ages. These can include ‘Patience’, ‘Pearl’, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, ‘Piers Plowman’, ‘Saints’ Lives of the Katherine Group’ and ‘Ancrene Wisse’.
View in the Course Database.
Introduction to Old English
This is an introduction to Old English language, including grammar, syntax and vocabulary, using readings from the corpus of Old English poetry and prose.
View in the Course Database.
Middle High German
This course studies the language of Middle High German, though medieval texts such as the ‘Parzifal’. Students must have at least high intermediate modern German before taking this course. The precise nature of the tutorial will depend on the skills and needs of the individual student.
View in the Course Database.
Old French
This course studies the language of Old French, though medieval texts such as the ‘Chanson de Roland’. Students must have at least high intermediate modern French before taking this course. The precise nature of the tutorial will depend on the skills and needs of the individual student.
View in the Course Database.
Social and Sexual Transgressions in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Literature (1200‒1700)
The literature of late medieval and early modern Europe is replete with social and sexual transgressors who have often been overlooked by scholars. This course explores a range of characters on the margins of social and sexual acceptability in order to re-evaluate preconceptions held about matters of gender, sexuality, and social roles in the period 1200–1700. It places particular emphasis on issues of homosexual desire, sexual trickery and seduction, and progressive female characters and writers. Students may choose to study a selection of literary texts in the areas of prose, the short story, poetry, and drama.
Sample topics:
Saints and Sinners in Alfonso X’s Songs of the Virgin Mary.
Sexual Escapades in Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron.
The Outspoken Wife of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Forthright Women in Gil Vicente’s Farce of Inês Pereira.
Sexual Seduction and Trickery in Juan Ruiz’s The Book of Good Love.
Go-Betweens and Sorceresses in Fernando de Roja’s Celestina.
Transgenderism and Transvestism in António Ferreira’s Bristo.
Sexual Misbehaviour and Deceptions in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron.
Homosexual Desire in Richard Barnfield’s The Affectionate Shepherd and Cynthia.
The Female Rogue of Francisco López de Úbeda’s The Lives of Justina.
Swindlers and Tricksters in Francisco de Quevedo’s The Swindler.
Immorality Exposed in Francisco de Quevedo’s Dreams and Discourses.
Female Agency in María de Zayas’s Amorous and Exemplary Tales.
The Strong-Willed Nun of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s The House of Trials
These texts are available in English translations. However, if you do have some of the relevant language skills then the course can also be taught using the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Economics
English and American Literature
British Children's Literature
This tutorial examines British children’s literature from its origins in early printed books through to the present day. The study of children’s literature serves as a testing ground for important questions about the acts of imaginative empathy demanded by literature, and the ethics of authorial influence. It also allows us to interrogate the assumptions we make about children and childhood, especially as connected to innocence, playfulness, naivety, freedom and creativity. We will explore primary texts in detail, and analyse some of the critical frameworks which help us to negotiate the relationship between adult and child, including narratology, postcolonial theories and feminist critiques.
There are three interrelated possible strands to our work in this tutorial. We may explore the origins of children’s literature in fairy tales and folklore (including in translation) and the development into print; the notion of ‘childhood’ as a concept, especially in the period between Locke and Rousseau; and the mature genre of children’s literature which makes up a canon of modern classics. Throughout we will interrogate themes of universal importance to the study of modern literature such as familial relationships; travel and displacement; interaction with the natural world; friendship; adolescence and coming-of-age; magic and mythology; education and psychological development; religion and morality.
Sample texts might include:
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Isaac Watts, Divine and Moral Songs for Children (c. 1715)
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience (c. 1789)
John Ruskin, The King of the Golden River (1841)
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865)
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1881)
Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince (1888)
Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book (1894), Just-So Stories (1902)
Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902)
Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess (1905)
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Rosemary Sutcliffe, The Eagle of the Ninth (1954)
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (1995)
Prohibited combination: this tutorial cannot be taken alongside the Inklings tutorial or seminar.
View in the Course Database.
British Travel Writing
This tutorial explores the rich seam of British travel writing from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. This was a period when changes in transport technology, political circumstances, and cultural attitudes, allowed people from the British Isles to travel as never before: within Britain, across Europe, and the wider world. The genre of travel writing flourished in these circumstances. Notable examples include Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Turkish Embassy Letters (1716-1718), Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839). Travel also became a major preoccupation in fiction, for instance with Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726), or Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899).
View in the Course Database.
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-c.1400) was the most important author to write in Middle English. This course delves into works from all periods of his life, ranging across genre and style, including celebrated classics such as ‘Troilus and Criseyde’ and ‘The Canterbury Tales’, as well as less familiar writings. Chaucer’s style, his politics, his erudition, and his comedy are explored within the contexts of fourteenth-century literary culture. Close readings of individual texts are built into a consolidated survey of his lasting achievement and the legacy he bequeathed to future generations of writers.
Sample Topics:
The early dream visions
selected prose writings
Troilus and Criseyde
The Legend of Good Women
The Romance of the Rose
The Canterbury Tales
View in the Course Database.
Chivalric Literature
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, chivalry developed as a distinct set of sensibilities within the western European elite. Chivalric values were martial, Christian, noble, and masculine. They did not remain static, but over time became increasingly highly elaborated, more courtly, and more intensely Christian. These social and cultural attitudes were formulated, explored and at times critiqued in the epic and romance vernacular literature of this period, in particular the Arthurian cycle, and the Matter of France. This course explores that literature in social and cultural context.
Sample Topics
La Chanson de Roland
Marie de France, Lais
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances
Raoul de Cambrai
Wolfran von Escehenbach, Parzival
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan
The Poem of The Cid
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle
View in the Course Database.
Comedy
The course explores the many types, styles and intentions of comedy in the western European literary tradition, from the earliest Greek and Roman examples of the genre, through the transformations made in the Renaissance by Shakespeare, to the ‘classical’ variants found in Jonson and Molière. Individual works are studied for their own merits as well as the light they shed on the evolution of comedy as a force in culture.
Sample Topics:
Aristophanes, Clouds, Lysistrata
Menander, The Girl From Samos
Plautus, Miles Gloriosus
Terence, The Eunuch
Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing
Jonson, Volpone
Molière, The Miser
Introductory Reading:
Bevis, M., Comedy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 201
Lowe, N.J., Comedy (New Surveys in the Classics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008
Salingar, L., Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976
View in the Course Database.
Contemporary British Fiction
The British novel of today is as experimental, diverse and influential as it ever has been. This course will consider some of the major themes and authors of the period from around 1980 to the present day, but can be focused on any aspect that interests tutor and student.
Sample themes
Realism and modernism
Postmodernism
Hyperrealism
Self and society: family, class, art, politics, sport
Feminism, queer theory, gender and sexuality
Science, technology, and ethics
Race, ethnicity, nationality, and culture
Historical fiction
Internationalism/Multiculturalism/Post-Colonialism
History and trauma
The primacy of narrative/imagination
Sample works
Peter Ackroyd: Hawksmoor
Martin Amis: London Fields, Time’s Arrow
JG Ballard: Crash
Pat Barker: The Ghost Road (from The Regeneration Trilogy)
Julian Barnes: Flaubert’s Parrot
AS Byatt: Possession
Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber
Jonathan Coe: What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep
Margaret Drabble: The Gates of Ivory (from The Radiant Way Trilogy)
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming Pool Library
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go; The Unconsoled
Doris Lessing: The Good Terrorist
Penelope Lively: Moon Tiger
Hanif Kureishi: Buddha of Suburbia
Ian McEwan: Black Dogs, Atonement
WG Sebald: Rings of Saturn
Muriel Spark: A Far Cry from Kensington
Graham Swift: Waterland: Shuttlecock; Ever After
Jeanette Winterson: The Passion; Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Films
Patrick Keiller: London; Robinson in Space; Robinson in Ruins
Mike Leigh: Naked
Stephen Frears: My Beautiful Laundrette
View in the Course Database.
Courtly Love
This course delves into the Medieval European convention of courtly love, or amour courtois, as it was first labelled by Gaston Paris in the nineteenth century.
Sample Syllabus
Andreas Capellanus, On Love
The Romance of the Rose
Geoffrey Chaucer, dream visions: Book of the Duchess; Parliament of Fowls
Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Filostrato (translated approximately as “laid prostrate by love”).
Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Christine de Pizan, The Letter of the God of Love.
Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion; Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart.
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolt
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), Il Canzoniere (The Song Book)
Modern construction of medieval Courtly Love tropes: C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love
View in the Course Database.
Drama
This is creative writing course for those who want to write drama. The student works closely with the tutor on producing dramatic writing, with special emphasis on designing plots, planning structure and executing dialogue for plays. Some study of the history of dramatic composition is included, although the focus is on the nurturing and development of the student’s own skills and capacity to produce original work.
Sample Syllabus:
The weekly syllabus is determined by the student’s own submitted samples of writing. Each week a new submission is required – either a stand-alone play or section of a longer dramatic work-in-progress, or possibly a reflection on the practice of writing drama. The tutor’s detailed feedback then provides the basis for the following week’s assignment.
View in the Course Database.
Eighteenth-Century Fiction
The emergence in the eighteenth-century of a new form of writing known as the novel was perhaps the most significant and distinctive change in modern English literature. Now often taken for granted as a pre-eminent literary mode, the early novel by contrast was a source of debate and anxiety about issues of morality, propriety, sentimentality, and about the dissemination of the literary arts for mass consumption.
Eighteenth-century fictional prose writing served as a testing ground for experimental new modes, from autobiography, narratives of slavery and servitude, religious conversion testimonies and confessional writings, to bawdy, comedies of manners, erudite theology, natural philosophy, and what we now recognize as the fully-fledged modern novel. Changing conceptions of literary authority as well as innovative narrative and rhetorical techniques allowed British authors to develop new modes of fiction which reflected the experience of a vastly expanded readership across the English-speaking world.
The course explores the first practitioners of the novel, examining their experimental fictions in wider literary and cultural contexts. It also explores the sources and influences which contributed to the development of the early novel.
Sample Topics:
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders
Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
Richardson, Pamela
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones
Sarah Fielding, David Simple
Smollett, Peregrine Pickle
Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Burney, Evelina
Wollstonecraft, Mary: A Fiction
View in the Course Database.
Eighteenth-Century Poetry and Drama
The dramatic modes, styles and intentions of the long eighteenth century are properly initiated in the years following the Restoration of 1660. As the Augustan era moved into the age of sensibility and pre-romanticism, the poets and playwrights of the eighteenth century responded to the evolving manners and concerns of their age with wit, style and charm, sometimes lyric, sometimes satiric, producing some of the most memorable literature in the English language.
Sample Topics
Vanbrugh, The Provok’d Wife
Congreve, The Way of the World
Gay, The Beggar’s Opera
Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Essay on Man
Thomson, The Seasons
Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes
Sheridan, The Rivals
Gray, selected verse
Collins, selected verse
View in the Course Database.
English Renaissance Literature
The English Renaissance is a term that has traditionally been applied to literature produced in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, although this course considers writing from the wider early modern period (c.1485-1688) written both in English and in contemporary translations from continental literature. Discussions about the poetic imagination, about identity (including gender identities, religious and political identities, and the relationship between self and group identity), and about the social and cultural impact of the literary and dramatic arts loom large across the period. Authors to study might include William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, Henry VIII, Aphra Behn, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Francis Bacon and others.
Sample genres
Sonnets from Wyatt to Milton; lyric verse; pastoral; formal verse satire; epic, epyllia.
Romance; pamphlets; essays; travel (and fantasy) writing; literary criticism; political philosophy; translations.
Exploring renaissance drama in all its variety. In the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.”
View in the Course Database.
English Special Topic
It is often possible to arrange teaching in English beyond the tutorials listed. This provides the opportunity to explore a field in depth, through one-to-one tutorials and writing weekly essays.
This will usually be of interest to students who have already taken classes in English, and have a specific interest that they wish to pursue, and/or a specific requirement that they need to fulfil.
Please note that this is subject to agreement by both the programme and the applicant’s home institution. Applicants should contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this possibility.
View in the Course Database.
Gothic Nature
The rise of gothic fiction in the latter part of the eighteenth century was part of a cultural and artistic revaluation of traditional conceptions of our relationship to the natural world. As Augustan notions of an ordered and benevolent Nature were challenged by the political realities of British life, including population growth, expansion of urban environments and greater awareness of global geographies, the natural world was increasingly figured as a place of sublime and even supernatural power. This course uses eighteenth and nineteenth century notions of the sublime as a starting point for exploring British writers’ vexed connections to a landscape which inspires both awe and horror.
Sample Topics may include
Theories of the sublime from Addison to Kant
Romantic sublimity and the Alps
Habitations and hauntings: Graveyards, ruins and ‘eternity’ in the poetic imagination
The Gothic wilderness in the novels of the Brontes
The sublime city
Turner and Thomson, Young and Blake: Illustrating the Romantic Landscape
Horror and dystopia in the natural world
Spots of Time: The psychology of the Gothic landscape
‘Natural Supernaturalism’: Uncanny Landscapes
Gothic medievalism and the British Isles
Gothic landscapes and the monstrous feminine
Ecogothic: politics of Gothic Nature
View in the Course Database.
Introduction to Middle English
This course studies selected verse and prose in Middle English, from the later middle ages. These can include ‘Patience’, ‘Pearl’, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, ‘Piers Plowman’, ‘Saints’ Lives of the Katherine Group’ and ‘Ancrene Wisse’.
View in the Course Database.
Introduction to Old English
This is an introduction to Old English language, including grammar, syntax and vocabulary, using readings from the corpus of Old English poetry and prose.
View in the Course Database.
Jane Austen
Despite her relatively short life, the six major novels written by Jane Austen, between 1775 and 1817, have secured her standing as one of the most significant and best loved of English novelists. This course situates her work within the wider historical and literary contexts, making reference to the Gothic and epistolary traditions, Romanticism, the French Revolution, and Mary Wollstonecraft’s proto-feminism. It complicates assumptions about Austen’s politics, encouraging students to read her as a subversive and innovative author, and asks questions about her style. In addition to the novels, this course also looks at Austen’s earliest work, which was unpublished in her lifetime, and her more recent cultural legacies.
Sample Topics
Northanger Abbey
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Emma
Sanditon
View in the Course Database.
Medieval English Drama
The world of the medieval English stage meshes humour, violence, music, oratory, academic debate, and visions of human tenderness in pursuit of artistic, theological and ethical aims in both the spiritual and material realms. Although critically neglected, English drama before Shakespeare is sophisticated, self-reflexive and creatively meta-theatrical. Before the construction of professional theatres, plays were performed in spaces - both public and private - which were not exclusively “theatrical” but also domestic, religious, legal and commercial. Dramatic performances exploited the boundaries between art and social context, drawing the audience into the world of the play whilst foregrounding its irony and unreality. The course will explore early drama in all its variety: morality and miracle plays, mystery cycles, liturgies, farces, masques, mummers, minstrelsy and more!
Core texts:
York Mystery Plays, ed. Richard Beadle and Pamela King (Oxford World’s Classics)
Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays, ed. A. C. Cawley (Dent/Dutton Everyman)
Three Late Medieval Morality Plays, ed. G. A. Lester (Benn/Norton)
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, 2nd edn, ed. Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher (Cambridge University Press)
View in the Course Database.
Medieval English Mystics
Some of the most profound and extraordinary spiritual works of the middle ages were written in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A combination of often horrifically troubled times, the desire for new forms of religion and a new immediacy of relation with God, and socio-economic and literary change contributed to the complex and fascinating picture; but these mystics were very remarkable individuals in their own right, and advocated very different approaches to Christian living and experience. This course therefore exploresnot only of their writings, but also of the context in which they arose.
Sample Syllabus
Literary & Historical Contexts
Richard Rolle’s Fire of Love
Rolle’s English Writings and Wider Influence
The Cloud of Unknowing
Dionise Hid Divinite and Other Cloud-related Treatises
Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection
Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love
Margery Kempe and her Book
Introductory Reading
Watson, N., ‘The Middle English Mystics’, in Wallace, D. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 539-65
Edwards, A.S.G. (ed.), A Companion to Middle English Prose. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2004
Sutherland, A., ‘The Middle English Mystics’, in Lemon, R. et al. (eds), The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
Glasscoe, M. (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England. Various publishers, 6 vols, 1980-99
Hudson, A. The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988
Windeatt, B. (ed.), English Mystics of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007
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Medieval Romance
The core of this examination of medieval romance literature focuses on canonical Middle English texts, metrical romances and the work of Malory. These are studied alongside major works in the European tradition, such as Old French and Middle High German Arthurian romances, in order to achieve the broadest possible coverage of the subject and its suggestive interrelations.
Sample Syllabus:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances;
Hartmann von Aue, selections
Gottfried von Strassburg, selections
Thomas Malory Morte Darthur
View in the Course Database.
Medieval Travel Writing
This course examines examples of travel writing from various medieval European languages. Medieval people travelled widely, for a variety of reasons: trade, diplomacy, religious pilgrimage, the lure of the unknown. Some wrote fascinating accounts of their travels and adventures. These narratives are accompanied by accounts of purely imaginary voyages, and of fantastical peoples, kingdoms and marvels.
Sample Topics
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
Marco Polo, Travels
The Travels of Ibn Battuta
travel writings of Petrarch
pilgrimage narratives
Introductory Reading.
Agapitos, P.A. and L.B. Mortensen, eds, Medieval Narratives Between History and Fiction: From the Centre to the Periphery of Europe, c.1100-1400. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013
Ohler, N., The Medieval Traveller. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989
Tomasch, S. and S. Gilles, eds, Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997
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Milton
John Milton (1608-1674) remains one of the most supremely significant poets in the English literary canon, as well as an involved observer of the turbulent political and social upheavals of the seventeenth century. This course studies the poetic modes and genres which established his reputation to include lyric, masque, tragedy and epic, and seeks to put this achievement in literary and historical context.
Sample Topics
Lycidas
Samson Agonistes
Nativity Ode
Il Penseroso
L’Allegro
Comus
Areopagitica
Sonnets
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regaine
View in the Course Database.
Modern British Drama
At the end of the nineteenth century, theatre dominated the performing arts and encompassed a great variety of forms. Rapidly evolving stage technologies, and the development of film, radio and television have fundamentally changed the role of theatre in society and the kinds of works written for it. We will explore the nature of these changes and examine the unique aesthetic power of live performance. We will also consider television and radio drama, which (especially in the first thirty years of the BBC) was often intended to be live and not recorded.
This course consists of six broadly chronological strands and the course can be tailored to draw exclusively or mainly from one strand or be a combination of several.
Strand A. Early twentieth-century theatre
For example:
JM Synge: Playboy of the Western World
RC Sherriff: Journey’s End
Modernist theatre: TS Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral
Auden and Isherwood, The Dog Beneath the Skin; The Ascent of F6.
Christopher Fry: The Lady’s Not for Burning
Noel Coward: Private Lives; Blithe Spirit
Strand B. The theatre of the Absurd
For example:
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot, Krapp’s Last Tape; Happy Days
Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Travesties
Heathcote Williams: AC/DC
Harold Pinter: The Room; The Birthday Party
David Hare: Slag
Strand C. The post-war stage and musicals
For example:
Joe Orton: Loot
John Osborne: Look Back in Anger
David Storey: Home
Simon Gray: Butley
Harold Pinter: The Caretaker, ‘Night’, No Man’s Land, etc
Peter Shaffer: Equus; Royal Hunt of the Sun
Lionel Bart: Oliver
Strand D. Television drama
For example:
Armchair Theatre, The Wednesday Play, Play for Today
Ken Russell: Debussy; Always on a Sunday; Dante’s Inferno
Ken Loach: Cathy Come Home
Mike Leigh: Meantime
Dennis Potter: The Singing Detective
Strand E. Theatre since 1990
For example:
Keith Waterhouse: Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell
Tom Stoppard: Arcadia
Caryl Churchill: A Mouthful of Birds; Serious Money
David Hare: Skylight
Sarah Kane: Blasted; Cleansed
Mark Ravenhill: The Cut
Jez Butterworth: Jerusalem
Mike Bartlett: Earthquakes in London
Strand F. The role of theatre
For example:
Peter Brook, The Empty Space
Howard Barker, ‘Arguments for a Theatre’
Shakespeare, the RSC, the British Council and the National Theatre
Student theatre
View in the Course Database.
Narrative
This is a creative writing course for those who want to write fiction. The student works closely with the tutor on composing prose narratives in either short or longer formats, with weekly writing assignments. Some reflection on the nature of fiction-writing is included, although the focus is on the nurturing and development of the student’s own skills and capacity to produce original work.
Students who have already taken creative writing classes in prose will be asked to take this tutorial as ENAM 0021 Advanced Narrative. This will allow them to be assessed on a different basis to those with little or no experience of creative writing.
View in the Course Database.
Nineteenth-Century Fiction
The nineteenth century was the period in which the English novel came of age, rising to unheard-of prominence as a means of scrutinising the era in all its evolving facets, and running the full gamut of comic to tragic in the process. While in many sense the novel was dominant, publishing strategies were fluid. Novels were published in periodical form, as well as single volumes, while short stories and other fictional forms also flourished in this era. Students can take the opportunity to examine these forms in addition to the novel.
Sample Syllabus:
Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Scott, Heart of Midlothian
Gaskell, North and South
Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Dickens, Great Expectations
Eliot, Middlemarch
Hardy, Jude the Obscure
View in the Course Database.
Novels on Screen
This tutorial explores the adaptation of nineteenth-century fiction in twentieth and twenty-first century cinema. The earliest forays into film were made while Queen Victoria was still on the throne and a striking number of these early experiments are adaptations of Victorian novels. Through the course of the nineteenth century, the novel had become a (or perhaps even the) culturally dominant art form of its day. As the century came to a close and film began to develop alongside its more venerable and established forebear, the two forms became entangled in surprising and mutually illuminating ways. This interrelationship was profound and has informed thinking about both genres at least since 1946 when Sergei Eisenstein noted a “‘genetic’ line of descent” between the two and insisted that “from the Victorian novel […] stem[s] the first shoots of American film esthetic”. In this course, we will consider how film interacted with the novel and, as it became increasingly dominant, how this shaping influence began to work in both directions.
Adaptation offers an approach to filmmaking in which cinema and the novel come into especially close contact and, as such, this will provide the focus for our investigation. This course will consist of eight tutorials, each pairing a novel with at least one cinematic adaptation. Possible topics include:
David Lean’s Dickens: Great Expectations (1860/1946)
Lewis Carroll and a proliferation of Alices
William Makepeace Thackeray and Stanley Kubrick: Barry Lyndon (1844/1975)
Dream and Disillusion: Michael Winterbottom, Jude (1996) and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897): from Nosferatu to Coppola
Making it Modern: Jane Austen’s Emma (1815) and Clueless (1995)
H.G. Wells and Sci-Fi: The Invisible Man (1897/1933)
From Page to Radio to Screen: The War of the Worlds (1897/1936/1953)
Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness (1899) and Apocalypse Now (1979)
Neo-Victorianism and Layered Adaptation: Fingersmith (2002) and The Handmaiden (2016)
View in the Course Database.
Old English Literature in Translation
The canon of Old English Literature comprises the earliest corpus of texts in the English literary tradition. This course studies a wide selection of translated texts in verse and prose forms, from the foundational epic achievement of Beowulf through to shorter lyrics, secular as well as sacred poetry, and historical prose narratives.
Sample Topics
Beowulf
The Wanderer
The Seafarer
The Dream of the Rood
The Battle of Maldon
riddles and minor forms
selections from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Biblical translations
View in the Course Database.
Poetry
This course is intended for those who want to write poetry. The student works closely with the tutor on composing poetry on a weekly basis. Some reflection on the nature of poetic composition is included, although the focus is on the nurturing and development of the student’s own skills and capacity to produce original work.
View in the Course Database.
Poetry of the Victorian Era
The course explores the development of English Poetry in the Victorian era, from its beginnings in the wake of the Romantic movement, through a variety of modes, types and genres, up to the fin-de-siecle. Poets are read both for intrinsic literary merit and for an appreciation of the wider culture of the time.
Sample Topics
Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel
Tennyson, In Memoriam, Idylls of the King
Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market
Hopkins, selected verse
Hardy, selected verse
Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
View in the Course Database.
Romanticism
During the latter decades of the eighteenth century and opening years of the nineteenth, the broad cultural movement known as Romanticism swept artists and writers into a new kind of collective sensibility. British Romanticism has been viewed as a reactionary or revolutionary ‘movement’ - political as well as artistic in nature - which united its core protagonists in an overturning of classical and enlightenment values: redirecting their literary energies to an exploration of the heart, not the mind; to experience, rather than explanation; and to the relationship of human creativity to the natural world. Increasingly, however, critics have begun to point towards the immense variety and complexity of the ideologies as well as the artistic techniques used by the writers who fall under the umbrella of Romanticism, and to critique the notion of a unified Romantic philosophy. Students of this course set themselves to work at the heart of this impassioned critical field, studying the canonical British Romantic writers alongside a host of troublingly heterodox contemporary material in order to explore the phenomenon of Romantic literature in all its plurality and complexity. Each Romantic writer has a unique voice, but all were drawn into the quest to convey human experience through the imperfect medium of the written word.
It is possible to tailor this course to focus on ‘Romanticism and the Environment’: the tutorials might include Romantic depictions of the city, Romantic travel writing, poetic responses to the enclosure acts, the Lake District and the Romantic sense of place, aesthetics of ruin and epitaph, seas and seafaring as a Romantic trope, ‘sharrawaggi’ and orientalism in Romantic conceptions of nature, Gothic landscapes, preromantic aesthetics in the writing of Cowper and Thomson, and the pastoral and georgic traditions. We will encounter twentieth and twenty-first century critical reflections on Romanticism and the natural world and on Romanticism and the historical development of ‘environmentalism’ from writers including George Monbiot, Simon Jarvis, Timothy Morton and others.
Some Sample Topics
Writing the self and developing narratives in texts including Wordsworth’s The Prelude, Cowper’s The Task and De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater
Romanticism as a manifesto: Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads
Romantic supernaturalism and the gothic: including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Keats’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Byron’s The Giaour
Romantic engagement with a literary past: Byron, Don Juan; Hellenic influences in Keats and Shelley, Blake’s Milton, selections of Romantic criticism on Shakespeare
The Keats-Shelley circle
Romantic prose: Scott, Heart of Midlothian; Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Symbolism and revelation: Blake, Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience
Romanticism, pastoral and environmentalism
Ruskin, Blake and the Romantic vision of nature’s disharmony in the visual arts
Romantic history: Burke, Carlyle and Gibbon
View in the Course Database.
Shakespeare I: Histories and Comedies
The course presented a detailed study of Shakespeare’s most important history plays and comedies. Close textual analysis of the individual dramas, in terms of structure and thematic content, was allied to a survey of their wider role in the entire Shakespearian corpus and to the history of English literature at this crucial phase of its development.
Sample Topics
Richard II
Richard III
Henry IV (1 and 2)
Henry V
The Taming of the Shrew
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
As You Like It
View in the Course Database.
Shakespeare II: Tragedies & Romances
The course presents a detailed study of Shakespeare’s most important tragedies and romances. Close textual analysis of the individual dramas, in terms of structure and thematic content, is allied to a survey of their wider role in the wider Shakespearian corpus, and in the history of English literature at this crucial phase of its development.
Sample Topics:
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest
Introductory Reading:
McEachern, C., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003
Thorne, A., ed., Shakespeare’s Romances. Basingstoke: Palgrace Macmillan, 2002
Zimmerman, S., ed., Shakespeare’s Tragedies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998
View in the Course Database.
The Country House
The country house is more than the sum of its bricks and mortar. In the British imagination it has represented everything from the height of cultural and political capital, to the decline and fall of old social structures. Through readings of literature, this module will introduce students to the chequered story of the country house in relation to British history. We will read poems presenting country houses as pastoral retreats from political upheaval in the seventeenth century, and in contrast, texts showing the vast array of labour and trade that sustained the luxury of eighteenth century mansions. The course links together the literary presentation of rural seats with the aesthetic and moral principles that have governed their construction and appreciation. Students can read Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park in light of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, and look at the symbolic functions of stately homes in the wake of war in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. By setting patriotic texts alongside satires and critiques, the course will introduce students to some of the diverse cultural arguments that stately homes have provoked, which continue to be relevant today.
View in the Course Database.
The Inklings
C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams were at the centre of the Inklings, a group of friends who met every week in Oxford between the early 1930s and the 1950s to read one another their latest writings, to share ideas, and to enjoy good food and drink. This course was a detailed investigation of the Inklings, their work and the contribution it made to literature, philosophy and religion.
View in the Course Database.
The Printing Revolution
Before the Internet, there was the printing press. Exploited by some as an engine of reform, and condemned by others as the end of knowledge itself, ‘the art of artificial writing’ had revolutionary consequences for Europe. From its arrival in the 1440s, we find entrepreneurs using fonts to imitate manuscripts, but in numbers never attainable by the scribes that preceded them. During the Reformation, the technology was put to ideological ends by both establishment and anti-establishment authors. Printing also left its mark on language and literature: in the earliest English printed books we find editors grappling with a multiplicity of dialects that eventually becomes standardized, while some poets actively shunned the medium, seeing it as inherently prone to error. This course includes an introduction to the practical study of books as objects: how they were made, and how we interpret the variety of fonts and marginalia found in them. Students will have the opportunity to work with the rich resources on offer both through the Bodleian libraries and within our own collection of early printed books and manuscripts in the Feneley Library.
View in the Course Database.
Tragedy
The course explores the nature and forms of tragedy – one of the foundational literary modes of western culture since antiquity. From the earliest statements about tragic theory as set down by Aristotle and embodied in Greek drama, to a reconsideration of tragedy during the English and French Renaissance, key examples of the form are studied in order to ascertain the meaning of tragedy and the various ways in which it sought expression.
Sample Topics:
Aristotle, Poetics
Aeschylus, Oresteia
Euripides, The Trojan Women
Sophocles, Theban Plays
Webster, The Duchess of Malfi
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Corneille, Le Cid
Racine, Phèdre
Introductory Reading:
Draper, R., Tragedy: Developments in Criticism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1980
Easterling, P.E., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997
Poole, A., Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
View in the Course Database.
Twentieth-Century British Fiction
The thematic and stylistic concerns of British fiction underwent broad transformations in the twentieth century, in response to the changing and often troubling circumstances of the age. The works of individual novelists are closely examined from the perspective of content, structure and style, and are assessed in terms of the larger developments in culture and society in which they played a role.
Sample Topics:
Joseph Conrad
E.M. Forster
Virginia Woolf
D.H. Lawrence
Evelyn Waugh
George Orwell
Kingsley Amis
Iris Murdoch
William Golding
Anthony Burgess
Salman Rushdie
Jeannette Winterson
View in the Course Database.
Twentieth-Century British Poetry
The course ranges widely among the riches and complexities of British poetry in the twentieth century. In the modern age the variety of modes and types in which poets found their individual voices expanded to a vast degree, responding in manifold ways to the crises, tribulations and landmarks of the period. Poets are studied for their own particular nuances and characteristics, and for their larger contribution to modern British culture.
Sample Topics:
Thomas Hardy
The Poetry of the First World War
A.E. Housman
T.S. Eliot
W.B. Yeats
W.H. Auden
John Betjeman
Dylan Thomas
Philip Larkin
Ted Hughes
Seamus Heaney
Benjamin Zephaniah
View in the Course Database.
Viking Literature and Culture
This course explores the legacy of Viking literature, ranging from mythology to heroic legend, and includes an analysis of wider history and culture through readings of Old Norse and Icelandic texts in translation. Topics include the Poetic Edda, skaldic poetry, the world of Snorri Sturlson, the legendary sagas and the Icelandic family sagas.
View in the Course Database.
Women & Literature in the English Renaissance
This course examines women writers of the English Renaissance, placing them in a wider European context, and studying them in their roles as translators and adaptors of a wide range of humanist texts, alongside their roles as poets, dramatists and political polemicists. The course provides an opportunity to study the manuscript and print culture of a distinctive group of writers too often excluded from early-modern literary studies.
Aristocratic writing, especially that surrounding the English court, is one setting for the growth of female authorship. The works of Anne Askew, Margaret Tyler and Mary Sidney were celebrated (and defended) within their period, as well as appreciated by later readers. Many of these writings are surprising in their authorial confidence: their writing is invested in a presentation of female influence, erudition and poetic skill, and enters fully into the literary and political debate of their male counterparts. We will cover poetry, prose, allegory, fantasy, philosophy, theology and drama. The utopian fictions of Mary Wroth and Mary Sidney reward attention as early examples of the genre we now call ‘science fiction’, as well as being read as Christian allegories and as radical political treatises. Further radical discussions surrounding the morality of female authorship came to head in a series of controversies in which women, often publishing pseudonymously and anonymously, defended themselves from the ridicule and hostility of male pamphleteers.
The study of women writers gives us a unique vantage point from which to approach the print culture and reading habits of the English Renaissance.
View in the Course Database.
Women & Literature in the Middle Ages
This course brings together diverse genres and texts in order to examine how women were represented in Western European Medieval Literature, and particularly to introduce a rich array of writing by women. The place of women in European society throughout the Middle Ages was often in direct relation to biblical texts, which frequently emphasised primacy of men over women, and balanced understanding of femininity between the absolute archetypes of Eve and the Virgin Mary. Nonetheless some women exercised remarkable degrees of power in religious, political and domestic realms, both working within and against legal limitations. Women often made practical choices between marriage and taking the veil as a nun or anchoress, but in some cases and alternative way seems to have been found, such as the extraordinary travelling life of Margery Kempe. Women’s writing is frequently composed in the vernacular, whether French, Middle English, German, etc, and often that which survives is written by wealthier or noble individuals. As required this course may also incorporate historical and archaeological sources in order to better trace the lives of ordinary women, who frequently lived and died without leaving a textual record.
This course explores a mixture of genres, which might include hagiography, life-writing, mystical spiritualism, lyrics, letters, homilies and dream vision, ranging across poetry, prose and, if desired, drama. Texts will be read in translation from Anglo Norman, French, Middle English, and Latin, with some opportunity to get to grips with the original language in consultation with your tutor.
Sample Syllabus
A selection of anonymous Marian devotional lyrics
Marie de France, Lais
Ancrene Wisse
The Katherine Group and the Wooing Group
The Life of Christina of Markyate
The Paston Letters
Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Julian of Norwich, Shewings or Revelations of Divine Love
Guillaume Lorris/Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose (likely paired with Christine de Pizan, Epistre au Dieu d’Amours)
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale; The Clerk’s Tale; The Merchant’s Tale; The Miller’s Tale
View in the Course Database.
Women & Literature, 1660-1800
Eighteenth-century Britain has traditionally been thought of in terms of a male monopoly over cultural and political power, yet it was also a time in which increasing literacy and the availability of cheap print brought new voices – and especially those of women – to prominence. The period saw the creation of circulating libraries, the rise of sentimental and Gothic novel-writing, and the appearance of the first female actors. This course looks at both celebrated and neglected female writers of poetry, prose and dramatic works. It explores the ways in which women participated in the literary sphere, and the ways in which they created new spaces for themselves in discussions of politics, religion, art, philosophy and science. We will also engage with their strategies for the presentation of traditionally ‘feminine’ ideals such as domesticity, maternity and motherhood, chastity and fidelity. The course allows us to place contemporaneous and modern criticism alongside close readings of women’s writing from the period of the civil war to the aftermath of the French Revolution.
Key authors include the poet, dramatist and political radical Aphra Behn; the aristocrat, pioneering traveller and social commentator Mary Wortley Montagu; the immensely popular poet and member of the Bluestocking group, Hannah More; playwright and abolitionist Fanny Burney; Scottish pastoral writer Joanna Baillie; intellectual and prominent dissenter Anna Laetitia Barbauld; educationalist and novelist Maria Edgeworth; gothic pioneer Ann Radcliffe; fervent nationalist poet Felicia Hemans; and the passionate and politically-astute Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most controversial literary figures of her time. We will also spend time reading the poetry, letters, autobiographies and diaries of lesser-known women whose works reward critical attention.
View in the Course Database.
Film and Media Culture
Cinema and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain
This tutorial explores British cinema and society during the twentieth century. Cinema became enormously popular in the first half of the century; it both shaped and responded to changing social and cultural attitudes. This course draws on films from a range of genres, including comedy, action, and documentaries. These provide a stimulating opportunity to explore themes such as social change, attitudes to gender and sexuality, nationhood, the British empire, and the impact of the World Wars. This tutorial is also allows students to examine the methodological challenges of using film as a historical source.
Sample Films:
War Women of England (1917)
A Day in the Life of a Munitions Worker (1917)
Fires Were Started (1943)
A Canterbury Tale (1944)
Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945)
The Dambusters (1955)
Alfie (1966)
Darling (1965)
A Passage to India (1984)
Billy Elliot (2000)
This is England (2006)
View in the Course Database.
Novels on Screen
This tutorial explores the adaptation of nineteenth-century fiction in twentieth and twenty-first century cinema. The earliest forays into film were made while Queen Victoria was still on the throne and a striking number of these early experiments are adaptations of Victorian novels. Through the course of the nineteenth century, the novel had become a (or perhaps even the) culturally dominant art form of its day. As the century came to a close and film began to develop alongside its more venerable and established forebear, the two forms became entangled in surprising and mutually illuminating ways. This interrelationship was profound and has informed thinking about both genres at least since 1946 when Sergei Eisenstein noted a “‘genetic’ line of descent” between the two and insisted that “from the Victorian novel […] stem[s] the first shoots of American film esthetic”. In this course, we will consider how film interacted with the novel and, as it became increasingly dominant, how this shaping influence began to work in both directions.
Adaptation offers an approach to filmmaking in which cinema and the novel come into especially close contact and, as such, this will provide the focus for our investigation. This course will consist of eight tutorials, each pairing a novel with at least one cinematic adaptation. Possible topics include:
David Lean’s Dickens: Great Expectations (1860/1946)
Lewis Carroll and a proliferation of Alices
William Makepeace Thackeray and Stanley Kubrick: Barry Lyndon (1844/1975)
Dream and Disillusion: Michael Winterbottom, Jude (1996) and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897): from Nosferatu to Coppola
Making it Modern: Jane Austen’s Emma (1815) and Clueless (1995)
H.G. Wells and Sci-Fi: The Invisible Man (1897/1933)
From Page to Radio to Screen: The War of the Worlds (1897/1936/1953)
Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness (1899) and Apocalypse Now (1979)
Neo-Victorianism and Layered Adaptation: Fingersmith (2002) and The Handmaiden (2016)
View in the Course Database.
The Middle Ages in Cinema
This tutorial explores cinematic depictions of the middle ages, mainly in European and North American film. It draws on the burgeoning scholarly literature in this field, to explore the complex interplay between cinema and ‘the medieval.’ This includes thinking about the interaction between films and other forms of artistic expression: many relevant films are adaptations of plays or novels (‘The Lion in Winter’, 1968; various versions of Mark Twain’s ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’).
Medieval topics have captured the imagination of film makers since the early years of cinema, as seen for instance in Carl Theodore Dreyer’s tremendously influential silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928). Perennially popular topics for cinematic treatment include King Arthur, Robin Hood, and the Crusades. (On the latter, compare Kingdom of Heaven (2005), with the 1963 Egyptian film Salladin the Victorious). They range from cerebral films such as The Seventh Seal (1957) to swashbucklers such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) or El Cid (1961). Central elements include depictions of gender and sexuality, Christianity, and Orientalism. Humour is also an important theme, for instance in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), and Les Visiteurs (1993).
View in the Course Database.
French
French
Tuition in French can be arranged to accommodate a wide range of needs and interests. For example, a stress can be laid on French for academic purposes, or on conversational French depending on what is required.
Note that modern languages are offered only at intermediate and advanced levels, not for beginners or near-beginners. Use the same course code for both levels, you will be asked to clarify your linguistic skills during the admissions process.
View in the Course Database.
Old French
This course studies the language of Old French, though medieval texts such as the ‘Chanson de Roland’. Students must have at least high intermediate modern French before taking this course. The precise nature of the tutorial will depend on the skills and needs of the individual student.
View in the Course Database.
Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Gender & History
This course explores gender and modern history. Recent scholars have increasingly made a gendered reading of history; this course samples and assesses the success of these approaches while exploring the nature, development and contestation of societies’ gender norms, leading models of change, and key methodological issues. Issues include work, political change, religion, culture and sexuality, with a focus on the modern world.
View in the Course Database.
Gender and Sexuality in Medieval Europe
This course explores questions of gender and sexuality in western Europe during the middle ages, from around the fall of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century, until the fifteenth century. Christianity was a perennial element shaping attitudes and practices, but was a complex package, constantly re-interpreted in changing historical circumstances. Gender and sexuality need to be located in economic, cultural and social context. This course draws on primary sources (in English translation), ranging from Augustine of Hippo to Christine de Pizan, informed by the work of modern scholars such as Peter Brown, Julia H.M. Smith, and John Boswell.
Sample topics:
Augustine of Hippo
Better to marry than to burn?
Monasticism and clerical celibacy
Same sex desire
Masculinities
Women’s writing
Sex, gender, and medieval orientalism
The Virgin Mary
View in the Course Database.
Gender and Sexuality in Modern Britain
Since the late eighteenth century, Britain has seen profound changes in attitudes and practices surrounding gender and sexuality. For example, the social and legal status of women has altered dramatically, attitudes to same-sex relationships continue to shift, the insights of feminism have had a profound intellectual impact, while masculinities have been examined time and again. These changes have interacted with other trends, including religious life, social class, economic activity, and Britain’s relationship with the empire and the wider world. This tutorial examines these changes through sources including polemics, history, fiction, film, and theoretical writings. These range from Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’ (1792), to modern British cinema.
View in the Course Database.
Social and Sexual Transgressions in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Literature (1200‒1700)
The literature of late medieval and early modern Europe is replete with social and sexual transgressors who have often been overlooked by scholars. This course explores a range of characters on the margins of social and sexual acceptability in order to re-evaluate preconceptions held about matters of gender, sexuality, and social roles in the period 1200–1700. It places particular emphasis on issues of homosexual desire, sexual trickery and seduction, and progressive female characters and writers. Students may choose to study a selection of literary texts in the areas of prose, the short story, poetry, and drama.
Sample topics:
Saints and Sinners in Alfonso X’s Songs of the Virgin Mary.
Sexual Escapades in Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron.
The Outspoken Wife of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Forthright Women in Gil Vicente’s Farce of Inês Pereira.
Sexual Seduction and Trickery in Juan Ruiz’s The Book of Good Love.
Go-Betweens and Sorceresses in Fernando de Roja’s Celestina.
Transgenderism and Transvestism in António Ferreira’s Bristo.
Sexual Misbehaviour and Deceptions in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron.
Homosexual Desire in Richard Barnfield’s The Affectionate Shepherd and Cynthia.
The Female Rogue of Francisco López de Úbeda’s The Lives of Justina.
Swindlers and Tricksters in Francisco de Quevedo’s The Swindler.
Immorality Exposed in Francisco de Quevedo’s Dreams and Discourses.
Female Agency in María de Zayas’s Amorous and Exemplary Tales.
The Strong-Willed Nun of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s The House of Trials
These texts are available in English translations. However, if you do have some of the relevant language skills then the course can also be taught using the original texts: contact the Senior Tutor to discuss this.
View in the Course Database.
Women & Literature in the English Renaissance
This course examines women writers of the English Renaissance, placing them in a wider European context, and studying them in their roles as translators and adaptors of a wide range of humanist texts, alongside their roles as poets, dramatists and political polemicists. The course provides an opportunity to study the manuscript and print culture of a distinctive group of writers too often excluded from early-modern literary studies.
Aristocratic writing, especially that surrounding the English court, is one setting for the growth of female authorship. The works of Anne Askew, Margaret Tyler and Mary Sidney were celebrated (and defended) within their period, as well as appreciated by later readers. Many of these writings are surprising in their authorial confidence: their writing is invested in a presentation of female influence, erudition and poetic skill, and enters fully into the literary and political debate of their male counterparts. We will cover poetry, prose, allegory, fantasy, philosophy, theology and drama. The utopian fictions of Mary Wroth and Mary Sidney reward attention as early examples of the genre we now call ‘science fiction’, as well as being read as Christian allegories and as radical political treatises. Further radical discussions surrounding the morality of female authorship came to head in a series of controversies in which women, often publishing pseudonymously and anonymously, defended themselves from the ridicule and hostility of male pamphleteers.
The study of women writers gives us a unique vantage point from which to approach the print culture and reading habits of the English Renaissance.
View in the Course Database.
Women & Literature in the Middle Ages
This course brings together diverse genres and texts in order to examine how women were represented in Western European Medieval Literature, and particularly to introduce a rich array of writing by women. The place of women in European society throughout the Middle Ages was often in direct relation to biblical texts, which frequently emphasised primacy of men over women, and balanced understanding of femininity between the absolute archetypes of Eve and the Virgin Mary. Nonetheless some women exercised remarkable degrees of power in religious, political and domestic realms, both working within and against legal limitations. Women often made practical choices between marriage and taking the veil as a nun or anchoress, but in some cases and alternative way seems to have been found, such as the extraordinary travelling life of Margery Kempe. Women’s writing is frequently composed in the vernacular, whether French, Middle English, German, etc, and often that which survives is written by wealthier or noble individuals. As required this course may also incorporate historical and archaeological sources in order to better trace the lives of ordinary women, who frequently lived and died without leaving a textual record.
This course explores a mixture of genres, which might include hagiography, life-writing, mystical spiritualism, lyrics, letters, homilies and dream vision, ranging across poetry, prose and, if desired, drama. Texts will be read in translation from Anglo Norman, French, Middle English, and Latin, with some opportunity to get to grips with the original language in consultation with your tutor.
Sample Syllabus
A selection of anonymous Marian devotional lyrics
Marie de France, Lais
Ancrene Wisse
The Katherine Group and the Wooing Group
The Life of Christina of Markyate
The Paston Letters
Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Julian of Norwich, Shewings or Revelations of Divine Love
Guillaume Lorris/Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose (likely paired with Christine de Pizan, Epistre au Dieu d’Amours)
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale; The Clerk’s Tale; The Merchant’s Tale; The Miller’s Tale
View in the Course Database.
Women & Literature, 1660-1800
Eighteenth-century Britain has traditionally been thought of in terms of a male monopoly over cultural and political power, yet it was also a time in which increasing literacy and the availability of cheap print brought new voices – and especially those of women – to prominence. The period saw the creation of circulating libraries, the rise of sentimental and Gothic novel-writing, and the appearance of the first female actors. This course looks at both celebrated and neglected female writers of poetry, prose and dramatic works. It explores the ways in which women participated in the literary sphere, and the ways in which they created new spaces for themselves in discussions of politics, religion, art, philosophy and science. We will also engage with their strategies for the presentation of traditionally ‘feminine’ ideals such as domesticity, maternity and motherhood, chastity and fidelity. The course allows us to place contemporaneous and modern criticism alongside close readings of women’s writing from the period of the civil war to the aftermath of the French Revolution.
Key authors include the poet, dramatist and political radical Aphra Behn; the aristocrat, pioneering traveller and social commentator Mary Wortley Montagu; the immensely popular poet and member of the Bluestocking group, Hannah More; playwright and abolitionist Fanny Burney; Scottish pastoral writer Joanna Baillie; intellectual and prominent dissenter Anna Laetitia Barbauld; educationalist and novelist Maria Edgeworth; gothic pioneer Ann Radcliffe; fervent nationalist poet Felicia Hemans; and the passionate and politically-astute Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the most controversial literary figures of her time. We will also spend time reading the poetry, letters, autobiographies and diaries of lesser-known women whose works reward critical attention.
View in the Course Database.
Geography
German
German
Tuition in German can be arranged to accommodate a wide range of needs and interests. For example, a stress can be laid on German for academic purposes, or on conversational German depending on what is required.
Note that modern languages are offered only at intermediate and advanced levels, not for beginners or near-beginners. Use the same course code for both levels, you will be asked to clarify your linguistic skills during the admissions process.
View in the Course Database.
Middle High German
This course studies the language of Middle High German, though medieval texts such as the ‘Parzifal’. Students must have at least high intermediate modern German before taking this course. The precise nature of the tutorial will depend on the skills and needs of the individual student.
View in the Course Database.
Hebrew (Modern)
Modern Hebrew
Tuition in modern Hebrew can be arranged to accommodate a wide range of needs and interests. For example, a stress can be laid on conversation Hebrew, or a tutorial arranged to fit in with a sequence at a student’s home institution.
Note that modern languages, including modern Hebrew, are offered only at intermediate and advanced levels, not for beginners or near-beginners. Students will be asked to clarify linguistic skills during the admissions process.
View in the Course Database.
Hebrew (Classical)
Classical Hebrew
Classical Hebrew is offered at every level, including beginners. It involves the study of grammar, syntax and readings from classical Hebrew texts. The precise nature of the tutorial will depend on the skills and needs of each individual student.
View in the Course Database.
History
Alexander the Great in Manuscript Arts from the Medieval to the Early Modern Periods
This tutorial course is going to dwell on a single figure—Alexander the Great, or Iskandar Maqdūnī (the Macedonian) as he is known in Persian—in select manuscripts produced across Central Asia and Central Europe in the medieval (1000-1500) and early-modern (1450-1750) periods. Alexander was significant in different ways to different dynasties administering different regions and in different eras. Different versions of his biography had different appeal, and at different times. By associating themselves with the hero, different rulers emphasized different facets of Alexander in their patronage of manuscripts.
In addition to being a part of popular culture and common knowledge for millennia, Alexander’s recounted exploits have particularly resonated with royals and nobles sitting in English through Indonesian courts. The course highlights a few select illustrated texts—produced between the 13th through 16th centuries—in Greek, French, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. It is essential to consider each text within its own tradition, but placing them together also allows for a broader geographic and chronological scope that can also produce interesting comparisons of cross-cultural and trans-imperial significance.
Sessions will explore the interplay of a narrative’s ancient (often imagined) past taking place in the Greek Empire (ca. 4th century BCE), with the accreted layers of time periods in which the illustrated text is produced, read, or seen. Dwelling on Alexander’s reception in various courts and dynasties professing Christian and Islamic confessions (Franco-Flemish, Italian, Byzantine, Mongol, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Abu’l-Khairid [Uzbek]), the course challenges the binaries of east and west, Christianity and Islam, through the universal appeal of the famous world conqueror. It will be of interest to students of literature, art history, religious history, culture and translation studies, medieval and early modern cultures, European and West/Central/South Asian history.
Sample Topics
Alexander as interpreted in the oldest texts and contexts: Greek, Syriac, Latin language sources, Biblical and Qur’anic versions.
New Persian and Old French—European Medieval traditions (13th-14th centuries) and early Persian literary versions (in the Shahnama, ca. 1010)
Alexander in the Byzantine and Mongol realms (13th-14th centuries.
Alexander in the Islamicate (Ottoman, Iranian, and Central Asian) realm (15th century), Turkish and Persian versions.
Alexander in the Islamicate (Ottoman, Iranian, and Central Asian) realm (16th century), Turkish and Persian versions.
Why Alexander? The appeal of superheroes.
Trip to the Weston Library to view manuscripts ((European and Turco-Persianate copies of the Alexander Romance).
Trip to British Library in London to view Old French Alexander manuscripts owned by Henry VIII, and Persian manuscript versions.
View in the Course Database.
Ancient and Medieval Political Thought
This course explores the development of western political thought from its Greek foundations through to the late Middle Ages. A historical overview of the progress of central political concepts is allied to a close reading of particular authors, with reference to the ways in which political thought related to broader philosophical, cultural and religious concerns.
Sample Topics:
Plato, Republic
Aristotle, Politics
Cicero, De Re Publica, De Legibus
Augustine, City of God
John of Salisbury, Policraticus
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Dante, De Monarchia
Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis
View in the Course Database.
Anglo-Saxon England
This course covers the period from end of Roman Britain in early fifth century, to the Norman Conquest of 1066. For much of this era the written sources are slim (if intriguing and hugely suggestive), and in recent years a great deal has been learnt from reading them with archaeology and material culture. Notions of England and Englishness, as a cultural and political entity, developed from a series of social, economic and religious factors. Notable among these were the conversion to Christianity, and the impact of Scandinavian raiding and settlement.
Sample Topics
Catastrophe, Collapse, Continuity: the End of Roman Britain
Converting the English: Bede and history
Splitting Skulls and Heroic Drinking? Kingship and Hegemony
The Viking Impact
Alfred: Wisdom, Resistance and Greatness
Making England: the Triumph of Wessex?
Reforming the Church
The Last Century of England?
Introductory Reading
Beowulf (many translations)
Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People. (many translations)
Asser, Life of King Alfred – the best translation is in Keynes, S., & Lapidge, M. (trans.), Alfred the Great. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983
View in the Course Database.
Archaeological Method and Theory
This tutorial is an introduction to archaeological method and theory. How do archaeologists work? What methods did they employ traditionally, and how have recent developments in remote sensing techniques such as LiDAR revolutionised field exploration? How do archaeologists then ‘translate’ the mass of data gathered in the field into a coherent story about the past, and how have such theoretical and interpretative frameworks changed over time? Can archaeological theory really help us to elucidate the past, or does it tell us more about contemporary trends in philosophy? This course provides an overview of archaeological investigation practices as well as the main developments in theoretical thinking that have taken place since the middle decades of the 20th century, and will provide students with a critical understanding of archaeological method and theory necessary to understand the discipline.
Sample reading
Barker, P. A. 1993. Techniques of Archaeological Excavation. 3rd ed. Batsford.
Berger, A. A. 2014. What objects mean: an introduction to material culture. Left Coast Press.
Bintliff, J. and Pearce, M. 2011. The Death of Archaeological Theory? Oxbow.
Carver, M. 1987. Underneath English Towns: interpreting English archaeology. Batsford.
Carver, M. 2009. Archaeological Investigation. Routledge.
Johnson, M. 2010. Archaeological Theory: an introduction. 2nd ed. Wiley-Blackwell.
Lucas, G. 2012. Understanding the Archaeological Record. Cambridge University Press.
Wiseman, J. and El-Baz, F. (eds), Remote sensing in archaeology. Springer.
View in the Course Database.
Athens, Sparta, Persia
This course explores the history of the Greek states - especially Athens and Sparta - during the fifth century BCE. This was a period of political rivalry and experimentation within Greece, and a series of confrontations and/or negotiations with the massive might of the Persian Empire. This period is deeply engaging in itself, and has exercised a perennial fascination in subsequent thought, not least because of the historical writings of Herodotus and Thucydides.
Sample topics
The polis
The Persian Wars
Persians and Greeks
The Delian League and the Peloponnesian War
Comedy, tragedy and Athenian politics
Historiography: Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon
Art and architecture
Economic life
View in the Course Database.
Augustine of Hippo
This course examines the life and thought of one of the giants of Western Church, Augustine of Hippo (died 430). Born into a landowning family in Roman Africa, Augustine had the upbringing of his class, including a period as a member of the Manichean sect, various relationships, and a glittering career as a professor of rhetoric. After a mystical experience and under the influence of Bishop Ambrose of Milan, Augustine converted to Catholic Christianity, becoming a bishop within ten years just as the Roman Empire was noticeably disintegrating. His surviving works cover a huge range from doctrinal theses, sermons and Biblical exegesis to attacks on heretics and his Confessions (which has been hailed as the first Christian autobiography). The subtlety, power and timing of his writing ensured that Augustine was profoundly influential in every age of the Western Church from his day to this.
Sample Syllabus
‘Christian Autobiography’: The Confessions
Living the Christian Life: Augustine’s Rules
Philosophy and True Happiness: The Happy Life
Expounding the Gospel: Homilies on the Gospel of St John
Teaching the Preachers: On Christian Doctrine
Refuting Heresy: Against the Donatists
Loyalties: The City of God against the Pagans
Hipponiensis: The Long Shadow of Augustine
Introductory Reading
Chadwick, H., Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986
Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo: a Biography . London: Faber, rev’d edn, 2000
Bonner, G., St Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 3rd edn, 2002
Markus, R.A., Saeculum: History & Society in the Theology of St Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1988
Augustine, Confessions. Many translations, including by H. Chadwick, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 etc.
Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans. Many translations, including by H. Bettenson, London: Pelican, 1972 etc.
Augustine, On Christian Teaching. Many translations, including by R.P.H. Green, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997
View in the Course Database.
Augustus to Hadrian
This course explores the history of the Roman Empire from the first emperor, Augustus (died 14AD), until Hadrian (117-138AD). It considers political, social, cultural and economic questions, as well as foreign wars and diplomacy, during the height of the Empire’s power and prestige. Sources
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https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/camr/hd_camr.htm
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Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879)
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Although she may have taken up photography as an amateur and sought to apply it to the noble noncommercial aims of art, [Julia Margaret Cameron] immediately viewed her activity as a professional one, vigorously copyrighting, exhibiting, publishing, and marketing her photographs.
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https://www.metmuseum.org/content/img/presentation/icons/favicons/favicon.ico?v=3
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The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
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In December 1863, little more than a year after Roger Fenton retired from photography and sold his equipment, Julia Margaret Cameron received her first camera. It was a gift from her daughter and son-in-law, given with the words “It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater.” Cameron was forty-eight, a mother of six, and a deeply religious, well read, somewhat eccentric friend of many of Victorian England’s greatest minds: the painter G. F. Watts; the poets Robert Browning, Henry Taylor, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, her neighbor at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight; the scientists Charles Darwin and Sir John Herschel; and the historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. In the decade that followed the gift, the camera became far more than an amusement to her: “From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” Her mesmerizing portraits and figure studies on literary and biblical themes were unprecedented in her time and remain among the most highly admired of Victorian photographs.
The gift of the camera in December 1863 came at a moment when her husband Charles was in Ceylon attending to the family’s coffee plantations, when their sons were grown or away at boarding school, and when their only daughter, Julia, had married and moved away. Photography became Cameron’s link to the writers, artists, and scientists who were her spiritual and artistic advisors, friends, neighbors, and intellectual correspondents. “I began with no knowledge of the art,” she wrote. “I did not know where to place my dark box, how to focus my sitter, and my first picture I effaced to my consternation by rubbing my hand over the filmy side of the glass.” No matter. She was indefatigable in her efforts to master the difficult steps in producing negatives with wet collodion on glass plates. Although she may have taken up photography as an amateur and sought to apply it to the noble noncommercial aims of art, she immediately viewed her activity as a professional one, vigorously copyrighting, exhibiting, publishing, and marketing her photographs. Within eighteen months she had sold eighty prints to the Victoria and Albert Museum, established a studio in two of its rooms, and made arrangements with the West End printseller Colnaghi’s to publish and sell her photographs.
Cameron had no interest in establishing a commercial studio, however, and never made commissioned portraits. Instead, she enlisted friends, family, and household staff in her activities, often costuming them as if for an amateur theatrical, aiming to capture the qualities of innocence, virtue, wisdom, piety, or passion that made them modern embodiments of classical, religious, and literary figures. A parlor maid was transformed into the Madonna, her husband into Merlin, a neighbor’s child into the infant Christ or, with swan’s wings attached, into Cupid or an angel from Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. Her artistic goals for photography, informed by the outward appearance and spiritual content of fifteenth-century Italian painting, were wholly original in her medium. She aimed for neither the finish and formalized poses common in the commercial portrait studios, nor for the elaborate narratives of other Victorian “high art” photographers such as H. P. Robinson and O. G. Rejlander. Her aspirations were, she said, “to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and the Ideal and sacrificing nothing of the Truth by all possible devotion to poetry and beauty.” As she wrote to Herschel, “I believe in other than mere conventional topographic photography—map-making and skeleton rendering of feature and form.”
Even allowing for slight movement as a positive attribute, posing for Cameron was no easy task. One of her models—or “victims” as Tennyson called them—left a vivid description of a photographic session with Cameron: “The studio, I remember, was very untidy and very uncomfortable. Mrs. Cameron put a crown on my head and posed me as the heroic queen. … The exposure began. A minute went over and I felt as if I must scream, another minute and the sensation was as if my eyes were coming out of my head; a third, and the back of my neck appeared to be afflicted with palsy; a fourth, and the crown, which was too large, began to slip down my forehead; a fifth—but here I utterly broke down, for Mr. Cameron, who was very aged, and had unconquerable fits of hilarity which always came in the wrong places, began to laugh audibly, and this was too much for my self-possession, and I was obliged to join the dear old gentleman.”
Her photographs were not universally admired, especially by fellow photographers. The Photographic Journal, reviewing her submissions to the annual exhibition of the Photographic Society of Scotland in 1865, reported with a condescension that infuriated her: “Mrs. Cameron exhibits her series of out-of-focus portraits of celebrities. We must give this lady credit for daring originality, but at the expense of all other photographic qualities. A true artist would employ all the resources at his disposal, in whatever branch of art he might practise. In these pictures, all that is good in photography has been neglected and the shortcomings of the art are prominently exhibited. We are sorry to have to speak thus severely on the works of a lady, but we feel compelled to do so in the interest of the art.” The Illustrated London News countered, describing her portraits as “the nearest approach to art, or rather the most bold and successful applications of the principles of fine-art to photography.” The Photographic Journal rebutted: “Slovenly manipulation may serve to cover want of precision in intention, but such a lack and such a mode of masking it are unworthy of commendation.” Wilhelm Vogel reported the stir that her photographs provoked the following year in Berlin, where they won Cameron the gold medal: “Those large unsharp heads, spotty backgrounds, and deep opaque shadows looked more like bungling pupils’ work than masterpieces. And for this reason many photographers could hardly restrain their laughter, and mocked at the fact that such photographs had been given a place of honour. … But, little as these pictures moved the photographers who only looked for sharpness and technical qualities in general, all the more interested were the artists … [who] praised their artistic value, which is so outstanding that technical shortcomings hardly count.” Cameron dismissed the condemnation of the photographic establishment, writing later that it would have dispirited her “had I not valued that criticism at its worth,” basking instead in the positive judgment of artists and friends.
Seen with historical perspective, it is clear that Cameron possessed an extraordinary ability to imbue her photographs with a powerful spiritual content, the quality that separates them from the products of commercial portrait studios of her time. In a dozen years of work, effectively ended by the Camerons’ departure for Ceylon in 1875, the artist produced perhaps 900 images—a gallery of vivid portraits and a mirror of the Victorian soul.
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https://michellevandepas.com/julia-cameron-artists-way/
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Julia Cameron on The Artists Way and How to Unblock Creativity
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"Michelle Vandepas"
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2015-09-01T18:13:21+00:00
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[amazon asin=1585421464&template=iframe image] Julia Cameron is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. She is most famous for her book The Artist’s Way. This episode brought to you by How to Write a Book That Sells and Readers Want to Read! This easy to follow PDF take you through the 7 […]
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Michelle Vandepas
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https://michellevandepas.com/julia-cameron-artists-way/
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[amazon asin=1585421464&template=iframe image] Julia Cameron is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. She is most famous for her book The Artist’s Way.
This episode brought to you by
How to Write a Book That Sells and Readers Want to Read!
This easy to follow PDF take you through the 7 steps you need to write your book. Get started now!
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https://dokumen.pub/drama-by-women-to-1900-a-bibliography-of-american-and-british-writers-9781442653559.html
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Drama by Women To 1900: A Bibliography of American and British Writers 9781442653559
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This volume consists of some 3,000 entries of plays, monologues, and entertainments for amateur groups written before 19...
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dokumen.pub
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https://dokumen.pub/drama-by-women-to-1900-a-bibliography-of-american-and-british-writers-9781442653559.html
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Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Selected sources
Abbreviations of sources
The Bibliography
Appendices
Subject index
Index of adaptions and translations
Citation preview
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https://penumbratheatre.org/reading-and-resources/
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Reading and Resources
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Our online reading and resource guide to dig deeper into the topics discussed this season.
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Penumbra Theatre
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https://penumbratheatre.org/reading-and-resources/
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LET’S TALK: UP FROM EMERGENCE
Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmothers Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Published in 2017 by Central Recovery Press
Jamila Wood’s The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic
Published in 2018 by Haymarket Books
The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century
Edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes, Tara Betts
Michael Omi’s Racial Formation in the United States
Published in 2018 by Haymarket Books
LET’S TALK: ANCIENT FUTURE
The Novels of Octavia Butler
African American author of notable science fiction and Afrofuturistic works such as Kindred, Beloved, and Parable of the Sower. octaviabutler.org
W.E.B. Du Bois’ short story The Comet
“Speculative Fiction”
Originally published in 1920 as Chapter 10 in Du Bois’ Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil.
Janna Levin’s Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space
Reprint Published in 2017 by Anchor Distributors
Bobby Rogers, Visual Artist
bobby-rogers.com
Dameun Strange, Composer and Musician
dameunstrange.com
Erin Sharkey, Writer, Producer and Educator
freeblackdirt.com
D. A. Bullock, Filmmaker, Storyteller, Archivist/Historian and Social Practice Artist
bullycreative.com
LET’S TALK: COLORBLIND CASTING
Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator as Critic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012.
WEB DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1903.
Lucas Hnath, The Christians. New Dramatists Play Service, 2015.
Langston Hughes, “A Note on Commercial Theatre.” 1940.
David Henry. Hwang, M Butterfly. Dramatists Play Service, Inc. 1988.
Charles Mee, A Note on Casting.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Decolonizing the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature. Heinemann Educational, 1986.
“Not Just Money: Equity Issues in Cultural Philanthropy.” The Helicon Collaborative. July 2017.
Robert Viagas, “Playwright Katori Hall Expresses Rage Over “Revisionist Casting” of Mountaintop With White Dr. Martin Luther King.” PLAYBILL. Nov 9, 2015.
August Wilson, The Ground on Which I Stand. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1996.
Leah Nanako Winkler, Two Mile Hollow. Unpublished script. 2017
THIS BITTER EARTH
Essex Hemphill, Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry
Ceremonies is the landmark collection of verse and commentary by one of the most provocative African American gay authors since James Baldwin. Winner of the 1993 American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Book Award, Ceremonies tackles cultural controversy with remarkable force and clarity. Whether he is addressing love between men, AIDS in the African American community, racism among white gay artists, coming home or coming out, Hemphill’s insights give voice to a generation of men silenced by fears of reprisal and rejection.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Readers of his work in The Atlantic and elsewhere know Ta-Nehisi Coates for his thoughtful and influential writing on race in America. Written as a series of letters to his teenaged son, his new memoir, Between the World and Me, walks us through the course of his life, from the tough neighborhoods of Baltimore in his youth, to Howard University—which Coates dubs “The Mecca” for its revelatory community of black students and teachers—to the broader Meccas of New York and Paris. Coates describes his observations and the evolution of his thinking on race, from Malcolm X to his conclusion that race itself is a fabrication, elemental to the concept of American (white) exceptionalism. Ferguson, Trayvon Martin, and South Carolina are not bumps on the road of progress and harmony, but the results of a systemized, ubiquitous threat to “black bodies” in the form of slavery, police brutality, and mass incarceration. Coates is direct and, as usual, uncommonly insightful and original. There are no wasted words. This is a powerful and exceptional book.
LET’S TALK: MY AMERICA
My America: Stories of Compassion and Courage
Penumbra’s annual civic engagement campaign invited stories about what America looks, feels, and sounds like for each of us, and about what we dream it could become. Sponsored by MPR News, My America reveals our mutual dreams, fears, losses, and desires through the power of personal narrative. Almost one hundred people from across the state submitted stories in response to our open call. From Roseau to Austin, from Prairie Island to Marshall, Minnesotans sent their experiences and hopes for America to Penumbra. The following twelve finalists were selected anonymously by a diverse group of thirty readers and joined Penumbra for three weekends of development workshops and bonding. We have been changed by your stories! Click here to read online.
Free Black Dirt
Free Black Dirt is an artistic partnership formed by Minneapolis based collaborators Junauda Petrus and Erin Sharkey. Committed to creating original theatre and performance, hosting innovative events, organizing local artists, and promoting and supporting the emerging artists’ community in the Twin Cities, Free Black Dirt seeks to spark and engage in critical conversations. www.freeblackdirt.com
Third Place Gallery
Wing Young Huie uses photography as a societal mirror and window, seeking to reveal not only what is hidden, but also what is plainly visible and seldom noticed, providing a collective portrait of the them who are really us. As an extension of his public art installations that create informal communal spaces, in spring 2011 Wing opened The Third Place Gallery. Wing has turned the space into an urban living room for guest artists, social conversation, karaoke, and ping pong. www.wingyounghuie.com
The Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop
The Prison Writing Workshop extends Minnesota’s vibrant literary community to state prisons. For the mutual benefit of prisoners and MPWW members, we offer courses inside the state’s correctional facilities. Our courses include fiction writing, essay writing, poetry, spoken word, oral storytelling, children’s literature, fantasy writing, and more. Our students are a diverse group of writers ranging from beginners who are writing for the first time to experienced writers who are already publishing. www.mnprisonwriting.org
Listen to Lead Consulting
When we connect across differences, we can create something far bigger than the sum of our parts. Listen to Lead exists to help you, your team, your organization or your community do just that. Through coaching, training, facilitation and deep listening, Sara Schonwald builds your intercultural and leadership capacities to create and sustain individual, organizational and community change grounded in equity. www.listentolead.com
The RACE Workshop
Penumbra’s RACE Workshop combines expert facilitation, a powerful exploration of race in America, monologues from artists, and opportunities for participants to use theatre as a way to problem-solve and model. The process celebrates difference, recognizes cultural nuance, and invites everyone to participate in the dialogue. www.penumbratheatre.org/race-workshops
The Activist’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for a Modern Revolution
By William Martin; New World Library, 2016
Change and anger are in the air. Looking for answers to today’s wrenching challenges, William Martin turns to the Tao Te Ching and finds that while Taoism is known for its quiet, enigmatic wisdom, the Tao can also have the cleansing force of a rushing river. Through his interpretation of this ancient Chinese text, Martin elucidates revolutionary messages condemning power-seeking and greed. He emphasizes that humans have a “natural virtue” that can help them heal the planet; shows how Taoism’s simplicity can be subversive and its flexibility a potent force; and reassures that “when injustice is the rule, justice always lies in wait.”
The Artist’s Way
By Julia Cameron; Penguin, 1997.
The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international best seller, millions have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today, or perhaps even more so, than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work.
LET’S TALK: TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION
Let’s Talk Transracial Adoption centered the voices and experiences of adoptees of color. The following are resources that were recommended throughout the evening of discussion and from panelists and artists involved.
The Declassified Adoptee Essays of an Adoption Activist
By Amanda H.L Transue-Woolston
Closure: A Documentary About Adoption (76 minutes)
By Angela Tucker and Brian Tucker
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life
By Benjamin Alire Saenz
Parenting As Adoptees
By Adam Chau and Kevin Ost-Vollmers (editors)
Indians in the Family: Adoption and the Politics of Antebellum Expansion
By Dawn Peterson
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race
By Debby Irving
Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States
By Ellen Herman
Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity
By Ellen Lee, Marilyn Lammert, and Mary Anne Hess
A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in your life
By Janet E. Helms
Given Away
By Kate Anne Kang
How the Irish Became White
By Noel Ignatiev
In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption
By Rhonda M. Roorda
In Their Siblings’ Voices: White Non-Adopted Siblings Talk About Their Experiences Being Raised with Black and Biracial Brothers and Sisters
By Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda
In Their Parents’ Voices: Reflections on Raising Transracial Adoptees
By Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda
The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege
By Robert Jensen
Between the World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Learning to Be White: Money, Race, and God in America
By Thandeka
The Salt Eaters
By Toni Cade Bambara
LET’S TALK: RACIAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
On Intersectionality: Essential Writings of Kimberlé Crenshaw
By Kimberlé Crenshaw.
The Stages of Black Identity Development: Nigrescence Models
By William. T Cross
What Does it Mean to be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy
By Robin DiAngelo
Black Skin, White Masks
By Frantz Fanon
A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter
By Nikki Giovanni
A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being A White Person or Understanding the White Persons in your life
By Janet E. Helms
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision
By Barbara Ransby
“Multiracial Families and Children: Implications for Educational Research and Practice”
By Maria P.P. Root
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do
By Claude Steele
Learning to Be White: Money, Race, and God in America
Thandeka. By Thandeka
The Ground On Which I Stand
By August Wilson
REEL TALKS: BADDDDD SONIA SANCHEZ
Morning Haiku
This new volume by the much-loved poet Sonia Sanchez, her first in over a decade, is music to the ears: a collection of haiku that celebrates the gifts of life and mourns the deaths of revered African American figures in the worlds of music, literature, art, and activism. In her verses, we hear the sounds of Max Roach “exploding in the universe,” the “blue hallelujahs” of the Philadelphia Murals, and the voice of Odetta “thundering out of the earth.” Beacon Press 2010
Homegirls and Handgrenades
This new edition of Homegirls and Handgrenades draws together all Sanchez’s poems of the 1980’s including the original collections of Homegirls and Handgrenades. White Pine Press 2007
Shake Loose My Skin
An extraordinary retrospective covering over thirty years of work, Shake Loose My Skin is a stunning testament to the literary, sensual, and political powers of the award-winning Sonia Sanchez. Beacon Press 1999
Does Your House Have Lions?
With unrelenting honesty and searing beauty, one of our most powerful voices offers us an African-American odyssey. Does Your House Have Lions? is an exquisite and at times wrenching work exploring the life of Sonia Sanchez’s brother—a vibrant young man who left the South for New York, immersed himself in the city’s gay subculture, and became a victim of AIDS in the first years of the pandemic. Beacon Press 1997
Wounded in the House of a Friend
Sonia Sanchez explores the pain, self-doubt, and anger that emerge in women’s lives: an unfaithful life partner, a brutal rape, the murder of a woman by her granddaughter, the ravages of drugs. Beacon Press 1995
I’ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems
The author of several books of poetry, Sanchez’ I’ve Been A Woman is the dynamic transcendental female voice of one of the finest poets of our time. Includes “Black Magic: Blk Rhetoric” and “Blues.” Third World Press 1978
LET’S TALK: DIVAS
I Put a Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone
A gorgeous, inimitable singer and songwriter, Nina Simone (1933-2003) changed the face of both music and race relations in America. She struck a chord with bluesy jazz ballads like “Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl” and powerful protest songs such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” the anthem of the American Civil Rights movement. Coinciding with the re-release of her famous Philips Recordings, here are the reflections of the “High Priestess of Soul” on her own life. Simone, Nina. I Put a Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone (Da Capo Press, 2003.)
Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone
Born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina Simone (1933-2003) began her musical life playing classical piano. A child prodigy, she wanted a career on the concert stage, but when the Curtis Institute of Music rejected her, the devastating disappointment compelled her to change direction. She turned to popular music and jazz but never abandoned her classical roots or her intense ambition. By the age of twenty six, Simone had sung at New York City’s venerable Town Hall and was on her way. Tapping into newly unearthed material on Simone’s family and career, Nadine Cohodas paints a luminous portrait of the singer, highlighting her tumultuous life, her innovative compositions, and the prodigious talent that matched her ambition. Cohadas, Nadine. Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone. (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012.)
The Amazing Nina Simone: A Documentary Film
She was left out of Civil Rights history…Erased by jazz critics…And forgotten by most Americans because no one knew how to categorize greatness. Now, a new documentary reveals the real Nina Simone through over 50 intimate & exclusive interviews with those who knew the artistry and intentions of one of America’s true musical geniuses. The Amazing Nina Simone: A Documentary Film. Dir. Jeff Lieberman. Re-emerging Films. 2015. Film. Available on Amazon Video.
What Happened, Miss Simone?
A documentary about the life and legend Nina Simone, an American singer, pianist, and civil rights activist labeled the “High Priestess of Soul.” What Happened, Miss Simone? Dir. Liz Garbus. Netflix. 2015. Available on Netflix.
Interviews with Nina Simone from 1985 and 1987
Conducted by Tom Schnabel for the radio program Morning Becomes Eclectic.
REEL TALK: BLACK IS…BLACK AIN’T
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do
Claude M. Steele, who has been called “one of the few great social psychologists,” offers a vivid first-person account of the research that supports his groundbreaking conclusions on stereotypes and identity. He sheds new light on American social phenomena–from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men–and lays out a plan for mitigating these “stereotype threats” and reshaping American identities. Steele, Claude M. Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.)
Dark Girls
Dark Girls is a fascinating and controversial documentary film that goes underneath the surface to explore the prejudices that dark-skinned women face throughout the world. It explores the roots of classism, racism and the lack of self-esteem within a segment of cultures that span from America to the most remote corners of the globe.
LET’S TALK: CELEBRATING RONDO
The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion
The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion examines the policies, practices, and physical artifacts that have been used by planners, policy makers, developers, real estate brokers, community activists, and other urban actors in the United States to restrict or aid access to the spaces of our cities and suburbs. The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion inventories these weapons of exclusion and inclusion, describes how they have been used, assesses their legacy, and speculates on how they might be used (or retired) for the sake of more open cities in which more people feel welcome in more places. Armborst, Tobias, Daniel D’Oca and Theodore Georgeen. The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion. (New York: Actar, 2016).
“Mapping Prejudice project traces history of discriminatory deeds in Minneapolis”
From the neighborhoods near Lake Nokomis to properties along Minnehaha Creek to subdivisions in Northeast’s Waite Park, real estate documents spell out requirements meant to keep people “other than anyone of the Caucasian race” out. Now, a team of local researchers aims to make Minneapolis the first city in the nation to map every residential lot’s history of racially restrictive deed covenants. Their painstaking research is accelerating, thanks to digital technology that will let them scan records that once resided in huge dusty tomes or on microfilm in the Hennepin County recorder office. Brandt, Steve. “Mapping Prejudice project traces history of discriminatory deeds in Minneapolis,” Star Tribune. Nov 25, 2016.
The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic. June, 2014.
“The Unraveling of the City’s Racially Restrictive Covenants”
On a beautiful summer day in 1946, pickets appeared outside the offices of the Minneapolis Board of Realtors. The young protesters — who were newly returned veterans and students at the University of Minnesota — held signs demanding equal rights. Their goal was to make visible the racism that lay hidden in the property deeds of homeowners across the city. Delegard, Kirsten. “The unraveling of the city’s racially restrictive covenants,” The Southwest Journal. October 19, 2015.
The Days of Rondo
Evelyn Fairbanks’s affectionate memoir of this lively neighborhood. Its pages are filled with fascinating people: Mama and Daddy—Willie Mae and George Edwards—who taught her about love and pride an dignity; Aunt Good, a tall and stately woman with a “queenly secretive attitude”; brother Morris, who “took the time to teach me about the street and the people I would find there”; Mrs. Neal, the genteel activist who showed her the difference between a salad fork and a dessert fork; Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, who started a girls’ string band; and a whole assortment of street vendors and playmates who made up the world of her childhood. Fairbanks, Evelyn. The Days of Rondo. (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990).
A Raisin in the Sun
Set on Chicago’s South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husband’s insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. Sacrifice, trust and love among the Younger family and their heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. (New York: Vintage, 2004).
“The Origins and Diffusion of Racial Restrictive Covenants”
Racial restrictive covenants — private agreements barring non-Caucasians from occupying or owning property — were a key element of the segregationist policies in the early twentieth-century United States. Yet though we know a great deal about racial restrictive covenants at the moment of their demise in the 1940s, we know relatively little about their origins or spread. Jones-Correa, Michael. “The Origins and Diffusion of Racial Restrictive Covenants,” Political Science Quarterly. (New York: Academy of Political Science, 2000).
Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict
Governing American Cities brings together the best research from both established and rising scholars to examine the changing demographics of America’s cities, the experience of these new immigrants, and their impact on urban politics. Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict. Michael Jones-Correa, Ed. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001).
Remember Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence
Remember Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence tells the story of the Rondo neighborhood’s origins in Minnesota and St. Paul. It also profiles inspiring Rondo community members from pioneer days to the date this booklet was published in 1995. Remember Rondo: A Tradition of Excellence. Vikki Sanders, Ed. (St. Paul: Remember Rondo Committee, 1995).
The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation
Residential segregation is the linchpin of racial division and separation. In most Northeastern and Midwestern metropolitan areas, as in the nation, the degree of black-white racial separation in residence remains high, despite evidence of shifting white attitudes about race, despite successful court challenges to programs that perpetuated racial segregation. Sugrue, Thomas J. “The Unfinished History of Racial Segregation” (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2008).
Before There Was Interstate 94 … There Was Rondo
Before There Was Interstate 94 … There Was Rondo details the destruction of this vibrant neighborhood and the construction of I94. Sanders, Mary. “Before There Was Interstate 94 … There Was Rondo,” Voices: A Collection of Writings and Stories for a Diverse Community. Mark Clark, Ed. (St. Paul: St. Paul Department of Planning and Economic Development, 1992).
Remember Rondo: Celebrating the People, Their Lives and Times
A history of Rondo Avenue and the community around it. Taylor, David V. Remember Rondo: Celebrating the People, Their Lives and Times. (St. Paul: Rondo Avenue, Inc., 1983).
Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community
Rich stories told in the voices of the people who lived in Rondo. Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community. Kate Cavett, Ed. (Syren Book Company, 2005).
Invisible Walls: An Examination of the Legal Strategy of the Restrictive Covenant Cases
An examination of discrimination in real estate, community development, and revitalization. Ware, Leland B. Invisible Walls: An Examination of the Legal Strategy of the Restrictive Covenant Cases. (Washington University School of Law, 1989).
Jitney
A major work by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson. A thoroughly revised version of a play August Wilson first wrote in 1979, Jitney was produced in New York for the first time in the spring of 2000, winning rave reviews and the accolade of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as the best play of the year. Set in the 1970s in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, and depicting cabdrivers who serve black neighborhoods, Jitney is the seventh in Wilsons 10-play cycle (one for each decade) on the black experience in twentieth century America. Wilson, August. Jitney. (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2008).
Two Trains Running
It is Pittsburgh, 1969, and the regulars of Memphis Lee’s restaurant are struggling to cope with the turbulence of a world that is changing rapidly around them and fighting back when they can. The diner is scheduled to be torn down, a casualty of the city’s renovation project that is sweeping away the buildings of a community, but not its spirit. For just as sure as an inexorable future looms right around the corner, these people of “loud voices and big hearts” continue to search, to father, to persevere, to hope. With compassion, humor, and a superb sense of place and time, Wilson paints a vivid portrait of everyday lives in the shadow of great events, and of unsung men and women who are anything but ordinary. Wilson, August. Two Trains Running. (New York: Plume, 1993).
Radio Golf
Radio Golf is August Wilson’s final play. Set in 1990 Pittsburgh, it is the conclusion of his Century Cycle—Wilson’s ten-play chronicle of the African American experience throughout the twentieth century—and is the last play he completed before his death. With Radio Golf Wilson’s lifework comes full circle as Aunt Ester’s onetime home at 1839 Wylie Avenue (the setting of the cycle’s first play) is slated for demolition to make way for a slick new real estate venture aimed to boost both the depressed Hill District and Harmond Wilks’ chance of becoming the city’s first black mayor. A play in which history, memory, and legacy challenge notions of progress and country club ideals, Radio Golf has been produced throughout the country and will head to Broadway this season. Wilson, August. Radio Golf. (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2008).
LET’S TALK: VOTING RIGHTS
Election Protection, 866ourvote.org
The national, nonpartisan Election Protection coalition was formed to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. Made up of more than 100 local, state and national partners, Election Protection works year-round to advance and defend the right to vote.
Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, by Ari Berman
In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the Voting Rights Act and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit voting rights from 1965 to the present day. The act enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. And yet fifty years later we are still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power, with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Berman brings the struggle over voting rights to life through meticulous archival research, in-depth interviews with key figures in the debate and incisive on-the-ground reporting. He vividly takes the reader from the demonstrations of the civil rights movement to the halls of Congress to the chambers of the Supreme Court.
Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot
This film tells the story of a courageous group of students and teachers who, along with other activists, fought a nonviolent battle to win voting rights for African Americans in the South. Standing in their way: a century of Jim Crow, a resistant and segregationist state, and a federal government slow to fully embrace equality. By organizing and marching bravely in the face of intimidation, violence, arrest and even murder, these change-makers achieved one of the most significant victories of the civil rights era.
Southern Poverty Law Center, tolerance.org
Founded in 1991 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for our nation’s children. They provide free educational materials to teachers and other school practitioners in the U.S. and Canada. The self-titled magazine is sent to 450,000 educators twice annually, and tens of thousands of educators use their free curricular kits.
SURJ, showingupforracialjustice.org
SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals organizing White people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves White people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability. We work to connect people across the country while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills and political analysis to act for change.
LET’S TALK: THE BLACK PANTHERS
Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, by Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin
Black against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence. Bold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement, and its disastrous unraveling. Informed by twelve years of meticulous archival research, as well as familiarity with most of the former Party leadership and many rank-and-file members, this book is the definitive history of one of the greatest challenges ever posed to American state power.
FBI Secrets: An Agents Expose, by M. Wesley Swearingen
A former FBI agent exposes the agency’s myths and wars against political freedom in this country.
Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC
Faith S. Holsaert, Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, Judy Richardson, Betty Garman Robinson, Jean Smith Young, Dorothy M. Zellner, editors. In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women–northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina–share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. The testimonies gathered here present a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to survive.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, by Jeanne Theoharis
The definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement. Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows readers how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.
Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle
Dayo F. Gore, Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, editors
The story of the black freedom struggle in America has been overwhelmingly male-centric, starring leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey Newton. With few exceptions, black women have been perceived as supporting actresses; as behind-the-scenes or peripheral activists, or rank and file party members. But what about Vicki Garvin, a Brooklyn-born activist who became a leader of the National Negro Labor Council and guide to Malcolm X on his travels through Africa? What about Shirley Chisholm, the first black Congresswoman? From Rosa Parks and Esther Cooper Jackson, to Shirley Graham DuBois and Assata Shakur, a host of women demonstrated a lifelong commitment to radical change, embracing multiple roles to sustain the movement, founding numerous groups and mentoring younger activists. Helping to create the groundwork and continuity for the movement by operating as local organizers, international mobilizers, and charismatic leaders, the stories of the women profiled in Want to Start a Revolution? help shatter the pervasive and imbalanced image of women on the sidelines of the black freedom struggle.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
REEL TALK: ANNE BRADEN A SOUTHERN PATRIOT
What Does Justice Look Like?: The Struggle For Liberation in Dakota Homeland, by Waziyatawin
Learning to Be White: Money, Race and God in America, by Thandeka
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander, with an introduction by Cornel West
Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, by Debby Irving
LET’S TALK: ON THE FRONT LINES
Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Between the World and Me is a love letter written in a moral emergency.”—Slate Magazine
“Powerful and passionate . . . profoundly moving . . . a searing meditation on what it means to be black in America today.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Brilliant . . . [Ta-Nehisi Coates] is firing on all cylinders, and it is something to behold: a mature writer entirely consumed by a momentous subject and working at the extreme of his considerable powers at the very moment national events most conform to his vision.”—The Washington Post
How the Irish Became White, by Noel Ignatiev
Ignatiev traces the tattered history of Irish & African-American relations, revealing how the Irish used labor unions, the Catholic Church & the Democratic party to succeed in American. He uncovers the roots of conflict between Irish-Americans & African-Americans & draws a powerful connection between the embracing of white supremacy & Irish “success” in 19th century American society.
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2023-09-20T06:00:50+00:00
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This week I'm re-reading Julia Cameron's The Artist Way. It's an amazing book that has transformed me both creatively and personally.
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en
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Real Delia
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https://realdelia.com/2023/09/tips-for-adulthood-five-things-i-learned-from-re-reading-the-artists-way/
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I had coffee with a friend the other day who told me that she’s just started working through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. “Have you heard of it?” She asked. I paused.”Had I heard of it?!?” I’ve read it not once but twice, and recommended it to numerous friends looking to boost their creativity. Today, I’m reposting a blog about why reading (and re-reading) Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way is a must for anyone interested in getting touch with their creative soul.
***
On occasional Wednesdays, I offer tips for adulthood. (Whoops! It’s a Thursday! Sorry, folks!)
I rarely re-read books. That’s partly a space thing—I live in a small house—and and partly that there’s just too damn much out there I want to read to bother going back.
But this past week I’ve had the very odd experience of not just re-reading a book, but doing so immediately after putting it down. The book in question is Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way, a best-selling self-help book designed to help you unblock your creativity. Doing this three-month course has been one of the big projects I’ve tackled since being laid off from my job. And the reason I re-read it is that the very last task Cameron assigns her readers when they’ve completed their 12 weeks is to go back and re-read the book, before doing anything else.
It’s an amazing book and has been a transformative experience for me both creatively and personally (more on that another time). And yet, I was still skeptical, and considered whether I should ignore this task altogether. But I trust Cameron, so I gave it a shot.
Here are five things that really made sense to me only when I re-read the book for a second time:
a. Morning Pages Matter. These are the three pages of hand-written writing you do every day when you wake up. They are *the* most important element of the creative recovery. I was very open to this idea when she suggested it, but I thought it would serve merely as a way to dump all the anxiety out of my head that had accrued overnight while I was sleeping, so that I could put that aside before I started writing. (It does.) I never imagined the morning pages would also serve my writing directly . Since starting to journal first thing every morning, ideas have emerged that have been directly channeled into blog posts, personal essays, fiction and my book project itself. When I went back through the book and also re-read my morning pages, I could trace this evolution very clearly.
b. The Artist’s Date is a Date. The other pillar of Cameron’s exercises is a weekly (or more) “artist’s date” – what she describes as “a block of time set aside to nurture your creative consciousness.” It took me about four weeks until I realized that I’d gotten this concept entirely wrong. I thought the Artist’s Date was just about setting aside time to execute a creative project (e.g. writing). So I keep giving myself a pat on the back when I spent some time writing every day. “Heh,” I thought. “I’m doing an artist’s date every day – this is easy!” But that’s *not* what the Artist’s Date is. It’s about going out and doing something fun to fuel your creativity, not your creative project itself. So going for a walk and collecting leaves counts. Grabbing your guitar and singing a tune counts. I started taking an improvisation acting course – that’s my main artist’s date these days. I’m so glad I figured this out!
c. Affirmations: External vs. Internal. To jump-start the creative recovery process, Cameron suggests that you make a list of “affirmations”- i.e., specific pieces of praise you’ve gotten from other people that will make you feel more confident about undergoing your journey of creative self-discovery. My big realization when I read the book through for a second time was that while all of my affirmations when I started the course were external – i.e,. a letter of gratitude from a colleague, an inspiring comment from a reader of my blog – by the end of the course they were largely internal – i.e., me telling myself something positive about my writing/myself. Cameron never says that’s supposed to happen, but I am very happy that it did.
d. Images help imagine you into your future self. Cameron also advocates compiling an ongoing collection of images of things you like and/or signify your future self as a way to remind you about the tangible things that contribute to your creative happiness. At first, I was dubious. I’m not a terribly visual person and I didn’t feel like taking time out of my day to hunt for images of a typewriter on Google. But I did it (I’m an upholder, after all!), and soon I found myself making a list of images I wanted to collect – like making jewelry and reading on beaches and other aspects of the “ideal life” I’m composing for myself – and adding to that folder from time to time. Re-reading the book reminded me of my initial (misguided) reluctance to do the image homework.
e. Creativity and God. Cameron is very religious and she makes this very clear from the get-go, even though she doesn’t force you to buy into the concept. If you’re more comfortable talking about a “creative force,” so be it – all of her advice still applies. I’m deeply ambivalent about religion and so initially the whole God thing didn’t work for me. I was actually worried early on that it might put me off the whole process. But I hung in there and discovered that not only did Cameron’s vision of God work for me – (she likes to think of God as a generous, supportive force rather than a punitive, miserly one), I realized that sorting this out was absolutely fundamental to the creative catharsis I subsequently underwent.
If you’re thinking of a holiday gift for someone and you sense they may have an artist trapped deep inside them, I’d urge you to get them this book.
Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers!
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https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-playwrights/reference
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en
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List of 100+ Famous Female Playwrights
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https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/6167/166167/original/famous-female-playwrights-u4
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2009-11-24T00:00:00
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Embodying creativity, passion, and dedication, illustrious women playwrights have significantly contributed to the evolution of theater, enriching the art ...
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en
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/img/icons/touch-icon-iphone.png
|
Ranker
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https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-playwrights/reference
|
Embodying creativity, passion, and dedication, illustrious women playwrights have significantly contributed to the evolution of theater, enriching the art form with their unforgettable stories and intricate characterizations. From captivating dramas to thought-provoking comedies, these female playwrights have transcended boundaries and left their mark on the stage, weaving stories that resonate with audiences across the globe. With diverse backgrounds and distinctive voices, these playwrights have generated plays that have captivated generations, earning well-deserved recognition for their exceptional talents.
The illustrious careers of Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, and Agatha Christie serve as shining examples of the creative prowess and lasting impact that female playwrights have had on the world of theater, shaping its narrative fabric with their unforgettable stories.. Delving into the lives and accomplishments of these famous women playwrights, readers will discover intricacies of each playwright's journey to success, as well as the ways in which they have shaped the landscape of theater. With a keen understanding of human emotions and experiences, these trailblazing women playwrights have crafted masterpieces that continue to be revered and enjoyed by theater enthusiasts today.
Examining the wealth of talent among famous female playwrights, Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, and Agatha Christie emerge as iconic figures whose exceptional works have inspired generations of theatergoers and fellow playwrights alike. Maya Angelou, a celebrated American playwright, poet, and civil rights activist, used her powerful voice to create captivating works that spoke to the human experience, tackling themes of identity, racism, and empowerment. Ayn Rand, acclaimed for her novels and philosophical writings, also made her mark as a playwright with her profoundly thought-provoking dramas that tackled issues of individualism and the role of the state in people's lives. Meanwhile, Agatha Christie is best known as the queen of mystery fiction, yet her prowess extended to the world of theater with her skillfully crafted and suspenseful plays that continue to captivate audiences with their intricate plots and compelling characters.
In paying homage to the extraordinary contributions of these distinguished female playwrights, we recognize the invaluable role they have played in shaping the landscape of theater, leaving behind a legacy of inspiration and artistic achievement for generations to come. As a testament to their lasting impact on the world of theater, their exceptional works have not only entertained countless audiences but have also paved the way for future generations of playwrights to express their creativity and tell stories that resonate with the human spirit.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, was a seminal figure in the field of literature and activism. She is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences, the first and most highly acclaimed of which, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of seventeen and brought her international recognition and acclaim. Angelou's life was marked by a series of remarkable metamorphoses: from a child victim of racism, to a single mother working odd jobs to secure her son's future; from a nightclub dancer and performer to a renowned poet and author; from a coordinator for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to a friend and advisor to two U.S. Presidents. She mastered several languages and worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded her the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for her collected works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Maya Angelou's contributions to literature and culture were not limited to her prolific writing. She also held a successful career in the arts, including stage performance, directing, producing, and acting in film and television. A trailblazer in the truest sense, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in the 1973 play Look Away and for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie. Maya Angelou passed away on May 28, 2014, but her words and influence continue to resonate, inspiring countless individuals worldwide.
Age : Dec. at 86 (1928-2014)
Birthplace : St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Ayn Rand (; born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including property rights. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals.Literary critics received Rand's fiction with mixed reviews and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, though academic interest has increased in recent decades. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. She has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
Age : Dec. at 77 (1905-1982)
Birthplace : Saint Petersburg, Russia
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright renowned for her versatility, talent, and charisma. Born on May 21, 1966, in Boston, Massachusetts, she discovered her passion for acting at a tender age. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Edelstein quickly became an established figure within the theater circuit before transitioning to television and film. Edelstein's breakthrough role came when she was cast as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit medical drama series House. Her performance over seven seasons (2004-2011) brought her critical acclaim and recognition, earning her a People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Drama Actress in 2011. Despite her success on House, Edelstein never allowed herself to be typecast. She has consistently demonstrated her range, playing diverse characters across numerous genres, such as her notable roles in The West Wing, Ally McBeal, and Felicity. In addition to her acting career, Edelstein is also a talented writer and an ardent activist. She authored, composed, and performed the musical Positive Me in response to the growing AIDS crisis during the late 1980s. As for her activism, Edelstein is known for using her platform to advocate for various causes, including animal rights and LGBTQ+ issues.
Age : 58
Birthplace : Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and as of April 2019 is still running after more than 27,000 performances.In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association. On 15 September 2015, coinciding with her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.
Age : Dec. at 85 (1890-1976)
Birthplace : Torquay, Devon, England, UK
Mae West, born Mary Jane West in August 1893, was a renowned American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose career spanned seven decades. Originating from Brooklyn, New York, West's uncanny ability to captivate an audience began at the tender age of seven when she first graced a public stage. By the time she turned fourteen, she had become a professional vaudeville performer and created an alter ego by the name "Baby Mae". West's career took another leap forward as she delved into playwriting under the pen name Jane Mast. Her early plays, like Sex and The Drag, were often deemed scandalous due to their bold explorations of sexuality and gender roles, compelling the authorities to prosecute her on moral charges. However, this only served to fuel her popularity. By the mid-1930s, West had transitioned to Hollywood and quickly made her mark with memorable performances in films such as She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel. Her sharp wit, sultry persona, and iconic one-liners propelled her to stardom, making her one of the highest-paid people in the United States. Despite the strict censorship rules of the era that sought to limit her provocative style, West continually pushed boundaries, redefining the portrayal of women in entertainment. Even into her 80s, she continued to perform, refusing to let age define her. Her legacy is marked by her fearless approach to challenging societal norms and her immense contributions to the entertainment industry. Mae West passed away in November 1980, but her influence continues to resonate, marking her as a true icon of 20th-century pop culture.
Age : Dec. at 87 (1893-1980)
Birthplace : New York City, USA, New York, Bushwick
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1962 and has since published 58 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize (2019). Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) and short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates has taught at Princeton University since 1978 and is currently the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing.
Age : 86
Birthplace : Lockport, New York
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692
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dbpedia
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1
| 4 |
https://50playwrights.org/tag/nuyorican/
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en
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Nuyorican
|
https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/98096074cec68f805e3620217e89460b6196f9597f4c4f403557bd535e04224d?s=200&ts=1722879486
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Posts about Nuyorican written by trevorboffone
|
en
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https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/98096074cec68f805e3620217e89460b6196f9597f4c4f403557bd535e04224d?s=32
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https://50playwrights.org/tag/nuyorican/
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© 50 Playwrights Project, 2016-2018. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any original material on this website belonging to 50 Playwrights Project without express and written permission from Trevor Boffone is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may, of course, be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to 50 Playwrights Project and Trevor Boffone with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Thank you for reading. Please comment, share, and return regularly.
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692
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dbpedia
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3
| 49 |
https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9781913107420/julia-margaret-cameron/
|
en
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Julia Margaret Cameron
|
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2018-08-10T13:41:55+00:00
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A bold new study of Julia Margaret Cameron’s Victorian photographs, charting the legacy of colonialism following the 1857 Indian Uprising. Julia...
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en
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Yale University Press London
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https://yalebooks.co.uk/9781913107420/julia-margaret-cameron
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692
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dbpedia
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2
| 25 |
https://archives.nypl.org/the/18636
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en
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American Place Theatre Company records
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/assets/favicon-76261cdf5100cf81ab30579f0da7bf0ff11969948a72f8d62cb0af6b46ee1e4e.ico
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The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 in New York City as a not-for-profit theater dedicated to aid in the advancement of learning in all aspects of the dramatic and related arts, including the development and advancement in writing, direction, and production of new plays by contemporary authors. The American Place Theatre was known for taking risks and producing experimental plays that demonstrated minority or immigrant experiences. Wynn Handman co-founded the American Place Theatre with actors Sidney Lanier and Michael Tolan. Handman became the artistic director, as well as the chief financial officer, positions he still holds at the time of this writing (2012), and has taught acting at his own studio since the 1950s. The American Place Theatre, originally located at Saint Clement's Church at 423 West 46th Street, officially opened with a production of The Old Glory, a trilogy of one-act plays by the poet Robert Lowell.
The American Place Theatre sought to keep the theater free from commercial pressures, performing only four to six original works a season to a subscription audience. In addition to these productions, the American Place Theatre staged rehearsed readings, called works-in-progress, which collected feedback on the play from audience members. Early playwrights who premiered their work at the American Place Theatre included Ed Bullins, Frank Chin, Phillip Hayes Dean, Jack Gelber, Robert Lowell, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Reynolds, Ronald Ribman, Anne Sexton, Sam Shephard, and Steve Tesich. In 1971, the theater moved to a new location at 111 West 46th Street, part of a 1967 zoning resolution of the Theatre District that allowed developers height or plot rights in exchange for constructing a theater in their building. This allowed the American Place Theatre to move into a larger theater, as well as have a smaller, cafe-style performance space it called the SubPlot Cabaret.
In the 1970s, the American Place Theatre began broadening its scope in terms of audience and programming. In 1976, it began selling single performance tickets to non-subscribers in order to reach a wider audience. Two important programs were founded, the American Humorists' Series in 1974 and The Women's Project in 1978. The American Humorists' Series adapted the work of humor writers to the stage and included the work of George Ade, Robert Benchley, Roy Blount Jr., A. Whitney Brown, Jules Feiffer, Bruce Jay Friedman, Cynthia Heimel, Dorothy Parker, Roger Rosenblatt, Damon Runyon, Jean Shepherd, James Thurber, and Calvin Trillin. As part of this series, the American Place Theatre produced Laugh at Lunch, a series of noon performances that spotlighted the short films of comedic actors. The Women's Project was founded by American Place Theatre's associate director Julia Miles to develop the talents of new women playwrights and directors. In 1987, the Project left the theater and became its own organization.
As a not-for-profit theater, funding was a constant concern for the American Place Theatre, which relied on subscribers, individual ticket sales, benefits, and grants to financially support its programming. For a benefit in 1977, Handman assembled and screened rare footage of well-known actors from the past including Laurette Taylor in Peg o' My Heart, James O'Neill in The Count of Monte Cristo, and George Arliss, Charles Laughton, Noel Coward, Helen Morgan, and others into a film called That's Acting. The film continued to be shown periodically at the SupPlot Cabaret. Many productions were also funded with limited partnership agreements from individual investors.
In the 1990s, the American Place Theatre introduced more nontraditional theatrical works into its programming. In 1991, the theater produced The Radiant City, a multimedia musical theater piece about Robert Moses effect on New York City created by puppeteer Theodora Skipitares. In 1997 the American Place Theatre produced Coming Through, a play drawn from oral histories of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island that was adapted and directed by Handman. In 1994, the American Place Theatre began the Literature to Life program, a performance-based literacy program that presented professionally staged verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works. The first performance was an adaption of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. By the late-1990s, the American Place Theatre shifted its focus solely to educational programming and still currently produces Literature to Life productions.
In 2002, the American Place Theatre moved into a theater on West 37th Street at 8th Avenue, and in 2009, relocated once again to the Film Center Building at 630 9th Avenue. In addition to the notable playwrights mentioned above, actors who have performed at the American Place Theatre include Ellen Barkin, Rosco Lee Brown, Michael Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Sandy Duncan, Morgan Freeman, Richard Gere, Cliff Gorman, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Irwin, Frank Langella, John Leguizamo, Aasif Mandvi, Dael Orlandersmith, Sam Waterson, and Sigourney Weaver.
The American Place Theatre Company records document almost five decades of theatrical work produced by the American Place Theatre and the administrative activities of the non-profit theater. The bulk of the records consist of production files that span from 1963 until the 2008-2009 season. The records also consist of Wynn Handman's office files which reflect Handman's role as artistic director; administrative files that represent the day-to-day operations of the American Place Theatre and include the minutes of the board of trustees; submissions of scripts for consideration; posters; and electronic records. Office files were maintained by Handman and various administrative staff members, and researchers should look in both Series I: Wynn Handman Files and Series II: Administrative Files when researching the American Place Theatre's administration. Additional files are fragmentary and reflect audience development, as well as financial and legal concerns. The Literature to Life program, and the American Place Theatre's shifted focus to educational programming, are represented in this collection.
Sound recordings contain recordings of productions, music used during performances, sound cues, radio spots, and interviews. Notable sound recordings include sound effects created by director Alan Arkin for Rubbers and Yanks 3 Detroit 0 Top of the Seventh, an interview with actress Rita Jenrette on her role in A Girl's Guide to Chaos, Donald Barthelme reading excerpts from Great Days, and interviews with Handman. Video recordings contain footage of Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: A Celebration of Fifteen Years of Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights; productions like The Amazin' Casey Stengel, Dog Logic, The War in Heaven; film clips shown at When in Doubt, Act Like Myrna Loy; and interviews with Eric Bogosian, John Leguizamo, Aasif Mandvi, Jonathon Reynolds, and Roger Rosenblatt. Inquiries regarding audio and video materials may be directed to the Billy Rose Theatre Division (theatrediv@nypl.org). Audio/visual materials may be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.
The American Place Theatre Company records are arranged in seven series:
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This series is arranged in alphabetical order and contains files that document over four decades of Wynn Handman's position as artistic director and chief financial officer of the American Place Theatre. The bulk of the series is made up of correspondence, but it also contains appointment books, awards, notes, photographs, and subject files.
Handman's extensive correspondence is arranged in chronological order. The majority of the correspondence consists of carbon copies of outgoing letters regarding programming at the theater and Handman's fundraising efforts. Handman played a central role in fundraising for the theater and letters soliciting donations are consistent and plentiful. He would often write personal letters to donors asking them to underwrite a particular production or project. These letters are highly detailed and give good overviews of the projects. Handman also frequently wrote replies to critics and editors regarding their reviews of American Place Theatre produced plays. Additionally, the correspondence includes incoming letters from playwrights accompanying scripts for submission, and from former staff members and students requesting references. Handman received birthday and holiday cards from directors, actors, and former students demonstrating the close relationships he cultivated at the theater and at his acting studio. Correspondence from the 2000s primarily consists of invitations to events and holiday cards. Statements from writers convey what working with the American Place Theatre meant to writers like William Hauptman, Robert Lowell, Jonathon Reynolds, Ronald Ribman, and Steve Tesich. Also included is correspondence to and from Paula Vogel, Handman's assistant in the late 1970s, written on Handman's behalf.
Awards consist of three Audelco awards in recognition for excellence in black theater, a Cornerstone Theater Company commemorative award, and an Obie award for sustained achievement. Typescripts of speeches can be found in the Georgetown University and University of Miami files, where Handman gave a speech at the dedication of the Gonda Theatre and upon receiving an honorary doctorate, respectively. The New York Times file regards a letter Handman wrote to the New York Times replying to the exchange between theater critic Walter Kerr and Howard Klein, then Director of Arts at the Rockefeller Foundation, on Klein's rebuttal of Kerr's negative review of the play, Isadora Duncan Sleeps with the Russian Navy.
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This series is arranged alphabetically by file title and contains material documenting the administrative and governing functions of the American Place Theater, including audience development, fundraising, programming, and the activities of the Board of Trustees. There is a small amount of subject files, as well as legal and financial material.
Audience development was a constant undertaking by American Place Theatre staff and is represented by yearly membership campaigns that sought to keep current members and attract new sponsorship, and to generate group sales with schools and cultural organizations. Development files include the production files for benefits, a 'diaspora' letter sent out to Wynn Handman's former students requesting support, and foundation files. The activities of the board of trustees are represented in minutes that contain annual reports, budgets and balance sheets provide a broad overview of the American Place Theatre's activities from 1963 to 2008.
Administrative staff maintained an almost complete run of programs from American Place Theatre productions, including programs from series like the American Humorist Series, Hearing Impaired Project, Literature to Life, SubPlot Cabaret space, and The Women's Project. From the 1970s until the late 1980s, the American Place Theatre promoted the recognition of playwrights by putting a photograph of the playwright on the cover of each program. In addition to the programs, there are administrative files on many of the above series. The file on the American Humorists' Series contains material relating to humorists like Hank Bates, Roy Blount, Jr., and Bill Irwin.
Additional material consists of files on collaborations with other organizations, partial alphabetical runs of reader reports and contracts, and licensee files regarding space rentals of American Place Theatre's performance spaces by other theater companies and cultural organizations, and staffing files. Files on organizations include mass mailings, publications, memoranda, and press releases from local and national theaters and professional organizations. The Harold Clurman file contains typescripts of the opening remarks Clurman made concerning various playwrights at Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: A Celebration of Fifteen Years of Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights. Photographs document the exterior and interior of the American Place Theatre's 111 West 46th Street location, special events, and mock-ups of program covers. Notable subjects include Wynn Handman, Harry Jackson, Donald Jones, and Myrna Loy, and unidentified members of The Women's Project.
Additional administrative files are held in Series VII: Electronic Records.
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The production files are arranged chronologically by season. Within each season, files are first arranged alphabetically by play, and followed by series, such as the American Humorists' Series, the Jubilee!: Festival of Black Culture, the Women's Project, Works-In-Progress, as well as productions staged for the Subplot Cabaret space, later called the First Floor Series. The production files reflect both the administrative and the creative aspects of the productions and may contain box office reports, budgets, correspondence, contracts, programs, reviews, as well as casting files, photographs, scripts, set designs, sheet music. The files document the development of a playwright's work at the APT. Often productions were first performed as a work-in-progress and then produced in full later that season, like Frank Chin's The Chickencoop Chinaman, or in the following season, like Elaine Jackson's Cockfight. The files also contain works that the APT began to develop, but were ultimately unproduced. This occurred more frequently in later seasons as the APT moved away from performing straight plays to adapting works of fiction for its Literature to Life program. Additionally, the files contain special events, such as memorial or laudatory productions.
The files for productions produced in the 1970s to the 1990s are the most complete. Most of the files do not contain correspondence with the playwrights with the exception of files for Cockfight, The Fuehrer Bunker, Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry, The Grinding Machine, The Kid, Letters Home, Memory of Whiteness, Seduced, and all of Frank Chin's plays. The 1975-1976 Season files for The Old Glory contain photocopies of Robert Lowell's notes regarding casting and the files for Juana La Loca contain Mary Lee Settle's rehearsal notes. Files for Do Lord Remember Me, Five on the Black Hand Side, The Old Glory, The Radiant City, Seduced, and Zora Neale Hurston contain study guides geared towards elementary and secondary school audience members. Black Boy, The Karl Marx Play, The Old Glory, and Who's Got His Own toured and arrangements for theses tours can be found in their files. The files for Coming Through include paper leaves with audiences' responses to the play that share stories of their own ancestors' immigration to the United States. Journey of the 5th Horse files contain fan letters written to the male lead, Dustin Hoffman. The files also demonstrate the controversy surrounding certain productions by the number of negative and positive letters APT received regarding Black Bog Beast Bait, Cowboy Mouth, and La Turista.
Photographs, as noted in the following container list, can be found throughout the production files and include works by Betty Brown, Philip Bruns, Martha Holmes, and James Matthews. Subjects include Lloyd Battista, Marilyn Coleman, Michael Douglas, Virginia Downing, Alice Drummond, Faye Dunaway, Laura Esterman, Vincent Gardenia, Philip Baker Hall, Leonard Jackson, Bella Jarrett, Robert Earl Jones, Raul Julia, Patrick McVey, William H. Macy, Norman Matlock, Gene Reynolds, Andrew Robinson, Marian Seldes, Martin Shakar, Lilia Skala, Lois Smith, Michael Tolan, and Rip Torn. Unsorted photographs and slides are of various APT productions such as Baba Goya, The Chickencoop Chinaman, Fingernails Blue as Flowers, The Karl Marx Play, The Kid, Lake of the Woods, Metamorphosis, The Old Glory, and Sleep.
Additional production files are held in Series VII: Electronic Records.
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The scripts are arranged alphabetically by title and consist of scripts that were submitted to, and may have been produced by, the American Place Theatre (APT). Some scripts are accompanied by letters from the playwright, most notably Jane Gennaro and Robert Lowell, and other scripts contain reader reports by APT staff members.
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The scrapbooks are arranged in chronological order and then alphabetical order. Chronological scrapbooks cover a range of time, while the scrapbooks in alphabetical order represent specific productions. The scrapbooks primarily contain news clippings and press releases. The scrapbook for Hogan's Goat contains two transcripts of Maxine Keith's WNYC radio show, correspondence, and photographs.
10 boxes 2 oversized folders
This series is made up of both photographic posters and non-photographic publicity posters. The photographic posters are large format photographs, many labeled with production information, that were displayed at various times at the American Place Theatre. These photographs are mostly shots of productions, but also include staged photographs of cast members and a photograph of Wynn Handman directing a rehearsal for the play Christy. The posters of playwrights include photographs of Sam Shepherd, Steve Tesich, Charlie L. Russell, Joyce Carol Oates, Ronald Ribman, Rochelle Owens, and Phillip Hayes Dean. Additionally, there are photographs of St. Clements Church and the dedication at the new 111 West 46th Street theater, including a picture of Wynn Handman and Sidney Lanier receiving the Margo Jones Award from the sitting mayor, John Lindsay. Publicity posters are for various American Place Theatre productions and include a poster for George Tabori's The Cannibals, signed by the cast. Additional posters are held in Series VII: Electronic Records.
8 media objects 585.67 MB of material
The electronic records are arranged by chronological order and include both office files and production files. Disks containing graphics usually also contain various graphic files that make up a composite image.
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https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-playwrights/reference
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List of 100+ Famous Female Playwrights
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https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/6167/166167/original/famous-female-playwrights-u4
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https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/6167/166167/original/famous-female-playwrights-u4
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Embodying creativity, passion, and dedication, illustrious women playwrights have significantly contributed to the evolution of theater, enriching the art ...
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/img/icons/touch-icon-iphone.png
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Ranker
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https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-playwrights/reference
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Embodying creativity, passion, and dedication, illustrious women playwrights have significantly contributed to the evolution of theater, enriching the art form with their unforgettable stories and intricate characterizations. From captivating dramas to thought-provoking comedies, these female playwrights have transcended boundaries and left their mark on the stage, weaving stories that resonate with audiences across the globe. With diverse backgrounds and distinctive voices, these playwrights have generated plays that have captivated generations, earning well-deserved recognition for their exceptional talents.
The illustrious careers of Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, and Agatha Christie serve as shining examples of the creative prowess and lasting impact that female playwrights have had on the world of theater, shaping its narrative fabric with their unforgettable stories.. Delving into the lives and accomplishments of these famous women playwrights, readers will discover intricacies of each playwright's journey to success, as well as the ways in which they have shaped the landscape of theater. With a keen understanding of human emotions and experiences, these trailblazing women playwrights have crafted masterpieces that continue to be revered and enjoyed by theater enthusiasts today.
Examining the wealth of talent among famous female playwrights, Maya Angelou, Ayn Rand, and Agatha Christie emerge as iconic figures whose exceptional works have inspired generations of theatergoers and fellow playwrights alike. Maya Angelou, a celebrated American playwright, poet, and civil rights activist, used her powerful voice to create captivating works that spoke to the human experience, tackling themes of identity, racism, and empowerment. Ayn Rand, acclaimed for her novels and philosophical writings, also made her mark as a playwright with her profoundly thought-provoking dramas that tackled issues of individualism and the role of the state in people's lives. Meanwhile, Agatha Christie is best known as the queen of mystery fiction, yet her prowess extended to the world of theater with her skillfully crafted and suspenseful plays that continue to captivate audiences with their intricate plots and compelling characters.
In paying homage to the extraordinary contributions of these distinguished female playwrights, we recognize the invaluable role they have played in shaping the landscape of theater, leaving behind a legacy of inspiration and artistic achievement for generations to come. As a testament to their lasting impact on the world of theater, their exceptional works have not only entertained countless audiences but have also paved the way for future generations of playwrights to express their creativity and tell stories that resonate with the human spirit.
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, was a seminal figure in the field of literature and activism. She is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences, the first and most highly acclaimed of which, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of seventeen and brought her international recognition and acclaim. Angelou's life was marked by a series of remarkable metamorphoses: from a child victim of racism, to a single mother working odd jobs to secure her son's future; from a nightclub dancer and performer to a renowned poet and author; from a coordinator for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to a friend and advisor to two U.S. Presidents. She mastered several languages and worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded her the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for her collected works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Maya Angelou's contributions to literature and culture were not limited to her prolific writing. She also held a successful career in the arts, including stage performance, directing, producing, and acting in film and television. A trailblazer in the truest sense, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in the 1973 play Look Away and for a Pulitzer Prize for her 1971 volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie. Maya Angelou passed away on May 28, 2014, but her words and influence continue to resonate, inspiring countless individuals worldwide.
Age : Dec. at 86 (1928-2014)
Birthplace : St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Ayn Rand (; born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including property rights. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals.Literary critics received Rand's fiction with mixed reviews and academia generally ignored or rejected her philosophy, though academic interest has increased in recent decades. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. She has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
Age : Dec. at 77 (1905-1982)
Birthplace : Saint Petersburg, Russia
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright renowned for her versatility, talent, and charisma. Born on May 21, 1966, in Boston, Massachusetts, she discovered her passion for acting at a tender age. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Edelstein quickly became an established figure within the theater circuit before transitioning to television and film. Edelstein's breakthrough role came when she was cast as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit medical drama series House. Her performance over seven seasons (2004-2011) brought her critical acclaim and recognition, earning her a People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Drama Actress in 2011. Despite her success on House, Edelstein never allowed herself to be typecast. She has consistently demonstrated her range, playing diverse characters across numerous genres, such as her notable roles in The West Wing, Ally McBeal, and Felicity. In addition to her acting career, Edelstein is also a talented writer and an ardent activist. She authored, composed, and performed the musical Positive Me in response to the growing AIDS crisis during the late 1980s. As for her activism, Edelstein is known for using her platform to advocate for various causes, including animal rights and LGBTQ+ issues.
Age : 58
Birthplace : Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and as of April 2019 is still running after more than 27,000 performances.In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association. On 15 September 2015, coinciding with her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.
Age : Dec. at 85 (1890-1976)
Birthplace : Torquay, Devon, England, UK
Mae West, born Mary Jane West in August 1893, was a renowned American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose career spanned seven decades. Originating from Brooklyn, New York, West's uncanny ability to captivate an audience began at the tender age of seven when she first graced a public stage. By the time she turned fourteen, she had become a professional vaudeville performer and created an alter ego by the name "Baby Mae". West's career took another leap forward as she delved into playwriting under the pen name Jane Mast. Her early plays, like Sex and The Drag, were often deemed scandalous due to their bold explorations of sexuality and gender roles, compelling the authorities to prosecute her on moral charges. However, this only served to fuel her popularity. By the mid-1930s, West had transitioned to Hollywood and quickly made her mark with memorable performances in films such as She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel. Her sharp wit, sultry persona, and iconic one-liners propelled her to stardom, making her one of the highest-paid people in the United States. Despite the strict censorship rules of the era that sought to limit her provocative style, West continually pushed boundaries, redefining the portrayal of women in entertainment. Even into her 80s, she continued to perform, refusing to let age define her. Her legacy is marked by her fearless approach to challenging societal norms and her immense contributions to the entertainment industry. Mae West passed away in November 1980, but her influence continues to resonate, marking her as a true icon of 20th-century pop culture.
Age : Dec. at 87 (1893-1980)
Birthplace : New York City, USA, New York, Bushwick
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1962 and has since published 58 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize (2019). Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) and short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates has taught at Princeton University since 1978 and is currently the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing.
Age : 86
Birthplace : Lockport, New York
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https://theworkingtheater.org/mpcfhistory/
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Mark Plesent Commission Fund History
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2022-07-12T17:59:52+00:00
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en
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Working Theater
|
https://theworkingtheater.org/mpcfhistory/
|
Chisa Hutchinson (B.A. Vassar College; M.F.A NYU – TSoA) (Valerie’s Mentor) has presented her plays, which include She Like Girls, Somebody’s Daughter, Surely Goodness & Mercy, Whitelisted and Dead & Breathing at such venues as Atlantic Theater Company, Contemporary American Theater Fest, the National Black Theatre, Second Stage, and Arch 468 in London. Her radio drama, Proof of Love, can be found on Audible (with a boss rating). She’s been a New Dramatist, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Lark Fellow, a Humanitas Fellow, a NeoFuturist, and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group. Chisa has also won a GLAAD Award, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and the Lanford Wilson Award. She’s currently on strike with the WGA, but has staffed on two television series—Three Women (Starz) and Tell Me Lies (Hulu)— and is currently creating another with producers Karamo Brown (Queer Eye) and Stephanie Allain (Hustle & Flow, Dear White People). Her first original feature, THE SUBJECT, in which a white documentarian deals with the moral fallout from exploiting the death of a black teen, is available on various VOD platforms after a successful film festival circuit during which it won over 30 prizes. To learn more, visit www.chisahutchinson.com .
Ed Cardona Jr. (Harry’s Mentor) is a Connecticut native who has made significant achievements in the field of playwriting. He graduated from Western Connecticut State University and went on to obtain his M.F.A. in playwriting from Columbia University. Ed is the author of numerous full-length, one-act, and ten-minute plays. His most recently produced works have garnered attention and recognition. Among them is “American Jornalero,” which was staged by Intar Theatre, Oakland Theater Project, Teatro Vista, and Urban Theater Company. Ed’s contribution to community and collaborative initiatives is commendable. He wrote “Bamboo in Bushwick” for the Five Boroughs/One City project, which aimed to bring together various communities through theater. Furthermore, he penned “La Ruta,” a New York Times Critics’ Pick, for the Working Theater. Additionally, “Maria Se Fue” was performed as a one-act play at the As Performance Series, NYU | Steinhardt Drama Therapy Program. His ten-minute play titled “Rip 60, Z Split, Hot Read, Ear Hole on 3 – BREAK” was featured at the Source Festival by Source Theater, and his play “Lychee Martini” was a finalist at the 2020 National Playwrights Conference, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. His talent and dedication have earned him accolades and opportunities as an artistic associate with the Working Theater, a collaborator with Urban Arts Partnership/The New Group/Life Stories, and a resident playwright with Theatre 4 The People, St. Andrews College, Hispanic Playwrights-in-Residence Lab at Intar Theatre, The Professional Playwrights Unit at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, and The Hall Farm Center for the Arts & Education in Townsend, VT. Ed’s written works have been published by renowned publishing houses such as Dramatic Publishing, Smith and Kraus Publishing, and NoPassport Press. Notably, his thesis play, “PICK UP POTS,” earned him the prestigious John Golden Award during his time at Columbia University. Outside of his playwriting endeavors, Ed is an IT professional in Higher Education. He has resided in New York City for over twenty years, calling the borough of The Bronx his home. Despite living in New York, Ed remains a die-hard Red Sox fan. Throughout his journey, he is grateful for the love and support of his family.
Chisa Hutchinson (B.A. Vassar College; M.F.A NYU – TSoA) (Nina’s Mentor) has presented her plays, which include She Like Girls, Somebody’s Daughter, Surely Goodness & Mercy, Whitelisted and Dead & Breathing at such venues as Atlantic Theater Company, Contemporary American Theater Fest, the National Black Theatre, Second Stage, and Arch 468 in London. Her radio drama, Proof of Love, can be found on Audible (with a boss rating). She’s been a New Dramatist, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a Lark Fellow, a Humanitas Fellow, a NeoFuturist, and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group. Chisa has also won a GLAAD Award, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and the Lanford Wilson Award. She staffed on two television series currently in production—Three Women (Showtime) and Tell Me Lies (Hulu)— and is currently creating another with producers Karamo Brown (Queer Eye) and Stephanie Allain (Hustle & Flow, Dear White People) for Showtime. Her first original feature, THE SUBJECT, in which a white documentarian deals with the moral fallout from exploiting the death of a black teen, is available on various VOD platforms after a successful film festival circuit during which it won over 30 prizes. To learn more, visit www.chisahutchinson.com.
Lucy Thurber (John’s Mentor) is the author of twelve plays. Her five play cycle THE HILL TOWN PLAYS was produced Off-Broadway by Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater in conjunction with The Cherry Lane Theater, The Axis Theater and The New Ohio Theatre. Lucy’s theatrical homes are Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater, The Atlantic Theater, LAByrinth Theater, New Dramatists and The Lark where they have produced and supported her. Lucy is published by Dramatists Play Service. She is an alumni of New Dramatists, A member of 13P, LAByrinth Theater Company, Rising Phoenix Rep and New Neighborhood. Lucy has been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Houses on The Moon, Yale Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, A.C.T. and Steppenwolf Theatre. She is the recipient of Manhattan Theatre Club Playwriting Fellowship, the first Gary Bonasorte Memorial Prize for Playwriting, a proud recipient of a LILLY AWARD, an OBIE Award for THE HILL TOWN PLAYS and The Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwriting Award. She has written for SWEETBITER on STARZ and is a writer/producer on AMC’s NOS4A2 and Amazon’s OUTER RANGE. She has written screenplays for Debra Granik and Rachel Weisz and Maven. Lucy has upcoming projects with AMC, HBO, Nanette Burstein and Sarah Paulson.
|
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692
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dbpedia
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3
| 28 |
https://guykawasaki.com/julia-cameron-living-the-artists-way/
|
en
|
Julia Cameron: Living the Artist’s Way
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2024-01-10T11:30:57+00:00
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Bestselling author Julia Cameron joins Guy Kawasaki to discuss her groundbreaking body of work on creativity, including her latest book Living the Artist's Way and its powerful new tool - writing for guidance.
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en
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https://guykawasaki.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/favicon.ico
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Guy Kawasaki
|
https://guykawasaki.com/julia-cameron-living-the-artists-way/
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Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. Happy 2024. We're on a mission to make you remarkable this year. Today's episode sets a record for us. We are welcoming Julia Cameron for the fourth time on our podcast. She is the first person to four-peat.
Julia is known as the godmother of creativity and the bestselling author of over forty works, including of course, The Artist's Way. Julia will discuss her latest gem, Living the Artist's Way: An Intuitive Path to Greater Creativity. Until this book, Julia's three tools were morning pages, artist dates, and solo no-device, no-dog walks. In this book she unveils the long awaited fourth tool, a vital addition to The Artist's Way trilogy. It's called writing for guidance.
Over six weeks, Julia teaches you how to connect with your intuitive power. Be prepared, by the way, to be knocked over by a feather when Julia answers my question, "Why did it take thirty years to write this book?" Her answer is guaranteed to make you smile. I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People. And now here is the remarkable Julia Cameron, direct from her home without air conditioning yet.
First question, how is the air conditioning? Did you get the air conditioning fixed up?
Julia Cameron:
They still haven't fixed it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my. You're kidding?
Julia Cameron:
No, they have found it difficult to fix. So they are up on the roof tromping around, and they are trying to do their best to have it ready so that when it gets hot again, I'll have air conditioning.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, I'm glad to learn that I'm not alone in having all these aggravating things to do at my house. I'm very familiar with your work and this is the fourth time you've been on, but there may be people who are listening who don't know some of the nuances of your first three tools. So can you just briefly explain morning pages, artist dates, and walking?
Julia Cameron:
These are the basic tools of a creative recovery. And morning pages are three pages of longhand morning writing about absolutely anything, anything that crosses your mind. And they are like poking a little teeny whisk broom into the corners of your consciousness and sweeping the debris into the center of the room where you can deal with it.
So they are the place where you say, "This is what I like, this is what I don't like, this is what I want more of, this is what I want less of." And you are sending a sort of telegram to the universe and the universe responds. That's morning pages.
The second tool is something called an artist date, which if morning pages are done daily, morning pages are non-negotiable. But once a week you take an artist date, which is a solo expedition to do something that enchants or interests you, and it should be something that your inner eight-year-old would find delightful. An artist date has two parts to it, artist and date, and you're out to woo your inner consciousness. And it's an interesting fact that when I assign morning pages, people go straight to work. They go, "Work, I get it. I'm going to work on my creativity." But when I assign an artist date and I say, "Now I want you to go out once a week and play," they become very apprehensive and skeptical and fold their arms across their chest and they say, "What does play have to do with creativity?" And I say, "Well, it has everything to do with creativity." We have an expression, the play of ideas. And that's what you're doing, you're playing so that you will have ideas.
The third tool is very simple, it's put on some shoes and go for a twenty-minute walk, and don't take your dog and don't take your radio and don't take your telephone, and just take your consciousness out and take it for a stroll. So the three tools are morning pages, artist dates, and walks. And then there is a fourth tool, which I have not been faithful about explaining.
It was a tool that I first mentioned in The Artist's Way in 1992, which is that I ask you to ask for guidance. And then I went for thirty years without mentioning it again, even though I was using it all the time. Morning pages, artist dates, walks, and then the fourth tool is I want you to ask for guidance. And the new book, Living the Artist's Way, is a book which is a deep dive into the fourth tool.
Guy Kawasaki:
When you say asking for guidance, is it like you're having a conversation with your consciousness or the universe or God and then you write down what you hear?
Julia Cameron:
You're asking for guidance on something which baffles you. So you write down, what about “X”? And then you listen. And when you listen, you will hear a response, and that response is guidance and it's often clear and direct and precise and welcome.
Guy Kawasaki:
So it's not necessarily appearing to you via writing, you can just, quote, unquote, "Learn this" or "hear this"?
Julia Cameron:
I think it's important that you do it in writing because when you write down your response, you have a record of the guidance that you received. And it's important that you have a sense of the accuracy of the guidance. And so when you write it down, you are putting it on the page and you are saying, "This is what I heard."
Guy Kawasaki:
And why, Julia, did it take thirty years for you to write about this?
Julia Cameron:
I think it's because I was afraid of sounding too woo-woo.
Guy Kawasaki:
Come on, seriously?
Julia Cameron:
Seriously, yes. I was afraid of sounding too woo-woo because when you write for guidance, you are stepping beyond the rational into a world which is intuitive. And I think that I was scared that if I wrote about guidance, people would think, "Oh, she's just a little bit crackers."
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't think you need to worry about that, nobody's going to think that. And you know what? Tough shit if they do. Now, where does listening and praying fit into all of this?
Julia Cameron:
Well, what I found worked best for me was to write three pages of guided writing, morning writing. And that is in essence a prayer because you're saying, "Here's what I want, here's what I hope, here's what I dream, here's what I dare." And when you write out your guidance like that, you find yourself feeling a sense of safety.
Guy Kawasaki:
I understand listening to this force, but when you're praying, are you praying to what people consider a traditional God? Are you praying to the universe? Who are you praying to?
Julia Cameron:
I feel like I'm praying to a line from Dylan Thomas, the poet. "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower." So I feel like I'm praying to a universal energy, a force that opens up to us when we ask it to.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So let me ask you kind of a flip side question, which is, are there any people who are so evil or so whatever, that this writing down and the guidance that they hear is just plain wrong? If Donald Trump did this, what would happen?
Julia Cameron:
If Donald Trump did this we might get a better world, but I think there's no such thing as a person who is too, quote “evil” to write for guidance. And I think that writing for guidance is asking the universe to give us a sense of benevolence.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why do you ascribe so much power to the act of writing? What makes that beyond just thinking or cogitating or whatever? What does the act of putting it on paper do?
Julia Cameron:
The act of putting it on paper is an action of power. We write and when we write, we find ourselves led. And this leading gives us a sense of direction. And my own experience with writing is that it's incredibly powerful and it gives us a sense of right action. And I think that when we don't write, we risk not remembering what our guidance was. And so when we write, we're putting it on the page and we're committing it to memory.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think a lot of scientific evidence supports that with note-taking in schools and stuff. Same thing, right?
Julia Cameron:
Yes, I think so.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, what if somebody says, "Can I type it? Can I put it in a word processor or a digital journal?" Is it the act of writing is not the same as the act of typing?
Julia Cameron:
It's not the same. When we write, we are connected from our heart to our hand. And when we type, we can go quickly past important points. And I sometimes have people say, "Oh, Julia, I'm so much faster when I type." And I say, "Fast is not what we're after, we're after depth and authenticity."
Guy Kawasaki:
Really tactical question. Do you have a favorite pen?
Julia Cameron:
Oh, I do.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is it?
Julia Cameron:
It's a Uni-Ball 207. It's a fast writing pen.
Guy Kawasaki:
Uni-Ball 207?
Julia Cameron:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. This episode is going to come out and Amazon is going to be sold out. We should get you an affiliate fee for that. Well, any special color?
Julia Cameron:
I like black.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Okay. I have another bizarre question. I read that you conduct Zoom classes for morning pages. My head exploded. You're the last person in the world I would think is using Zoom, and then using Zoom for something so analog as writing morning pages. It's hard to fit those two thoughts into my limited brain. What is the attraction of Zoom for you?
Julia Cameron:
I like Zoom because I feel connected to the people that I'm teaching and I feel like it gives me a sort of radar, and I feel like it gives me a feeling of commitment. So what I teach on Zoom I want to say with more depth.
Guy Kawasaki:
You teach with more depth with Zoom than in person?
Julia Cameron:
I think so.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Julia Cameron:
I think it's because you feel the purity of intention of the class.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, can you explain that?
Julia Cameron:
When I teach on Zoom, I start off by saying, "Now I'm going to count to three, and when I get to three, I want all of you to set an intention that we're going to have a wonderful class." And then I count to three and then we set the intention. And now this is going to sound too woo-woo, but I feel I can experience the good wishes of the class.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. I would say 99.9 percent of the world thinks that Zoom is dehumanizing, it lacks human emotion and touch, et cetera, et cetera. And the only two people who I have ever interviewed who said the opposite of that is you and Tom Peters of In Search of Excellence. The both of you are in very good company as having different opinions of Zoom.
Julia Cameron:
Well, I just think that Zoom opens our minds.
Guy Kawasaki:
It seems like about one book a year, because my podcast has been going four years and you've been on four times. So when are you going to stop? Do you ever figure out, okay, I'm done with writing?
Julia Cameron:
I don't figure I'm done with writing, but I do feel like I'm slowing down and putting more thought into the page and putting more intention into the page. And I feel like it's a good thing to be slowing down a little bit.
Guy Kawasaki:
Julia Cameron's idea of slowing down is writing only one book a year. Let's just say that that is a few standard deviations away from most people's idea of slowing down. So Julia, if I were to come to your house, would I see stacks and stacks of morning pages, just a whole library of your morning pages from day one?
Julia Cameron:
You would see a big tall bookcase with morning pages filed throughout.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Julia Cameron:
And I also feel, like morning pages, journals are a wonderful tool and they are concise.
Guy Kawasaki:
I know morning pages are a private thing, but that would be amazing to look through. That's looking through, I don't know, Leonardo da Vinci's notes or something. That would be an amazing experience, but I digress. Anyway, two final questions. Okay. One question is, and I've done this with several guests who have these important people in their lives, and you just get another sort of perspective on a person. You think that Joel Fotinos would agree to talk to me about what it's like to edit Julia Cameron?
Julia Cameron:
Yes, I think he would talk to you about it. He's been my mentor and my muse for twenty-seven years.
Guy Kawasaki:
So could you help me make that work? Because I think that would be so fascinating, and I bet nobody has ever done that. And my last comment to you. So listen, I've written sixteen books now and I use these quotes, I put a quote in at the start of every chapter and sometimes in the body.
But I have to say that the quotes that you select and where you put them and how you use them is absolutely remarkable. I just love how you find those quotes and use them in your book. I want to know, how do you find those quotes?
Julia Cameron:
I find them through Google.
Guy Kawasaki:
And what search term do you use to find a quote by?
Julia Cameron:
I go by topic, not by person.
Guy Kawasaki:
And so your Google search is find me topics about, I don't know, prayer?
Julia Cameron:
Sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll tell you, my favorite quote in your book is this one, and we'll end with this. I had to write it down, I loved it so much. It's the quote that is, "What's a sundial in the shade?" Oh my God, I just love that quote. So I thank you for bringing that quote into my life.
Julia Cameron:
You're very welcome.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's all I got for you, Julia. I just love interviewing you. I look forward to number five, whenever that happens. And I hope the air conditioning is fixed before it gets hot again.
Julia Cameron:
That would be a wonderful thing, wouldn't it be?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. How could we help along that?
Julia Cameron:
We can set an intention.
Guy Kawasaki:
I will be writing for guidance about how Julia can finally get her air conditioning. How's that?
Julia Cameron:
That sounds good.
Guy Kawasaki:
So there you have it. Julia Cameron, four-peating on the Remarkable People podcast. It’s kind of poetic. She’s been on four times and now she has four tools. So remember morning pages, artist dates, walks, and now writing for guidance. Don't forget the name of her latest book is Living the Artist's Way: An Intuitive Path to Greater Creativity.
Speaking of, Madisun and I recently completed a new book, it's called Think Remarkable. Julia even gave us a great blurb for it. It's coming out in the first week of March, but you can order it now. It will help you make a difference and be remarkable.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People.
First, my thanks to Julia's team. That would be Emma Lively, John Karle from St. Martin's, and Nick Kapustinsky. Next, my thanks to the Remarkable People team. That is Jeff Sieh, Shannon Hernandez, the sound design team. The Nuismer sisters, Madisun, Drop-in Queen and producer of the podcast, Tessa Nuismer, who prepares me for every interview and double checks all our transcripts.
We've put a lot of effort into our transcripts. It's because I'm basically deaf. And so I appreciate the ability to read interviews.
And then there's also Alexis Nishimura, Luis Magaña, and Fallon Yates. We are the Remarkable People team, and we are on a mission to make you remarkable in 2024.
Now you have a week to go preorder, Think Remarkable by Guy Kawasaki and Madisun Nuismer.
Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
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https://dorsettheatrefestival.org/women-artists-writing-group
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en
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Women Artists Writing Group — Dorset Theatre Festival
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en
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https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59d6938fe3df284da9e5ec36/1587486155534-QABJAJQL3KPV5N0UJU52/favicon.ico?format=100w
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Dorset Theatre Festival
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https://dorsettheatrefestival.org/women-artists-writing-group
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Heidi Armbruster
(WAW CO-FOUNDER) is a New York based theater artist dedicated to creating new work and discovering new approaches to classical literature and theater. Heidi is a founding member and co-curator of Dorset Theater Festival’s Women Artists Writing, a group dedicated to supporting actresses who are writing and cultivating the emergence of diverse theatrical voices. Heidi developed her play Mrs. Christie at a workshop at Primary Stages in Spring of 2019, with DTFWAW, and at residencies at The Orchard Project in 2016 and 2018. Heidi’s play Murder Girl has been workshopped recently by Red Caravan and The Playwriting Collective. In 2015, Heidi was a member of Space on Ryder Farm’s resident writers group, The Working Farm. Every Good Girl Deserves Fun (and other misremembered things), a commission from Clutch Productions, was produced in New York in the fall of 2015 at Walker Space. Where the I Divides was recently read by San Francisco’s ReACT. Heidi’s play Dairyland has been read and workshopped at Playhouse on Park, Primary Stages ESPADrills, The Lark, Red Fern Theater, Luna Stage, and was selected as the New Play Workshop at The Chautauqua Theater Festival in 2014. Her short play Purgatory was read as part of Red Bull Theater’s First 2011 Short Play Festival and published by Smith and Kraus in their Best Ten Minute Plays of 2013 anthology and the recently released Red Bull Shorts Anthology. Miss Angela’s Legitimate Home for Women Living in Sin was performed as part of the ESPA short play series “Detention” at Jimmy’s 43 and is available on Indie Theater Now.
As an actress, Heidi has extensive New York and regional theater credits, including Time Stands Still on Broadway, Lincoln Center’s production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Disgraced, the New York premieres of Sam Hunter’s Lewiston/Clarkston at Rattlestick, Anna Ziegler’s Boy at Keen Company, Tracy Letts’ Man from Nebraska at Second Stage, and Theresa Rebeck’s Poor Behavior at Primary Stages. Heidi was awarded a Drama League Nomination for her work in the Keen Company’s revival of Tea and Sympathy. Heidi’s Film and TV credits include Poor Behavior, My Man Is A Loser, Michael Clayton, Revolutionary Road, The Northern Kingdom, Daredevil, Divorce, Louie, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, 30 Rock, House of Cards, and Michelle on Darren Star’s TVLand hit Younger.
Heidi received her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
Mary Bacon
(WAW CO-FOUNDER) Mary Bacon co-founded dtf waw with Heidi Armbruster in August 2016. They began with 6 mid-career female theatre artists at various stages of writing; the group has now grown to 18 active members. As co-chair with Heidi, she has helped curate the group and explore avenues for further opportunities for dtf waw members, while maintaining its mission of supporting the development of female writers. As such, Mary has developed her own writing with dtf waw over its lifespan. She was a part of the Rattlestick Playwright’s Theatre’s Actor/Writer lab and her work was presented in their Playwright’s Theatre Jam.
As an actress, Mary has worked on and off Broadway, in world premieres of new plays both in and out of NY, and in television and film. She has had the immense pleasure of appearing in several seasons at the Dorset Theatre Festival.
Most recently, Mary appeared as Patti in in the world premiere of Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank’s “Coal Country” at the Public Theater in NY, developed with and including original music by Steve Earle; with whom she sang in the play. This past fall she played “Susan” in the premiere of Chad Beckim’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” at Partial Comfort in NY, and in August played Agatha in the world premiere of Heidi Armbruster’s “Mrs. Christie” at The Dorset Theater Festival, after spending June as Marmie in Kate Hamill’s new adaptation of “Little Women” at Primary Stages in NY. Other favorites include: Horton Foote’s “Harrison, TX” with Hallie Foote and Jayne Houdyshell, and Horton Foote’s “The Roads To Home” with Hallie Foote and Harriet Harris, both at Primary Stages; on Broadway in Tom Stoppard's "Rock n Roll” and “Arcadia”; the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominated "Women Without Men" at The Mint at NY City Center; working with Charles Busch and Julie Halston in his NY Times critic’s pick "The Tribute Artist", and NY Times critic's pick "Happy Now?" at Yale Rep and Primary Stages; Alma Winemiller in "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" at TACT, one of the NY Times top ten productions of the year; Gina Gionfriddo’s “Becky Shaw” at Second Stage, and The Public's production of Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson's musical "Giant" directed by Michael Greif, for which she was featured in The NY Times top ten moments of the year in theater. Regional theatre includes Hartford Stage, Hartford Theatre Works, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown Theater Festival, Westport Playhouse, The McCarter, Yale Rep, Seattle Rep, The Long Wharf, Old Globe, Dorset Theatre Festival, Denver Center, Cincinnati Playhouse, Chautauqua Theater Festival, The Ford’s Theatre and others. TV/Film: Recently released on Netflix, “Lost Girls” with Amy Ryan and Gabriel Byrne. Others include The Mist, Bluebloods, The Blacklist, recurring on Law and Order, SVU, and SVU Criminal Intent, Boardwalk Empire, Mildred Pierce, Elementary, Madame Secretary, the Good Wife, Donny! and varied commercials and voice overs, including Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway and wherever it goes. She is a member of the Actors Center Workshop Company. Carnegie Mellon Drama.
Michelle Beck
Michelle is an actress, director, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY as well as proud member of DTF WAW. She wrote, directed, produced her short film THE SNAKES, where during a cold Brooklyn winter in a parallel future, an isolated, young black woman responds to a culture of fear with violent fantasies channeled through a neighborhood watch group. Her play OTHER THAN OTHER has had developmental readings with Dorset Theater Festival and Epic Theatre Ensemble. Beck also co-wrote/directed/produced the short film SAM & JULIA with Randy Harrison. She is currently working on a novel.
As an actress, she has worked on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun, and off-Broadway in Hurricane Diane (New York Theater Workshop); Richard and Jane and Dick and Sally (Playwright’s Realm/Baltimore Center Stage); Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Public Theater); A Kid Like Jake at LCT3; As You Like It, The Tempest (BAM/Old Vic); Much Ado About Nothing (Theater for a New Audience); Measure for Measure (Epic Theatre Ensemble); Uncle Vanya (Pearl Theater). Regionally, she has performed in The Wanderers (The Old Globe); Top Girls (ACT); King Charles III (ACT, Seattle Rep, Shakespeare Theatre DC); Tartuffe (McCarter/ Yale Rep); Hamlet (Shakespeare Theater); Proof (TheatreWorks Palo Alto - BATCC nomination); Winter’s Tale, Cyrano de Bergerac (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). She has worked on Luke Cage; Manifest; Homeland; Madam Secretary as well as the films Ovum; Ambition’s Debt; Death of a Prince; Spinning Into Butter.
Carolyn Baeumler Bost
is a New York based actress who can currently be seen in the web series Film U and in the upcoming independent film The Bride In The Box, written and directed by Doug Bost and co-starring their daughter Acadia. Carolyn is a co-founder of the theatre company Hourglass Group best known for its revival of Mae West’s play SEX, and adaptation of Ernst Lubitsch’s film Trouble In Paradise. On stage she has portrayed Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Kay Francis and Courtney Love in various Off Broadway and Regional Theatre productions across the country. She also originated roles in the world premiers of Big Love and The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. She has understudied Cynthia Nixon, Lili Taylor, Elisabeth Marvel and Jessica Hecht, both Off Broadway and On. She is a Usual Suspect at NYTW, an affiliated artist with New Georges and co-founder of Bad Rep. DTF WAW marks her first foray into writing, with her new play Unconsummated, and theatre project Misses(.), which is a collaboration with fellow actress/writer Polly Lee and slated to be performed as part of Elevate Theatre’s HEAL Festival next year.
Donna Eis worked from age ten to thirty as a fair funnel cake-maker, ceramicist's assistant, babysitter, geometry tutor, waitress, usher, model, library periodicals assistant, cashier, actor (theater, film, TV, commercial, industrial), telemarketer, barista, office temp, receptionist, background performer, stand-in, retail salesperson, casting assistant, and administrative assistant (some of these for only a few hours or days, some for years). Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Donna received a BFA in Drama (Acting) from Carnegie Mellon. Highlights of her performing career included being cut from a terrible film by a future convicted felon and being fired from an international tour by a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship grantee. Since moving from NYC to the Hudson Valley, she has intermittently earned tiny amounts of money as the director of a nonprofit and as a freelance writer and editor, and has labored unceasingly as the unpaid driver, caterer, and laundress to two children. She hates the question "What do you do?" She is working on a novel, which should be completed by the fall of 2040.
Laura Gómez is an actress and storyteller best known for her role as Blanca Flores on the Netflix hit series Orange Is the New Black. On television she has also been featured in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the miniseries HBO Show Me a Hero (created by David Simon) and the Dutch TV show Anne Plus. On the film front, Gómez has been seen in Exposed, America Adrift, and Sambá, which had its world premiere at Tribeca in 2017. She has participated in critically acclaimed plays, like Doña Flor and her Two Husbands and The House of the Spirits, and has participated as director of one act plays at Pregones and Intar Theater. She is currently a member of Dorset Theater Festival’s “Women Artists Writing,” a creative collective giving voices to female artists in the theater. Gómez is also an established voiceover actor and has lent her voice for the audiobooks Of How the García Girls Lost Their Accent by Julia Alvarez and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz.
In 2011, she was a recipient of the IX Screenwriting Developing Grant from the Carolina Foundation in Spain. An aspiring filmmaker, Gómez has studied film courses at the prestigious New York University and screenwriting at the Jacob Krueger Studio, and has starred in several short films including To Kill a Roach -winner of the NYU Fall 2012 Technisphere Award for Outstanding Achievement- and Hallelujah, both of which she also wrote, directed and produced. She also directed and co-produced the short film The Iron Warehouse, written by playwright and Juilliard alumni, Hilary Bettis and is currently writing the script for her first feature film.
Gómez currently lives in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and splits her time between New York City and Santo Domingo.
Cheri Magid’s opera Penelope and the Geese, for which she wrote the libretto, will have two concert productions in September at UNAM’s El Aleph Festival in Mexico City. The opera, which is composed by Milica Paranosic, has been developed at artistic residencies at Sewanee University of the South and the University of Delaware, supported by NYU, and The Society of Classical Studies and just received a Discovery Grant from Opera America. It will also have a workshop production in August, co-produced by ShoutOut Saugerties and 11 Jane Street Gallery in Saugerties, NY. Cheri’s plays have been seen at Primary Stages, New Georges, The New Group, The Women’s Project, Rattlestick, South Coast Rep, People’s Light and Theatre Company, StudioTenn and Cincinnati Playhouse among others. She was the first Susan P. Stroman Playwright in Residence at The University of Delaware and the Tennessee Williams Playwright in Residence at Sewanee University of the South. Cheri was also a member of the Dorothy Strelsin Playwright Group at Primary Stages and The WP Lab, a 2014 Audrey Resident at New Georges, and a 2014 Walter E Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. The Ghost of Enoch Charlton was produced at The Keen Company, Manna at The University of Iowa, First Lady of Christmas at Sarah Lawrence College. Her play The Wide Yawning Infinity will have a reading at Delaware Rep in May and also had a reading in New York City with Joanna Gleason, Chris Sarandon, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker. Cheri has been commissioned by Cincinnati Playhouse (Playing Dog), South Coast Rep (et al; and The Reluctant Dragon) The Keen Company (The Ghost of Enoch Charlton), director Jackson Gay (First Lady of Christmas) and the Southern Foodways Alliance (Hot Chicken). Manna and The Ghost of Enoch Charlton have been published by Playscripts and excerpts are included in Smith and Kraus’ The Best Stage Scenes of 2009. Camera Four is published in The Best Short Plays of 2012 and by Indie Theater Now and Post Mortem is in The Best Short Plays of 2015. Cheri’s erotic story She Grinds Her Own Coffee is published in Cleis Press’ anthology Hide and Seek and was shot as a short film starring Raul Castillo (Looking) and screened at the New York Shorts Festival and the St. Louis International Film Festival. Lydia, or the Girl at the Wheel, Cheri’s radio play about the earliest days of burlesque, aired on National Public Radio and her short story Yeah, We Got That, was featured on Playboy Radio. She wrote the screenplay Story of D, about the real story behind the writing of the famous sadomasochistic novel Story of O, for Nicole Kidman and adapted the book Heart of the Game for film producer Richard Wiener (Any Given Sunday). For many years, her alter ego Alexa wrote a blog about her sexploits as a high-end New York escort, a blog that had 20,000 monthly readers. She also wrote a column about sex and wine, The Sexy Vintner for the zine thepeeq.com. Cheri is working on a ten-part podcast for Sarah Jessica Parker’s company. She also wrote for the Emmy-award-winning children’s television show Arthur and is an Assistant Arts Professor in Dramatic Writing at New York University.
(WAW Leadership Council Member) Nandita Shenoy is a New York-based writer-actor who loves hearing an audience laugh. Most recently, her Rage Play was named to the 2020 Kilroys List. Her Washer/Dryer has been produced multiple times nationally after its world premier at LA’s East West Players and an Off-Broadway production in which she also starred. Her first full-length, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by theHegira in Washington, DC, and Satisfaction had a developmental run at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. One-acts, Marrying Nandini, By Popular Demand, Rules of Engagement, You Are Here, and A More Perfect Date have been produced in New York City and regionally. Nandita has acted in world premiers of new plays by Richard Dresser, Madhuri Shekar, Chelsea Marcantel, Adam Szymkowicz, and Eric Pfeffinger as well as a season at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Nandita won the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwriting and a 2018 Mellon Creative Research Fellowship at the University of Washington School of Drama in partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the Dorset Theatre Festival’s Women Artists Working group, and the Dramatists Guild. She also sits on the Steering Committee of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) which won a 2020 Obie for their Advocacy in the Field of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University. www.nanditashenoy.com
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WE EXIST (Female and_or Trans* Playwrights)
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12
Lisa B.Thompsonwww.lisabthompson.comAustin, TexasPlaywright, Poet, Scholar
TV Woman from Skibidi Toilet makes me cream all over my computer. So, I watch skibidi toilet right? I wait a few seasons and see the love of my life. TV Woman. I immediately creamed all over my desktop and licked it off to see her beautiful body. One day at school I saw a woman holding a TV and I thought of TV Woman and started taking my pants off and jerking off intensely. Once I went into my room and my PC monitor looked like a TV and I creamed all over it. Does anyone relate?full length: SINGLE BLACK FEMALE, UNDERGROUND, MONROE, THE MAMALOGUES and short plays: MOTHER'S DAY, WATCH, and I DON'T WANT TO BE (MAMIE TILL) Austin Critics Circle David Mark Cohen New Play Award, Austin Playhouse of New Texas Plays, Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work, Hedgebrook, Millay Colony for the Arts, McDowell
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professional development
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Posts about professional development written by Katie Winkler
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Hey, Mrs. Winkler!
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https://heymrswinkler.com/category/professional-development/
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We suffer from distractions. It’s not only the high tech, although that is definitely a problem – our phones and computers and endless entertainment sources and open AI and, and, and. More than anything else, we are distracted by our concerns. No, our worries. Perhaps it makes us feel virtuous to worry, to endlessly bemoan the failings of others and how they are leading us all down the path that leads to destruction. After all, if we can distract ourselves with how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, maybe we won’t have to look into our own souls and search for the true sources of our problems.
Lord knows I’m guilty. If I worry enough about how this current election will affect education and talk about it enough with friends, then I can distract from the fact that I promised myself I would finish my teaching memoir this first year of my retirement and that I would work diligently on making the most use of the Virtual Playwriting Fellowship the Dramatists Guild Foundation awarded me.
Of course, I don’t call it worrying; I am “concerned,” so my worry becomes something good, right? My other distractions, including social media, are being used, I tell myself, to help raise awareness and guide people toward good things. And it is good if I stay focused, but if I’m honest, I don’t. I start out with those good intentions and slip on down the road to you know where.
In Book XII of C. S. Lewis’s great satiric epistolary novel, The Screwtape Letters, the uncle demon Screwtape advises his nephew Wormwood about the value of distractions to keep the new Christian, no longer in danger of the fires of hell, from being too effective.
He says:
You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,
So, whether it be pleasure or worry that distracts us, in the end all that will matter is that we have not acted as we should have or wanted to. It is right that we be concerned about extremist candidates running for state superintendent, about school board meetings becoming violent, about indoctrination coming from the right or left, about unwarranted censorship or the lack thereof, but it is wrong of us to see problems where there aren’t any or to let our fears and worries distract us from what you (talking to teachers now) are supposed to do–TEACH.
Until the last two years of my teaching, I worried constantly about ambiguous mandates coming down from the administration. Often, they didn’t apply to me but nevertheless distracted from my teaching. I would get upset, argue, discuss whatever it was endlessly with my colleagues in their offices. The thing is I didn’t need to worry because most people in the administration were simply passing on what had been mandated to them, having little hope that, for example, yet another restructuring of developmental education would fix the problems that the previous restructuring just a few years before had not fixed or made worse.
All my “concern” did not help me teach those developmental classes effectively. The only thing that helped was buckling down and embracing any sound ideas and finding ways around the silliness, or simply ignoring it. For example, when the state mandated that instructors should not use fiction or essays written in first-person to teach reading and writing, I was flabbergasted, ready to fight this nonsense tooth and nail at the conference I went to explaining the new curriculum. However, low and behold, almost every session at the conference included sample readings that were either essays written in fir st person or fiction. These teachers were fantastic, and their lesson ideas were great. I adopted some of them. No one seemed to notice these teachers were ignoring the mandate, including the people who had cobbled together the new curriculum. I didn’t have to fight.
Now that I’m retired, I can see that I wasted a lot of time and caused myself undo stress by allowing myself to be distracted by administrative bloat and broad, ambiguous criticism. All I can do now is say to young educators, please don’t be like me: don’t turn your teaching world upside down with every pedagogical or andragogical wind that blows. It’s not worth it. Pick out the good ideas and incorporate them, change when you need to, learn new technical skills that enhance your teaching, use old ideas that have worked for you before, and trust yourself.
Teaching is a craft. You should always be open to improving it; however, teaching is also an art, most successful when it is creative and engaging, when it takes risks, when it moves onto the fringes and beckons students into the glorious realm of ideas.
As a much older, bossy sister, it is hard to admit that my baby brother has been such an influential teacher to me for half a century. But, the past few weeks, as he has endured serious health issues, including emergency open heart surgery, I have been reminded of some of the strengths he’s demonstrated time and time again, including adaptability, persistence, and most of all, resilience.
My brother hasn’t chosen the easiest path to make a living: he breeds and trains working German shepherds. He started the business when he was still in undergraduate school at Auburn University and grew it through many years of struggle as he was working on his master’s in liberal arts at Auburn University-Montgomery. While there, he focused on media and computer studies that have all been helpful in conducting his business, which included creating and maintaining his website: Schwarzerhund.com. His dogs are some of the most intelligent, powerful, and beautiful creatures you will ever have the privilege to meet.
My brother is no stranger to adversity. On April 27, 2011, less than two weeks after the death of our sister Ronda and the evening of the day he defended his master’s thesis, Rob’s trailer, right next to my parents’ house, was destroyed by one of the EF-4 tornados to strike Alabama during the historic super tornado outbreak that year.
Around 10:00 pm, my brother had fallen asleep in front of the television and did not hear the news of the approaching tornado. He did, however, hear the tell-tale sounds of wind rushing like a locomotive bearing down on his vulnerable home. He and the young German shepherd he was caring for sprinted across the lawn to my parents’ house. My mother, also unaware of the approaching tornado, had just locked the door when Rob started pounding on it, yelling, “Mom, you’ve got to let me in or I’m going to die.”
He made it inside, but as soon as my mother closed the door behind him, the tornado struck. My brother recalls how they could hear the roof creaking and giving way as half of it was sucked up into the vortex. Somehow, they made it to the hallway, where they met my father, who had mobility issues due to diabetic neuropathy, coming out of his bedroom. They headed to the bathroom and stood huddled in the tub waiting for the storm to pass, which it did shortly after.
They were safe. That was the main thing.
However, the damage was extensive; my brother knew that, but he didn’t have time to fully take stock of everything that happened. Once he made sure my elderly parents were in an undamaged room of the house and safe, he found the house’s insurance information, but of course the phone lines were out, and at that time, cell coverage was spotty at best in that area of Chambers County, one of the poorest in the nation.
So, he called his big sister. At first my husband and I couldn’t hear much, but made out the word tornado, and looked on the Weather Channel’s website to see the news of the huge storm. The radar showed the cells all over Alabama. We were helpless, though, until Rob was able to navigate around all the fallen trees and drive close enough to a town to get cell reception. Because of Rob’s quick thinking, I was one of the first to call and inform the insurance company of the disaster, so my family was able to quickly receive help.
Rob made a few other essential calls and then headed home. When he drove up to the house, the dog that had followed him from the house across the yard, that he thought was lost in the storm, came running up to him unharmed. She must have been able to get under the house. That was the first of many miracles that kept him going in all the many months following the tornado.
To my credit, I did do my share, helping out as much as I could, especially with my parents by securing a place for them to live while the house was being rebuilt and visiting as often as I could, but it was my brother who adapted his entire life in order to manage the property and his business after the storm. He stayed at the farm, at first sleeping under the carport in a recliner with a shotgun to ward off looters while protecting and caring for his beloved dogs. Of all the dozens of animals he cared for at the time, he didn’t lose any in the storm itself, and only two died as a result of injury and trauma–A miracle that such a powerful storm did not take more lives.
To my discredit, however, I did try to play the big sister at one point. I admit that I got pretty bossy and critical during that time, and my little brother finally had enough. He told me, “Katie, you’re going to have to make a decision. You’re either going to have to come down here permanently and run the show, or you’re going to have to trust me to do it.” I learned two valuable lessons that day: Number 1–Little brothers grow up and become men. Number 2–People have to be given a chance to handle things their own way–they have to be trusted.
That last lesson really helped me as an instructor to adult students. I learned that I was actually hurting my students if I gave them too much direction, if I didn’t allow them to discover things on their own, even if they had to experience painful trial and error. That’s the only way we really learn anything. During the years of recovery, my brother made some mistakes, but he pulled through and has brought the farm and his business back from the devastation of the tornado, a credit to his tenacious spirit.
This last trial that my brother has been through, enduring sextuple heart bypass surgery, has once again proven his persistence and resilience, his ability to adjust and adapt his best laid plans. Also, in the midst of that, he has maintained an optimism that defies his circumstances. He has shown humility and gratitude, allowing medical professionals, friends, and family to enter into his private world and help him. This is easier said than done for an independent introverted bachelor, but he has done it and has grown as a person as he has adapted to his new reality.
I took Rob to his first doctor appointment with his primary physician following the surgery, and his nurse read from the cardiac ICU report. It said, “Robert Whitlock is a 54-year-old male and a very nice man.” An understatement. He’s also the best little brother anybody could ask for.
And he’s not a bad teacher either.
I am a Type II diabetic. My husband is a health care worker. He has been fully vaccinated for over a month but is aware that working where he does he still might be a carrier of Covid-19. I had my first vaccination, made possible by my workplace, for which I am grateful, over a week ago. I will receive the second dose on March 30.
Because of my medical condition, I have been allowed to teach asynchronous and synchronous online classes this semester. I did not request this but am thankful that the dean in my division saw to it that I, as a person vulnerable to complications of Covid-19, had the choice to telework if I did not feel safe coming to campus.
In the fall of 2020, I worked from home most days, only going onto the campus to serve an hour in the Student Success Center to relieve my colleague so that she could have a lunch break. I volunteered to go on campus for that time. This semester, I have volunteered to work two days in the Student Success Center. I voluntarily treat these days as normal work days, usually arriving around 8:30 or 9:00 am.
Yesterday was one of those days. I came in later than I usually do, around 11:00 to serve a scheduled office hour, then in the Student Success Center, then mentoring a new faculty member, grading papers, a trip to the mailroom to pick up the posters for advertising this semester’s theater production. A break for lupper (lunch and supper) at 4:30ish and then back to my office for grading at 5:20 until rehearsal for the play (I play Shakespeare and the Duke of Ephesus–you should see my costume) until around 8:00pm.
During that time, one of my colleagues, who works in marketing, came to take pictures of all of the actors in costume. I was released after I and my fellow Shakespeare/Duke were photographed. (Our director double casts when needed so all who audition can have a chance to act). Other student and community actors, crew, director, and photographer were still there. I got home around 8:35 and talked to my husband a few minutes, but he was on call at the hospital, so he called it a night, hoping not to get called in. I stayed up a while longer to do my daily yoga routine, and check student e-mail one more time. I also have decided to learn Italian! I am using duolingo, a popular language-learning ap, to do so and also use the ap to brush up on my German. (I have a degree in German, but use it or lose it, they say).
Thursday, March 18, 2021–Today is a day I telework.
7:00 am–Rise, washed some dishes I was too tired to wash last night, made breakfast for my husband and me. We were both glad that he didn’t get called in last night.
7:50am–Ate breakfast and drank coffee while my husband read the weather and some amusing news to me. We chatted and laughed some. He always can make me laugh.
8:03 am–Started checking work e-mail. Answered two student messages made late last night. Skimmed a New York Time’s article by Judy Batalion called “The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance.” Batalion lives in London and did her research for the article in The British Library. Oh. Tie into British Literature II. Filed the article to read more in depth later, knowing that I probably will not ever have time. Until summer.
8:10–My husband read a snippet of news about a man buying a porcelain bowl for $35 and how it sold at auction for $720,000. Lesson learned–Don’t underestimate anybody’s value, including your own. Continued checking mail.
8:20–Started checking in on my professional development class–a microcredential provided by the State of North Carolina through the Association of College and University Professors to faculty teaching the new RISE (Reinforced Instruction for Student Excellence) courses. I and a colleague have volunteered to take the course. No cost to the college, no cost to us. Plus, even though the course has just started, I am learning a great deal about improving online teaching for the special demographic of developmental students that I teach.
As I started checking this course, I got the idea for this blog post, so I took the time to set up the blog post, and write up my notes so far.
9:13–Break to walk up and down the stairs (to satisfy the fitbit monster), get some more coffee (to satisfy the caffeine addiction), and do other necessary things, like get dressed, make the bed, and clean my C-Pap equipment (I have severe sleep apnea–another reason I am high risk for complications due to Covid-19).
9:31–Checking in with my prof. dev. course will have to wait, but I have completed most assignments already and have until March 21 to complete the remaining two, so all is well. Good to know how my online students feel, though.
9:32–Checking e-mail again and prepping for my co-req courses.
9:47–All seems to be in order for today’s classes. I have two synchronous online classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I like working from home on these days because I can save time not having to get ready and drive to work. Then, there are the unavoidable frequent interruptions and distractions while at work. On these days when a big chunk of my day is in the virtual classroom, it just is more efficient for me to be at home.
During the few minutes of uninterrupted time, I was able to see that we are covering how to write sentences more concisely–ah, efficiency seems to be the word of the day, doesn’t it? I was also able to send a reminder through course announcements about the Collaborate session today and what we will be covering.
9:53–Checking my 11:00am class’s grades. The course I teach at 11:00 is ENG011–Writing and Inquiry Support. This class is relatively new and part of the Reinforced Instruction for Student Excellence (RISE) program that is offering the professional development class I’m taking. I think it’s a great idea, but it is too early to tell if RISE will work or not. I am seeing good results early on. (This is only the second time I’ve taught the co-requisite class, which is a support class for first-semester freshman composition students.) I am grateful to my immediate supervisor and my colleague who is the RISE coordinator for allowing me latitude to use my many years of experience with developmental education to develop, assess, revise, and re-assess the course, using my best judgment as a composition teacher for over thirty years while in accordance with the requirements of the State’s expectations. This is the fourth redesign of developmental classes since I began teaching at the college where I now work, all state-mandated.
I see that none of my students in ENG 011 are in danger of failing my class. I have been concerned about the performance of two students, however. I met with their instructor on Monday of this week to see how they are doing and to discuss strategies for their improvement. This is a best practice, according to the RISE training provided by the RISE coordinator at my college.
10:04–Checking to be sure that all grades, including zeros for work not attempted, have been recorded.
10:10–All looked good, so I will take another short break to walk up and down the stairs and put in a load of laundry.
10:22–Checking the grade book for my other ENG 011 class that will be at 2:00pm today.
10:30-Checked and saw that two students I have been concerned about continue to struggle. I talked with the instructor of one student earlier this week. After my 11:00 class, I will check the system to see who is English instructor is and shoot him or her an e-mail to set up a time to discuss the student’s performance in the ENG 111 class. Will take one last short break before logging on to class. As a diabetic, I need to have a snack at this time to keep my blood sugars regulated.
10:45–Logging onto the Collaborate session for my 11:00am class. Some students arrive early, so I like to be in the session to greet them. This class lasts until 12:20.
12:20–Class went well. We discussed the importance of writing concisely, which is a common issue with developmental English students who are often reluctant to write and will “pad” their writing in order to meet minimum word or page numbers. I like to use a handout I have found from UNC-Chapel Hill’s writing center to aid in my instruction: Writing Concisely. Then, I showed the students how to format their documents correctly using MLA8 formatting, which is standard in our English classes at Blue Ridge. I have found that developmental students often struggle with some of the details like this because they don’t see their relevance to their everyday lives, so while I am showing them how to format, I am also giving them my explanation of how following directions precisely and paying attention to detail is an important “soft skill” no matter what courses they study or profession they enter.
12: 21–Checked my e-mail and answered a long e-mail from a disgruntled student. It took some time to find the right tone to rectify the situation. As always, I offered to meet with the student, virtually or in person, to discuss the situation further. I find that this is a good way to avoid the “e-mail wars.” Sent an e-mail to that student’s ENG 111 instructor to be sure all was well in his class and to inform him of the student’s issue.
1:00–lunch break
1:25–Checked e-mail again. Read the newsletter from the president of the college and other e-mail. Walked up and down the stairs a few times. Put clothes in the dryer.
1:40–Texted my daughter to see if she wants to go walking at the park this afternoon since the rain stopped and the sun is out.
1:45–Launched the Collaborate session and waited for students to arrive. Prepared to withdraw an ENG 011 student who was dropped from ENG 111 as required. I’m sorry about that. I think he was getting something out of my class. He was one of my most faithful attendees. One of my student’s who has been struggling came into class first and said he was thinking of withdrawing, that he is having trouble engaging in the online format. We discussed his options. I have heard this often from my students over the past year. Online learning is not for everyone. On the other hand, I have many students who never thought they would like online learning who are thriving–one of the main perks is the flexibility. Also, because of the pandemic, students are improving the skills necessary to be successful in an online environment.
2:00–Began the Collaborate session. I only have a few students in this Collaborate class, but we had an excellent class with true engagement. All explanations were made and students completed the work during the class time allotted, which is one of the State’s requirements for the co-requisite class. I like this because the support class should not add an inordinate amount of work to students who are already struggling to complete work in their ENG 111 class.
3:20–Drove to the park to walk with my daughter. It was wonderful. She is a delight. Just the break I needed.
4:45–Returned home and checked e-mail. Returned an e-mail from a student and one from a colleague.
5:00–Called the theater instructor to tell her that my daughter had volunteered to help with some of the short videos mentioned at rehearsal yesterday. She said she was just finishing up doing some re-writes of the script to eliminate the need for the videos that seemed like a good idea but were just going to be too time-consuming. I and the other Shakespeare/Duke will be doing some of the interludes she needs between scenes. She will discuss it some more with us during rehearsal on Monday.
5:26–Checked e-mail again. Nothing new. Prepared supper–Because it was pretty out and lighter later, I grilled some chicken, summer squash, and zucchini. My husband came home while I was grilling. While he relaxed a little, I finished grilling the food and completed some German exercises on the duolingo ap while I watched over the food. John and I enjoyed the dinner and a little time together.
7:25–Checked e-mail again. Noticed that I have more notifications for postings for my professional development course. Decided to grade some papers before I look at the postings by my fellow students.
8:40–Called my mother in Alabama. She had to go to the emergency room on Friday and still didn’t have tests back when I called earlier in the week, so I called to check up on her. She is better, thank goodness, but doctors still haven’t gotten down to the root of her problems. I hope when she sees her doctor on Monday they will be able to find out what’s going on.
9:30pm–Made an appointment with a friend to go walking. Checked work e-mail one last time. No e-mails from students. Going to check on my professional development course in the morning. Tuckered out, as my Great Aunt used to say, and going to bed.
10:12pm–I lied. I wanted to finish up this blogpost, and so it is now almost 45 minutes later. I also started thinking about my podcast. I had hoped to put out an episode a week, but now that I have started the two new 8-week courses, the grading load is just too heavy for me to get the work completed during normal working hours. I know I will have to grade some tomorrow and over the weekend, but I don’t have rehearsal on Saturday, so maybe I can squeeze in working on an episode of CAMPUS and get it out by Sunday evening.
Shoot. Still want to do my yoga. I deserve it.
Sweet dreams, everybody.
This summer continues to be a time of renewal for my spirit, but it hasn’t been easy. My reading adventures, working on this crazy satirical novel , and being alone so much have led me to confront many uncomfortable realities about myself–I have lacked resilience and settled for mediocrity much of my life. I’m often petty, self-absorbed and self-righteous, easily angered, hypocritical, thoughtless, vain, jealous, etc., etc.
Oh, don’t worry, I continue to love myself. That’s kind of the problem. I think of myself more highly than I ought, methinks.
Many of the books I’ve chosen to read this summer have helped me to see some of my many weaknesses, and also, thankfully, validated some of my strengths. As always, the two are inextricably bound to one another. But the book I just finished has not only convicted but also bolstered my spirit and renewed my resolve.
The book is Real Christianity, a paraphrase (by Bob Beltz) of William Wilberforce’s A Practical view of the prevailing religious system of Professed Christians, in the higher and middle classes in this country, contrasted with real Christianity written in 1797. The title alone explains why I read the paraphrase, but someday I will read the original.
William Wilberforce was an abolitionist and member of parliament who helped to end slavery in England. His book, however, never explicitly mentions the battle to abolish slavery, and it addresses, as the original title suggests, the middle and upper classes of the British Empire.
But it didn’t take long at all for me to see myself and my country in the pages of this modern paraphrase, written in 2006 by the man who was one of the producers of the very good biopic Amazing Grace, that tells the story of Wilberforce’s twenty-year fight. More about the movie later.
For example, here is a quote from early in the book:
“We must remember that almost any ideology can be distorted and misused to bring misery to multitudes or justification to the most bizarre behavior. Nothing is more dangerous. That which is intended to motivate goodness and restrain evil actually can become the instrument of that which it intended to restrain. History is full of examples of how virtues such as liberty or patriotism become twisted when separated from a healthy and authentic faith. Twisted men in every generation and occupation have twisted whatever they must twist to get what they want. Why should we expect that some within the Church would not be guilty of the same actions?” (46).
Wow! See what I mean? And it was written in the 18th Century! Wilberforce himself struggled with the same issues he writes about. He is remembered for being a force for good, for valid reasons, but, of course, he struggled and failed miserably at times, especially in allowing slave labor, thinly veiled by the concept of “apprentices,” to continue in the abolitionist colony of Sierra Leone. See this interesting article on the subject in The Guardian.
See what I mean? Conviction and renewal. Convicted by Wilberforce’s words and renewed by the knowledge that his failure was, and mine is, inevitable. Renewed? How does being reminded of failure possibly revive my soul? Another paradox of my faith, I suppose. I see that the answer is not abandoning my faith or ceasing to struggle to do good, but knowing that I can ask for and WILL receive forgiveness, I can continue striving to do some good in the world.
Not a bad lesson to pass on to my students, is it?
Here’s another one:
“Money and ambition have become idols in our time, especially for individuals in the business and professional worlds. Disguised as common business practice, these forces are allowed to gather great momentum in our lives. Arguments about being diligent at what we do, becoming successful in our profession or providing for our families seduce us so that we no longer have a clear sense of judgment about these issues. Our work consumes us” (73).
It is important to keep in mind that he is addressing Christians here, not people who do not claim to be believers. Knowing that, these words strike me to the core. I have let my work consume me. I have become as data-driven as the rest of the world. What is my retention rate? How many students passed that essay with a C or better? Let me check how many hours I spent working on the LMS. Look at those FTE’s, will you?
I am convicted, but I am renewed because, since March, I have been working from home, so thankful that I have been forced to concentrate my efforts on the people who need me–my family, my friends, and, my students.
It’s about time.
****
If you want to know more about Wilberforce and the battle to end slavery in the British Empire, I highly recommend the film Amazing Grace. Strong performances, especially Benedict Cumberbatch as England’s youngest ever prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, who was a great friend of Wilberforce’s.
Work Cited
Wilberforce, William. Real Christianity. Revised and edited by Bob Beltz, Regal, 2006.
After November’s National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), I had about 26,000 usable (rough draft usable) words of my new satirical novel about higher education in the South called CAMPUS: The Novel That Wants to Be a Musical.
I am happy to announce that since May 19, I have written 38, 173 more words! I know to some of you out there this is no big deal at all, but to me this is major as I have never before been able to adjust to a daily writing schedule (I do take one floating day off a week, which has helped greatly). I have exceeded my quota each day, which more than makes up for the days off.
I have also participated in craft lectures (via Zoom) by the North Carolina Writers’ Network and the Dramatists Guild of America. All have been useful, but this past weekend I was able to join 11 other writers for an extended workshop with Bryn Chancellor, author of Sycamore, which is now on my reading list. It was the first online Squires Writing Workshop, a program of the North Carolina Writers’ Network.
The emphasis was on the opening of a story or novel. We looked at just the first 1,200 words of the project. To begin with we looked at and shared examples of strong openings. Then, we did some writing exercises and shared. The next session we did another exercise and then had a fascinating and informative lecture about openings. The final three sessions were inspiring and helpful. We had all received each other’s work ahead of time, and all were faithful to read and comment on each person’s manuscript. I got so much out of the critiques, even when my work was not being discussed. It was a wonderful four days, and well worth it.
Look into the North Carolina Writers’ Network–a valuable organization for any North Carolina writer. We have members outside of North Carolina, too, so check it out!! ncwriters.org
And my reading continues–
Here are the goodreads reviews of the latest three:
MOO by Jane Smiley, 1995
***Spoiler Alert*** Perfect timing for me to read this satire about higher education as I work on my own novel with a similar theme. Full disclosure: I participated in a writing residency at Brevard College, studying under Jane Smiley, and she was a fabulous instructor, so I am partial to her work since that time. One of the things I like about her work is its variety. I also love her ability to portray the inner life of animals so that we can relate to them yet still see, smell, feel their animal nature. In this book she gifts us with the tragic character of the hog, Earl Butz, whose “job” it is to stuff himself. Oh, my, what a wonderful and compelling character. The most sympathetic of them all, which, I think, is Smiley’s intent.
Smiley seems to have a bucket list approach to writing, wanting to challenge herself, not wanting to repeat the same style. This is certainly a very different book than her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres, and hasn’t been as critically acclaimed, but in some ways I like it better, probably because of the satiric wit, and her ability to meld the tragic with the comic, which is my favorite kind of writing.
Ultimately, the book is comic (the last section begins with a chapter entitled “Deus ex machina”), and ends with a wedding. Ah, I see, I guess I’m a little slow–A Thousand Acres (King Lear)–Shakespearean tragedy; Moo (Ends with a wedding)–Shakespearean comedy.
Clever!
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (2018)
This interesting memoir reads like fiction and at times the story is so bizarre and inconsistent that I think maybe it is fiction. However, I know that memory is a tricky thing, especially if you are the victim of childhood abuse, and I am convinced that Tara Westover certainly was.
I see why Westover named her book Educated, but I think it is more about Emancipation than it is Education, and I found myself wishing that she had spent less time with her highly dysfunctional family and more time with the way her education helped her break away.
I also think she absorbed a great deal more knowledge while she was being homeschooled than she gives herself or her parents for, but I certainly understand the omission.
Satyricon by Petronius (1st Century)
** spoiler alert ** Yes, it is considered to be the first novel. Yes, it gives valuable information about language and culture during the end times of the Roman Empire. Yes, it is satire, but it is also quite depraved. Basically Roman porn. I skipped through much of it because I couldn’t stomach it.
I primarily read it because I heard it was the first time the phrase “silent majority” was used, referring to the dead. I found that reference in Book 2 and skimmed Books 3 and 4 but unfortunately did see references to rape, including child rape (in book one), orgies, and cannibalism among other perversions. Call it classic if you want to. I just say Yuck!
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https://pangobooks.com/author/julia-cameron
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List of books by author Julia Cameron
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Get your Julia Cameron books today! Pango Books has a huge selection of new and used titles to choose from. See all books including: God Is No Laughing Matter, The Complete Artist's Way, Walking in This World, The Vein of Gold, Answered Prayers, The Prosperous Heart, The Artist's Date Book, The Artist's Way at Work, The Creative Life, The Dark Room, The Writing Diet, The Right to Write, Blessings, Floor Sample, The Artist's Way Every Day, The Artist's Way Workbook, The Artist's Way for Parents, The Artist's Way, Prayers to the Nature Spirits, The Listening Path, The Artist's Way Starter Kit, It's Never Too Late to Begin Again, The Artist's Way Starter Kit, Write for Life, Seeking Wisdom, Finding Water, The Sound of Paper, Mozart's Ghost, Prayers for the Little Ones, Living the Artist's Way, The Artist's Way Morning Pages Journal
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https://www.lionsroar.com/julia-cameron-on-the-path-of-creativity/
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Julia Cameron on the Path of Creativity
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1998-05-01T00:00:00+00:00
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Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist's Way and The Vein of Gold in conversation with Samuel Bercholz.
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Lion’s Roar
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https://www.lionsroar.com/julia-cameron-on-the-path-of-creativity/
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Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way and The Vein of Gold in conversation with Samuel Bercholz.
Samuel Bercholz: Your work is nominally about creativity, but it seems to be as much about tools for spiritual growth. What is the connection?
Julia Cameron: People often say to me, “Your book is a Buddhist book,” or “This is a book about mysticism, really, or this is a Sufi book.” That is probably because creativity is a spiritual path, and at the core of the various spiritual paths are the same lessons. For instance, I recently read Thich Nhat Hanh for the first time, and I found myself thinking that he sees the world with an artist’s eye. I think that’s because he is very heart-centered. Even though we think of creativity as an intellectual pursuit, in my experience creativity is a heart-centered pursuit. We actually create from the heart. I think it’s interesting that the word “heart” has the word “art” embedded in it. It also has the word “ear” embedded in it.
So both Buddhism and creativity involve the art of listening to the heart. That’s where the creative impulse arises from. That’s why I cannot distinguish between creativity and spirituality. When you’re practicing creativity you become a grounded individual, and that communicates the universal.
I’ve been a writer for more than thirty years, and the issues that arise in the creative practice are the same kinds of issues that arise in a spiritual practice. You get to look at your insecurity. You get to look at your inquisitiveness. You get to look at your fantasy that a satisfied desire will lead to satisfaction. As near as I can tell, this is what happens with a grounded meditation technique: you go through all of the shenanigans of the restless nature of the mind and what you are left with is, just be. Out of being, things are made. So creativity is the act of being.
Samuel Bercholz: Your creativity exercises could also be viewed as a form of therapy.
Julia Cameron: Again, I don’t make those definitions. My books are taught by myriad therapists. What they have found is that if they can heal their clients’ creativity, neurosis disappears. This is why they all love this approach, and why therapists facilitate artists’ circles all the time.
My feeling is that an enormous amount of what we think of as neurosis is actually blocked creativity. When people begin living in their creativity, the “neurosis” disappears. I am not certain that we are a neurotic culture; I think we are more a stifled culture, needing to express the self, and you can spell that either small “s” or large “S.”
My feeling is that we are exhausted with talk therapy. Because The Artist’s Way is experiential, it brings people back into their bodies and their hearts. Therapists are using it to bring people into an embodied practice, and that’s why everyone’s calming down.
It’s one of the world’s best kept secrets that art makes people sane and happy. If you think creativity makes you crazy and broke, let’s not do it. On the other hand, if it makes you expanded and connected and joyous and vibrant and beautiful, it may make us a little nervous, but maybe we should try it.
The only time I get in trouble is if I’m not making something myself. If I’m too busy teaching to do my own art I get very sad. It’s a matter of balance for me. I must keep my artist first and my teacher second. I must be making things and then sharing out of that process. If I am only teaching what I have already learned without doing my practice in order to be learning more, I’m very desperately unhappy. It’s dangerous for me.
When we are creative we become happier, more stable, more user-friendly. We have this image of writers as grumpy curmudgeons. Well, when they’re blocked they are, but a writer who’s writing is usually a very festive, even if it’s secretly festive, person. A lot of what I teach is playing. I think that as we become more light, we take our ideas more seriously.
Samuel Bercholz: Do you mean “light” like “more brilliant” or like “light-hearted?”
Julia Cameron: Light-hearted. As we become more light-hearted, we paradoxically take our ideas more seriously. If we’re trying to take our ideas seriously without a light heart we do not have the passion to execute them. This is why I say creativity is a matter of the heart: it takes heart to execute. If you can get people back in their heart, you get them into executing their creativity. If you keep them in their head, the heart becomes hobbled and the capacity to make things that connect becomes hobbled.
Samuel Bercholz: A big part of The Artist’s Way and Vein of Gold is how passion and creativity relate.
Julia Cameron: I think passion is a marvelous thing. I was recently bawled out by a shaman because he took my use of the word passion to mean emotion and turbulence. I use passion to mean an act of will and commitment. I believe that we are intended to be utterly present, present with a passionate commitment. Then when we are, we create. Conversely, when we create, we become present with passionate commitment.
One of the aspects of certain forms of Buddhism that I have difficulty with is that occasionally I get the feeling that people are using their meditation to avoid experiencing the incarnation we all share. They become detached, they hold the larger view, and it becomes: leaf falls from tree, child dies, same value. I think we can hold that view some of the time, but we are intended as humans to resonate far more deeply than that. I believe that creativity as a spiritual path is very much a felt path.
Samuel Bercholz: “Felt” in the sense of passion, or heartfelt?
Julia Cameron: I don’t see those as two different things. Do you?
Samuel Bercholz: No, but…sometimes feeling is just a swirl. Is there a difference between the swirl of emotion and heartfelt feeling?
Julia Cameron: When we’re in a swirl of emotion, in a funny way it’s intellectual. Confusing and conflicting ideas are wrapped up with the emotions, much the way smoke has particles in it. When we are in our heart, there is a clarity to the feeling, a purity to the feeling. It’s less like smoke and more like water. Creativity allows you to purify swirling emotions.
Samuel Bercholz: By grounding them? By liberating them? What happens?
Julia Cameron: You see, for me it’s difficult to talk so theoretically. For instance, this morning I was very frustrated. I sat down and wrote four short poems, and then I was fine. The poems both grounded and liberated what I was feeling.
Then I think we should talk just about the practice, because the intellectual part of this doesn’t make any sense. You can read everything about creativity, everything about meditation, everything about spirituality, and what difference does it make?
Okay, let’s look at the nuts and bolts of The Artist’s Way. Get up in the morning and write three pages of long hand writing about anything.
Samuel Bercholz: What inspired you to do that? This is something you created, and people are doing it all over the world.
Julia Cameron: It didn’t begin with an idea. One day I got up and started doing it, and I found that it worked.
Samuel Bercholz: What do you mean by “worked”?
Julia Cameron: It made me prioritized for my day; it rendered me present to my life; it gave me a seed bed of ideas that later became creative work; it rendered me profoundly present. So I did it more. (laughs)
Samuel Bercholz: Then you wrote the prescription for everybody else. How did you know that this wasn’t just for you?
Julia Cameron: People would call me up who were confused, and I’d say, “Try this,” and it would work for them. That’s how it became larger: I simply shared the tool. It’s a tool that arose out of the fact that I am a writer with a habit of writing; therefore, it was the most natural thing in the world for me to get up one morning and start writing, and then to notice what it did for me.
I also do believe in reincarnation. I think that I’m a teacher, and I suspect I’ve been a teacher for a very long time. A lot of what I know comes from my thirty years of work as a writer, but I suspect that a lot of what I know is remembered. I think this is true for all of us, that we are often doing in this life a work that we began a long time ago. That’s what I think The Artist’s Way is; it’s a work that I probably began a long time ago. Or that artists began a long time ago.
Samuel Bercholz: So do you think there’s an ancestry of artists as well as a family ancestry?
Julia Cameron: Absolutely. When people talk about a spiritual practice, they talk about the lineage of the practice. I think I’m squarely within the lineage of creativity, from the caves forward.
Samuel Bercholz: Is this a natural gift, or something you had to develop?
Julia Cameron: I think we have natural gifts and then we develop them. I think my work is helping people to wake up to their gifts and develop them.
Samuel Bercholz: Do you think everybody has natural gifts?
Julia Cameron: Absolutely!
Samuel Bercholz: So what’s with all these frustrated people?
Julia Cameron: I think we’ve forgotten who we are. I think we’ve forgotten we’re gifted. We’ve been made to feel we aren’t gifted: we have an enormous mythology that creativity belongs to an elite few. They’ve known it since birth, they suffer no fear, they always wear black…
So what The Artist’s Way tools do is reconnect people to their own creative impulses, at which point people become far stronger and begin to move in the direction of those impulses. It’s essentially a spiritual process, a listening process: with morning pages you are listening to what’s going on within you. You’re putting it on the page and communicating it to yourself and, in a sense, to the world.
The second basic tool is something called an “artist’s date,” which is a once-a-week festive period of solitude. This is like turning on the radio to receive. So with morning pages you’re listening to yourself and communicating out, and then you go into solitude, a festive engaged form of solitude – you are out in the world, you are interacting, you begin to feel and hear other impulses. You begin to receive.
Samuel Bercholz: In The Vein of Gold you talk about walking as more than just a physical thing. It’s about visual images that come by and all kinds of things.
Julia Cameron: We are ecosystems. Creativity is an ecosystem. If we want to be creative, we fish from the well of the ecosystem. It’s as though you have an inner trout run and when you strive for creativity you’re fishing out of it. Then you need to replenish it, restock it.
When you walk, a couple of things happen. One is that you have an image-flow moving at you. You see and notice things. You see a tiny little bird skittering under a pine branch. You see a homeless person if you’re in the city. You note the image, and the image goes into the well. The well is part of the heart, and that’s where your art comes from.
Walking also moves you across the bridge into a larger realm of ideas. It allows you to listen to a different frequency. I experience it as a sort of click in the back of my head. I begin to have insights and inspirations which seem to be of a simpler and higher order. There is something enormously powerful about visualizing and moving at the same time. It may just be because we have more energy to deal with, but it really helps things to clarify, and once something clarifies it begins to be able to manifest.
I call it crossing into the imagination. When we make things they begin as thought forms, as spiritual blueprints, and when we are walking and we visualize something, we’re actually drawing it into form. As a writer, if I have a tangled plot line, I go for a walk. I’m not thinking particularly about my plot; I’m thinking about the little wren that I saw, I’m thinking about the mallards, if I’m in New York maybe I’m thinking about the antique velvet rope that I saw in the shop window. And as I’m thinking about these things, “Oh! That’s what I can do with my plot” emerges. Creativity is sort of Zen: as you focus north, solutions emerge south. It’s not linear.
Samuel Bercholz: Well, that’s magic. That’s the way spiritual practice is: it works because it works. I mean, you could do whole scientific studies and they don’t help anything. You can make up excuses why it works, but they’re just excuses.
Julia Cameron: You know, if smart were the solution, very few of us would be screwed up. Smart isn’t the solution. The heart is the solution. That’s why I don’t like the term “mindfulness.” I like the term “heartfulness.” I think it’s more accurate.
Samuel Bercholz: Actually, the term is translated from the Sanskrit, and whoever translated it chose the word “mind” rather than “heart.” But mindfulness refers to the Sanskrit cotta, which is in fact “heart.” So “heartfulness” is more accurate; it’s not about our head at all.
Julia Cameron: Well, this is good. I always thought, what a dreadful word, they can’t mean it.
So we’re really talking about what arises from the heart.
Samuel Bercholz: You don’t mean the little flesh thing, right? What do you mean by “heart?
Julia Cameron: The essence. The center. The place that is simultaneously individual and universal that each of us carries. That point of truth. I think heart is a pretty good word for that.
Samuel Bercholz: What’s the relationship between time and creativity? You’re struggling with a deadline now, working on a book, and all of us who are involved with the world of creativity know there are always deadlines and the panic that comes with them. Do you think it’s positive that there are time restrictions or would it be better if things were eased up?
Julia Cameron: It’s a central question. We yearn for more time with the illusion that if we had open time we would be creating all the time. The trick is to actually learn to use the time which we have.
What I try to teach is how to be creative within the life you’ve got. We are a workaholic society. We are addicted to work and often to work for work’s sake. But when you are happy, rested and in touch with yourself, you can often work very quickly. That’s because when you have some clarity it’s easy to do something quickly. The trick is really clarity. People say, I don’t have time to do the morning pages, but if they do the morning pages it gives them clarity, and that makes them do all the rest of their life more quickly and more easily.
Now, the whole issue of how to be creative within a business environment is an issue of people being connected and clear, which is contagious. I use the term “creative contagion.” Very often if one person in a workplace starts working with creative emergence tools somebody else will say, “What are you doing? You seem really different.” Then they’ll start doing them and you have this sort of grassroots beneath the hierarchy; out of sight of the superiors you have these people who are becoming more and more grounded while also becoming more visionary, innovative and individual.
These tools render us able to see our choices in any given situation. In the middle of a demanding business day you can close the office door for ten minutes and listen to a piece of music. You can go off and write a half a page just to clear your thinking. The tools are very portable. These little tiny timeouts during a day keep you connected, and just an instant of connection creates space for what I call grace, or what other people might call inspiration or intuition. If we make the smallest opening, there is the possibility of creativity. This is why it is so much like a spiritual practice.
Samuel Bercholz: Do you want to say something about the various kinds of addictions and their relationship to creativity?
Julia Cameron: Our mythology tells us that artists are addicted people – that they are promiscuous, drug addicted, alcoholic. We’ve come to think that somehow those addictions are part of the creative process.
My experience is exactly the opposite. My experience is that creativity is freedom from addiction. We are frightened when we feel the force of our own creative energy, because we don’t know how to ground it. This is why my tools tend to be grounding tools, and when creativity is safely grounded and used, addictions fall to one side. Conversely, if you see someone addicted, what you’re seeing is a profoundly creative soul reaching for a substitute to self-expression.
When people get sober they can be profoundly creative. When people get emotionally sober off of a process addiction like workaholism or sex addiction or relationship addiction, they have freed for their use a beautiful amount of new usable energy with which they can make wonderful things. That doesn’t just mean writing a poem or making a ceramic vase. It can be a new system for the office. It can be revamping the way they do parent/teacher meetings.
But often what happens is that when we experience our creative energy we don’t recognize it as creative energy; we just think it’s anxiety. So rather than saying, “How can I direct this energy and what should I make?” we try to block it. We block it by thinking of some titillating sexual adventure. We block it by picking up a drink. We block it with a pint of Hagen Daas. We block it by picking up workaholic work. But it doesn’t go away; it’s still there. Creativity is always there, because it is as innate to humanity as blood and bone. It is the animating force.
Samuel Bercholz: Although a lot of people talk about creativity and sexuality as not different energies. Do you see them as different?
Julia Cameron: No. I would tend to say that energy itself is pure, and that we can abuse it. You can feel the difference between an addictive, deadening sexual encounter and a sexual encounter where you stay present and the other person stays present.
Samuel Bercholz: Being in the present is the issue?
Julia Cameron: I think so.
Samuel Bercholz: Is it the same with creativity?
Julia Cameron: Creativity is living in the connected moment.
Samuel Bercholz: What do you mean by connected?
Julia Cameron: Heartful, present, alert, attentive, engaged.
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© 50 Playwrights Project, 2016-2018. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any original material on this website belonging to 50 Playwrights Project without express and written permission from Trevor Boffone is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may, of course, be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to 50 Playwrights Project and Trevor Boffone with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Thank you for reading. Please comment, share, and return regularly.
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Not to be confused with British literature.
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years.[1] The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, are called Old English. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English. Despite being set in Scandinavia, it has achieved national epic status in England. However, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society.[2] The English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English. This form of English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard (late Middle English), a London-based form of English, became widespread. Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, was a significant figure developing the legitimacy of vernacular Middle English at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 also helped to standardise the language, as did the King James Bible (1611),[3] and the Great Vowel Shift.[4]
Poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the world's greatest dramatists. His plays have been translated into every primary living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In the nineteenth century, Sir Walter Scott's historical romances inspired a generation of European painters, composers, and writers.[9]
The English language spread throughout the world with the development of the British Empire between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time,[11] During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these colonies and the US started to produce their significant literary traditions in English. Cumulatively, from 1907 to the present, numerous writers from Great Britain, both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the US, and former British colonies have received the Nobel Prize for works in English more than in any language.
Old English literature (c. 450–1066)
[edit]
Main article: Old English literature
Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England (Jutes and the Angles) c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans, and "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles and riddles.[13] In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period.[13]
Widsith, which appears in the Exeter Book of the late 10th century, gives a list of kings of tribes ordered according to their popularity and impact on history, with Attila King of the Huns coming first, followed by Eormanric of the Ostrogoths.[14]: 187 It may also be the oldest extant work that tells the Battle of the Goths and Huns, which is also told in such later Scandinavian works as Hervarar's saga and Gesta Danorum.[14]: 179 Lotte Hedeager argues that the work is far older, however, and that it likely dates back to the late 6th or early 7th century, citing the author's knowledge of historical details and accuracy as proof of its authenticity.[14]: 184–86 She does note, however, that some authors, such as John Niles, have argued the work was invented in the 10th century.[14]: 181–84
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the 9th century, that chronicles the history of the Anglo-Saxons.[15] The poem Battle of Maldon also deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion.
Oral tradition was very strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed.[17][18] Epic poems were very popular, and some, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, and has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia. The only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, the precise date of which is debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1000. Beowulf is the conventional title, and its composition is dated between the 8th[21] and the early 11th century.
Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of those are known by their vernacular works with any certainty: Cædmon, Bede, Alfred the Great, and Cynewulf. Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known,[pages needed] and his only known surviving work Cædmon's Hymn probably dates from the late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross.[pages needed]
Two Old English poems from the late 10th century are The Wanderer and The Seafarer. Both have a religious theme, and Richard Marsden describes The Seafarer as "an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used as a metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian [...]".[25]
Classical antiquity was not forgotten in Anglo-Saxon England, and several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts. The longest is King Alfred's (849–899) 9th-century translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.[26]
Middle English literature (1066–1500)
[edit]
Main article: Middle English literature
After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. As the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, and the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman. From then until the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. Political power was no longer in English hands, so that the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in many dialects that corresponded to the region, history, culture, and background of individual writers.[2]
In this period religious literature continued to enjoy popularity and Hagiographies were written, adapted and translated: for example, The Life of Saint Audrey, Eadmer's (c. 1060 – c. 1126).[27] During the writting of Ormulum (c. 1150 – c. 1180)[28] the blending of Old English and Anglo-Norman are highlighted for the first time, marking the beginning of the Middle English period.[29] Afterwards, Layamon in Brut adapted the Norman-French of Wace to produce the first English-language work to present the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It was also the first historiography written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Middle English Bible translations, notably Wycliffe's Bible, helped to establish English as a literary language. Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared between about 1382 and 1395.[31] These Bible translations were the chief inspiration and cause of the Lollard movement, a pre-Reformation movement that rejected many of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Another literary genre, that of Romances, appears in English from the 13th century, with King Horn and Havelock the Dane, based on Anglo-Norman originals such as the Romance of Horn (c. 1170), but it was in the 14th century that major writers in English first appeared. These were William Langland, Geoffrey Chaucer and the so-called Pearl Poet, whose most famous work is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.[33]
Langland's Piers Plowman (written c. 1360–87) or Visio Willelmi de Petro Plowman (William's Vision of Piers Plowman) is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem, written in unrhymed alliterative verse.[34]
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance. It is one of the better-known Arthurian stories of an established type known as the "beheading game". Developing from Welsh, Irish and English tradition, Sir Gawain highlights the importance of honour and chivalry. Preserved in the same manuscript with Sir Gawayne were three other poems, now generally accepted as the work of the same author, including an intricate elegiac poem, Pearl.[35] The English dialect of these poems from the Midlands is markedly different from that of the London-based Chaucer and, though influenced by French in the scenes at court in Sir Gawain, there are in the poems also many dialect words, often of Scandinavian origin, that belonged to northwest England.[35]
Middle English lasted until the 1470s, when the Chancery Standard, a London-based form of English, became widespread and the printing press started to standardise the language. Chaucer is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. This is a collection of stories written in Middle English (mostly in verse although some are in prose), that are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from Southwark to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Chaucer is a significant figure in the development of the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin.
At this time, literature in England was being written in various languages, including Latin, Norman-French, and English: the multilingual nature of the audience for literature in the 14th century is illustrated by the example of John Gower (c. 1330–1408). A contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Chaucer, Gower is remembered primarily for three major works: the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in Anglo-Norman, Latin and Middle English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes.[36]
Significant religious works were also created in the 14th century, including those of Julian of Norwich (c. 1342 – c. 1416) and Richard Rolle. Julian's Revelations of Divine Love (about 1393) is believed to be the first published book written by a woman in the English language.[37]
A major work from the 15th century is Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, which was printed by Caxton in 1485.[38] This is a compilation of some French and English Arthurian romances, and was among the earliest books printed in England. It was popular and influential in the later revival of interest in the Arthurian legends.[39]
Medieval theatre
[edit]
Main article: Medieval theatre
In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented in the porches of cathedrals or by strolling players on feast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with morality plays (or "interludes"), later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the Elizabethan stages. Another form of medieval theatre was the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality.[40]
Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre.[41]
There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late medieval period. The most complete is the York cycle of 48 pageants. They were performed in the city of York, from the middle of the 14th century until 1569.[42] Besides the Middle English drama, there are three surviving plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia.[43][44]
Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, the morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment, which represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre.[45] Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries.[46]
The Somonyng of Everyman (The Summoning of Everyman) (c. 1509–1519), usually referred to simply as Everyman, is a late 15th-century English morality play. Like John Bunyan's allegory Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Everyman examines the question of Christian salvation through the use of allegorical characters.[47]
English Renaissance (1500–1660)
[edit]
The English Renaissance as a part of the Northern Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later – Renaissance style and ideas were slow in penetrating England. Many scholars see the beginnings of the English Renaissance during the reign of Henry VIII[49] and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance.[50]
The influence of the Italian Renaissance can also be found in the poetry of Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), one of the earliest English Renaissance poets. He was responsible for many innovations in English poetry, and alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517–1547) introduced the sonnet from Italy into England in the early 16th century. After William Caxton introduced the printing press in England in 1476, vernacular literature flourished.[38] The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), a lasting influence on literary language.
Elizabethan period (1558–1603)
[edit]
Poetry
[edit]
Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599) was one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan period, author of The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596), an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. Another major figure, Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586), was an English poet, whose works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poetry, and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as those by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households. John Donne (1572–1631) was another important figure in Elizabethan poetry (see Jacobean poetry below).
Drama
[edit]
Among the earliest Elizabethan plays are Gorboduc (1561) by Sackville and Norton, and Thomas Kyd's (1558–1594) The Spanish Tragedy (1592). Gorboduc is notable especially as the first verse drama in English to employ blank verse, and for the way it developed elements, from the earlier morality plays and Senecan tragedy, in the direction which would be followed by later playwrights.[54] The Spanish Tragedy[55] is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592, which was popular and influential in its time, and established a new genre in English literature theatre, the revenge play.[56]
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) stands out in this period as a poet and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare wrote plays in a variety of genres, including histories (such as Richard III and Henry IV), tragedies (such as Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth) comedies (such as Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night) and the late romances, or tragicomedies. Shakespeare's career continues in the Jacobean period.
Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont.
Jacobean period (1603–1625)
[edit]
Drama
[edit]
In the early 17th century Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays", as well as a number of his best known tragedies, including Macbeth and King Lear.[57] In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays, including The Tempest. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors.[58]
After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was the leading literary figure of the Jacobean era. Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages and his characters embody the theory of humours, which was based on contemporary medical theory.[59] Jonson's comedies include Volpone (1605 or 1606) and Bartholomew Fair (1614). Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote the popular comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (probably 1607–1608), a satire of the rising middle class.[60]
Another popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the revenge play, which was popularized in the Elizabethan era by Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), and then further developed later by John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632), The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613). Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.[61]
Poetry
[edit]
George Chapman (c. 1559 – c. 1634) is remembered chiefly for his famous translation in 1616 of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English verse.[62] This was the first ever complete translations of either poem into the English language. The translation had a profound influence on English literature and inspired John Keats's famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816).
Shakespeare popularized the English sonnet, which made significant changes to Petrarch's model. A collection of 154 by sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, were first published in a 1609 quarto.
Besides Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the major poets of the early 17th century included the Metaphysical poets: John Donne (1572–1631), George Herbert (1593–1633), Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Crashaw.[63] Their style was characterized by wit and metaphysical conceits, that is far-fetched or unusual similes or metaphors.[64]
Prose
[edit]
The most important prose work of the early 17th century was the King James Bible. This, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. This represents the culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English that began with the work of William Tyndale, and it became the standard Bible of the Church of England.
Late Renaissance (1625–1660)
[edit]
Poetry
[edit]
The Metaphysical poets John Donne (1572–1631) and George Herbert (1593–1633) were still alive after 1625, and later in the 17th century a second generation of metaphysical poets were writing, including Richard Crashaw (1613–1649), Andrew Marvell (1621–1678), Thomas Traherne (1636 or 1637–1674) and Henry Vaughan (1622–1695). The Cavalier poets were another important group of 17th-century poets, who came from the classes that supported King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642–1651). (King Charles reigned from 1625 and was executed in 1649). The best known of the Cavalier poets are Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew and Sir John Suckling. They "were not a formal group, but all were influenced by" Ben Jonson. Most of the Cavalier poets were courtiers, with notable exceptions. For example, Robert Herrick was not a courtier, but his style marks him as a Cavalier poet. Cavalier works make use of allegory and classical allusions, and are influenced by Roman authors Horace, Cicero and Ovid. John Milton (1608–1674) "was the last great poet of the English Renaissance"[66] and published a number of works before 1660, including L'Allegro (1631), Il Penseroso (1634), the masque Comus (1638) and Lycidas (1638). However, his major epic works, including Paradise Lost (1667) were published in the Restoration period.
Restoration Age (1660–1700)
[edit]
Main articles: Restoration literature and Restoration Comedy
Restoration literature includes both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of Pilgrim's Progress. It saw Locke's Two Treatises on Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and the holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier, the pioneering of literary criticism from Dryden, and the first newspapers. The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards under Cromwell's Puritan regime created a gap in literary tradition, allowing a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration. During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of Charles I went into exile with the twenty-year-old Charles II. The nobility who travelled with Charles II were therefore lodged for over a decade in the midst of the continent's literary scene.
Poetry
[edit]
John Milton, one of the greatest English poets, wrote at this time of religious flux and political upheaval. Milton is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. His celebrated Areopagitica, written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press.[67] The largest and most important poetic form of the era was satire. In general, publication of satire was done anonymously, as there were great dangers in being associated with a satire.
John Dryden (1631–1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the "Age of Dryden". He established the heroic couplet as a standard form of English poetry. Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric verse in works like the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe (1682).[68] Alexander Pope (1688–1744) was heavily influenced by Dryden, and often borrowed from him; other writers in the 18th century were equally influenced by both Dryden and Pope.
Prose
[edit]
Prose in the Restoration period is dominated by Christian religious writing, but the Restoration also saw the beginnings of two genres that would dominate later periods, fiction and journalism. Religious writing often strayed into political and economic writing, just as political and economic writing implied or directly addressed religion. The Restoration was also the time when John Locke wrote many of his philosophical works. His two Treatises on Government, which later inspired the thinkers in the American Revolution. The Restoration moderated most of the more strident sectarian writing, but radicalism persisted after the Restoration. Puritan authors such as John Milton were forced to retire from public life or adapt, and those authors who had preached against monarchy and who had participated directly in the regicide of Charles I were partially suppressed. Consequently, violent writings were forced underground, and many of those who had served in the Interregnum attenuated their positions in the Restoration. John Bunyan stands out beyond other religious authors of the period. Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of personal salvation and a guide to the Christian life.
During the Restoration period, the most common manner of getting news would have been a broadsheet publication. A single, large sheet of paper might have a written, usually partisan, account of an event.
It is impossible to satisfactorily date the beginning of the novel in English. However, long fiction and fictional biographies began to distinguish themselves from other forms in England during the Restoration period. An existing tradition of Romance fiction in France and Spain was popular in England. One of the most significant figures in the rise of the novel in the Restoration period is Aphra Behn, author of Oroonoko (1688), who was not only the first professional female novelist, but she may be among the first professional novelists of either sex in England.
Drama
[edit]
As soon as the previous Puritan regime's ban on public stage representations was lifted, drama recreated itself quickly and abundantly.[69] The most famous plays of the early Restoration period are the unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege, which reflect the atmosphere at Court, and celebrate an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. After a sharp drop in both quality and quantity in the 1680s, the mid-1690s saw a brief second flowering of the drama, especially comedy. Comedies like William Congreve's The Way of the World (1700), and John Vanbrugh's The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697) were "softer" and more middle-class in ethos, very different from the aristocratic extravaganza twenty years earlier, and aimed at a wider audience.
18th century
[edit]
Augustan literature (1700–1745)
[edit]
Main articles: 18th-century literature and Augustan literature
During the 18th century literature reflected the worldview of the Age of Enlightenment (or Age of Reason): a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. Led by the philosophers who were inspired by the discoveries of the previous century by people like Isaac Newton and the writings of Descartes, John Locke and Francis Bacon. They sought to discover and to act upon universally valid principles governing humanity, nature, and society. They variously attacked spiritual and scientific authority, dogmatism, intolerance, censorship, and economic and social restraints. They considered the state the proper and rational instrument of progress. The extreme rationalism and skepticism of the age led naturally to deism and also played a part in bringing the later reaction of romanticism. The Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot epitomized the spirit of the age.
The term Augustan literature derives from authors of the 1720s and 1730s themselves, who responded to a term that George I of Great Britain preferred for himself. While George I meant the title to reflect his might, they instead saw in it a reflection of Ancient Rome's transition from rough and ready literature to highly political and highly polished literature. It is an age of exuberance and scandal, of enormous energy and inventiveness and outrage, that reflected an era when English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish people found themselves in the midst of an expanding economy, lowering barriers to education, and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
Poetry
[edit]
It was during this time that the poet James Thomson (1700–1748) produced his melancholy The Seasons (1728–30) and Edward Young (1681–1765) wrote his poem Night Thoughts (1742), though the most outstanding poet of the age is Alexander Pope (1688–1744). It is also the era that saw a serious competition over the proper model for the pastoral. In criticism, poets struggled with a doctrine of decorum, of matching proper words with proper sense and of achieving a diction that matched the gravity of a subject. At the same time, the mock-heroic was at its zenith and Pope's Rape of the Lock (1712–17) and The Dunciad (1728–43) are still considered to be the greatest mock-heroic poems ever written.[70] Pope also translated the Iliad (1715–20) and the Odyssey (1725–26). Since his death, Pope has been in a constant state of re-evaluation.[71]
Drama
[edit]
Drama in the early part of the period featured the last plays of John Vanbrugh and William Congreve, both of whom carried on the Restoration comedy with some alterations. However, the majority of stagings were of lower farces and much more serious and domestic tragedies. George Lillo and Richard Steele both produced highly moral forms of tragedy, where the characters and the concerns of the characters were wholly middle class or working class. This reflected a marked change in the audience for plays, as royal patronage was no longer the important part of theatrical success. Additionally, Colley Cibber and John Rich began to battle each other for greater and greater spectacles to present on stage. The figure of Harlequin was introduced, and pantomime theatre began to be staged. This "low" comedy was quite popular, and the plays became tertiary to the staging. Opera also began to be popular in London, and there was significant literary resistance to this Italian incursion. In 1728 John Gay returned to the playhouse with The Beggar's Opera. The Licensing Act 1737 brought an abrupt halt to much of the period's drama, as the theatres were once again brought under state control.
Prose, including the novel
[edit]
In prose, the earlier part of the period was overshadowed by the development of the English essay. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's The Spectator established the form of the British periodical essay. However, this was also the time when the English novel was first emerging. Daniel Defoe turned from journalism and writing criminal lives for the press to writing fictional criminal lives with Roxana and Moll Flanders. He also wrote Robinson Crusoe (1719).
If Addison and Steele were dominant in one type of prose, then Jonathan Swift author of the satire Gulliver's Travels was in another. In A Modest Proposal and the Drapier Letters, Swift reluctantly defended the Irish people from the predations of colonialism. This provoked riots and arrests, but Swift, who had no love of Irish Roman Catholics, was outraged by the abuses he saw.
An effect of the Licensing Act of 1737 was to cause more than one aspiring playwright to switch over to writing novels. Henry Fielding (1707–1754) began to write prose satire and novels after his plays could not pass the censors. In the interim, Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) had produced Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), and Henry Fielding attacked, what he saw, as the absurdity of this novel in, Joseph Andrews (1742) and Shamela (1741). Subsequently, Fielding satirised Richardson's Clarissa (1748) with Tom Jones (1749). Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) elevated the picaresque novel with works such as Roderick Random (1748) and Peregrine Pickle (1751).
Age of Sensibility (1745–1798)
[edit]
Main article: Sentimental novel
This period is known as the Age of Sensibility, but it is also sometimes described as the "Age of Johnson".[72] Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".[73] After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755, and it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship."[74]
The second half of the 18th century saw the emergence of three major Irish authors: Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) and Laurence Sterne (1713–1768). Goldsmith is the author of The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), a pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) and two plays, The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1773). Sheridan's first play, The Rivals (1775), was performed at Covent Garden and was an instant success. He went on to become the most significant London playwright of the late 18th century with a play like The School for Scandal. Both Goldsmith and Sheridan reacted against the sentimental comedy of the 18th-century theatre, writing plays closer to the style of Restoration comedy.[75]
Sterne published his famous novel Tristram Shandy in parts between 1759 and 1767.[76] In 1778, Frances Burney (1752–1840) wrote Evelina, one of the first novels of manners.[77] Fanny Burney's novels "were enjoyed and admired by Jane Austen".[78]
Precursors of Romanticism
[edit]
The Romantic movement in English literature of the early 19th century has its roots in 18th-century poetry, the Gothic novel and the novel of sensibility.[79][80] This includes the graveyard poets, from the 1740s and later, whose works are characterised by gloomy meditations on mortality. To this was added, by later practitioners, a feeling for the 'sublime' and uncanny, and an interest in ancient English poetic forms and folk poetry.[81] The poets include Thomas Gray (1716–1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) in[82] and Edward Young (1683–1765), The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–45).[83] Other precursors are James Thomson (1700–1748) and James Macpherson (1736–1796).[80] James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, with his claim to have found poetry written by the ancient bard Ossian.[84]
The sentimental novel or "novel of sensibility" is a genre which developed during the second half of the 18th century. It celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction which began in the 18th century in reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age.[85] Among the most famous sentimental novels in English are Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759–67), and Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling (1771).[86]
Significant foreign influences were the Germans Goethe, Schiller and August Wilhelm Schlegel and French philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778).[87] Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) is another important influence.[88] The changing landscape, brought about by the industrial and agricultural revolutions, was another influence on the growth of the Romantic movement in Britain.
In the late 18th century, Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto created the Gothic fiction genre, that combines elements of horror and romance.[89] Ann Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the gothic villain which developed into the Byronic hero. Her The Mysteries of Udolpho (1795) is frequently cited as the archetypal Gothic novel.[90] A later generation of Gothic writing emerged with Mary Shelley (1797–1851), remembered as the author of Frankenstein (1818).
Rise of American Literature
[edit]
The successful War of Independence led by colonists in British North America from 1775 to 1783, resulted in the formation of the United States. This consequently led to the divergence of English letters in what became the United States from the mainstream of English literature, resulting in the development of a new American literature that sought to distinguish itself as part of the formation of a new American social and cultural identity. This was the first English-language literature to develop outside of the British Isles. The late colonial period already saw the publication of important prose tracts reflecting the political debates that culminated in the American revolution, written by important luminaries such as Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy, John Dickinson, and Joseph Galloway, the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time.
During the Revolutionary War, poems and songs such as "Nathan Hale" were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson. Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War.
In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his influence on the U.S. Constitution, his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia, and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames, James Otis, and Patrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations.
Early American literature struggled to find a unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels are Thomas Attwood Digges's Adventures of Alonso, published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related. Also of note were important women writers such as Susanna Rowson who wrote Charlotte: A Tale of Truth (later re-issued as Charlotte Temple). Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale influenced by the novels of English writer Samuel Richardson, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs.[91] Reaching more than a million and a half readers over a century and a half, Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Another important writer was Hannah Webster Foster, who wrote the popular The Coquette: Or, the History of Eliza Wharton, published in 1797.[92] The story about a woman who is seduced and later abandoned, The Coquette has been praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood.[93] even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination.[94] Other important early American writers include Charles Brockden Brown, William Gilmore Simms, Lydia Maria Child, and John Neal.
Romanticism (1798–1837)
[edit]
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century.[95] Romanticism arrived later in other parts of the English-speaking world.
The Romantic period was one of major social change in England and Wales, because of the depopulation of the countryside and the rapid development of overcrowded industrial cities, that took place in the period roughly between 1750 and 1850. The movement of so many people in England was the result of two forces: the Agricultural Revolution, that involved the Enclosure of the land, drove workers off the land, and the Industrial Revolution which provided them employment.[96] Romanticism may be seen in part as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution,[97] though it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, as well a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.[98] The French Revolution was an especially important influence on the political thinking of many of the Romantic poets.[99]
The landscape is often prominent in the poetry of this period, so much so that the Romantics, especially perhaps Wordsworth, are often described as 'nature poets'. However, the longer Romantic 'nature poems' have a wider concern because they are usually meditations on "an emotional problem or personal crisis".[100]
Romantic poetry
[edit]
Robert Burns (1759–1796) was a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a cultural icon in Scotland. The poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827) was another of the early Romantic poets. Though Blake was generally unrecognised during his lifetime, he is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Among his most important works are Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) "and profound and difficult 'prophecies' ", such as "Jerusalem: the Emanation of the Giant Albion" (1804–c.1820).[101]
After Blake, among the earliest Romantics were the Lake Poets, including William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), Robert Southey (1774–1843) and journalist Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859). However, at the time Walter Scott (1771–1832) was the most famous poet.[102]
In 1784, with Elegiac Sonnets, Charlotte Smith (1749–1806) reintroduced the sonnet to English literature.[citation needed]
The early Romantic Poets brought a new emotionalism and introspection, and their emergence is marked by the first romantic manifesto in English literature, the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads (1798). The poems in Lyrical Ballads were mostly by Wordsworth, though Coleridge contributed "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".[103] Among Wordsworth's most important poems are "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", "Resolution and Independence", "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" and the autobiographical epic The Prelude.[104]
Robert Southey (1774–1843) was another of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years, although his fame has been long eclipsed by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) is best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821).[105] Essayist William Hazlitt (1778–1830), friend of both Coleridge and Wordsworth, is best known today for his literary criticism, especially Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817–1818).[106]
Second generation
[edit]
The second generation of Romantic poets includes Lord Byron (1788–1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), Felicia Hemans (1793–1835) and John Keats (1795–1821). Byron, however, was still influenced by 18th-century satirists and was, perhaps the least 'romantic' of the three, preferring "the brilliant wit of Pope to what he called the 'wrong poetical system' of his Romantic contemporaries".[107] Byron achieved enormous fame and influence throughout Europe and Goethe called Byron "undoubtedly the greatest genius of our century".[108]
Shelley is perhaps best known for Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and Adonais, an elegy written on the death of Keats. His close circle of admirers included the most progressive thinkers of the day. A work like Queen Mab (1813) reveals Shelley "as the direct heir to the French and British revolutionary intellectuals of the 1790s".[109] Shelley became an idol of the next three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Robert Browning, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as well as later W. B. Yeats.[110]
Though John Keats shared Byron and Shelley's radical politics, "his best poetry is not political",[111] but is especially noted for its sensuous music and imagery, along with a concern with material beauty and the transience of life.[112] Among his most famous works are "Ode to a Nightingale", "Ode on a Grecian Urn", and "To Autumn". Keats has always been regarded as a major Romantic, "and his stature as a poet has grown steadily through all changes of fashion".[113]
Although sticking to its forms, Felicia Hemans began a process of undermining the Romantic tradition, a deconstruction that was continued by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, as "an urban poet deeply attentive to themes of decay and decomposition".[114] Landon's novel forms of metrical romance and dramatic monologue were much copied and contributed to her long-lasting influence on Victorian poetry.[114]
Other poets
[edit]
Another important poet in this period was John Clare (1793–1864), the son of a farm labourer, who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation for the changes taking place in rural England.[115] His poetry has undergone a major re-evaluation and he is often now considered to be among the most important 19th-century poets.[116]
George Crabbe (1754–1832) was an English poet who, during the Romantic period, wrote "closely observed, realistic portraits of rural life [...] in the heroic couplets of the Augustan age".[117] Modern critic Frank Whitehead has said that "Crabbe, in his verse tales in particular, is an important—indeed, a major—poet whose work has been and still is seriously undervalued."[118]
Romantic novel
[edit]
One of the most popular novelists of the era was Sir Walter Scott, whose historical romances inspired a generation of painters, composers, and writers throughout Europe. Scott's novel-writing career was launched in 1814 with Waverley, often called the first historical novel.[9]
The works of Jane Austen (1775–1817) critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism.[119] Her plots in novels such as Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security.[120]
Romanticism in America
[edit]
Main articles: American literature and Romantic literature in English
The European Romantic movement reached America in the early 19th century. American Romanticism was just as multifaceted and individualistic as it was in Europe. Like the Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good, while human society was corrupt.[121]
Romantic Gothic literature made an early appearance with Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and Rip Van Winkle (1819), There are picturesque "local color" elements in Washington Irving's essays and especially his travel books. From 1823 the prolific and popular novelist James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) began publishing his historical romances of frontier and Indian life. However, Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre that first appeared in the early 1830s, and his poetry were more influential in France than at home.[122][123]
Victorian literature (1837–1901)
[edit]
Main article: Victorian literature
Sage writing
[edit]
Main article: Sage writing
During these years, sage writing developed as a new literary genre in which the author sought "to express notions about the world, man's situation in it, and how he should live."[124] John Holloway identified Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), George Eliot (1819–1880), John Henry Newman (1801–1890), and Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) as writers of this type. Foremost among them was Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher who became "the undoubted head of English letters" in the 19th century.[125][126] Known as the Sage of Chelsea, the highly prolific author criticized the Industrial Revolution,[127] preached Hero-worship,[128] and rebuked political economy[129] in a series of works written in Carlylese, the name given to his unique style.[130] His influence on Victorian literature was nearly universal; in 1855, Eliot wrote that "there is hardly a superior or active mind of this generation that has not been modified by Carlyle's writings;" with the effect that if his books "were all burnt as the grandest of Suttees on his funeral pile, it would be only like cutting down an oak after its acorns have sown a forest."[131]
John Ruskin (1819–1900) was an Anglo-Scottish art critic and philosopher who wrote in a similar vein, regarding Carlyle as his master.[132] The early part of his career was devoted to aesthetics, championing Turner and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.[133] He later turned to ethics, expounding his ideas on educational reform and political economy, which were to have great influence on practices in England and throughout the world.[134][135] Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) was an English poet and critic who is also regarded as a sage writer, famous for his criticism of philistinism.
Victorian novel
[edit]
Main articles: English novel and Novel
It was in the Victorian era (1837–1901) that the novel became the leading literary genre in English.[136] Women played an important part in this rising popularity both as authors and as readers,[137] and monthly serialising of fiction also encouraged this surge in popularity, further upheavals which followed the Reform Act of 1832".[138] This was in many ways a reaction to rapid industrialization, and the social, political, and economic issues associated with it, and was a means of commenting on abuses of government and industry and the suffering of the poor, who were not profiting from England's economic prosperity.[139] Significant early examples of this genre include Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845) by Benjamin Disraeli, and Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke (1849).
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) emerged on the literary scene in the late 1830s and soon became probably the most famous novelist in the history of English literature. Dickens fiercely satirised various aspects of society, including the workhouse in Oliver Twist, and the failures of the legal system in Bleak House.[140] An early rival to Dickens was William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), who during the Victorian period ranked second only to him, but he is now known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair (1847). The Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne, were other significant novelists in the 1840s and 1850s.[141] Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë's most famous work, was the first of the sisters' novels to achieve success. Emily Brontë's (1818–1848) novel was Wuthering Heights and, according to Juliet Gardiner, "the vivid sexual passion and power of its language and imagery impressed, bewildered and appalled reviewers,"[142] and led the Victorian public and many early reviewers to think that it had been written by a man.[143] The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) by Anne Brontë is now considered to be one of the first feminist novels.[144]
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) was also a successful writer and her North and South contrasts the lifestyle in the industrial north of England with the wealthier south.[145] Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Trollope's novels portray the lives of the landowning and professional classes of early Victorian England.[146] George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann Evans, was a major novelist of the mid-Victorian period. Her works, especially Middlemarch (1871–72), are important examples of literary realism, and are admired for their combination of high Victorian literary detail, with an intellectual breadth that removes them from the narrow geographic confines they often depict.[147]
George Meredith (1828–1909) is best remembered for his novels The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), and The Egoist (1879). "His reputation stood very high well into" the 20th century but then seriously declined.[148] An interest in rural matters and the changing social and economic situation of the countryside is seen in the novels of Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), including The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891). Hardy is a Victorian realist, in the tradition of George Eliot,[149] and like Charles Dickens he was also highly critical of much in Victorian society. Another significant late-19th-century novelist is George Gissing (1857–1903), who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best known novel is New Grub Street (1891).
Although pre-dated by John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River in 1841, the history of the modern fantasy genre is generally said to begin with George MacDonald (1824–1905), the influential author of The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes (1858).[150] William Morris (1834–1896) wrote a series of romances in the 1880s and 1890s which are regarded as the first works of high fantasy.[151]
Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Moonstone (1868), is generally considered the first detective novel in the English language.[152] Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) was an important Scottish writer at the end of the nineteenth century, author of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and the historical novel Kidnapped (1886). H. G. Wells's (1866–1946) writing career began in the 1890s with science fiction novels like The Time Machine (1895), and The War of the Worlds (1898) which describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians, and Wells is seen, along with Frenchman Jules Verne (1828–1905), as a major figure in the development of the science fiction genre. He also wrote realistic fiction about the lower middle class in novels like Kipps (1905).
American novel (From Romanticism to realism)
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Main article: American literature
(See also the discussion of American literature under Romanticism above).
By the mid-19th century, the pre-eminence of literature from the British Isles began to be challenged by writers from the former American colonies. A major influence on American writers at this time was Romanticism, which gave rise to New England Transcendentalism, and the publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1836 essay Nature is usually considered the watershed moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement.[121][153] Thomas Carlyle had a strong influence on Emerson, transcendentalism,[154] and American writers generally, particularly his novel Sartor Resartus, of which the impact upon American literature has been described as "so vast, so pervasive, that it is difficult to overstate."[155]
The romantic American novel developed fully with Nathaniel Hawthorne's (1804–1864) The Scarlet Letter (1850), a stark drama of a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery. Hawthorne's fiction had a profound impact on his friend Herman Melville (1819–1891). In Moby-Dick (1851), an adventurous whaling voyage becomes the vehicle for examining such themes as obsession, the nature of evil, and human struggle against the elements. By the 1880s, however, psychological and social realism were competing with Romanticism in the novel.
American realist fiction has its beginnings in the 1870s with the works of Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Henry James.
Mark Twain (the pen name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910) was the first major American writer to be born away from the East Coast—in the border state of Missouri. His regional masterpieces were the novels Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Twain's style changed the way Americans write their language. His characters speak like real people and sound distinctively American, using local dialects, newly invented words, and regional accents.
Henry James (1843–1916) was a major American novelist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although born in New York City, he spent most of his adult years in England. Many of his novels center on Americans who live in or travel to Europe. James confronted the Old World-New World dilemma by writing directly about it. His works include The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1886).[156]
Genre fiction
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The premier ghost story writer of the 19th century was Sheridan Le Fanu. His works include the macabre mystery novel Uncle Silas (1865), and his Gothic novella Carmilla (1872) tells the story of a young woman's susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire. Bram Stoker's horror story Dracula (1897) belongs to a number of literary genres, including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic novel and invasion literature.[157]
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant London-based "consulting detective", famous for his intellectual prowess. Conan Doyle wrote four novels and 56 short stories featuring Holmes, which were published between 1887 and 1927. All but four Holmes stories are narrated by Holmes' friend, assistant, and biographer, Dr. Watson. The Lost World literary genre was inspired by real stories of archaeological discoveries by imperial adventurers. H. Rider Haggard wrote one of the earliest examples, King Solomon's Mines, in 1885. Contemporary European politics and diplomatic maneuverings informed Anthony Hope's Ruritanian adventure novel The Prisoner of Zenda (1894).
Children's literature
[edit]
Literature for children developed as a separate genre. Some works become internationally known, such as those of Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. Robert Louis Stevenson's (1850–1894) Treasure Island (1883), is the classic pirate adventure. At the end of the Victorian era and leading into the Edwardian era, Beatrix Potter was an author and illustrator, best known for her children's books, which featured animal characters. In her thirties, Potter published the highly successful children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902. Potter eventually went on to publish 23 children's books and became a wealthy woman.
Victorian poetry
[edit]
See also: English poetry § Victorian poetry
The leading poets during the Victorian period were Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), Robert Browning (1812–1889), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), and Matthew Arnold (1822–1888). The poetry of this period was heavily influenced by the Romantics, but also went off in its own directions.[158] Particularly notable was the development of the dramatic monologue, a form used by many poets in this period, but perfected by Robert Browning. Literary criticism in the 20th century gradually drew attention to the links between Victorian poetry and modernism.[159]
Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign. He was described by T.S. Eliot, as "the greatest master of metrics as well as melancholia", and as having "the finest ear of any English poet since Milton".[160] Matthew Arnold's reputation as a poet has "within the past few decades [...] plunged drastically."[161]
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) was a poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti's art was characterised by its sensuality and its medieval revivalism.[163] Arthur Clough (1819–1861) and George Meredith (1828–1909) are two other important minor poets of this era.[148][164]
Towards the end of the 19th century, English poets began to take an interest in French Symbolism and Victorian poetry entered a decadent fin-de-siècle phase.[165] Two groups of poets emerged in the 1890s, the Yellow Book poets who adhered to the tenets of Aestheticism, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Symons and the Rhymers' Club group, that included Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson and Irishman William Butler Yeats. Yeats went on to become an important modernist in the 20th century.[166] Also in 1896 A.E. Housman published at his own expense A Shropshire Lad.[167]
Writers of comic verse included the dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911), who is best known for his fourteen comic operas, produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance.[168]
Novelist Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) wrote poetry throughout his career, but he did not publish his first collection until 1898, so that he tends to be treated as a 20th-century poet. Now regarded as a major poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins's (1844–1889) Poems were published posthumously by Robert Bridges in 1918.[169]
American poetry
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Main article: American poetry
America also produced major poets in the 19th century, such as Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) and Walt Whitman (1819–1892). America's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been more different in temperament and style. Walt Whitman (1819–92) was a working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the American Civil War (1861–65), and a poetic innovator. His major work was Leaves of Grass, in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of a genteel, unmarried woman in small-town Amherst, Massachusetts. Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psychologically penetrating. Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime.
Victorian drama
[edit]
A change came in the Victorian era with a profusion on the London stage of farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas and comic operas that competed with productions of Shakespeare's plays and serious drama by dramatists like James Planché and Thomas William Robertson. In 1855, the German Reed Entertainments began a process of elevating the level of (formerly risqué) musical theatre in Britain that culminated in the famous series of comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan and was followed by the 1890s with the first Edwardian musical comedies. The length of runs in the theatre changed rapidly during the Victorian period. As transport improved, poverty in London diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of potential patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. The first play to achieve 500 consecutive performances was the London comedy Our Boys, opening in 1875. Its record of 1,362 performances was bested in 1892 by Charley's Aunt.[170]
Several of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas broke the 500-performance barrier, beginning with H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878, and Alfred Cellier and B.C. Stephenson's 1886 hit, Dorothy, ran for 931 performances. After W.S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late Victorian period. Wilde's plays, in particular, stand apart from the many now forgotten plays of Victorian times and have a much closer relationship to those of the Edwardian dramatists such as Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), whose career began in the last decade of the 19th century, Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, holds an ironic mirror to the aristocracy and displays a mastery of wit and paradoxical wisdom.
20th century
[edit]
Modernism: Beginnings (c. 1901–1923)
[edit]
English literary modernism developed in the early twentieth century out of a general sense of disillusionment with Victorian era attitudes of certainty, conservatism, and belief in the idea of objective truth.[171] The movement was influenced by the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809–1882), Ernst Mach (1838–1916), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), James G. Frazer (1854–1941), Karl Marx (1818–1883) (Das Kapital, 1867), and the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), among others.[172] The continental art movements of Impressionism, and later Cubism, were also important.[173] Important literary precursors of modernism were: Fyodor Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), Walt Whitman (1819–1892), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) and August Strindberg (1849–1912).[174]
A major British lyric poet of the first decades of the twentieth century was Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Though not a modernist, Hardy was an important transitional figure between the Victorian era and the twentieth century. A major novelist of the late nineteenth century, Hardy lived well into the third decade of the twentieth century, though he only published poetry in this period. Another significant transitional figure between Victorians and modernists, the late nineteenth-century novelist, Henry James (1843–1916), continued to publish major novels into the twentieth century, including The Golden Bowl (1904). Polish-born modernist novelist Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) published his first important works, Heart of Darkness, in 1899 and Lord Jim in 1900. However, the Victorian Gerard Manley Hopkins's (1844–1889) highly original poetry was not published until 1918, long after his death, while the career of another major modernist poet, Irishman W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), began late in the Victorian era. Yeats was one of the foremost figures of twentieth-century English literature.
But while modernism was to become an important literary movement in the early decades of the new century, there were also many fine writers who, like Thomas Hardy, were not modernists. During the early decades of the twentieth century, the Georgian poets like Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), and Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), maintained a conservative approach to poetry by combining romanticism, sentimentality and hedonism. Another Georgian poet, Edward Thomas (1878–1917) is one of the First World War poets along with Wilfred Owen (1893–1918), Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1917), and Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). Irish playwrights George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), J.M. Synge (1871–1909) and Seán O'Casey were influential in British drama. Shaw's career began in the last decade of the nineteenth century, while Synge's plays belong to the first decade of the twentieth century. Synge's most famous play, The Playboy of the Western World, "caused outrage and riots when it was first performed" in Dublin in 1907.[176] George Bernard Shaw turned the Edwardian theatre into an arena for debate about important political and social issues.[177]
Novelists who are not considered modernists include H. G. Wells (1866–1946), John Galsworthy (1867–1933), (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1932) whose works include The Forsyte Saga (1906–21), and E.M. Forster's (1879–1970), though Forster's work is "frequently regarded as containing both modernist and Victorian elements".[178] Forster's most famous work, A Passage to India 1924, reflected challenges to imperialism, while his earlier novels examined the restrictions and hypocrisy of Edwardian society in England. The most popular British writer of the early years of the twentieth century was arguably Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), a highly versatile writer of novels, short stories and poems.
In addition to W. B. Yeats, other important early modernist poets were the American-born poet T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) Eliot became a British citizen in 1927 but was born and educated in America. His most famous works are: "Prufrock" (1915), The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1935–42).
Amongst the novelists, after Joseph Conrad, other important early modernists include Dorothy Richardson (1873–1957), whose novel Pointed Roof (1915), is one of the earliest examples of the stream of consciousness technique, and D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930), who published The Rainbow in 1915—though it was immediately seized by the police—and Women in Love in 1920.[179] Then in 1922 Irishman James Joyce's important modernist novel Ulysses appeared. Ulysses has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement".[180]
Modernism continues (1923–1939)
[edit]
Important British writers between the World Wars, include the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978), who began publishing in the 1920s, and novelist Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), who was an influential feminist, and a major stylistic innovator associated with the stream-of-consciousness technique in novels like Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927). T.S. Eliot had begun this attempt to revive poetic drama with Sweeney Agonistes in 1932, and this was followed by others including three further plays after the war. In Parenthesis, a modernist epic poem based on author David Jones's (1895–1974) experience of World War I, was published in 1937.
An important development, beginning in the 1930s and 1940s was a tradition of working class novels actually written by working-class background writers. Among these were coal miner Jack Jones, James Hanley, whose father was a stoker and who also went to sea as a young man, and coal miners Lewis Jones from South Wales and Harold Heslop from County Durham.[181]
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) published his famous dystopia Brave New World in 1932, the same year as John Cowper Powys's A Glastonbury Romance. Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) published his first major work, the novel Murphy in 1938. This same year Graham Greene's (1904–1991) first major novel Brighton Rock was published. Then in 1939 James Joyce's published Finnegans Wake, in which he creates a special language to express the consciousness of a dreaming character. It was also in 1939 that another Irish modernist poet, W. B. Yeats, died. British poet W.H. Auden (1907–1973) was another significant modernist in the 1930s.
Late modernism and post–modernism (1940–2000)
[edit]
See: Late modernism Though some have seen modernism ending by around 1939,[184] with regard to English literature, "When (if) modernism petered out and postmodernism began has been contested almost as hotly as when the transition from Victorianism to modernism occurred".[185] In fact a number of modernists were still living and publishing in the 1950s and 1960, including T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Richardson, and Ezra Pound. Furthermore, Basil Bunting, born in 1901, published little until Briggflatts in 1965 and Samuel Beckett, born in Ireland in 1906, continued to produce significant works until the 1980s, though some view him as a post-modernist.[186]
Among British writers in the 1940s and 1950s were poet Dylan Thomas and novelist Graham Greene whose works span the 1930s to the 1980s, while Evelyn Waugh, W.H. Auden continued publishing into the 1960s.
Postmodern literature is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is difficult to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. Among postmodern writers are the Americans Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, William Gaddis, Hunter S. Thompson, Truman Capote and Thomas Pynchon.
Novel
[edit]
In 1947 Malcolm Lowry published Under the Volcano, while George Orwell's satire of totalitarianism, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published in 1949. Other novelists writing in the 1950s and later were: Anthony Powell whose twelve-volume cycle of novels A Dance to the Music of Time, is a comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in English political, cultural and military life in the mid-20th century; Nobel Prize laureate William Golding's allegorical novel Lord of the Flies 1954, explores how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British schoolboys marooned on a deserted island. Philosopher Iris Murdoch was a prolific writer of novels throughout the second half of the 20th century, that deal especially with sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious.
Scottish writer Muriel Spark pushed the boundaries of realism in her novels. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), at times takes the reader briefly into the distant future, to see the various fates that befall its characters. Anthony Burgess is especially remembered for his dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), set in the not-too-distant future. During the 1960s and 1970s, Paul Scott wrote his monumental series on the last decade of British rule in India, The Raj Quartet (1966–1975). Scotland has in the late 20th century produced several important novelists, including the writer of How Late it Was, How Late, James Kelman, who like Samuel Beckett can create humour out of the most grim situations and Alasdair Gray whose Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) is a dystopian fantasy set in a surreal version of Glasgow called Unthank.[187]
Two significant Irish novelists are John Banville (born 1945) and Colm Tóibín (born 1955). Martin Amis (1949-2023), Pat Barker (born 1943), Ian McEwan (born 1948) and Julian Barnes (born 1946) are other prominent late twentieth-century British novelists.
Drama
[edit]
An important cultural movement in the British theatre which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s was Kitchen sink realism (or "kitchen sink drama"), a term coined to describe art, novels, film and television plays. The term angry young men was often applied to members of this artistic movement. It used a style of social realism which depicts the domestic lives of the working class, to explore social issues and political issues. The drawing room plays of the post war period, typical of dramatists like Terence Rattigan and Noël Coward were challenged in the 1950s by these Angry Young Men, in plays like John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956).
Again in the 1950s, the absurdist play Waiting for Godot (1955), by Irish writer Samuel Beckett profoundly affected British drama. The Theatre of the Absurd influenced Harold Pinter (born 1930), (The Birthday Party, 1958), whose works are often characterised by menace or claustrophobia. Beckett also influenced Tom Stoppard (born 1937) (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 1966). Stoppard's works are however also notable for their high-spirited wit and the great range of intellectual issues which he tackles in different plays.
An important new element in the world of British drama, from the beginnings of radio in the 1920s, was the commissioning of plays, or the adaption of existing plays, by BBC radio. This was especially important in the 1950s and 1960s (and from the 1960s for television). Many major British playwrights in fact, either effectively began their careers with the BBC, or had works adapted for radio, including Caryl Churchill and Tom Stoppard whose "first professional production was in the fifteen-minute Just Before Midnight programme on BBC Radio, which showcased new dramatists".[188] John Mortimer made his radio debut as a dramatist in 1955, with his adaptation of his own novel Like Men Betrayed for the BBC Light Programme. Other notable radio dramatists included Brendan Behan and novelist Angela Carter.
Among the most famous works created for radio are Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (1954), Samuel Beckett's All That Fall (1957), Harold Pinter's A Slight Ache (1959) and Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons (1954).[189]
Poetry
[edit]
Major poets like T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas were still publishing in this period. Though W.H. Auden's (1907–1973) career began in the 1930s and 1940s he published several volumes in the 1950s and 1960s. His stature in modern literature has been contested, but probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as one of the three major twentieth-century British poets, and heir to Yeats and Eliot.[190]
New poets starting their careers in the 1950s and 1960s include Philip Larkin (1922–1985) (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964), Ted Hughes (1930–1998) (The Hawk in the Rain, 1957), Sylvia Plath (1932–1962) (The Colossus, 1960) and Irishman (born Northern Ireland) Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) (Death of a Naturalist, 1966). Northern Ireland has also produced a number of other significant poets, including Derek Mahon and Paul Muldoon. In the 1960s and 1970s Martian poetry aimed to break the grip of 'the familiar', by describing ordinary things in unfamiliar ways, as though, for example, through the eyes of a Martian. Poets most closely associated with it are Craig Raine and Christopher Reid.
Another literary movement in this period was the British Poetry Revival was a wide-reaching collection of groupings and subgroupings that embraces performance, sound and concrete poetry. The Mersey Beat poets were Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough. Their work was a self-conscious attempt at creating an English equivalent to the American Beats. Other noteworthy later twentieth-century poets are Welshman R.S. Thomas, Geoffrey Hill, Charles Tomlinson and Carol Ann Duffy. Geoffrey Hill (born 1932) is considered one of the most distinguished English poets of his generation,[192] Charles Tomlinson (born 1927) is another important English poet of an older generation, though "since his first publication in 1951, has built a career that has seen more notice in the international scene than in his native England.[193]
Literature from the Commonwealth of Nations
[edit]
From 1950 on a significant number of major writers came from countries that had over the centuries been settled by the British, other than America which had been producing significant writers from at least the Victorian period. There had of course been a few important works in English prior to 1950 from the then British Empire. The South African writer Olive Schreiner's famous novel The Story of an African Farm was published in 1883 and New Zealander Katherine Mansfield published her first collection of short stories, In a German Pension, in 1911. The first major novelist, writing in English, from the Indian sub-continent, R. K. Narayan, began publishing in England in the 1930s, thanks to the encouragement of English novelist Graham Greene. Caribbean writer Jean Rhys's writing career began as early as 1928, though her most famous work, Wide Sargasso Sea, was not published until 1966. South Africa's Alan Paton's famous Cry, the Beloved Country dates from 1948. Doris Lessing from Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was a dominant presence in the English literary scene, frequently publishing from 1950 on throughout the 20th century, and she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.
Salman Rushdie is another post Second World War writers from the former British colonies who permanently settled in Britain. Rushdie achieved fame with Midnight's Children 1981. His most controversial novel The Satanic Verses 1989, was inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. V. S. Naipaul (born 1932), born in Trinidad, was another immigrant, who wrote among other things A Bend in the River (1979). Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in Literature.[195]
From Nigeria a number of writers have achieved an international reputation for works in English, including novelist Chinua Achebe, as well as playwright Wole Soyinka. Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, as did South African novelist Nadine Gordimer in 1995. Other South African writers in English are novelist J.M. Coetzee (Nobel Prize 2003) and playwright Athol Fugard. Kenya's most internationally renowned author is Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o who has written novels, plays and short stories in English. Poet Derek Walcott, from St Lucia in the Caribbean, was another Nobel Prize winner in 1992. An Australian Patrick White, a major novelist in this period, whose first work was published in 1939, won in (1973). Other noteworthy Australian writers at the end of this period are poet Les Murray (1938–2019), and novelist Peter Carey (born 1943), who is one of only four writers to have won the Booker Prize twice.[196]
Major Canadian novelists include Carol Shields, Lawrence Hill, Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Carol Shields novel The Stone Diaries won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and another novel, Larry's Party, won the Orange Prize in 1998. Lawrence Hill's Book of Negroes won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best Book Award, while Alice Munro became the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.[197] Munro also received the Man Booker International Prize in 2009. Amongst internationally known poets are Leonard Cohen and Anne Carson. Carson in 1996 won the Lannan Literary Award for poetry. The foundation's awards in 2006 for poetry, fiction and nonfiction each came with $US 150,000.
American writers
[edit]
From 1940 into the 21st century, American playwrights, poets and novelists have continued to be internationally prominent.
Genre fiction in the twentieth century
[edit]
Main article: Genre fiction
Many works published in the twentieth century were examples of genre fiction. This designation includes the crime novels, spy novel, historical romance, fantasy, graphic novel, and science fiction.
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an important, and hugely successful, crime fiction writer who is best remembered for her 66 detective novels as well as her many short stories and successful plays for the West End theatre. Along with Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957), Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982), and Margery Allingham (1904–1966), Christie dominated the mystery novel in the 1920s and 1930s, often called "The Golden Age of Detective Fiction." Together, these four women writers were honored as "The Queens of Crime."[198] Other recent noteworthy writers in this genre are Ruth Rendell, P.D. James and the Scot, Ian Rankin.
Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands (1903), is an early example of spy fiction. John Buchan (1875–1940), a Scottish diplomat, and later the Governor General of Canada, is sometimes considered the inventor of the thriller genre. His five novels featuring the heroic, Richard Hannay, are among the earliest in the genre. The first Hannay novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, was made into a famous thriller movie by Alfred Hitchcock. Hannay was the prototype for the even more famous fictional character, James Bond 007, created by Ian Fleming, and the protagonist in a long line of films. Another noted writer in the spy novel genre was John le Carré.
The novelist Georgette Heyer created the historical romance genre. Emma Orczy's original play, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), a "hero with a secret identity", became a favourite of London audiences, playing more than 2,000 performances and becoming one of the most popular shows staged in England to that date.[199]
Among significant writers in the fantasy genre were J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. C. S. Lewis author of The Chronicles of Narnia, and J. K. Rowling who wrote the highly successful Harry Potter series. Lloyd Alexander winner of the Newbery Honor as well as the Newbery Medal for his The Chronicles of Prydain pentalogy is another significant author of fantasy novels for younger readers. Like fantasy in the later decades of the 20th century, the genre of science fiction began to be taken more seriously, and this was because of the work of writers such as Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Michael Moorcock. Another prominent writer in this genre, Douglas Adams, is particularly associated with the comic science fiction work, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Mainstream novelists such Doris Lessing and Margaret Atwood also wrote works in this genre.
Known for his macabre, darkly comic fantasy works for children, Roald Dahl became one of the best selling authors of the 20th century, and his best-loved children's novels include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG.[200] Noted writers in the field of comic books are Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore, while Gaiman also produces graphic novels.
Literary criticism in the twentieth century
[edit]
Main article: Literary Criticism
Literary criticism gathered momentum in the twentieth century. In this era prominent academic journals were established to address specific aspects of English literature. Most of these academic journals gained widespread credibility because of being published by university presses. The growth of universities thus contributed to a stronger connection between English literature and literary criticism in the twentieth century.
21st century
[edit]
See also: 21st century in literature
21st century British literature
Contemporary English novelists
Nobel Prizes in English literature
[edit]
Rudyard Kipling (1907): UK (born in British India)
Rabindranath Tagore (1913): India
W. B. Yeats (1923): Ireland
George Bernard Shaw (1925): Ireland
Sinclair Lewis (1930): US
John Galsworthy (1932): UK
Eugene O'Neill (1936): US
Pearl S. Buck (1938): US
T.S. Eliot (1948): UK (born in the US)
William Faulkner (1949): US
Bertrand Russell (1950): UK
Winston Churchill (1953): UK
Ernest Hemingway (1954): US
John Steinbeck (1962): US
Samuel Beckett (1969): Ireland (lived in France much of his life)
Patrick White (1973): Australia
Saul Bellow (1976): US (born in Canada)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978): US (born in Poland)
William Golding (1983): UK
Wole Soyinka (1986): Nigeria
Joseph Brodsky (1987): US (born in Russia)
Nadine Gordimer (1991): South Africa
Derek Walcott (1992): St Lucia, West Indies
Toni Morrison (1993): US
Seamus Heaney (1995): Ireland
V.S. Naipaul (2001): UK (born in Trinidad)
J.M. Coetzee (2003): South Africa
Harold Pinter (2005): UK
Doris Lessing (2007): UK (grew-up in Zimbabwe)
Alice Munro (2013): Canada
Bob Dylan (2016): US
Kazuo Ishiguro (2017): UK (born in Japan)
Louise Glück (2020): US
Abdulrazak Gurnah (2021): UK (born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, now Tanzania)
See also
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Notes
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References
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Bibliography
[edit]
Library resources about
English literature
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https://www.miu.edu/ba-in-creative-writing
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BA in Creative Writing
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A program where developing writers can learn in a supportive, workshop-based environment that includes an emphasis on spiritual and personal growth
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en
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/wp-content/themes/MUM/media/favicon.ico
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Maharishi International University | Accredited & Nonprofit
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https://www.miu.edu/ba-in-creative-writing
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Featured courses
Little Writing, BIG PLAY: Haiku & Creative Intelligence
Haiku are small but mighty poems. They can encapsulate the extraordinary and the mundane in three simple lines–the black bead of a bluejay’s eye peering through snow or the cacophony of car horns and jackhammers on a city street. Haiku offer inexperienced and experienced writers alike an opportunity to play with language and expand the way they view the world. In this course, students will study the 16 principles of the Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) through the practice of haiku and by reading the work of Basho, Issa, Buson, and Shiki, as well as excerpts from Natalie Goldberg’s Three Simple Lines: a Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart. The course will culminate in the creation of individual chapbooks featuring students’ haiku and original artwork.
Discovering Your Creative Process
The purpose of this class is to break boundaries and rediscover an easy relationship with the inner Muse. You’ll study your own creative process as well as what other artists, writers, and filmmakers have shared about creative inspiration. You’ll also hear from a variety of guest lecturers working in different media and discuss their work, career paths, and creative process.
The Hero in Literature
This course will explore the idea of the hero from antiquity to the present. The hero is a larger than life character whose actions affect the fate of a large community for good, or if a tragic hero, for ill. The hero’s behavior is a model for the ordinary individual. One of the great debates is whether the hero can even exist in the modern world. Among the texts and themes we will follow are: The Odyssey (the Classical Hero), Beowulf (the Germanic Hero), Gawain and the Green Knight (the Medieval Hero), Siddhartha (the Spiritual Hero), and The Bean Trees (the Feminine Hero).
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https://www.alternatives.org.uk/expert/246
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Julia Cameron
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Hailed by the New York Times as “The Queen of Change,” JULIA CAMERON is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream conversation— in the arts, in business, and in everyday life. She is the best-selling author of more than forty books, fiction and nonfiction; a poet, songwriter, filmmaker and playwright. Commonly referred to as “The Godmother” or “High Priestess” of creativity, her tools are based in practice, not theory, and she considers herself “the floor sample of her own toolkit.” The Artist’s Way has been translated into forty languages and sold over five million copies to date.
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Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection (A Six-Week Artist's Way Program)
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Julia Cameron returns to the spiritual roots of the Artist’s Way in this 6-week ProgramAuthor Julia Cameron changed the way the world thinks about creativity when she first published The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity thirty years ago. Over five million copies later, Cameron now turns her attention to creative prayer, which she believes is a key facet of the creative life. In Seeking Wisdom, a 6 Week Artist’s Way Program, readers, too, will learn to pray. Tracing her own creative journey, Cameron reveals that prayer led her forward at a time of personal crisis. Unexpectedly, prayer became an indispensable support to her artistic life. The tools she created to save herself in her darkest hour became the tools she would share with the world through The Artist's Way. Seeking Wisdom details the origin of these tools, and by Cameron's example, the central role that prayer plays in sustaining a life as an artist. In this volume, Cameron shares a mindful collection of prayer practices that open our creative souls. This path takes us beyond traditional religious rituals, welcoming readers regardless of their beliefs and backgrounds. As you journey through each week of the program you’ll explore prayers of petition, gratitude, creativity, and more. Along the way, the three beloved tools of The Artist’s Way—Morning Pages, Artist Dates, and Walks—are refreshed and reintroduced, to provide a proven, grounded framework for growth and development. Additionally, Cameron introduces a fourth tool, Writing Out Guidance. She believes this powerful practice will greatly aid aspiring artists. Seeking Wisdom issues an invitation to step further into exciting creative practice.
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https://qabookco.com/book/9781250847638
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Description
Julia Cameron returns to the spiritual roots of the Artist’s Way in this 6-week Program
Author Julia Cameron changed the way the world thinks about creativity when she first published The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity thirty years ago. Over five million copies later, Cameron now turns her attention to creative prayer, which she believes is a key facet of the creative life. In Seeking Wisdom, a 6 Week Artist’s Way Program, readers, too, will learn to pray.
Tracing her own creative journey, Cameron reveals that prayer led her forward at a time of personal crisis. Unexpectedly, prayer became an indispensable support to her artistic life. The tools she created to save herself in her darkest hour became the tools she would share with the world through The Artist's Way. Seeking Wisdom details the origin of these tools, and by Cameron's example, the central role that prayer plays in sustaining a life as an artist.
In this volume, Cameron shares a mindful collection of prayer practices that open our creative souls. This path takes us beyond traditional religious rituals, welcoming readers regardless of their beliefs and backgrounds. As you journey through each week of the program you’ll explore prayers of petition, gratitude, creativity, and more. Along the way, the three beloved tools of The Artist’s Way—Morning Pages, Artist Dates, and Walks—are refreshed and reintroduced, to provide a proven, grounded framework for growth and development.
Additionally, Cameron introduces a fourth tool, Writing Out Guidance. She believes this powerful practice will greatly aid aspiring artists.
Seeking Wisdom issues an invitation to step further into exciting creative practice.
Praise for Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection (A Six-Week Artist's Way Program)
Praise for Seeking Wisdom:
In Seeking Wisdom, the prolific Julia Cameron continues her work as a masterful guide, offering a path of creative recovery by asking us to personalize our sense of God through our own intimate practice of prayer. Both grounded and innovative, this book casts writing as praying on the page to everything larger than us. Bring your whole self to the journey of this book and you will touch the eternal link between creativity and spirituality. This book will help you come alive. It will help you play your instrument and sing your song.
—Mark Nepo, author of The Book of Soul and Finding Inner Courage
"Julia Cameron’s new book, Seeking Wisdom, carries on the author’s tradition of magically changing lives, hearts, habits and attitudes. Julia writes about her own life and about writing and living and in this six-week guide to contemplation, prayer and seeking the living presence, Julia does again what she has done since writing the Artist’s Way—she leads us into the real questions and answers that lie in our path and points to contemplation of the Higher Power in our creative inner lives and points us to the spiritual approach--prayer, work, writing, and living. A master of her craft of giving to others what her inner guides have taught her, I promise you will come away from reading her new book, as I did, with renewed creative zest and energy, as well as insight into your own spiritual possibilities as a creative person. Get this book—Seeking Wisdom; it holds magical wisdom and genuine truth."
—Judy Collins, Singer, Songwriter, Author
"Julia Cameron’s Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection is a must-read for those who struggle finding a connection with a Higher Power, and creatives who want a more-robust experience of their art. If you’re an artist—and we’re all artists—who wants a more dynamic creative experience, you want to purchase and use this book today."
—New York Journal of Books
Praise for The Listening Path:
"...the potential rewards are boundless."—Vogue
"Cameron delivers an accessible, insightful addition to her The Artist’s Way workbooks... Cameron’s fans will love this straightforward program."—Publishers Weekly
"Longtime creativity expert Cameron turns to the essential art of listening. Cameron writes beautifully and sincerely.... A much-needed primer on opening ourselves to listening to others at a time when that is so badly needed."—Booklist Starred Review
"Designed for a world in which attention is our collective deficiency, The Listening Path focuses on tuning out cluttering noise and redirecting attention constructively to release creative blocks...If this all sounds too woo-woo for you . . . then you probably need it."—BookPage
“Julia Cameron brought a new approach to creativity to the world with her extraordinary book, The Artist’s Way. Now, in The Listening Path, she takes us into a completely different dimension of creativity: the ability to listen at deeper and deeper levels. As a lifelong student of the art of listening, I can tell you there is nothing quite like this book. I encourage you to read The Listening Path and make use of its life changing gifts."
—Gay Hendricks, Ph.D. New York Times bestselling author of The Big Leap and Conscious Luck
“Julia Cameron has done it again. In The Listening Path, she gently guides us to become more in tune with ourselves, our world, each other, and beyond—bringing more clarity, connection and joy into our lives. Whether you’re a seasoned creator or just getting started, The Listening Path will guide you to access the treasure trove of wisdom that lives within, and in the world around you.”
—Amber Rae, author of Choose Wonder Over Worry
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https://heymrswinkler.com/category/professional-development/
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en
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professional development
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2024-08-23T20:48:04-04:00
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Posts about professional development written by Katie Winkler
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en
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https://s1.wp.com/i/favicon.ico
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Hey, Mrs. Winkler!
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https://heymrswinkler.com/category/professional-development/
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August 1, 2023, was my first official day of retirement. I left after 27 years of teaching at a small community college in western North Carolina. Officially, I retired early, but I say I ended my career right on time. Some say may say that I was burned out or that I had quietly quit years before, and perhaps both are true. All I know is that I loved teaching, what it really is supposed to be, too much to keep trying to do it with little academic freedom or shared governance. I couldn’t remain in a place that cared more about enrollment and data than individual students and their learning.
Writing and editing, separate from the scads of e-mails I wrote and student writing I graded, are the things that kept me going the last few years of my teaching career. This blog, started in 2014, was the first place I regularly vented my frustrations at the negative changes I saw at my institution. But I also kept my spirits up by writing about teaching itself, some of my victories in the classroom, my memories of great teachers and wonderful teaching experiences I had.
Then, in 2017, after publishing another short story and having published dozens of theater reviews and feature articles for the local newspaper, I realized that risking rejection and criticism by putting my work out into the world not only helped me be a better writer, but it also made me a better writing teacher. I wanted to offer a special kind of professional development opportunity to other writing teachers and Teach. Write. was born. Editing Teach. Write. has been one of the joys of my life and is even better now that I have time to devote to its improvement.
However, even with the blog and the journal, the pressure was getting to me. The worst part of all was realizing how powerless I was to effect any change as I witnessed the autonomy that I had enjoyed at the beginning of my career begin to erode. So, I turned to a writing project that began as a musical but had laid dormant for several years–a satire called CAMPUS.
When it started getting particularly rough, I turned back to CAMPUS and decided, I think with the help of my wonderful daughter, that I wanted to turn my musical into a novel and keep the musical element alive by podcasting it with music. How? How would I do it? First, my daughter, a sound technician, did research on the best podcasting equipment, told my sweet husband, who bought the equipment for me as a Christmas gift. It wasn’t long before I was podcasting this crazy, satirical story about higher education at a small college in western North Carolina.
But not just any college. This enchanted campus has elves, gnomes, moon people, fairy godteachers, vampires, zombies, and a boojum–kind of an Appalachian yeti–oh, and a nazi. CAMPUS is definitely out there, but its weirdness has allowed me to say things I never could have said out loud otherwise. I produced about 13 episodes.
You can go and hear them at most podcasting platforms. Just search CAMPUS: A Novel That Wants to Be a Musical and you will find them. Don’t get too excited–the production value is low because I have no idea what I’m doing, but you know, I’m kind of proud of those episodes. I’m proud of myself for completing them, taking a chance. They helped me survive those last few years of teaching and the isolation of teaching during the worst of the pandemic years.
I want to get back to completing CAMPUS when I finish the other big writing projects on my plate right now, but until then, I will leave you with one of my favorite scenes from CAMPUS, when the discouraged, burned-out faculty makes their debut “Down at the Diploma Mill.”
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
At that, in true musical fashion, a slow droning chant arose from across the quad as “They” began to come in. The slow heavy beat of the prison blues, the stomping of feet like the striking of a heavy hammer on a stake. THEM, teachers in ragged clothes and carrying old worn-out books came onto the quad. And they chanted:
ONCE WE WERE SOME BRIGHT YOUNG TEACHERs
ONCE WE WROTE ENGAGING LESSON PLANS
ONCE WE LOOKED INTO THEIR SHINING FACES
AND FELT JUST LIKE SOME FANCY PREACHERS
BUT NOW
BUT NOW
BUT NOW
CHORUS
WE’RE WORKIN’ DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
LOOKIN’ FOR SOME BRAIN CELLS TO KILL
WE NEVER MEANT IT TO BE THIS WAY
BUT WE GOT NOTHIN’ LEFT TO SAY
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
ONCE WE HAD SOME GOOD IDEAS
ONCE WE TRIED TO CHANGE OUR WAYS
WE ALL SHUNNED STANDARDIZED TESTS
TRIED OUR BEST
TO NOT BE LIKE THE REST
BUT NOW
BUT NOW
BUT NOW
WE’RE WORKING
AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
WE’RE WORKING DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
LOOKIN’ FOR SOME BRAIN CELLS TO KILL
WE NEVER MEANT IT TO BE THIS WAY
BUT WE GOT NOTHIN’ LEFT TO SAY
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
ASK AN ESSAY QUESTION
DO A PROJECT INSTEAD
BUT THE DEAN SAID IT WASN’T ASSESSMENT
WE SHOULD GET RETURN ON OUR INVESTMENT
IF IT’S NOT SOMETHING WE CAN CALCULATE
OR THAT’S EASY TO REGURGITATE
THEN IT’S SOMETHING YOU CAN’T DO
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
The group begins to hum as they mount the stage and form a line of disgruntled burned out teachers. An old professor in a ragged tweed jacket with torn leather patches on the shoulder, holding a pipe comes to the mic. There is no sign of Dr. DAG. He’s gone off to Dog Hobble to that expensive restaurant only a few residents and the tourists can afford.
The old professor takes the mic as the group hums on. He speaks:
I’ll tell you what I want. Huh, come to think of it, what, exactly, do I want? I used to want to be published in exclusive journals, solicited to speak at prestigious conferences, overseas…in Europe…in Paris, all expenses paid. I wanted to be so valuable to the college I could thumb my nose at the presidents and VPs and deans and especially department chairs like Dr. C. J. Hamilton, who just had to lord over me his award-winning dissertation, the title of which he doesn’t let anyone forget– The Reawakening of Chartism and the Writings of Thomas Carlylse in the Post-Victorian/Pre-Edwardian Epoch.
Do you know what he said when I told him that I had my students all meet me at that great vegan restaurant in Asheville? He said it was stupid! Yeah. My innovative idea! A lot better than sitting around on a bunch of hard chairs in straight little rows listening to Dr. Hamilton drone on and on about Sartor Resartus and Queen Victoria’s increasing seclusion and her fat son’s sickening perversions.
My idea was great! We had a good meal, raised a few organic brews, and it was off to search for the famous O’Henry plaque embedded in the sidewalk near the cafe. We found it. I didn’t tell them that when O’Henry came to Asheville, he was a penniless drunk. How could I tell a group of 20-somethings in a creative writing class that I knew all their dreams would come to nothing?
But then we all drove together over to the Grove Park Inn to find the F. Scott Fitzgerald room. They all wanted to see the place where Fitzgerald didn’t write while he waited for Zelda to slowly lose her mind. We found the room, but I think we had all underestimated the effect of that many beers, organic or not, on our critical thinking skills. We had a hard time finding the room, and when we did and got in there… How did we get in there?
The concierge wasn’t too happy that we barged in on those German tourists. At least one of them was German because I recognized certain select vernacular. Anyway, before the burly one threw us out, I did get a glimpse around the room, a nice room, but ordinary, nothing special about it at all really. I mean why should there be? Fitzgerald just sat there, day in and day out, not writing and drinking himself into mind- numbing oblivion. On second thought, although I can’t tell you what I want, I can tell you what I don’t want. I don’t want to do this anymore.
Then the others joined him in the rousing chorus.
CHORUS
WORKIN’ DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
LOOKIN’ FOR SOME BRAIN CELLS TO KILL
WE NEVER MEANT IT TO BE THIS WAY
BUT WE GOT NOTHIN’ LEFT TO SAY
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
The old professor sings
WHY DID I SPEND THAT MONEY TO BE A DOCTOR
WHEN ALL THEY REALLY WANT IS A PROCTOR?
WHY BOTHER CALLING ME A TEACHER
WHEN I’M JUST A FACILITATOR
FESTERING IN THIS STINKING DIPLOMA MILL?
SO, I DON’T EVEN WANT TO TRY
THE STUDENTS SAY MY CLASS IS TOO BORING
TOO MUCH GRAMMAR OR LIT STARTS THEM SNORING
I NEED TO TRY TO ASK THE GOOD QUESTIONS
NOW I CAN ONLY HIDE MY FRUSTRATION
IT’S ALL I CAN DO TO KEEP THEM FROM TEXTING
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
And the others join in the final CHORUS
WORKIN’ DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
LOOKIN’ FOR SOME BRAIN CELLS TO KILL
WE NEVER MEANT IT TO BE THIS WAY
BUT WE GOT NOTHIN’ LEFT TO SAY
DOWN AT THE DIPLOMA MILL
We suffer from distractions. It’s not only the high tech, although that is definitely a problem – our phones and computers and endless entertainment sources and open AI and, and, and. More than anything else, we are distracted by our concerns. No, our worries. Perhaps it makes us feel virtuous to worry, to endlessly bemoan the failings of others and how they are leading us all down the path that leads to destruction. After all, if we can distract ourselves with how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, maybe we won’t have to look into our own souls and search for the true sources of our problems.
Lord knows I’m guilty. If I worry enough about how this current election will affect education and talk about it enough with friends, then I can distract from the fact that I promised myself I would finish my teaching memoir this first year of my retirement and that I would work diligently on making the most use of the Virtual Playwriting Fellowship the Dramatists Guild Foundation awarded me.
Of course, I don’t call it worrying; I am “concerned,” so my worry becomes something good, right? My other distractions, including social media, are being used, I tell myself, to help raise awareness and guide people toward good things. And it is good if I stay focused, but if I’m honest, I don’t. I start out with those good intentions and slip on down the road to you know where.
In Book XII of C. S. Lewis’s great satiric epistolary novel, The Screwtape Letters, the uncle demon Screwtape advises his nephew Wormwood about the value of distractions to keep the new Christian, no longer in danger of the fires of hell, from being too effective.
He says:
You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,
So, whether it be pleasure or worry that distracts us, in the end all that will matter is that we have not acted as we should have or wanted to. It is right that we be concerned about extremist candidates running for state superintendent, about school board meetings becoming violent, about indoctrination coming from the right or left, about unwarranted censorship or the lack thereof, but it is wrong of us to see problems where there aren’t any or to let our fears and worries distract us from what you (talking to teachers now) are supposed to do–TEACH.
Until the last two years of my teaching, I worried constantly about ambiguous mandates coming down from the administration. Often, they didn’t apply to me but nevertheless distracted from my teaching. I would get upset, argue, discuss whatever it was endlessly with my colleagues in their offices. The thing is I didn’t need to worry because most people in the administration were simply passing on what had been mandated to them, having little hope that, for example, yet another restructuring of developmental education would fix the problems that the previous restructuring just a few years before had not fixed or made worse.
All my “concern” did not help me teach those developmental classes effectively. The only thing that helped was buckling down and embracing any sound ideas and finding ways around the silliness, or simply ignoring it. For example, when the state mandated that instructors should not use fiction or essays written in first-person to teach reading and writing, I was flabbergasted, ready to fight this nonsense tooth and nail at the conference I went to explaining the new curriculum. However, low and behold, almost every session at the conference included sample readings that were either essays written in fir st person or fiction. These teachers were fantastic, and their lesson ideas were great. I adopted some of them. No one seemed to notice these teachers were ignoring the mandate, including the people who had cobbled together the new curriculum. I didn’t have to fight.
Now that I’m retired, I can see that I wasted a lot of time and caused myself undo stress by allowing myself to be distracted by administrative bloat and broad, ambiguous criticism. All I can do now is say to young educators, please don’t be like me: don’t turn your teaching world upside down with every pedagogical or andragogical wind that blows. It’s not worth it. Pick out the good ideas and incorporate them, change when you need to, learn new technical skills that enhance your teaching, use old ideas that have worked for you before, and trust yourself.
Teaching is a craft. You should always be open to improving it; however, teaching is also an art, most successful when it is creative and engaging, when it takes risks, when it moves onto the fringes and beckons students into the glorious realm of ideas.
As a much older, bossy sister, it is hard to admit that my baby brother has been such an influential teacher to me for half a century. But, the past few weeks, as he has endured serious health issues, including emergency open heart surgery, I have been reminded of some of the strengths he’s demonstrated time and time again, including adaptability, persistence, and most of all, resilience.
My brother hasn’t chosen the easiest path to make a living: he breeds and trains working German shepherds. He started the business when he was still in undergraduate school at Auburn University and grew it through many years of struggle as he was working on his master’s in liberal arts at Auburn University-Montgomery. While there, he focused on media and computer studies that have all been helpful in conducting his business, which included creating and maintaining his website: Schwarzerhund.com. His dogs are some of the most intelligent, powerful, and beautiful creatures you will ever have the privilege to meet.
My brother is no stranger to adversity. On April 27, 2011, less than two weeks after the death of our sister Ronda and the evening of the day he defended his master’s thesis, Rob’s trailer, right next to my parents’ house, was destroyed by one of the EF-4 tornados to strike Alabama during the historic super tornado outbreak that year.
Around 10:00 pm, my brother had fallen asleep in front of the television and did not hear the news of the approaching tornado. He did, however, hear the tell-tale sounds of wind rushing like a locomotive bearing down on his vulnerable home. He and the young German shepherd he was caring for sprinted across the lawn to my parents’ house. My mother, also unaware of the approaching tornado, had just locked the door when Rob started pounding on it, yelling, “Mom, you’ve got to let me in or I’m going to die.”
He made it inside, but as soon as my mother closed the door behind him, the tornado struck. My brother recalls how they could hear the roof creaking and giving way as half of it was sucked up into the vortex. Somehow, they made it to the hallway, where they met my father, who had mobility issues due to diabetic neuropathy, coming out of his bedroom. They headed to the bathroom and stood huddled in the tub waiting for the storm to pass, which it did shortly after.
They were safe. That was the main thing.
However, the damage was extensive; my brother knew that, but he didn’t have time to fully take stock of everything that happened. Once he made sure my elderly parents were in an undamaged room of the house and safe, he found the house’s insurance information, but of course the phone lines were out, and at that time, cell coverage was spotty at best in that area of Chambers County, one of the poorest in the nation.
So, he called his big sister. At first my husband and I couldn’t hear much, but made out the word tornado, and looked on the Weather Channel’s website to see the news of the huge storm. The radar showed the cells all over Alabama. We were helpless, though, until Rob was able to navigate around all the fallen trees and drive close enough to a town to get cell reception. Because of Rob’s quick thinking, I was one of the first to call and inform the insurance company of the disaster, so my family was able to quickly receive help.
Rob made a few other essential calls and then headed home. When he drove up to the house, the dog that had followed him from the house across the yard, that he thought was lost in the storm, came running up to him unharmed. She must have been able to get under the house. That was the first of many miracles that kept him going in all the many months following the tornado.
To my credit, I did do my share, helping out as much as I could, especially with my parents by securing a place for them to live while the house was being rebuilt and visiting as often as I could, but it was my brother who adapted his entire life in order to manage the property and his business after the storm. He stayed at the farm, at first sleeping under the carport in a recliner with a shotgun to ward off looters while protecting and caring for his beloved dogs. Of all the dozens of animals he cared for at the time, he didn’t lose any in the storm itself, and only two died as a result of injury and trauma–A miracle that such a powerful storm did not take more lives.
To my discredit, however, I did try to play the big sister at one point. I admit that I got pretty bossy and critical during that time, and my little brother finally had enough. He told me, “Katie, you’re going to have to make a decision. You’re either going to have to come down here permanently and run the show, or you’re going to have to trust me to do it.” I learned two valuable lessons that day: Number 1–Little brothers grow up and become men. Number 2–People have to be given a chance to handle things their own way–they have to be trusted.
That last lesson really helped me as an instructor to adult students. I learned that I was actually hurting my students if I gave them too much direction, if I didn’t allow them to discover things on their own, even if they had to experience painful trial and error. That’s the only way we really learn anything. During the years of recovery, my brother made some mistakes, but he pulled through and has brought the farm and his business back from the devastation of the tornado, a credit to his tenacious spirit.
This last trial that my brother has been through, enduring sextuple heart bypass surgery, has once again proven his persistence and resilience, his ability to adjust and adapt his best laid plans. Also, in the midst of that, he has maintained an optimism that defies his circumstances. He has shown humility and gratitude, allowing medical professionals, friends, and family to enter into his private world and help him. This is easier said than done for an independent introverted bachelor, but he has done it and has grown as a person as he has adapted to his new reality.
I took Rob to his first doctor appointment with his primary physician following the surgery, and his nurse read from the cardiac ICU report. It said, “Robert Whitlock is a 54-year-old male and a very nice man.” An understatement. He’s also the best little brother anybody could ask for.
And he’s not a bad teacher either.
I am a Type II diabetic. My husband is a health care worker. He has been fully vaccinated for over a month but is aware that working where he does he still might be a carrier of Covid-19. I had my first vaccination, made possible by my workplace, for which I am grateful, over a week ago. I will receive the second dose on March 30.
Because of my medical condition, I have been allowed to teach asynchronous and synchronous online classes this semester. I did not request this but am thankful that the dean in my division saw to it that I, as a person vulnerable to complications of Covid-19, had the choice to telework if I did not feel safe coming to campus.
In the fall of 2020, I worked from home most days, only going onto the campus to serve an hour in the Student Success Center to relieve my colleague so that she could have a lunch break. I volunteered to go on campus for that time. This semester, I have volunteered to work two days in the Student Success Center. I voluntarily treat these days as normal work days, usually arriving around 8:30 or 9:00 am.
Yesterday was one of those days. I came in later than I usually do, around 11:00 to serve a scheduled office hour, then in the Student Success Center, then mentoring a new faculty member, grading papers, a trip to the mailroom to pick up the posters for advertising this semester’s theater production. A break for lupper (lunch and supper) at 4:30ish and then back to my office for grading at 5:20 until rehearsal for the play (I play Shakespeare and the Duke of Ephesus–you should see my costume) until around 8:00pm.
During that time, one of my colleagues, who works in marketing, came to take pictures of all of the actors in costume. I was released after I and my fellow Shakespeare/Duke were photographed. (Our director double casts when needed so all who audition can have a chance to act). Other student and community actors, crew, director, and photographer were still there. I got home around 8:35 and talked to my husband a few minutes, but he was on call at the hospital, so he called it a night, hoping not to get called in. I stayed up a while longer to do my daily yoga routine, and check student e-mail one more time. I also have decided to learn Italian! I am using duolingo, a popular language-learning ap, to do so and also use the ap to brush up on my German. (I have a degree in German, but use it or lose it, they say).
Thursday, March 18, 2021–Today is a day I telework.
7:00 am–Rise, washed some dishes I was too tired to wash last night, made breakfast for my husband and me. We were both glad that he didn’t get called in last night.
7:50am–Ate breakfast and drank coffee while my husband read the weather and some amusing news to me. We chatted and laughed some. He always can make me laugh.
8:03 am–Started checking work e-mail. Answered two student messages made late last night. Skimmed a New York Time’s article by Judy Batalion called “The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance.” Batalion lives in London and did her research for the article in The British Library. Oh. Tie into British Literature II. Filed the article to read more in depth later, knowing that I probably will not ever have time. Until summer.
8:10–My husband read a snippet of news about a man buying a porcelain bowl for $35 and how it sold at auction for $720,000. Lesson learned–Don’t underestimate anybody’s value, including your own. Continued checking mail.
8:20–Started checking in on my professional development class–a microcredential provided by the State of North Carolina through the Association of College and University Professors to faculty teaching the new RISE (Reinforced Instruction for Student Excellence) courses. I and a colleague have volunteered to take the course. No cost to the college, no cost to us. Plus, even though the course has just started, I am learning a great deal about improving online teaching for the special demographic of developmental students that I teach.
As I started checking this course, I got the idea for this blog post, so I took the time to set up the blog post, and write up my notes so far.
9:13–Break to walk up and down the stairs (to satisfy the fitbit monster), get some more coffee (to satisfy the caffeine addiction), and do other necessary things, like get dressed, make the bed, and clean my C-Pap equipment (I have severe sleep apnea–another reason I am high risk for complications due to Covid-19).
9:31–Checking in with my prof. dev. course will have to wait, but I have completed most assignments already and have until March 21 to complete the remaining two, so all is well. Good to know how my online students feel, though.
9:32–Checking e-mail again and prepping for my co-req courses.
9:47–All seems to be in order for today’s classes. I have two synchronous online classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I like working from home on these days because I can save time not having to get ready and drive to work. Then, there are the unavoidable frequent interruptions and distractions while at work. On these days when a big chunk of my day is in the virtual classroom, it just is more efficient for me to be at home.
During the few minutes of uninterrupted time, I was able to see that we are covering how to write sentences more concisely–ah, efficiency seems to be the word of the day, doesn’t it? I was also able to send a reminder through course announcements about the Collaborate session today and what we will be covering.
9:53–Checking my 11:00am class’s grades. The course I teach at 11:00 is ENG011–Writing and Inquiry Support. This class is relatively new and part of the Reinforced Instruction for Student Excellence (RISE) program that is offering the professional development class I’m taking. I think it’s a great idea, but it is too early to tell if RISE will work or not. I am seeing good results early on. (This is only the second time I’ve taught the co-requisite class, which is a support class for first-semester freshman composition students.) I am grateful to my immediate supervisor and my colleague who is the RISE coordinator for allowing me latitude to use my many years of experience with developmental education to develop, assess, revise, and re-assess the course, using my best judgment as a composition teacher for over thirty years while in accordance with the requirements of the State’s expectations. This is the fourth redesign of developmental classes since I began teaching at the college where I now work, all state-mandated.
I see that none of my students in ENG 011 are in danger of failing my class. I have been concerned about the performance of two students, however. I met with their instructor on Monday of this week to see how they are doing and to discuss strategies for their improvement. This is a best practice, according to the RISE training provided by the RISE coordinator at my college.
10:04–Checking to be sure that all grades, including zeros for work not attempted, have been recorded.
10:10–All looked good, so I will take another short break to walk up and down the stairs and put in a load of laundry.
10:22–Checking the grade book for my other ENG 011 class that will be at 2:00pm today.
10:30-Checked and saw that two students I have been concerned about continue to struggle. I talked with the instructor of one student earlier this week. After my 11:00 class, I will check the system to see who is English instructor is and shoot him or her an e-mail to set up a time to discuss the student’s performance in the ENG 111 class. Will take one last short break before logging on to class. As a diabetic, I need to have a snack at this time to keep my blood sugars regulated.
10:45–Logging onto the Collaborate session for my 11:00am class. Some students arrive early, so I like to be in the session to greet them. This class lasts until 12:20.
12:20–Class went well. We discussed the importance of writing concisely, which is a common issue with developmental English students who are often reluctant to write and will “pad” their writing in order to meet minimum word or page numbers. I like to use a handout I have found from UNC-Chapel Hill’s writing center to aid in my instruction: Writing Concisely. Then, I showed the students how to format their documents correctly using MLA8 formatting, which is standard in our English classes at Blue Ridge. I have found that developmental students often struggle with some of the details like this because they don’t see their relevance to their everyday lives, so while I am showing them how to format, I am also giving them my explanation of how following directions precisely and paying attention to detail is an important “soft skill” no matter what courses they study or profession they enter.
12: 21–Checked my e-mail and answered a long e-mail from a disgruntled student. It took some time to find the right tone to rectify the situation. As always, I offered to meet with the student, virtually or in person, to discuss the situation further. I find that this is a good way to avoid the “e-mail wars.” Sent an e-mail to that student’s ENG 111 instructor to be sure all was well in his class and to inform him of the student’s issue.
1:00–lunch break
1:25–Checked e-mail again. Read the newsletter from the president of the college and other e-mail. Walked up and down the stairs a few times. Put clothes in the dryer.
1:40–Texted my daughter to see if she wants to go walking at the park this afternoon since the rain stopped and the sun is out.
1:45–Launched the Collaborate session and waited for students to arrive. Prepared to withdraw an ENG 011 student who was dropped from ENG 111 as required. I’m sorry about that. I think he was getting something out of my class. He was one of my most faithful attendees. One of my student’s who has been struggling came into class first and said he was thinking of withdrawing, that he is having trouble engaging in the online format. We discussed his options. I have heard this often from my students over the past year. Online learning is not for everyone. On the other hand, I have many students who never thought they would like online learning who are thriving–one of the main perks is the flexibility. Also, because of the pandemic, students are improving the skills necessary to be successful in an online environment.
2:00–Began the Collaborate session. I only have a few students in this Collaborate class, but we had an excellent class with true engagement. All explanations were made and students completed the work during the class time allotted, which is one of the State’s requirements for the co-requisite class. I like this because the support class should not add an inordinate amount of work to students who are already struggling to complete work in their ENG 111 class.
3:20–Drove to the park to walk with my daughter. It was wonderful. She is a delight. Just the break I needed.
4:45–Returned home and checked e-mail. Returned an e-mail from a student and one from a colleague.
5:00–Called the theater instructor to tell her that my daughter had volunteered to help with some of the short videos mentioned at rehearsal yesterday. She said she was just finishing up doing some re-writes of the script to eliminate the need for the videos that seemed like a good idea but were just going to be too time-consuming. I and the other Shakespeare/Duke will be doing some of the interludes she needs between scenes. She will discuss it some more with us during rehearsal on Monday.
5:26–Checked e-mail again. Nothing new. Prepared supper–Because it was pretty out and lighter later, I grilled some chicken, summer squash, and zucchini. My husband came home while I was grilling. While he relaxed a little, I finished grilling the food and completed some German exercises on the duolingo ap while I watched over the food. John and I enjoyed the dinner and a little time together.
7:25–Checked e-mail again. Noticed that I have more notifications for postings for my professional development course. Decided to grade some papers before I look at the postings by my fellow students.
8:40–Called my mother in Alabama. She had to go to the emergency room on Friday and still didn’t have tests back when I called earlier in the week, so I called to check up on her. She is better, thank goodness, but doctors still haven’t gotten down to the root of her problems. I hope when she sees her doctor on Monday they will be able to find out what’s going on.
9:30pm–Made an appointment with a friend to go walking. Checked work e-mail one last time. No e-mails from students. Going to check on my professional development course in the morning. Tuckered out, as my Great Aunt used to say, and going to bed.
10:12pm–I lied. I wanted to finish up this blogpost, and so it is now almost 45 minutes later. I also started thinking about my podcast. I had hoped to put out an episode a week, but now that I have started the two new 8-week courses, the grading load is just too heavy for me to get the work completed during normal working hours. I know I will have to grade some tomorrow and over the weekend, but I don’t have rehearsal on Saturday, so maybe I can squeeze in working on an episode of CAMPUS and get it out by Sunday evening.
Shoot. Still want to do my yoga. I deserve it.
Sweet dreams, everybody.
This summer continues to be a time of renewal for my spirit, but it hasn’t been easy. My reading adventures, working on this crazy satirical novel , and being alone so much have led me to confront many uncomfortable realities about myself–I have lacked resilience and settled for mediocrity much of my life. I’m often petty, self-absorbed and self-righteous, easily angered, hypocritical, thoughtless, vain, jealous, etc., etc.
Oh, don’t worry, I continue to love myself. That’s kind of the problem. I think of myself more highly than I ought, methinks.
Many of the books I’ve chosen to read this summer have helped me to see some of my many weaknesses, and also, thankfully, validated some of my strengths. As always, the two are inextricably bound to one another. But the book I just finished has not only convicted but also bolstered my spirit and renewed my resolve.
The book is Real Christianity, a paraphrase (by Bob Beltz) of William Wilberforce’s A Practical view of the prevailing religious system of Professed Christians, in the higher and middle classes in this country, contrasted with real Christianity written in 1797. The title alone explains why I read the paraphrase, but someday I will read the original.
William Wilberforce was an abolitionist and member of parliament who helped to end slavery in England. His book, however, never explicitly mentions the battle to abolish slavery, and it addresses, as the original title suggests, the middle and upper classes of the British Empire.
But it didn’t take long at all for me to see myself and my country in the pages of this modern paraphrase, written in 2006 by the man who was one of the producers of the very good biopic Amazing Grace, that tells the story of Wilberforce’s twenty-year fight. More about the movie later.
For example, here is a quote from early in the book:
“We must remember that almost any ideology can be distorted and misused to bring misery to multitudes or justification to the most bizarre behavior. Nothing is more dangerous. That which is intended to motivate goodness and restrain evil actually can become the instrument of that which it intended to restrain. History is full of examples of how virtues such as liberty or patriotism become twisted when separated from a healthy and authentic faith. Twisted men in every generation and occupation have twisted whatever they must twist to get what they want. Why should we expect that some within the Church would not be guilty of the same actions?” (46).
Wow! See what I mean? And it was written in the 18th Century! Wilberforce himself struggled with the same issues he writes about. He is remembered for being a force for good, for valid reasons, but, of course, he struggled and failed miserably at times, especially in allowing slave labor, thinly veiled by the concept of “apprentices,” to continue in the abolitionist colony of Sierra Leone. See this interesting article on the subject in The Guardian.
See what I mean? Conviction and renewal. Convicted by Wilberforce’s words and renewed by the knowledge that his failure was, and mine is, inevitable. Renewed? How does being reminded of failure possibly revive my soul? Another paradox of my faith, I suppose. I see that the answer is not abandoning my faith or ceasing to struggle to do good, but knowing that I can ask for and WILL receive forgiveness, I can continue striving to do some good in the world.
Not a bad lesson to pass on to my students, is it?
Here’s another one:
“Money and ambition have become idols in our time, especially for individuals in the business and professional worlds. Disguised as common business practice, these forces are allowed to gather great momentum in our lives. Arguments about being diligent at what we do, becoming successful in our profession or providing for our families seduce us so that we no longer have a clear sense of judgment about these issues. Our work consumes us” (73).
It is important to keep in mind that he is addressing Christians here, not people who do not claim to be believers. Knowing that, these words strike me to the core. I have let my work consume me. I have become as data-driven as the rest of the world. What is my retention rate? How many students passed that essay with a C or better? Let me check how many hours I spent working on the LMS. Look at those FTE’s, will you?
I am convicted, but I am renewed because, since March, I have been working from home, so thankful that I have been forced to concentrate my efforts on the people who need me–my family, my friends, and, my students.
It’s about time.
****
If you want to know more about Wilberforce and the battle to end slavery in the British Empire, I highly recommend the film Amazing Grace. Strong performances, especially Benedict Cumberbatch as England’s youngest ever prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, who was a great friend of Wilberforce’s.
Work Cited
Wilberforce, William. Real Christianity. Revised and edited by Bob Beltz, Regal, 2006.
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British playwright, poet and spy (1640–1689)
Aphra Behn ( ;[a] bapt. 14 December 1640[1][2] – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.[3]
She is remembered in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own: "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."[4] Her grave is not included in the Poets' Corner but lies in the East Cloister near the steps to the church.[5]
Her best-known works are Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave, sometimes described as an early novel, and the play The Rover.[6]
Life and work
[edit]
Versions of her early life
[edit]
Information regarding Behn's life is scant, especially regarding her early years. This may be due to intentional obscuring on Behn's part.[7] One version of Behn's life tells that she was born to a barber named John Amis and his wife Amy; she is occasionally referred to as Aphra Amis Behn.[8] Another story has Behn born to a couple named Cooper.[8] The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696) states that Behn was born to Bartholomew Johnson, a barber, and Elizabeth Denham, a wet-nurse.[8][9] Colonel Thomas Colepeper, the only person who claimed to have known her as a child, wrote in Adversaria that she was born at "Sturry or Canterbury"[b] to a Mr Johnson and that she had a sister named Frances.[3] Another contemporary, Anne Finch, wrote that Behn was born in Wye in Kent, the "Daughter to a Barber".[3] In some accounts the profile of her father fits Eaffrey Johnson.[3] Although not much is known about her early childhood, one of her biographers, Janet Todd, believes that the common religious upbringing at the time could have heavily influenced much of her work. She argued that, throughout Behn's writings, her experiences in church were not of religious fervour, but instead chances for her to explore her sexual desires, desires that will later be shown through her plays. In one of her last plays she writes, "I have been at the Chapel; and seen so many Beaus, such a Number of Plumeys, I cou'd not tell which I shou'd look on the most...".[10]
Another version of her life says she was born as Aphra Johnson, daughter to Bartholomew and Elizabeth Johnson of Harbledown in Kent; her brother Edward died when he was six and a half years old.[2] She is said to have been betrothed to a man named John Halse in 1657.[11] It is suggested that this association with the Halse family is what gave her family the colonial connections that allowed them to travel to Suriname.[2] Her correspondence with William Scot, son of parliamentarian Thomas Scot, in the 1660s seems to corroborate her stories of her time in the American colony.[2]
Education
[edit]
Although Behn's writings show some form of education, it is not clear how she obtained the education that she did. It was somewhat taboo for women at the time to receive a formal education, Janet Todd notes. Although some aristocratic girls in the past had been able to receive some form of education, that was most likely not the case for Aphra Behn, based on the time she lived. Self-tuition was practised by European women during the 17th century, but it relied on the parents to allow that to happen. She most likely spent time copying poems and other writings, which not only inspired her but educated her. Aphra was not alone in her quest of self-tuition during this time period, and there are other notable women, such as the first female medical doctor Dorothea Leporin who made efforts to self-educate.[12] In some of her plays, Aphra Behn shows disdain towards this English ideal of not educating women formally. She also, though, seemed to believe that learning Greek and Latin, two of the classical languages at the time, was not as important as many authors thought it to be. She may have been influenced by another writer named Francis Kirkman who also lacked knowledge of Greek or Latin, who said "you shall not find my English, Greek, here; nor hard cramping Words, such as will stop you in the middle of your Story to consider what is meant by them...". Later in life, Aphra would make similar gestures to ideas revolving around formal education.[13]
Behn was born during the buildup of the English Civil War, a child of the political tensions of the time. One version of Behn's story has her travelling with a Bartholomew Johnson to the small English colony of Surinam (later captured by the Dutch). He was said to die on the journey, with his wife and children spending some months in the country, though there is no evidence of this.[8][14] During this trip Behn said she met an African slave leader, whose story formed the basis for one of her most famous works, Oroonoko.[8][9] It is possible that she acted as a spy in the colony.[3] There is little verifiable evidence to confirm any one story.[8] In Oroonoko, Behn gives herself the position of narrator and her first biographer accepted the assumption that Behn was the daughter of the lieutenant general of Surinam, as in the story. There is little evidence that this was the case, and none of her contemporaries acknowledge any aristocratic status.[3][8] Her correspondence with Thomas Scot during the time of her stay in Surinam seems to provide evidence for her stay there.[2] Also, later in her career when she found herself facing financial troubles in the Netherlands, her mother is said to have had audience with the King in an attempt to secure Aphra's way home, implying there may have been some form of connection with aristocracy, however small.[2] There is also no evidence that Oroonoko existed as an actual person or that any such slave revolt, as is featured in the story, really happened.
Writer Germaine Greer has called Behn "a palimpsest; she has scratched herself out," and biographer Janet Todd noted that Behn "has a lethal combination of obscurity, secrecy and staginess which makes her an uneasy fit for any narrative, speculative or factual. She is not so much a woman to be unmasked as an unending combination of masks".[14] Her name is not mentioned in tax or church records.[14] During her lifetime she was also known as Ann Behn, Mrs Behn, agent 160 and Astrea.[15]
Career
[edit]
Shortly after her supposed return to England from Surinam in 1664, Behn may have married Johan Behn (also written as Johann and John Behn). He may have been a merchant of German or Dutch extraction, possibly from Hamburg.[8][14] He died or the couple separated soon after 1664; however, from this point the writer used "Mrs Behn" as her professional name.[9] In correspondence, she occasionally signed her name as Behne or Beane.[2]
Behn may have had a Catholic upbringing. She once commented that she was "designed for a nun," and the fact that she had so many Catholic connections, such as Henry Neville who was later arrested for his Catholicism, would have aroused suspicions during the anti-Catholic fervour of the 1680s.[16] She was a monarchist, and her sympathy for the Stuarts, and particularly for the Catholic Duke of York may be demonstrated by her dedication of her play The Second Part of the Rover to him after he had been exiled for the second time.[16] Behn was dedicated to the restored King Charles II. As political parties emerged during this time, Behn became a Tory supporter.[16]
By 1666, Behn had become attached to the court, possibly through the influence of Thomas Culpeper and other associates. She has also been placed in Westminster, in lodgings close to Sir Philip Howard of Naworth, and that it was his connections to John Halsall and Duke Ablemarle that led to her eventual mission in the Netherlands.[2] The Second Anglo-Dutch War had broken out between England and the Netherlands in 1665, and she was recruited as a political spy in Antwerp on behalf of King Charles II, possibly under the auspices of courtier Thomas Killigrew.[3][8][9] This is the first well-documented account we have of her activities.[14] Her code name is said to have been Astrea, a name under which she later published many of her writings.[8] Her chief role was to establish an intimacy with William Scot, son of Thomas Scot, a regicide who had been executed in 1660. Scot was believed to be ready to become a spy in the English service and to report on the doings of the English exiles who were plotting against the King. Behn arrived in Bruges in July 1666, probably with two others, as London was wracked with plague and fire. Behn's job was to turn Scot into a double agent, but there is evidence that Scot betrayed her to the Dutch.[3][14]
Behn's exploits were not profitable, however; the cost of living shocked her, and she was left unprepared. One month after arrival, she pawned her jewellery.[14] King Charles was slow in paying (if he paid at all), either for her services or for her expenses whilst abroad. Money had to be borrowed so that Behn could return to London, where a year's petitioning of Charles for payment was unsuccessful. It may be that she was never paid by the crown. A warrant was issued for her arrest, but there is no evidence it was served or that she went to prison for her debt, though apocryphally it is often given as part of her history.[3][14]
Forced by debt and her husband's death, Behn began to work for the King's Company and the Duke's Company players as a scribe. She had, however, written poetry up until this point.[8] While she is recorded to have written before she adopted her debt, John Palmer said in a review of her works that, "Mrs. Behn wrote for a livelihood. Playwriting was her refuge from starvation and a debtor's prison."[17] The theatres that had been closed under Cromwell were now re-opening under Charles II, plays enjoying a revival. Under Charles, prevailing Puritan ethics were reversed in the fashionable society of London. The King associated with playwrights that poured scorn on marriage and the idea of consistency in love. Among the King's favourites was the Earl of Rochester John Wilmot, who became famous for his cynical libertinism.[18]
In 1613 Lady Elizabeth Cary had published The Tragedy of Miriam, in the 1650s Margaret Cavendish published two volumes of plays, and in 1663 a translation of Corneille's Pompey by Katherine Philips was performed in Dublin and London.[19] Women had been excluded from performing on the public stage before the English Civil War, but in Restoration England professional actresses played the women's parts.[20] In 1668, plays by women began to be staged in London.[21]
Behn's first play The Forc'd Marriage was a romantic tragicomedy on arranged marriages and was staged by the Duke's Company in September 1670. The performance ran for six nights, which was regarded as a good run for an unknown author. Six months later Behn's play The Amorous Prince was successfully staged. Again, Behn used the play to comment on the harmful effects of arranged marriages. Behn did not hide the fact that she was a woman, instead she made a point of it. When in 1673 the Dorset Garden Theatre staged The Dutch Lover, critics sabotaged the play on the grounds that the author was a woman. Behn tackled the critics head on in Epistle to the Reader.[22] She argued that women had been held back by their unjust exclusion from education, not their lack of ability. Critics of Behn were provided with ammunition because of her public liaison with John Hoyle, a bisexual lawyer who scandalised his contemporaries.[23]
After her third play, The Dutch Lover, failed, Behn falls off the public record for three years. It is speculated that she went travelling again, possibly in her capacity as a spy.[14] She gradually moved towards comic works, which proved more commercially successful,[9] publishing four plays in close succession. In 1676–77, she published Abdelazer, The Town-Fopp and The Rover. In early 1678 Sir Patient Fancy was published. This succession of box-office successes led to frequent attacks on Behn. She was attacked for her private life, the morality of her plays was questioned and she was accused of plagiarising The Rover. Behn countered these public attacks in the prefaces of her published plays. In the preface to Sir Patient Fancy she argued that she was being singled out because she was a woman, while male playwrights were free to live the most scandalous lives and write bawdy plays.[24]
By the late 1670s Behn was among the leading playwrights of England. During the 1670s and 1680s she was one of the most productive playwrights in Britain, second only to Poet Laureate John Dryden.[15][25] Her plays were staged frequently and attended by the King. Behn became friends with notable writers of the day, including John Dryden, Elizabeth Barry, John Hoyle, Thomas Otway and Edward Ravenscroft, and was acknowledged as a part of the circle of the Earl of Rochester.[3][14] The Rover became a favourite at the King's court.
Because Charles II had no heir, a prolonged political crisis ensued. Behn became heavily involved in the political debate about the succession. Mass hysteria commenced as in 1678 the rumoured Popish Plot suggested the King should be replaced with his Roman Catholic brother James. Political parties developed, the Whigs wanted to exclude James, while the Tories did not believe succession should be altered in any way. Behn supported the Tory position and in the two years between 1681 and 1682 produced five plays to discredit the Whigs.[citation needed] Behn often used her writings to attack the parliamentary Whigs claiming, "In public spirits call’d, good o' th' Commonwealth... So tho' by different ways the fever seize...in all 'tis one and the same mad disease." This was Behn's reproach to parliament which had denied the king funds.[16] The London audience, mainly Tory sympathisers, attended the plays in large numbers. But a warrant was issued for Behn's arrest on the order of King Charles II when she criticized James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of the King, in the epilogue to the anonymously published Romulus and Hersilia (1682).[26] Charles II eventually dissolved the Cavalier Parliament and James II succeeded him in 1685.
Final years and death
[edit]
In her last four years, Behn's health began to fail, beset by poverty and debt, but she continued to write ferociously, though it became increasingly hard for her to hold a pen.[citation needed]
As audience numbers declined, theatres staged mainly old works to save costs.[citation needed] Nevertheless, Behn staged The Luckey Chance in 1686. In response to the criticism levelled at the play, she articulated a long and passionate defence of women writers in the preface of the play when it was published in the following year.[27] Her play The Emperor of the Moon was staged and published in 1687; it became one of her longest-running plays.[26]
In the 1680s, she began to publish prose. Her first prose work might have been the three-part Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, anonymously published between 1684 and 1687. The novels were inspired by a contemporary scandal, which saw Lord Grey elope with his sister-in-law Lady Henrietta Berkeley.[28] At the time of publication, Love-Letters was very popular and eventually went through more than 16 editions before 1800.[29]
She published five prose works under her own name: La Montre: or, the Lover's Watch (1686), The Fair Jilt (1688), Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave (1688), The History of the Nun (1689) and The Lucky Mistake (1689). Oroonoko, her best-known prose work, was published less than a year before her death. It is the story of the enslaved Oroonoko and his love Imoinda, possibly based on Behn's travel to Surinam twenty years earlier.[29]
She also translated from the French and Latin, publishing translations of Tallement, La Rochefoucauld, Fontenelle and Brilhac. The two translations of Fontenelle's work were: A Discovery of New Worlds (Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes), a popularisation of astronomy written as a novel in a form similar to her own work, but with her new, religiously oriented preface;[9] and The History of Oracles (Histoire des Oracles). She translated Brilhac's Agnes de Castro.[30] In her final days, she translated "Of Trees" ("Sylva"), the sixth and final book of Abraham Cowley's Six Books of Plants (Plantarum libri sex).
She died on 16 April 1689, and was buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on her tombstone reads: "Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality."[31] She was quoted as stating that she had led a "life dedicated to pleasure and poetry."[3][14][32]
Legacy and re-evaluation
[edit]
Following Behn's death, new female dramatists such as Delarivier Manley, Mary Pix, Susanna Centlivre and Catherine Trotter acknowledged Behn as their most vital predecessor, who opened up public space for women writers.[3][15] Three posthumous collections of her prose, including a number of previously unpublished pieces attributed to her, were published by the bookseller Samuel Briscoe: The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1696), All the Histories and Novels Written by the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1698) and Histories, Novels, and Translations Written by the Most Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1700).[33] Greer considers Briscoe to have been an unreliable source and it's possible that not all of these works were written by Behn.[34]
Until the mid-20th century Behn was repeatedly dismissed as a morally depraved minor writer and her literary work was marginalised and often dismissed outright. In the 18th century her literary work was scandalised as lewd by Thomas Brown, William Wycherley, Richard Steele and John Duncombe. Alexander Pope penned the famous lines "The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed!". In the 19th century Mary Hays, Matilda Betham, Alexander Dyce, Jane Williams and Julia Kavanagh decided that Behn's writings were unfit to read, because they were corrupt and deplorable. Among the few critics who believed that Behn was an important writer were Leigh Hunt, William Forsyth and William Henry Hudson.[35]
The life and times of Behn were recounted by a long line of biographers, among them Dyce, Edmund Gosse, Ernest Bernbaum, Montague Summers, Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf, George Woodcock, William J. Cameron and Frederick Link.[36]
Of Behn's considerable literary output only Oroonoko was seriously considered by literary scholars. This book, published in 1688, is regarded as one of the first abolitionist and humanitarian novels published in the English language.[37] In 1696 it was adapted for the stage by Thomas Southerne and continuously performed throughout the 18th century. In 1745 the novel was translated into French, going through seven French editions. It is credited as precursor to Jean-Jaques Rousseau's Discourses on Inequality.
In 1915, Montague Summers, an author of scholarly works on the English drama of the 17th century, published a six-volume collection of her work, in hopes of rehabilitating her reputation. Summers was fiercely passionate about the work of Behn and found himself incredibly devoted to the appreciation of 17th century literature.[17]
Since the 1970s Behn's literary works have been re-evaluated by feminist critics and writers. Behn was rediscovered as a significant female writer by Maureen Duffy, Angeline Goreau, Ruth Perry, Hilda Lee Smith, Moira Ferguson, Jane Spencer, Dale Spender, Elaine Hobby and Janet Todd. This led to the reprinting of her works. The Rover was republished in 1967, Oroonoko was republished in 1973, Love Letters between a Nobleman and His Sisters was published again in 1987 and The Lucky Chance was reprinted in 1988.[38] Felix Schelling wrote in The Cambridge History of English Literature, that she was "a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature... catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations," and that, "Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man." Edmund Gosse remarked that she was, "...the George Sand of the Restoration".[39]
The criticism of Behn's poetry focuses on the themes of gender, sexuality, femininity, pleasure, and love. A feminist critique tends to focus on Behn's inclusion of female pleasure and sexuality in her poetry, which was a radical concept at the time she was writing. Like her contemporary male libertines, she wrote freely about sex. In the infamous poem "The Disappointment" she wrote a comic account of male impotence from a woman's perspective.[23] Critics Lisa Zeitz and Peter Thoms contend that the poem "playfully and wittily questions conventional gender roles and the structures of oppression which they support".[40] One critic, Alison Conway, views Behn as instrumental to the formation of modern thought around the female gender and sexuality: "Behn wrote about these subjects before the technologies of sexuality we now associate were in place, which is, in part, why she proves so hard to situate in the trajectories most familiar to us".[41] Virginia Woolf wrote, in A Room of One's Own:
All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds... Behn proved that money could be made by writing at the sacrifice, perhaps, of certain agreeable qualities; and so by degrees writing became not merely a sign of folly and a distracted mind but was of practical importance.[42]
The current project of the Canterbury Commemoration Society is to raise a statue to Canterbury born Aphra Behn to stand in the city.[43] In partnership with local organisations, Canterbury Christ Church University announced, in September 2023, plans for a year long celebration of Behn's connection to Canterbury which would involve talks, a one-woman show, walks, and exhibitions, some hosted within the Canterbury Festival.[44]
Works
[edit]
Plays
[edit]
The Forc'd Marriage (performed 1670; published 1671)
The Amorous Prince (1671)
The Dutch Lover (1673)
Abdelazer (performed 1676; published 1677)
The Town-Fopp (1676)
The Debauchee (1677), an adaptation, attribution disputed
The Rover (1677)
The Counterfeit Bridegroom (1677), attribution disputed
Sir Patient Fancy (1678)
The Feign'd Curtizans (1679)
The Young King (performed 1679; published 1683)
The Revenge (1680), an adaptation, attribution disputed
The Second Part of the Rover (performed 1680; published 1681)
The False Count (performed 1681; published 1682)
The Roundheads (performed 1681; published 1682)
The City-Heiress (1682)
Like Father, Like Son (1682), lost play
Prologue and epilogue to anonymously published Romulus and Hersilia (1682)
The Luckey Chance (performed 1686; published 1687)
The Emperor of the Moon (1687)
Plays posthumously published
The Widdow Ranter (performed 1689; published 1690)[45]
The Younger Brother, or, the Amorous Jilt (1696)
Poetry collections
[edit]
Poems upon Several Occasions (1684)[46]
Miscellany, Being a Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1685)
A Miscellany of New Poems by Several Hands (1688)[47]
Prose
[edit]
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684–1687), published anonymously in three parts, attribution disputed[34]
La Montre: or, the Lover's Watch (1686), loose translation/adaptation of a novel by Bonnecorse[48]
The Fair Jilt (1688)[49]
Oroonoko (1688)[50]
The History of the Nun: or, the Fair Vow-Breaker (1689)[51]
The Lucky Mistake (1689)[52]
Prose posthumously published, attribution disputed[34]
The Adventure of the Black Lady
The Court of the King of Bantam
The Unfortunate Bride
The Unfortunate Happy Lady
The Unhappy Mistake
The Wandring Beauty
Translations
[edit]
Ovid: "A Paraphrase on Oenone to Paris", in John Dryden's and Jacob Tonson's Ovid's Epistles (1680).[53][54]
Paul Tallement: A Voyage to the Island of Love (1684), published with Poems upon Several Occasions. Translation of Voyage de l'isle d'amour.[46]
La Rochefoucauld: Reflections on Morality, or, Seneca Unmasqued (1685), published with Miscellany, Being a Collection of Poems by Several Hands. Translation of Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morale (1675 edition)[55]
Paul Tallement: Lycidus; or, the Lover in Fashion (1688), published with A Miscellany of New Poems by Several Hands. Translation of Le Second voyage de l'isle d'amour.[47]
Fontenelle: The History of Oracles (1688). Translation of Histoire des Oracles.[56]
Fontenelle: A Discovery of New Worlds (1688). Translation of Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1688)[57]
Jean-Baptiste de Brilhac: Agnes de Castro, or, the Force of Generous Love (1688). Translation of Agnes de Castro, Nouvelle Portugaise (1688)[58]
Abraham Cowley: "Of Trees" ("Sylva"), in Six Books of Plants (1689). Translation of the sixth book of Plantarum libri sex (1668).[59]
In popular culture
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Behn's life has been adapted for the stage in the 2014 play Empress of the Moon: The Lives of Aphra Behn by Chris Braak, and the 2015 play [exit Mrs Behn] or, The Leo Play by Christopher VanderArk.[60] She is one of the characters in the 2010 play Or, by Liz Duffy Adams.[61][62] Behn appears as a character in Daniel O'Mahony's Newtons Sleep, in Philip José Farmer's The Magic Labyrinth and Gods of Riverworld, in Molly Brown's Invitation to a Funeral (1999), in Susanna Gregory’s "Blood On The Strand", and in Diana Norman's The Vizard Mask. She is referred to in Patrick O'Brian's novel Desolation Island. Liz Duffy Adams produced Or,, a 2009 play about her life.[63] The 2019 Big Finish Short Trip audio play The Astrea Conspiracy features Behn alongside The Doctor, voiced by actress Neve McIntosh.[64] In recognition of her pioneering role in women's literature, Behn was featured during the "Her Story" video tribute to notable women on U2's North American tour in 2017 for the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree.[65]
Biographies and writings based on her life
[edit]
Duffy, Maureen (1977). The Passionate Shepherdess. The first wholly scholarly new biography of Behn; the first to identify Behn's birth name.
Goreau, Angeline (1980). Reconstructing Aphra: a social biography of Aphra Behn. New York: Dial Press. ISBN 0-8037-7478-8.
Goreau, Angeline (1983). "Aphra Behn: A scandal to modesty (c. 1640–1689)". In Spender, Dale (ed.). Feminist theorists: Three centuries of key women thinkers. Pantheon. pp. 8–27. ISBN 0-394-53438-7.
Hughes, Derek (2001). The Theatre of Aphra Behn. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-76030-1.
Todd, Janet (1997). The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2455-5. A comprehensively researched biography of Behn, with new material on her life as a spy.
Janet Todd, Aphra Behn: A Secret Life. ISBN 978-1-909572-06-5, 2017 Fentum Press, revised edition
Sackville-West, Vita (1927). Aphra Behn – The Incomparable Astrea. Gerald Howe. A view of Behn more sympathetic and laudatory than Woolf's.
Woolf, Virginia (1929). A Room of One's Own. Only one section deals with Behn, but it served as a starting point for the feminist rediscovery of Behn's role.
Huntting, Nancy. "What Is Triumph in Love? with a consideration of Aphra Behn".
Greer, Germaine (1995). Slip-Shod Sibyls. Two chapters deal with Aphra Behn with emphasis on her character as a poet
Hutner, Heidi (1993). Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813914435.
Hutchinson, John (1892). "Afra Behn" . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. pp. 15–163.
Britland, Karen (2021). "Aphra Behn's First Marriage?". The Seventeenth Century, 36:1. 33–53.
Hilton, Lisa (2024). The Scandal of the Century. Michael Joseph, 352 pp.
Marsh, Patricia (2024). Three Faces. The Conrad Press. ISBN 978-1-916966-60-4 A novel based on the known facts of Behn's life.
Notes
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References
[edit]
Further reading
[edit]
Todd, Janet. The Works of Aphra Behn. 7 vols. Ohio State University Press, 1992–1996. (Currently most up-to-date edition of her collected works)
O'Donnell, Mary Ann. Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources. 2nd Edition. Ashgate, 2004.
Spencer, Jane. Aphra Behn's Afterlife. Oxford University Press. 2000.
Aphra Behn Online: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830. e-journal sponsored by the Aphra Behn Society and the University of South Florida. 2011–
Hobby, Elaine. Virtue of necessity: English women's writing 1649–88. University of Michigan 1989.
Lewcock, Dawn. Aphra Behn studies: More for seeing than hearing: Behn and the use of theatre. Ed. Todd, Janet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Brockhaus, Cathrin, Aphra Behn und ihre Londoner Komödien: Die Dramatikerin und ihr Werk im England des ausgehenden 17. Jahrhunderts, 1998.
Todd, Janet (1998). The critical fortunes of Aphra Behn. Columbia, SC: Camden House. pp. 69–72. ISBN 978-1571131652.
Owens, W. R. (1996). Shakespeare, Aphra Behn, and the canon. New York: Routledge in association with the Open University. ISBN 978-0415135757.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Behn, Aphra" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Gosse, Edmund (1885). "Behn, Afra" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, Jr., and Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama. ISBN 978-0393921519
Altaba-Artal, Dolors. Aphra Behn's English Feminism: Wit and Satire, Susquehanna University Press, Selinsgrove, PA, 1999.
Hughes, Derek. The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn. Cambridge University Press. 2004.
Copeland, N. E. (2004). Staging gender in behn and centlivre: Women's comedy and the theatre. Ashgate
Wallace, David S. "The White Female as Effigy and the Black Female as Surrogate in Janet. Schaw's Journal of a Lady of Quality and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park." Studies in the Literary Imagination, vol. 47, no. 2, 2014, pp. 117.
Trofimova, Violetta. "First Encounters of Europeans and Africans with Native Americans in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: White Woman, Black Prince and Noble Savages." SEDERI. Sociedad Española De Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses, vol. 28, no. 28, 2018, pp. 119–128
Holmesland, Oddvar. Utopian Negotiation: Aphra Behn & Margaret Cavendish, 2013. Print.
Marshall, Alan. "Memorialls for Mrs Affora": Aphra Behn and the Restoration Intelligence World." Women's Writing : The Elizabethan to Victorian Period, vol. 22, no. 1, 2015, pp. 13–33.
Dominique, Lyndon J. Imoinda's Shade: Marriage and the African Woman in Eighteenth-Century British Literature, 1759–1808. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012. Print.
Benítez-Rojo, Antonio. "The Caribbean: From a Sea Basin to an Atlantic Network." The Southern Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 4, 2018, pp. 196–206.
Alexander, William. The history of women, from the earliest antiquity, to the present time; giving some account of almost every interesting particular concerning that sex, among all nations, ancient and modern. By William Alexander, M.D. In two volumes. ... Vol. 2, printed by J.A. Husband, for Messrs. S. Price, R. Cross, J. Potts, L. Flin, T. Walker, W. Wilson, C. Jenkin, J. Exshaw, J. Beatty, L. White, M, DCC, LXXIX. [1779]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CW0101002305/ECCO?u=maine_orono&sid=bookmark-ECCO&xid=b35feb3c&pg=1. Accessed 20 September 2021.
Krueger, Misty, Diana Epelbaum, Shelby Johnson, Grace Gomashie, Pam Perkins, Ula L. Klein, Jennifer Golightly, Alexis McQuigge, Octavia Cox, and Victoria Barnett-Woods. Transatlantic Women Travelers, 1688–1843, 2021. Internet resource.
Waller, Gary F. The Female Baroque in Early Modern English Literary Culture: From Mary Sidney to Aphra Behn, 2020. Internet resource.
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WARNING: This review contains spoilers for a 45-year old movie that you really should already have seen by now.
I was obsessed with Alien for years before I ever saw it.
The film came out in the summer of 1979, the year I turned fourteen. I remember the remarkably effective ads on TV, featuring an unearthly egg, cratered like the moon (and looking nothing like the eggs seen in the movie, by the way) starting to hatch, accompanied by that immortal tagline: In space no one can hear you scream. Woo! Cue the tingling of the spine.
And then I read issues of Omni magazine that featured articles and photos from the movie, showcasing designer H.R. Giger’s viscid creations: the ancient spacecraft shaped like a malformed horseshoe, slick corridors that seemed like the inside of a shark’s intestines, and the glutinous podlike eggs. There were no images of the alien* itself, of course, to limit spoilers, but what I could see was enough to get me hooked. This vision of spaceship that seemed more organic than mechanical was a kind of science fiction far removed from “Star Trek” and Star Wars.
But of course I could not see it then. At that time, I only went to the movies if someone in the family took me, and none of them was irresponsible to take me to a hard-R-rated horror flick, revolutionary visuals or no. And I wasn’t ready to see it, really; I was a bit too susceptible to the effects of horror movies and television. When I was a few years younger, I would eagerly watch “The Night Stalker” on TV, and then have to spend the night in my parents’ bed because I was too terrified to be alone. Later, after watching John Carpenter’s Halloween, edited and sanitized for TV though it was, I could not sleep a wink afterwards. So, even at 14, I was self-aware enough to know that I was not yet mentally prepared to see whatever horrible things the alien did to people.
At least, not on celluloid. In the local bookstore, I found a comic adaptation of the movie (by comic legends Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, though their names were unfamiliar to me at the time), which I paged through with eager hands. Later, I borrowed the book of film’s novelization, by Alan Dean Foster (the king of SF movie novelizations in the late seventies and eighties; he must have written about thirty of them), which prissily omitted all the profanity but kept all the slime and blood. These were poor substitutes for the actual movie, to be sure, but they kept me turning the pages.
It was not until my college years that I finally saw the film itself and, miraculously, it did not disappoint. Naturally, by that point I knew the plot backwards and forwards, down to the order that the crew of the space freighter Nostromo get picked off by the alien, but for the first time I could appreciate Ridley’s Scott’s masterful direction, with the suspense slowly ratcheting up through the first half as the crew land on a forbidding planet, investigate the derelict spacecraft, and then begin nosing among those alien pods, before turning up the horror factor as the alien goes on its killing spree. The visual design is key, not just with the organic derelict craft, but also with the Nostromo itself, whose interiors range from claustrophobic corridors to sterile medical labs to vast storerooms, all of which come across as sinister and unsettling places.
Another element that I could only appreciate by seeing the movie was the quality of the cast. This must be one of the best ensemble of actors to appear together in a horror film: Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, Veronica Cartwright, along with a little-known actress named Sigourney Weaver.
Weaver’s Ripley, the film’s sole survivor (aside from Jones the cat) of the alien’s rampage, would become the character primarily associated with the Alien franchise — so much so that it’s hard to watch the movie and not see her as the heroine, whose survival is a foregone conclusion. However, she’s not actually played that way through most of the film. From the start, it’s Skerritt, playing the ship’s captain, who dominates the scenes and drives most of the action. Indeed, of all the cast, Ripley at first seems the most minor of characters. Certainly, Weaver was the least known of all the cast in 1979. In her early scenes, Ripley is officious and overly by-the-book, hardly what you’d call an action hero. But Alien is not an action movie.
In subsequent films of the franchise, Ripley is an action hero, most notably in James Cameron’s follow-up Aliens. There is much discussion in fan pages and movie review of which is better, Scott’s or Cameron’s movie, and more often than not (in the reviews I have seen) the consensus is that the latter is better, and the reason is often given that Cameron and Weaver made Ripley a true female action hero, a kick-ass woman armed to the teeth who could spit bullets and drop one-liners with the same panache as Stallone or Schwarzenegger.
I have to say that my own preference for Alien over Aliens is actually for pretty much the same reason. I find the flawed, everywomannish Ripley of the first movie far more interesting than the blaster-toting badass of the second. Not, I hasten to add, because I have any objection to having female action heroes, but because I generally find “ordinary” protagonists more interesting than superheroes. (I never really cared much for those Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies, either.) In the latter part of Alien, right up through the end, Ripley is half-insane with fear, muttering to herself hysterically as she sets the Nostromo’s self-destruct sequence and runs for the escape pod. There’s no grandstanding “Get away from her, you bitch!” moment, and this makes the climax far more terrifying, and more real, than that of Aliens.
I don’t want to give the impression that I disliked Cameron’s film; I think he did a great job of creating a sequel that respected the original but was not a simple retread. If it’s a bit more cartoonish in plot and characterization, it’s nonetheless engaging and entertaining. The same could not be said for any of the following sequels, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection. As for Scott’s 21st Century prequels, Prometheus and Alien Covenant, the less said the better. Not only are they filled with characters who make one stupid decision after another, but they provide answers to mysteries better left unsolved, with answers that are pretty stupid, as well.
Alien really works best if you ignore the excess baggage of the extended franchise and watch it as audience watched it in 1979: a simple and economical tale of a truly nasty boogeyman in a spacebound haunted house.
*Somewhere along the line, it became the norm in fandom to call the aliens “xenomorphs,” which I think is a ridiculous word, ugly in all the wrong ways. The term is never used at all in the first movie, so I will not do so here.
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey can be considered the Citizen Kane of science fiction, in that it features a revolutionary visual style (a style matched with a bit of bravado, as if the director were saying “Look what I can do!”) that had an outsized influence on the movies that followed it. And, like Kane, it was controversial when it came out, and remains so to this day, with many people considering it arty and pretentious.
There’s no question that 2001 can be a difficult film to watch. It moves at a deliberate pace, not willing to speed up to satisfy those with short attention spans. The long and seemingly endless shots of spacecraft in motion can try the patience of the most ardent fan. When the movie was released in 1968, such sequences were intended to instill a sense of awe in the audience, giving them glimpses of space and future technology far beyond what had been seen in earlier sf films — though, even then, many viewers got restless waiting for something to happen. (Supposedly, Rock Hudson walked out of the premiere screening, muttering “What is this bullshit?”) In this day and age, when any hack moviemaker has access to technology far beyond that available to Kubrick and special effects director Douglas Trumbull, a modern viewer might well wonder what the big deal is. And where are the damned aliens already?
Obviously, given the fact that I’m including 2001 in my Ten Best list, I think the movie is still a big deal. I first saw it on TV when I was about fifteen. Catching the broadcast a small television, broken up by ads, is not of course the ideal way of seeing any movie, let alone 2001, which depends on its visuals for much of its power. Certainly, I didn’t fully appreciate the film until I saw it years later on the silver screen. But even on first viewing, I grasped that this was a very different kind of science fiction movie — or movie of any kind — than any I’d seen before. It was a story told elliptically, with images rather than words, with important elements (like those damned aliens) completely unseen, existing only in negative space.
Soon after seeing the movie, I read Arthur C. Clarke’s novelization. Clarke was of course instrumental in the creation of the movie, which was inspired by his short story “The Sentinel.” Yet I found the book disappointing; it lacked the radical power of the film. And I realized that this was because the novel was (of course) told with words, which by their very nature make meaning explicit. In Kubrick’s film, as opposed to Clarke’s novel, the words are restricted to the dialog, which is mostly mundane and trivial. The movie’s meaning is implicit — which makes watching it both more difficult and more rewarding than reading the novel.
I don’t want to fault Clarke too much. He remains one of the great sf writers of the mid 20th Century, with Childhood’s End being a classic that has not faded with age. And it must be said that his 2001 is far better written than your average movie novelization. But his narrative by its very nature takes away the very thing that makes 2001 the classic that it is. It’s like the Cliff’s Notes for the movie. (And don’t get me started on 2010: The Year We Make Contact, in which Clarke felt it necessary to explain exactly why the computer HAL went on a rampage. Some mysteries are better left as mysteries. Did Leonardo need to tell us why the Mona Lisa was smiling?) If you haven’t seen the movie yet (and why haven’t you?) wait until after you’ve done so to read the novel. In fact, wait a few weeks, or months, and let the movie percolate through your mind for a while before you pick up the book.
I said before that 2001 has been an influential movie, and that is certainly true in so far as its design and visual effects. But really, I would argue that it hasn’t been influential enough. There have been very few movies since (certainly not mainstream ones) that have engaged their audiences with such a distinctive visual, non-verbal style. (Offhand, for American films, I can think of David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life. I may be the only person on Earth to have actually liked the latter. Or seen it, for that matter.) On the whole, 2001 was a giant step forward in the possibility of film, and it’s a pity that so few have followed up on it.
Looking over what I have written here, I realize I’ve said precious little about the movie itself. Perhaps that’s just as well. The movie resists any kind of pat summary (“Oh, it’s about the evolution of humankind, the danger of artificial intelligence, and the pleasures of eating a decent meal!”) and seems lessened by any attempts to describe it.
See the movie on as large a screen as possible. Allow yourself to fall into its slow and inexorable rhythm. If you don’t get it, or you find it pretentious twaddle, then watch it again. Notice the themes that cross the various segments of the movie: Food. Tools. Murder. Intelligence. Sleep. Growth. Wonder. Things that link all of humanity from primitive hominids to angelic star-children. For all the starkness of its scenes in deep space, the movie is rich with meaning and life.
And I dare you not to be moved when HAL sings “Daisy Bell.”
This if the first of a series of posts about my ten all-time favorite science fiction movies. Note that I do not claim that these are the best sf movies (though I think all of them are legitimately great), but the ones that, for whatever reason, push my particular buttons. I’ll be treating them in chronological order.
I love 50’s science fiction movies, despite the fact that many if not most of them are terrible. Made in a decade that had a stick up its butt, they tend to suffer from a severe case of stodginess, with earnest humans (nearly always men) confronting menaces from beyond, either here on Earth or in what was then called “outer space.” Even the best sf movies from the decade — The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, The Thing from Another World, It Came from Outer Space, and so on — carry this weight of stodginess with them. The tentacles of irreverence that were poking into the corners of popular culture — in, say, Mad magazine, “The Ernie Kovacs Show,” and the songs of Little Richard — never got their grasp on the Hollywood studios churning out endless movies about square-jawed heroes punching aliens in the face.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (from 1956) is the best sf movie of the decade not because it transcends that stodginess, but because it makes the stodginess work for it. Set in the small California town of Santa Mira, where everyone is white and middle class and totally square (the cast of characters includes children and adults, but no teenagers or twentysomethings), the movie depicts what happens when the residents are replaced one by one by alien pod people who are absolutely identical to the originals, except for being even more stodgy (having no emotions, desires, or dreams). While it was almost certainly not in the creators’ minds, one can see the pod invasion as an illustration of what Fifties conformity culture might be if carried to extremes.
The two protagonists, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) and his old flame Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) at first glance are as stiff and formal as everyone else in town. Miles is never without a coat and tie (except for the scenes when he’s in a bathrobe) and Dana swans about in a fancy strapless dress as she goes about her daily routine. But, significantly, they’re both divorced, an unexpected characterization for a time when divorce was considered morally questionable. And they’re both likeable people, generally interested in helping their friends and neighbors, which starts the plot rolling as they investigate what is starting a seeming outbreak of mass hysteria, when these friends and neighbors start insisting that their loved ones have been replaced by imposters. Soon enough, Miles and Becky find themselves surrounded by hostile creatures bearing the faces of their friends.
The direction, by Don Siegel (who would go one to direct the Clint Eastwood flicks Dirty Harry and The Beguiled, among others) is quite effective, considering the clear limitations in the budget. Body Snatchers starts off as a creepy mystery (what’s the cause of this seeming hysteria?). Then it becomes a horror movie, as Miles and Becky, and their friends Jack and Theodora (played by King Donovan and Carolyn Jones — yes, Morticia Addams) find first a blank, featureless body that slowly becomes a copy of Jack, and then (in a truly unsettling scene) a set of giant seed pods that disgorge frothy duplicates of all four of them in a truly unsettling scene. The final act of the movie is an exercise of true paranoia, as Miles and Becky realize they are the only two left in town who have not been assimilated, and try to escape with their souls intact.
There are many who prefer Philip Kaufman’s remake of 1978, which does have a lot to recommend it, including Donald Sutherland’s deft performance as the lead, Leonard Nimoy as a pop psychiatrist, and a lot of gooey visuals. (There were additional remakes in 1994 and 2007 which I didn’t see; I’m not sure anyone did.) Set in urban San Francisco, Kaufman’s version has a different feel and overall theme than the original (urban alienation vs. rural assimilation). I find myself preferring the simplicity and directness of the original; it’s far more terrifying to have your friends, rather than complete strangers, turn into soulless imposters.
The 1956 version is generally faithful to Jack Finney’s novel, but has (surprisingly for a Hollywood film) a more depressing ending. In the book, Miles and friends are able to defeat the aliens, and the pods end up leaving Earth. In the original cut of the movie, Miles is the only one in Santa Mira to escape the pods, and he ends up running up and down a freeway, raving like a maniac: “They’re coming! You’re next! You’re next!” The studio would not allow that to stand, however, and Seigel was forced to add a framing device in which Miles tells his story to a skeptical doctor (While Bissell, who appeared in half the sf movies coming out of Hollywood in the 50s), as word comes in that an overturned truck has spilled giant seed pods all over the highway. (Which is still a far cry from the book’s happy ending.)
Ever since the movie was released, there has been debate about its meaning. Do the pod people symbolize Communist infiltrators? Or McCarthyite demagogues? Siegel insisted that there was no political meaning, but of course no one had paid any attention to that. Honestly, the concept of friends and family taken over by an alien hive mind can be adapted for any age and political outlook; you could just as easily say the pod people are MAGA-ites, or the Woke. Conformity is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
Regular visitors to my website, of whom I have none, will have noticed that (a) I haven’t posted anything in the better part of a year, and (b) I did recently make a slight change to the site banner, replacing the phrase “Playwright at Large” with “Writer at Large.” Behind that, my friends, lies a story.
I have noted in a previous posts that being a playwright during a pandemic is not easy. The truth is, it’s no cakewalk being a playwright even when there isn’t a virus keeping people out of enclosed public spaces. Even before Covid-19 rang down the curtains on theaters everywhere, I had reached something of an impasse in my playwriting career. The only full-length play of mine that was getting any productions was Absence, and that hadn’t gotten any traction since its Italian revival in early 2019. I found that I was even having difficulty getting my shorter plays produced. I found it harder and harder to come up with ideas for writing plays, short or long. Not to put too fine a point on it, the magic had gone out of my dramatic writing.
The year-long shutdown of live theater thus seemed an opportune moment to reassess my writing career. I found that I still had the urge to write, but that urge was not pointing to the writing of plays. Rather, I found myself steering (or maybe being steered) back to my first love, fantastic fiction.
When I first had the urge to become a writer, back in my early teens, it was not my aspiration to be a dramatist. No, what I dreamed of was to be a writer of fantasy and/or science fiction. (These were broadly referred to as “speculative fiction,” a term which always sounded awkward to me.) From an early age, I read a ridiculous amount of fantasy: I loved the work of J.R.R. Tolkien (of course), Lewis Carroll, Lloyd Alexander, Alan Garner, and many others. As I entered my teens, my tastes grew to include science fiction from soft to hard: Isaac Asimov, Philip José Farmer, Frank Herbert, and Philip K. Dick. I particularly liked the work of those authors who danced on the edge between the two categories, like Harlan Ellison and Gene Wolfe. I decided that I was going to be an f/sf writer myself.
And yet that didn’t happen. Or at least it took a long time. I would start writing stories but get bogged down almost as soon as I started. Over the years, I would put my ambition away for a while and pursue some other vocation, but somehow I would always come back to writing. I felt like a writer, even if I wasn’t doing any of it.
About twenty years ago, I finally put some effort into writing a few stories, and managed to complete some of them. I sent them out to various publishers, and they were promptly (well, sometimes not so promptly) rejected. And quite understandably; they were terrible. I wasn’t ready to be an s/sf writer yet, it seemed.
I changed gears then, and tried writing for children. I wrote two books, one a comic fantasy and one a comic sf tale, that I thought were quite good. I sent them out to agents who did not share that opinion.
It was about then that I wrote my first short play, “The Little Death.” I brought it before the community theater group with whom I’d been working as an actor, and offered to direct it as part of their group of summer one-acts. (The was in 2005.) To my amazement, the board accepted it, and to my further amazement it did quite well. Having finally gotten some positive feedback on my writing, I plunged into my career as a playwright, getting many short plays produced at festivals, getting my M.F.A. in playwriting at Boston University, and then finally getting a production of my full-length play Absence at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in 2014. I seemed to have made it.
But I had not made it. Absence got a few more productions, but none of the other full-length plays of mine got any traction, and as noted above I started having less and less success with my short plays.
And so I returned to my first love, fantastic fiction. (Wait, I said that already.) I started working on short stories, and quickly found the genre that worked for me: Darkly comic fantasies. (Perhaps not surprisingly, as most of my best plays fall under that category. A major exception is Absence which, being a serious tale about a woman suffering from dementia, is something of an outlier in my work.)
I found, when rereading what I’d written, that I rather enjoyed it, and so began submitting my work to various print and online magazines with hope. For a long time, that hope seemed baseless; I kept receiving rejection after rejection. Well, that’s par for the course for a fledgling writer, I suppose. It didn’t help that there must have been thousands of fledgling writers around the world who similarly found themselves stuck at home with nothing better to do than pound out stories and send them off, so that the slush piles must have been even bigger (and slushier) than usual.
And then one day the metaphorical sun rose on my new career: my novelette “On Milligan Street” had been accepted by the e-magazine GigaNotoSaurus.org, and would (will) be published by them on September 1. (Cheers and applause from the audience.)
It’s taken me forty years, but I’ve at last become an f/sf writer.
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This volume consists of some 3,000 entries of plays, monologues, and entertainments for amateur groups written before 19...
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https://dokumen.pub/drama-by-women-to-1900-a-bibliography-of-american-and-british-writers-9781442653559.html
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Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Selected sources
Abbreviations of sources
The Bibliography
Appendices
Subject index
Index of adaptions and translations
Citation preview
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Home \ 5th Avenue Theatre
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American Place Theatre Company records
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The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 in New York City as a not-for-profit theater dedicated to aid in the advancement of learning in all aspects of the dramatic and related arts, including the development and advancement in writing, direction, and production of new plays by contemporary authors. The American Place Theatre was known for taking risks and producing experimental plays that demonstrated minority or immigrant experiences. Wynn Handman co-founded the American Place Theatre with actors Sidney Lanier and Michael Tolan. Handman became the artistic director, as well as the chief financial officer, positions he still holds at the time of this writing (2012), and has taught acting at his own studio since the 1950s. The American Place Theatre, originally located at Saint Clement's Church at 423 West 46th Street, officially opened with a production of The Old Glory, a trilogy of one-act plays by the poet Robert Lowell.
The American Place Theatre sought to keep the theater free from commercial pressures, performing only four to six original works a season to a subscription audience. In addition to these productions, the American Place Theatre staged rehearsed readings, called works-in-progress, which collected feedback on the play from audience members. Early playwrights who premiered their work at the American Place Theatre included Ed Bullins, Frank Chin, Phillip Hayes Dean, Jack Gelber, Robert Lowell, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Reynolds, Ronald Ribman, Anne Sexton, Sam Shephard, and Steve Tesich. In 1971, the theater moved to a new location at 111 West 46th Street, part of a 1967 zoning resolution of the Theatre District that allowed developers height or plot rights in exchange for constructing a theater in their building. This allowed the American Place Theatre to move into a larger theater, as well as have a smaller, cafe-style performance space it called the SubPlot Cabaret.
In the 1970s, the American Place Theatre began broadening its scope in terms of audience and programming. In 1976, it began selling single performance tickets to non-subscribers in order to reach a wider audience. Two important programs were founded, the American Humorists' Series in 1974 and The Women's Project in 1978. The American Humorists' Series adapted the work of humor writers to the stage and included the work of George Ade, Robert Benchley, Roy Blount Jr., A. Whitney Brown, Jules Feiffer, Bruce Jay Friedman, Cynthia Heimel, Dorothy Parker, Roger Rosenblatt, Damon Runyon, Jean Shepherd, James Thurber, and Calvin Trillin. As part of this series, the American Place Theatre produced Laugh at Lunch, a series of noon performances that spotlighted the short films of comedic actors. The Women's Project was founded by American Place Theatre's associate director Julia Miles to develop the talents of new women playwrights and directors. In 1987, the Project left the theater and became its own organization.
As a not-for-profit theater, funding was a constant concern for the American Place Theatre, which relied on subscribers, individual ticket sales, benefits, and grants to financially support its programming. For a benefit in 1977, Handman assembled and screened rare footage of well-known actors from the past including Laurette Taylor in Peg o' My Heart, James O'Neill in The Count of Monte Cristo, and George Arliss, Charles Laughton, Noel Coward, Helen Morgan, and others into a film called That's Acting. The film continued to be shown periodically at the SupPlot Cabaret. Many productions were also funded with limited partnership agreements from individual investors.
In the 1990s, the American Place Theatre introduced more nontraditional theatrical works into its programming. In 1991, the theater produced The Radiant City, a multimedia musical theater piece about Robert Moses effect on New York City created by puppeteer Theodora Skipitares. In 1997 the American Place Theatre produced Coming Through, a play drawn from oral histories of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island that was adapted and directed by Handman. In 1994, the American Place Theatre began the Literature to Life program, a performance-based literacy program that presented professionally staged verbatim adaptations of significant American literary works. The first performance was an adaption of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. By the late-1990s, the American Place Theatre shifted its focus solely to educational programming and still currently produces Literature to Life productions.
In 2002, the American Place Theatre moved into a theater on West 37th Street at 8th Avenue, and in 2009, relocated once again to the Film Center Building at 630 9th Avenue. In addition to the notable playwrights mentioned above, actors who have performed at the American Place Theatre include Ellen Barkin, Rosco Lee Brown, Michael Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Sandy Duncan, Morgan Freeman, Richard Gere, Cliff Gorman, Dustin Hoffman, Bill Irwin, Frank Langella, John Leguizamo, Aasif Mandvi, Dael Orlandersmith, Sam Waterson, and Sigourney Weaver.
The American Place Theatre Company records document almost five decades of theatrical work produced by the American Place Theatre and the administrative activities of the non-profit theater. The bulk of the records consist of production files that span from 1963 until the 2008-2009 season. The records also consist of Wynn Handman's office files which reflect Handman's role as artistic director; administrative files that represent the day-to-day operations of the American Place Theatre and include the minutes of the board of trustees; submissions of scripts for consideration; posters; and electronic records. Office files were maintained by Handman and various administrative staff members, and researchers should look in both Series I: Wynn Handman Files and Series II: Administrative Files when researching the American Place Theatre's administration. Additional files are fragmentary and reflect audience development, as well as financial and legal concerns. The Literature to Life program, and the American Place Theatre's shifted focus to educational programming, are represented in this collection.
Sound recordings contain recordings of productions, music used during performances, sound cues, radio spots, and interviews. Notable sound recordings include sound effects created by director Alan Arkin for Rubbers and Yanks 3 Detroit 0 Top of the Seventh, an interview with actress Rita Jenrette on her role in A Girl's Guide to Chaos, Donald Barthelme reading excerpts from Great Days, and interviews with Handman. Video recordings contain footage of Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: A Celebration of Fifteen Years of Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights; productions like The Amazin' Casey Stengel, Dog Logic, The War in Heaven; film clips shown at When in Doubt, Act Like Myrna Loy; and interviews with Eric Bogosian, John Leguizamo, Aasif Mandvi, Jonathon Reynolds, and Roger Rosenblatt. Inquiries regarding audio and video materials may be directed to the Billy Rose Theatre Division (theatrediv@nypl.org). Audio/visual materials may be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.
The American Place Theatre Company records are arranged in seven series:
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This series is arranged in alphabetical order and contains files that document over four decades of Wynn Handman's position as artistic director and chief financial officer of the American Place Theatre. The bulk of the series is made up of correspondence, but it also contains appointment books, awards, notes, photographs, and subject files.
Handman's extensive correspondence is arranged in chronological order. The majority of the correspondence consists of carbon copies of outgoing letters regarding programming at the theater and Handman's fundraising efforts. Handman played a central role in fundraising for the theater and letters soliciting donations are consistent and plentiful. He would often write personal letters to donors asking them to underwrite a particular production or project. These letters are highly detailed and give good overviews of the projects. Handman also frequently wrote replies to critics and editors regarding their reviews of American Place Theatre produced plays. Additionally, the correspondence includes incoming letters from playwrights accompanying scripts for submission, and from former staff members and students requesting references. Handman received birthday and holiday cards from directors, actors, and former students demonstrating the close relationships he cultivated at the theater and at his acting studio. Correspondence from the 2000s primarily consists of invitations to events and holiday cards. Statements from writers convey what working with the American Place Theatre meant to writers like William Hauptman, Robert Lowell, Jonathon Reynolds, Ronald Ribman, and Steve Tesich. Also included is correspondence to and from Paula Vogel, Handman's assistant in the late 1970s, written on Handman's behalf.
Awards consist of three Audelco awards in recognition for excellence in black theater, a Cornerstone Theater Company commemorative award, and an Obie award for sustained achievement. Typescripts of speeches can be found in the Georgetown University and University of Miami files, where Handman gave a speech at the dedication of the Gonda Theatre and upon receiving an honorary doctorate, respectively. The New York Times file regards a letter Handman wrote to the New York Times replying to the exchange between theater critic Walter Kerr and Howard Klein, then Director of Arts at the Rockefeller Foundation, on Klein's rebuttal of Kerr's negative review of the play, Isadora Duncan Sleeps with the Russian Navy.
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This series is arranged alphabetically by file title and contains material documenting the administrative and governing functions of the American Place Theater, including audience development, fundraising, programming, and the activities of the Board of Trustees. There is a small amount of subject files, as well as legal and financial material.
Audience development was a constant undertaking by American Place Theatre staff and is represented by yearly membership campaigns that sought to keep current members and attract new sponsorship, and to generate group sales with schools and cultural organizations. Development files include the production files for benefits, a 'diaspora' letter sent out to Wynn Handman's former students requesting support, and foundation files. The activities of the board of trustees are represented in minutes that contain annual reports, budgets and balance sheets provide a broad overview of the American Place Theatre's activities from 1963 to 2008.
Administrative staff maintained an almost complete run of programs from American Place Theatre productions, including programs from series like the American Humorist Series, Hearing Impaired Project, Literature to Life, SubPlot Cabaret space, and The Women's Project. From the 1970s until the late 1980s, the American Place Theatre promoted the recognition of playwrights by putting a photograph of the playwright on the cover of each program. In addition to the programs, there are administrative files on many of the above series. The file on the American Humorists' Series contains material relating to humorists like Hank Bates, Roy Blount, Jr., and Bill Irwin.
Additional material consists of files on collaborations with other organizations, partial alphabetical runs of reader reports and contracts, and licensee files regarding space rentals of American Place Theatre's performance spaces by other theater companies and cultural organizations, and staffing files. Files on organizations include mass mailings, publications, memoranda, and press releases from local and national theaters and professional organizations. The Harold Clurman file contains typescripts of the opening remarks Clurman made concerning various playwrights at Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: A Celebration of Fifteen Years of Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights. Photographs document the exterior and interior of the American Place Theatre's 111 West 46th Street location, special events, and mock-ups of program covers. Notable subjects include Wynn Handman, Harry Jackson, Donald Jones, and Myrna Loy, and unidentified members of The Women's Project.
Additional administrative files are held in Series VII: Electronic Records.
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The production files are arranged chronologically by season. Within each season, files are first arranged alphabetically by play, and followed by series, such as the American Humorists' Series, the Jubilee!: Festival of Black Culture, the Women's Project, Works-In-Progress, as well as productions staged for the Subplot Cabaret space, later called the First Floor Series. The production files reflect both the administrative and the creative aspects of the productions and may contain box office reports, budgets, correspondence, contracts, programs, reviews, as well as casting files, photographs, scripts, set designs, sheet music. The files document the development of a playwright's work at the APT. Often productions were first performed as a work-in-progress and then produced in full later that season, like Frank Chin's The Chickencoop Chinaman, or in the following season, like Elaine Jackson's Cockfight. The files also contain works that the APT began to develop, but were ultimately unproduced. This occurred more frequently in later seasons as the APT moved away from performing straight plays to adapting works of fiction for its Literature to Life program. Additionally, the files contain special events, such as memorial or laudatory productions.
The files for productions produced in the 1970s to the 1990s are the most complete. Most of the files do not contain correspondence with the playwrights with the exception of files for Cockfight, The Fuehrer Bunker, Father Uxbridge Wants to Marry, The Grinding Machine, The Kid, Letters Home, Memory of Whiteness, Seduced, and all of Frank Chin's plays. The 1975-1976 Season files for The Old Glory contain photocopies of Robert Lowell's notes regarding casting and the files for Juana La Loca contain Mary Lee Settle's rehearsal notes. Files for Do Lord Remember Me, Five on the Black Hand Side, The Old Glory, The Radiant City, Seduced, and Zora Neale Hurston contain study guides geared towards elementary and secondary school audience members. Black Boy, The Karl Marx Play, The Old Glory, and Who's Got His Own toured and arrangements for theses tours can be found in their files. The files for Coming Through include paper leaves with audiences' responses to the play that share stories of their own ancestors' immigration to the United States. Journey of the 5th Horse files contain fan letters written to the male lead, Dustin Hoffman. The files also demonstrate the controversy surrounding certain productions by the number of negative and positive letters APT received regarding Black Bog Beast Bait, Cowboy Mouth, and La Turista.
Photographs, as noted in the following container list, can be found throughout the production files and include works by Betty Brown, Philip Bruns, Martha Holmes, and James Matthews. Subjects include Lloyd Battista, Marilyn Coleman, Michael Douglas, Virginia Downing, Alice Drummond, Faye Dunaway, Laura Esterman, Vincent Gardenia, Philip Baker Hall, Leonard Jackson, Bella Jarrett, Robert Earl Jones, Raul Julia, Patrick McVey, William H. Macy, Norman Matlock, Gene Reynolds, Andrew Robinson, Marian Seldes, Martin Shakar, Lilia Skala, Lois Smith, Michael Tolan, and Rip Torn. Unsorted photographs and slides are of various APT productions such as Baba Goya, The Chickencoop Chinaman, Fingernails Blue as Flowers, The Karl Marx Play, The Kid, Lake of the Woods, Metamorphosis, The Old Glory, and Sleep.
Additional production files are held in Series VII: Electronic Records.
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The scripts are arranged alphabetically by title and consist of scripts that were submitted to, and may have been produced by, the American Place Theatre (APT). Some scripts are accompanied by letters from the playwright, most notably Jane Gennaro and Robert Lowell, and other scripts contain reader reports by APT staff members.
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The scrapbooks are arranged in chronological order and then alphabetical order. Chronological scrapbooks cover a range of time, while the scrapbooks in alphabetical order represent specific productions. The scrapbooks primarily contain news clippings and press releases. The scrapbook for Hogan's Goat contains two transcripts of Maxine Keith's WNYC radio show, correspondence, and photographs.
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This series is made up of both photographic posters and non-photographic publicity posters. The photographic posters are large format photographs, many labeled with production information, that were displayed at various times at the American Place Theatre. These photographs are mostly shots of productions, but also include staged photographs of cast members and a photograph of Wynn Handman directing a rehearsal for the play Christy. The posters of playwrights include photographs of Sam Shepherd, Steve Tesich, Charlie L. Russell, Joyce Carol Oates, Ronald Ribman, Rochelle Owens, and Phillip Hayes Dean. Additionally, there are photographs of St. Clements Church and the dedication at the new 111 West 46th Street theater, including a picture of Wynn Handman and Sidney Lanier receiving the Margo Jones Award from the sitting mayor, John Lindsay. Publicity posters are for various American Place Theatre productions and include a poster for George Tabori's The Cannibals, signed by the cast. Additional posters are held in Series VII: Electronic Records.
8 media objects 585.67 MB of material
The electronic records are arranged by chronological order and include both office files and production files. Disks containing graphics usually also contain various graphic files that make up a composite image.
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The American Book Center.
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https://www.eomega.org/workshops/teachers/julia-cameron
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Julia Cameron
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Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than 30 years. She is author of more than 40 books, fiction and nonfiction, including such best-selling works on the creative process as The Artist’s Way, Walking in This World, and Finding Water. Also a novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has multiple credits in theater, film, and television.
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eomega.org
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https://www.eomega.org/workshops/teachers/julia-cameron
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Julia Cameron has had a remarkable career, which in turn has given remarkable help to others. She is best known for her hugely successful books on creativity, including The Artist’s Way, which has sold more than two million copies worldwide, and her follow-up best-sellers The Vein of Gold, Walking in this World, and The Right to Write.
A poet, playwright, fiction writer, essayist, and theologian, Cameron has extensive credits in film, television, and theater. As a filmmaker, Cameron collaborated with her former husband, Martin Scorsese, on three films. As a playwright, her work has graced such stages as Princeton’s McCarter Theatre and The Denver Center for the Performing Arts. As an award-winning journalist, her work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, and other publications. She was also a contributing editor to American Film magazine for many years and writer in residence in film at Northwestern University.
Julia Cameron is not only an active artist and journalist, she is also an active teacher, leading workshops internationally that have inspired thousands of people to pursue their creative dreams. As she writes in The Artist’s Way: “While there is no quick fix for instant, pain-free creativity, creative recovery (or discovery) is a teachable, trackable spiritual process. Each of us is complex and highly individual, yet there are common, recognizable denominators to the creative recovery process.” She has taught The Artist’s Way workshops in such venues as the Smithsonian, the New York Times, Omega, Esalen, and Wisdom House.
Other books in Julia Cameron’s extensive bibliography include: The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration;Heart Steps: Prayers and Declarations for a Creative Life; Blessings: Prayers and Declarations for a Heartful Life; Transitions: Prayers and Declarations for a Changing Life; The Complete Artist’s Way, a trilogy containing “further adventures along the trail;” and Floor Sample, a memoir.
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https://www.thedldf.org/board-and-staff
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Board and Staff — Dramatists Legal Defense Fund
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Dramatists Legal Defense Fund
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https://www.thedldf.org/board-and-staff
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VICE PRESIDENT
F. Richard Pappas is an entertainment attorney with over 30 years’ experience in the theatre, motion picture, television, and literary publishing industries. Before establishing an exclusive private practice in 1992, Rick was a member of the entertainment department of the New York City firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison for 11 years. He has been fortunate to represent pre-eminent playwrights, composers, directors, choreographers and producers on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in the West End, as well as numerous clients in the not-for-profit theatre community. In 1990 Rick co-conceived and produced the groundbreaking charity record album Red Hot + Blue with contemporary artists such as David Byrne, U2, Annie Lennox and Tom Waits reinterpreting the songs of Cole Porter, and executive produced the companion ABC/Channel 4 television special featuring short films by Jonathan Demme, Wim Wenders, Neil Jordan and Jim Jarmusch. The album was RIAA-Certified Gold and has generated over $5 million for AIDS research and relief organizations. In 2012 Rick was Executive Producer of the Cameron Mackintosh/Working Title motion picture adaptation of Les Miserables, which was Oscar® and BAFTA nominated and won the Golden Globe as Best Picture. He is a graduate of Yale and lives in Austin, Texas because he can.
TREASURER
Ralph Sevush, Esq., is an entertainment attorney. He’s been with The Dramatists Guild of America since 1997, and their Co-Executive Director and general counsel since June 2005. After college (SUNY at Stony Brook, 1983), he began a career in the film industry with Cinema 5 films and New Line Cinema, working in motion picture marketing, distribution, and script development. After law school (Cardozo School of Law, 1991), he worked with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Reiss Media Entertainment, International Media Investors and Sony Pictures.
Then, as Director of Business Affairs for Fremont Associates/Pachyderm Entertainment, he began his career in the Theater with the Broadway productions of BIG the Musical, Bill Irwin & David Shiner’s Fool Moon, Julia Sweeney’s God Said, 'HA!' and the off-Broadway & L.A. productions of Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life. Since coming to the Dramatists Guild, in addition to administering the organization and advising the Guild’s membership and its council, he has co-authored numerous amicus briefs, and provided expert testimony, in a range of cases affecting playwrights. He has also authored over 70 articles on the theater industry for The Dramatist magazine, as well as hosting seminars and workshops for writers. He founded The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund in 2012 to support the Guild’s efforts in defense of free speech and copyright protection.
SECRETARY
JT Rogers is the author of the plays Oslo, One Giant Leap, Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar, which have been seen on London’s West End and at the National Theatre, on Broadway and at Lincoln Center Theater, and throughout the US and the world. For Oslo he received the 2017 Tony, New York Critics, Outer Critics, Drama Desk, Drama League, Lortel, and Obie awards for Best Play. He wrote the screenplay for the HBO film of Oslo, and is the creator, writer, and showrunner of the HBOMax series Tokyo Vice. Rogers has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and is the recipient of the Irwin Piscator Award in recognition of his body of work. He is a founding partner of SRO Productions and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
BOARD MEMBER
Plays include: Stick Fly (’12 Outer Circle Critics Nomination – Best Play [Broadway],’10 Irne Award – Best Play, ’10 LA Critics Circle Award – Playwriting, ’10 LA Garland Award - Playwriting, ’09 LA Weekly Theatre Award – Playwriting, ’08 Susan S. Blackburn Finalist, ‘06 Black Theatre Alliance Award),’06 Joseph Jefferson Award Nomination – Best New Work, Voyeurs de Venus(’06 Joseph Jefferson Award – Best New Work, ‘06 BTAA – Best Writing), The Bluest Eye (’06 Black Arts Alliance Image Award – Best New Play, ‘08 American Alliance for Theatre and Education Distinguished Play Award), The Gift Horse (’05 Theodore Ward Prize, Kesselring Prize 2nd Place), Harriet Jacobs, and Stage Black. Theatres include: Arena Stage, Cort Theatre (Broadway), Chicago Dramatists, Company One, Congo Square, Everyman Theatre Company, Freedom Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Co., Jubilee Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Long Wharf, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, McCarter Theatre Co., Mo’Olelo Theatre Co., MPAACT, New Vic (Off Broadway), Playmakers Rep, Plowshares Theatre Co., Steppenwolf, TrueColors, and Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Commissions include: Steppenwolf (4), McCarter, Huntington, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville/Victory Gardens, Humana, Boston University, and The Roundabout. Stick Fly and Harriet Jacobs published by NU Press, Bluest Eye, Gift Horse, Stage Black - Dramatic Publishing, Stick Fly - Samuel French. Lydia is a graduate of Northwestern University where she majored in Performance Studies. Lydia was an ’05/’06 W.E.B. Du Bois Institute non-resident Fellow, a 2007 TCG/NEA Playwright in Residence at Steppenwolf, an 06/07 Huntington Playwright Fellow, a 2012/’13 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, a 2012 Sallie B. Goodman McCarter Fellow, a 2012 Sundance Institute Playwright Lab Creative Advisor, is Co-Vice President of Theatre Communication Group’s Board of Directors, is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, has an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Pine Manor College, and is on faculty at Boston University.
BOARD MEMBER
Cheryl L. Davis is the General Counsel of the Authors Guild and a former partner at the firm of Menaker & Herrmann LLP, with more than 30 years’ legal experience. Her practice before the Authors Guild focused on counseling clients on intellectual property issues and litigating copyright and trademark cases. An award-winning playwright, she has long combined her creative passion with her legal work, representing theater clients in connection with a variety of contract and corporate issues (including both intellectual property and employment matters). She has made numerous presentations and written about intellectual property in the commercial arena, as well as for theater artists and other creatives. She was recently honored by the Lawyers Alliance for New York for her pro bono work, and she is the Vice President of Theater Resources Unlimited, a networking organization for producers and producing entities, as well as a proud member of the League of Professional Theatre Women. As a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, and now the Authors Guild, she has hit the Guild trifecta.scription
BOARD MEMBER
Broadway: Leap of Faith, Arcadia, Speed-the-Plow, The Homecoming, Company, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Taboo, Cabaret, The Rocky Horror Show. Off-Broadway: Seared, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Normal Heart, Comedians, tick, tick... BOOM!
ENCORES!: Anyone Can Whistle, The Cradle Will Rock, Road Show, Oliver! Shakespeare in the Park’s Twelfth Night, Cymbeline.
Kennedy Center: Chess, 2002 Sondheim Celebration: Sunday in the Park with George and Merrily We Roll Along.
Regional: Cry, The Beloved Country, Slaughterhouse-Five, Fur, What the Butler Saw, Arcadia, The Waves.
Television: Retreat, Candy, Dopesick, Law & Order: SVU, Hannibal, The Path, Bojack Horseman, Pushing Daisies. Film: Find Me Guilty, Custody, Ferdinand, My Soul to Take, Elian. Online: Take Me to The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration (Drama League Award, Library of Congress), The Waves In Quarantine.
A four-time Tony Award nominee in every acting category, Raúl is the recipient of the OBIE, the New York Outer Critics Award, the Barrymore, the LA Ovation Award, the Jose Ferrer Award, three Drama Desk Awards, and the Theater World Award.
BOARD MEMBER
Pulitzer Prize, Tony, WGA, and Humanitas Award winner, three-time Emmy nominated writer. Author of twenty plays: Old Cock, ReCON$truxion, The Trojan Women at Sandy Hook, The Great Society, All The Way, (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Steinberg, and Edward Kennedy Awards), The Investigation; A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts, Building the Wall, Hanussen, Shadowplay, By the Waters of Babylon, Handler, A Single Shard, Devil and Daniel Webster, Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates, Final Passages, The Marriage of Miss Hollywood and King Neptune, Heaven on Earth, Tachinoki, The Dream Thief, The Kentucky Cycle (Pulitzer Prize, Tony and Drama Desk nominations), and a musical, The 12. Films: Hacksaw Ridge, The Quiet American. TV: All the Way, The Pacific, The Andromeda Strain, Crazy Horse, Spartacus. Robert is a Plan II/Fine Arts graduate of UT. He is a Distinguished Alumnus and a member of the Friar Society. He is currently President of the Orchard Project, a member of the Dramatists Guild National Council, a board member of The Lillys, NTC member, and a New Dramatists Alumnus.
BOARD MEMBER
Laurence T. Sorkin is a retired partner in the New York City law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, where he practiced for more than 45 years and was head of the firm’s antitrust and trade practice group. During that time he represented clients before the Federal Trade Commission, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and numerous state and foreign competition authorities, and litigated a wide range of antitrust issues in federal and state courts. He also led his firm’s pro bono practice for a number of years.
Larry was outside counsel at the Dramatists Guild of America for many years while at Cahill, and he has represented the Guild in some of its most significant matters. He successfully defended the Guild in the antitrust lawsuit that led to the adoption of the Approved Production Contract (APC) currently in use today for Broadway productions. He also represented the Guild as amicus in Thomson v. Larson, the landmark Second Circuit case rejecting a dramaturg’s claim that she was the co-author and joint owner of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical, Rent.
He is currently an adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School and is also a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam Law School in The Netherlands. He has also taught at Yale Law School. He is a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at Loyola University (Chicago) School of Law and the advisory board of the Fordham Competition Law Institute. He has served in leadership positions in the Antitrust Law Section of the American Bar Association and has spoken at antitrust conferences in the United States and abroad.
He has been a member of the board of directors of The Legal Aid Society of New York, as well as the board of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and currently serves on the board of Sympho, Inc., an orchestral groupthat seeks to reinvent the classical music concert experience for contemporary audiences. He is also a past president of the Yale Law School Association.
Among his pro bono representations, Larry successfully represented Samuel Bice Johnson, a Mississippi death row inmate, in Johnson v. Mississippi, where the U.S. Supreme Court held that the jury’s consideration of materially inaccurate evidence at sentencing violated Johnson’s Eighth Amendment rights and vacated his death sentence. For his work on the Johnson case and other death penalty cases he received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in 1998.
OF COUNSEL
David H. Faux is licensed to practice law in New York and New Jersey and focuses on Intellectual Property, Entertainment, Art, and Business/Commercial Law. He has served as Director of Business Affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc. since 2007. Prior to becoming an attorney, Dave spent several years as a music journalist and, later, a publicist in the Northwest. He also worked as Marketing Director for a 3-D computer animation company, heading sales and representing graphic artists to potential clients. While living in Oregon, he was on the Board of Directors for the Community Center for the Performing Arts (a.k.a., the Woodsmen of the World—or “W.O.W.” Hall) and as an officer of the Lane County Literary Guild.
In addition to his Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School, he holds a Master of Science in social sciences from the University of Oregon and a Master of Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied local, creative expressions of Buddhism in South Korea. His years in the music and fine arts industries as an entrepreneur, scholar, and international traveler inform his approach to the law, giving him an insight not achieved by most other lawyers.
Dave has served on a wide range of panels involving subjects from theater financing and theater contracts to stage-to-screen adaptations and obtaining underlying rights. He has lectured across the nation on the topic “Author as a CEO.” He has also chaired programs in boxing law and basics in fine arts and the law.
While Dave is a member of the Copyright Society of the United States of America, the New York City Bar Association, the Brooklyn Bar Association, and the New Jersey State Bar Association, he has been particularly active in the New York State Bar Association (“NYSBA”) in its Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Section (“EASL”). For EASL, he is the Eleventh District Representative, representing Queens. He also serves as EASL’s Alternate to House of Delegates in Albany, NY and is the co-chair for EASL’s Fashion Law Committee. Dave is a member of the Copyright and Trademark Committee, IP Law Committee, and the Phil Cowan/BMI Memorial Scholarship Committee. He also sits on the Executive Executive Committee that represents the business of Entertainment and Arts lawyers for NYSBA.
ADMINISTRATION EXECUTIVE
Amy VonMacek (she/her) has spent her entire career in the non-profit and theater arts administration sector. A former equity stage manager, she has worked in off-Broadway and off-off Broadway theaters around the tri-state area. Amy is the current Director of Council Programs at the Dramatists Guild of America and the Executive Administrator for the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund.
In her fourteen years at the Dramatists Guild Amy has developed programming and produced events that educate and advocate on behalf of theater writers. In 2018 she produced a weekend long conference on Devised Theater in collaboration with The Public Theater, Tectonic Theater Company, and Pig Iron Theater. In 2019 Amy began producing DG’s first ever professional podcast: The Dramatists Guild Presents: TALKBACK in association with Broadway Podcast Network. In October 2023 TALKBACK will present its fourth season to a listenership of over 10,000.
Amy joined the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund in 2014 as their executive administrator. During this time Amy ran the administration of both the programming and fundraising. She also received her paralegal certification from Pace University in 2014 to support the work of the DLDF. Amy is the executive producer on the cornerstone program of the DLDF, Banned Together, An Anti-Censorship Cabaret. From 2016-2019 Banned Together was performed live across the country and in NYC at places such as The Drama Book Shop and Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater. Banned Together has evolved to a podcast that Amy is producing this year along with Broadway and TV actor, Raul Esparza, and writer and Board President John Weidman.
Amy attended The University of Southern Maine and Lehman College where she received her BS in Self Determined Studies and is currently working on her thesis at Baruch College for her master’s in arts administration.
Amy lives in the Bronx with her husband. In her spare time she loves to knit and compete in powerlifting competitions.
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HER With Amena Brown Show Notes — Amena Brown
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Amena Brown
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https://www.amenabrown.com/her-with-amena-brown
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Y’all. This is the last episode of HER with Amena Brown and I’m in my feelings. Tune in to hear what I’ve learned in our living room, what’s next for me and my BIG THANK YOU to all of the listeners. To stay up to date on my creative work, subscribe to my Substack, follow me on Instagram, or check out my website amenabrown.com.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
How To Fix A Broken Record by Amena Brown
Here For The Donuts Podcast
How To Fix A Broken Record Podcast
HER With Amena Brown Episode 16: Curvy, Cut, Cool (featuring Anowa Adjah)
Deidra Riggs
HER With Amena Brown Episode 61: Capturing Black Joy (featuring Melissa Alexander)
HER With Amena Brown Episode 67: On Writing and Identity (featuring Kaitlin Curtice)
Together Live tour at MAKERS
MAKERS Conference
Subscribe to the Substack
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Y’all know what time it is! It’s that time of year for playwright and journalist, Kelundra Smith and I to talk about our favorite TV happenings of 2023. Tune in to hear about the shows we’ll miss, the drama we loved, and the documentaries we loved and loved to hate. To stay connected to Kelundra’s work, please visit https://kelundra.com/.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
HER With Amena Brown Episode 14: Best TV of 2020 (featuring Kelundra Smith)
HER With Amena Brown Episode 59: Best TV of 2021 (featuring Kelundra Smith)
HER With Amena Brown Episode 97: Best TV of 2022 (featuring Kelundra Smith)
SAG-AFTRA strike
WGA strike
IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees)
Actors’ Equity Association
Dramatists Guild of America
The Wash by Kelundra Smith
Baldwin & Co. (New Orleans)
American Theater Magazine
NPR: Roy Wood Jr. Is Leaving The Daily Show After Eight Years
Desus and Mero
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Gilmore Girls
The Nanny
The Wonder Years reboot
Abbott Elementary
Grand Crew
Succession
Power
Love Is Blind
Boots Riley
Sorry to Bother You
I’m a Virgo
Class of ‘07
Jury Duty
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets
Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal
Murdaugh Murders: The Movie
The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin
The Secrets of Hillsong
Preachers of LA
Pamela: A Love Story
Baywatch
V.I.P.
Pam & Tommy
American Crime Story season 1 (OJ Simpson trial)
American Crime Story season 3 (Bill Clinton scandal)
Telemarketers
Real Housewives of New York
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Real Housewives of Atlanta
Selling Sunset
Young Love
Deconstructing Karen
Hair Love
Wellmania
Survival of the Thickest
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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Y’all it’s my first LIVE episode of #HERwithAmena recorded in Atlanta at WABE studios and I was so excited to interview Emmy award winning journalist, host of NPR/WABE radio show A Closer Look, Rose Scott. Listen in as Rose and I talk hip hop, barbecue, knowing your voice, and how she navigates the tough times our world is in. To stay connected to Rose’s work, visit https://www.wabe.org/people/rose-scott/.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
Closer Look With Rose Scott
The Shade Room
Gwen Ifill
How to Stop the Candy Shop
19 Crimes Snoop Dogg Cali Red Blend
Twisted Soul Cookhouse & Pours
Bomb Biscuit Co.
KRS-One
Chuck D
Nas
MC Lyte
LL Cool J
André 3000
Rakim
Ice Cube
Jay-Z
Method Man
2Pac
Jean Grae
Jadakiss
Eminem
The Message by Grandmaster Flash
The Last Poets
Kodak Black
Kendrick Lamar
J. Cole
Rapsody
Megan Thee Stallion
Cardi B
NWA
Lil’ Kim
Queen Latifah
Salt-N-Pepa
The Sequence
Yo-Yo
Black Thought
X Clan
Poor Righteous Teachers
Busta Rhymes
Too Short
DJ Khaled
Nelly
Country Grammar by Nelly (video)
New York Times: Black Journalists Are Exhausted
CARE
Jack Buck
The Jeffersons
60 Minutes
Good Times
Robin Roberts
Toni Morrison
Langston Hughes
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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Y’all asked me anything and I answered! Listen in as I answer YOUR questions about jumpsuits, sandwiches, God, and the creative process.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
Michelle Norris
HER With Amena Brown Episode 39: The Creativity and Business of Photography (featuring Michelle Norris)
Pink Sky Boutique
TJ Maxx
Jordan Clothing
Adidas
Evolving Faith
Danté Stewart
Contrapuntal poem
Tawny Powell
Black Women Writers at Work edited by Claudia Tate
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey
Here For It by R. Eric Thomas
A Bound Woman Is A Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland by DaMaris B. Hill
The Watering Hole
Creative Mornings Atlanta
The Moth Atlanta
How To Fix A Broken Record by Amena Brown
Gunshow
Chef Kevin Gillespie
Top Chef
Edna Lewis
Stolen Goods
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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We are talking musical firsts with my friend and one of my favorite music artists, Chantae Cann. Listen in as jazz and soul artist Chantae shares about the CD she couldn’t believe her dad bought for her, the process of making an album, and her new album and documentary debuting in 2024. To stay connected to Chantae’s music, please visit https://www.chantaecann.com/.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
Sister, Sister
Baduizm by Erykah Badu
All I Want by 702
Life After Death by The Notorious B.I.G.
Ready to Die by The Notorious B.I.G.
OutKast
Jason’s Lyric
HER With Amena Brown Episode 86: My First Cassette: An Ode to Janet Jackson
HER With Amena Brown Episode 90: My First Concert
Dawkins & Dawkins
Immature
Janet Jackson
Purple Rain by Prince
Purple Rain (movie)
Waiting to Exhale soundtrack
HER With Amena Brown Episode 92: Movie Faves: Waiting to Exhale
Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder
Huntington’s Disease
The Beauty Of It All - Documentary Release (2024)
Beautiful Brave by Chantae Cann
Chantae’s website
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
Follow
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Yep. As promised this episode is about bras. Listen in for my bra journey and how I’m learning to find ways to be at home in my body.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
HER With Amena Brown Episode 69: Underwear That Covers My Booty Cheeks
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
HER With Amena Brown Episode 26: Behind the Poetry: Margaret
The Cosby Show: Same Time Next Year (Season 7, Episode 1)
Victoria’s Secret
Frederick’s of Hollywood
Savage X Fenty
Soma
MeUndies
Pelvic floor therapy
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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Yep, it’s getting to be that time of year. For some people, it’s a time of excitement, for other people, fall transitioning into winter can bring up a sense of dread. Both feelings are valid. Listen in as my friend, Kaitlin Curtice and I talk about her new children’s book Winter’s Gifts, and how she shifted her approach to commemorating the winter season. Kaitlin and I also discuss tips on how to opt-out of the holidays when you need to.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
Winter’s Gifts (An Indigenous Celebration of Nature) by Kaitlin Curtice
HER With Amena Brown Episode 67: On Writing and Identity (featuring Kaitlin Curtice)
HER With Amena Brown Episode 74 Internet Friends (featuring Kaitlin Curtice)
HER With Amena Brown Episode 97: Best TV of 2022 (featuring Kelundra Smith)
Living Resistance by Kaitlin Curtice
HER With Amena Brown Episode 127: Cake, Joy, and Sacred Self-Care (featuring Chanequa Walker-Barnes)
Lemonade by Beyoncé
The Liminality Journal Substack
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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So excited to welcome my friend Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes to the HER living room! We discuss the importance of cake, joy, how to cultivate self-compassion, and Dr. Chanequa’s new book, Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves. Find out more about Dr. Chanequa’s work at http://drchanequa.com.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
I Bring The Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
Sacred Self-Care: Daily Practices for Nurturing Our Whole Selves by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
No Trifling Matter Substack
Meditating with Dr. Chanequa podcast - available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, and Spotify
Follow Dr. Chanequa on Instagram
Follow Dr. Chanequa on Twitter
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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Many women of color have experienced the double-edged sword of being first and/or only. This week, listen in on an enlightening conversation with CEO of Mercy Corps and the only African American woman at the help of a major international aid and development organization, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna. Tjada and I talk about snacks (obviously!), tips for women of color working in the nonprofit space, and how to support forgotten causes.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show notes:
INROADS
Dr. Helene Gayle
Mercy Corps
George Floyd
Blacks Lives Matter
Peace Corps
Passport Health: The Pros and Cons of Voluntourism
World Health Organization: Drought and food insecurity in the greater Horn of Africa
Follow Tjada on Twitter: @tjada
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
Follow
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This week we are back with a NEW episode and I’m excited to welcome bestselling author Kennedy Ryan into the HER living room! Listen in as Kennedy and I discuss favorite snacks, her favorite place to write, favorite cuss words, and Kennedy’s journey to becoming a romance author. For more info about Kennedy’s work visit: https://kennedyryanwrites.com/.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
The Color Purple
Lift 4 Autism
Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan
Deadline: Before I Let Go Adaptation In Development At Peacock
The Shining by Stephen King
Succession
Ted Lasso
The Bear
Special Ops: Lioness
Warrior
Toni Morrison
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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This week I’m excited to talk with licensed psychologist, professor, poet, and author of Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole Authentic Self. Dr. Thema shares her favorite snacks, how poetry informs her work, tips for those considering therapy and the inspiration behind her new book. For more information about Dr. Thema, visit https://drthema.com. Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
American Psychological Association
Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole Authentic Self by Dr. Thema Bryant
The Homecoming Podcast with Dr. Thema
In Living Color
HER with Amena Brown Episode 33: That Time I…Went to Therapy
Follow Dr. Thema on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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This week I’m taking y’all behind the poetry and digging into my poem “Start With Your Roots.” Listen in as I share how Outkast’s album Aquemini and my own southern upbringing inspired this poem. Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
Behind The Poetry episodes
Aquemini by Outkast
Rosa Parks by Outkast
Gone With The Wind
Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers
Java Speaks on Instagram
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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Yep, you read that right! This week I’m talking about UNDERWEAR and why I need coverage for both of my booty cheeks! Listen in for ways to navigate the various categories of underwear and why comfortable underwear is a great thing. Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
What is purity culture?
Slip (clothing)
Victoria’s Secret
Soma
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
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This week we are talking about FRIEEENNDDS!!! I discuss the importance of hobbies and hobby friends, why you need a friend who doesn’t care if your house is clean, and how to navigate new friendships. Plus, the most helpful text messages to send (and receive) when friends are going through a hard time! Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
HER With Amena Brown Episode 65: Everyone Needs THAT Friend - Part 1
HER With Amena Brown Episode 40: How To Survive a Friend Breakup Part 1 (featuring Celita Williams)
HER With Amena Brown Episode Episode 41: How To Survive a Friend Breakup Part 2 (featuring Celita Williams)
Love & Marriage: Huntsville
No New Friends by DJ Khaled
Support Amena
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This week in the #HERwithAmena living room we are talking about the friends WE NEED: the cussing friend, the curator friend, the foodie friend, and the fashion friend! Listen in for why these friends are so valuable and to find out which of these you might be to your friends! Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
Real Housewives of New York City
Nish Weiseth
Portillo's
Lou Malnati's Pizzeria
Stan's Donuts
Michelle Norris
HER With Amena Brown Episode 39: The Creativity and Business of Photography (featuring Michelle Norris)
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
Friendship episodes
Support Amena
To support Amena’s creative work and get exclusive perks, become a member of her Patreon community. If you would prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/amenabrown.
Follow
Follow Amena on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Support Patreon.
It’s the start of a new year but if you’re anything like me you may not be feeling as productive as you thought you would. In this episode, I’m talking about how to enter the new year mindfully and gently and how to navigate a creative block. Let’s gather in the HER Living Room and discuss reasons you may experience creative block, how to survive creative block, and how to be gentle with yourself in the process. Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
The Subtle Tricks to Building an Effective Vision Board (Martha Beck)
Black Women Writers at Work by Claudia Tate
Quote: “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.” ― Stephen King, from On Writing: A Memoir of Craft
Support Amena
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Donna and Tom from Parks and Recreation had it right. TREAT YO SELF! This episode I’m telling y’all about the ways I’m learning to treat myself from candles to wash day for my natural hair. Treating yourself isn’t just about spending money or buying things, listen to this episode for tips on FREE ways you can treat yo self! Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
Parks & Recreation
Treat Yo Self
Ominihome Essential Oil Diffuser
Whole Foods essential oils
Lush Rose Jam shower gel
Lush Ro’s Argan body conditioner
Yankee Candle
Lavender Candle
Pumpkin Spice Latte Candle
HER With Amena Brown Episode 52: The Diversity Gap (featuring Bethaney Wilkinson)
Support Amena
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This week I’m taking y’all behind the poetry of my poem God Bless Mom and for the first time ever my mom is joining us as a guest in the HER Living Room! Listen in for how my mom inspired this poem and what she did that inspired me to become a spoken word poet. Please enjoy this episode from the HER Archives.
Listen on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
Behind The Poetry episodes
HER With Amena Brown Episode 11: Behind the Poetry: Roots and Wings
Carrie by Stephen King
Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
NAACP ACT-SO
HER With Amena Brown Episode 38: Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves (featuring Makeda Lewis)
God Bless Mom by Amena Brown
Live at Java Monkey by Amena Brown
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
National Black Family Day
Esther Rolle
Roots by Alex Haley
Roots miniseries
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
Support Amena
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In the final episode of our Road Stories series, Matt and I discuss our favorite gigs of all time and what we’re dreaming up for the future!
Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.
Click here to view the transcript.
Show Notes:
Road Stories episodes
Whitney Houston
Renaissance World Tour
Breaking Old Rhythms by Amena Brown
Rapper’s Delight by The Sugarhill Gang
Urban Grind CoffeeHouse
Never Scared by Bone Crusher
Black Panther
Hyphy definition
Nas
Boyz n the Hood
Akeelah and the Bee
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
I Like It by Cardi B
About the Together Live Tour
Austin Channing Brown
HER With Amena Brown Episode 26: Behind the Poetry: Margaret
Pattern Beauty
Lena Waithe
Kerry Washington
A Black Lady Sketch Show
Support Amena
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Follow
Follow Amena on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
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dbpedia
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https://en.eglise.shop/book-author/julia-e-m-cameron/
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Julia Cameron has had a remarkable career, which in turn has given remarkable help to others. She is best known for her hugely successful books on ...
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https://en.eglise.shop/book-author/julia-e-m-cameron/
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Gospel, Church, World
Discover the profound wisdom of the ages, encapsulated in the powerful pages of “Christ Our Reconciler.” This remarkable book brings together key Christian leaders from diverse countries and cultures, united by a shared purpose: to illuminate the transformative concept of ‘God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.’
Prepare to embark on an enlightening journey as you delve into the teachings and personal testimonies carefully curated within these sacred pages. Drawing upon the timeless truths of the Bible, this literary masterpiece offers invaluable insights that resonate across generations and cultures.
“Christ Our Reconciler” is more than just a book; it is an exceptional contribution to the global church. Its message transcends boundaries, speaking directly to the hearts of believers worldwide. Each chapter offers a unique perspective, reflecting the beautiful tapestry of humanity’s relationship with the Divine.
Immerse yourself in this captivating masterpiece, and witness the transformative power of God’s reconciliation in action. Be prepared to witness your vision expand beyond the boundaries of your imagination, as you grasp the limitless potential of what God can accomplish through you.
Within these pages, you will discover an empowering call to action, urging you to embrace your role in the grand tapestry of God’s plan. This book will serve as a constant companion, guiding and inspiring you to fulfill your purpose, to make a difference in the world around you.
Experience the indescribable joy that awaits those who seek reconciliation, both with God and with one another. Open the doors of your heart and mind to the life-changing lessons contained within “Christ Our Reconciler.” This book is guaranteed to leave an indelible mark on your soul, compelling you to revisit its wisdom time and time again.
Uncover the depths of God’s love, the power of reconciliation, and the transformative journey that awaits you. “Christ Our Reconciler” is a beacon of hope, a guide for the faithful, and a testament to the enduring relevance of the biblical teachings. Don’t miss the opportunity to enrich your spiritual journey and witness the miracles that unfold when we align our lives with God’s reconciling grace.
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The Artist’s Way: The Basic Tools – The Open Center
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[] |
[] |
[
""
] | null |
[] | null |
en
|
The Open Center
|
https://www.opencenter.org/the-artists-way-the-basic-tools/
|
with Julia Cameron
ABOUT THIS PROGRAM
An Evening Event
Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 7:00 – 8:30 pm ET
Join Julia Cameron for a live talk on the core concepts from her groundbreaking creativity course, The Artist’s Way.
This class will cover the three basic tools of The Artist’s Way which includes:
The Morning Pages, a tool that will give us a truer connection to ourselves and our deepest thoughts
Next is the Artist Dates, the tool that will teach us how to heal our creative soul and find ways to nurture the soul’s needs on a regular basis
And last, the Act of Walking, a very powerful tool used to helping us resolve problems that come up during the creative process.
These are three bedrock tools for creative recovery. Used all together, these tools become a marvelous medicine for healing whatever holds our creativity back. This class is for anyone who is yearning for a more creative life — “declared” artist or not. During this evening expect to learn these primary tools which will launch us into creative renewal which we so often reach for but rarely attain.
Note: This program will now be offered online. It will be recorded and shared with registrants after each online program for three months (90 days).
Hailed by the New York Times as “The Queen of Change,” Julia Cameron is credited with starting a movement in 1992 that has brought creativity into the mainstream conversation—in the arts, in business and in everyday life.
|
||||||
692
|
dbpedia
|
3
| 79 |
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104G0Z
|
en
|
Angel of the Nativity (The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection)
|
[] |
[] |
[] |
[
"Getty Museum collections",
"artworks",
"art works",
"art history",
"video",
"interpretation of art",
"acquisitions",
"artists",
"Getty art",
"collections Getty",
"collezioni Getty",
"colecciones Getty",
"Sammlung Getty",
"Getty exhibits",
"Getty current exhibitions",
"Getty Museum exhibits",
"los angeles collections",
"antiquities",
"decorative arts",
"sculpture",
"manuscripts",
"photography",
"paintings",
"drawings"
] | null |
[] | null |
Explore the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center and the Getty Villa.
|
en
|
/art/collection/favicon.ico
|
The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection
|
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/104G0Z
| |||||
692
|
dbpedia
|
0
| 7 |
https://95church.com/playwright
|
en
|
Eldridge Christian Plays and Musicals
|
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Eldridge Publishing, a leading play publisher since 1906, offers hundreds of full-length plays, one - acts, melodramas, holiday and religious plays, children's theatre plays and musicals of all kinds.
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https://95church.com/favicon-2.ico
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https://95church.com/playwright
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Jeff Zimmer was born in Oak Park, Illinois and raised in Schaumburg. He wrote his first play "The Secret of the Underground Tunnel" in 5th grade with Michael Harper. Despite the title, the play featured no secret nor any tunnels.
He wrote a weekly humor column "Hellzapoppin' " for the Long Beach Union Daily and was awarded second place for Best Column of Opinion by the California State College Press Association in 1981.
Jeff was named Outstanding Graduate of the Radio-TV-Film Department at California State University at Long Beach and then became a contributor to the late-night ABC show "Fridays." He then worked as a staff writer for such TV shows as "Not Necessarily the News," "The Dom DeLuise Show," "D.C. Follies," "The Mickey Mouse Club," "Candid Camera," "Histeria," and "America's Funniest Home Videos." He also worked as field producer/director/writer and puppet wrangler on "Talk Soup" with Senor Sock, the Toast of Argentina.
In recent years he has worked as a post producer for the syndicated TV series "ElimiDATE!" and "The Doctors." Along the way he has been nominated for 7 Daytime Emmy Awards and 4 Cable Ace Awards. He hasn't won any but has enjoyed the award ceremonies' dinner entrees.
Jeff has been associated with ELATE (Emmanuel Lutheran Actors Theatre Ensemble) for many years, acting, directing and writing a number of plays including "Law & Elvis," "Five Days in the Carter County Jail," "Who Wants to Be a Disciple?" "BB-48" and of course "The Golgotha Project."
Jeff is a member of the National Honor Society, International Thespian Society, National Forensics League, the Writers Guild of America West and for some inexplicable reason is a lifelong fan of the Chicago White Sox.
I was born and raised by my grandparents on a farm in Southern Kentucky. With no brothers or sisters in my early childhood, and few children my age nearby, I filled my time alone pretending and making up characters, stories, and situations to act out. I would often pray as I walked the farm, that God would send me a special friend. One day He did, and has sent many others since. My writings will most always be about the value of having a friend and beginning a friend, and how faithfulness, love, and loyalty are at the heart of true friendship. My experiences have since gone far beyond the farm. Majoring in design and another degree in marketing, I went from college advertising intern at a footwear company to being their shoe designer . For the next 25 years I would work for other footwear brands which carried me to several countries around the world creating shoes and boots. I have cherished these experiences and the friendships I made along the way. I now live on the farm I grew up on. I spend my time recollecting and writing about these experiences, personalities, and journeys in the form of plays and children's books.
I have lived in rural Westmoreland County, Virginia all of my life. My husband and I are retired and we have two grown children and five grandchildren. One of my fondest memories from childhood was when I was able to be part of the Christmas play at our tiny church in Baynesville, VA. I don't remember the plot or even the title of the play but I do remember that the father in the play was played by my dad and he also appeared as Santa Claus. I think this is when I fell in love with Christmas plays. When I was a kid, my cousin and I would write short skits and perform them for our family. I joined a community theatre group in the late 1980's where I had a few on-stage roles and also worked back stage. My favorite on-stage role was that of Sister Hubert, a singing, tap-dancing nun in the musical, Nunsense. That was quite a challenge to my alto voice and my slow moving feet. I've had the privilege of directing Christmas plays at our church for the last 18 years. My best friend, Donna, and I have worked backstage every year. We started out small but our group has grown to about twenty-five members. We have produced full length Christmas plays every year since 2005 and we have a very talented and dedicated group. My favorite playwrights are Andrew Frodahl, Pat Cook and Cheryl Harrison.
Frumi Cohen is a playwright, composer and lyricist. Her writing career started by accident. She was a first year music teacher in Pennsylvania one Spring and she was supposed to put on a choral concert with her fifth and sixth grade students. She envisioned those boring concerts of her childhood where they would all dress alike, stand on shaky risers, and sing songs about trees and robins while the music teacher stood up front and waved her arms around. She would rather have had her teeth drilled than do that. A sympathetic colleague suggested she write a musical. Frumi had written many songs, but never a musical. She went home that night and began to write. It took about a week and she had a short musical for her students to present. They were a big hit. Twenty some years, two grants and several national playwriting prizes later, she is still writing musicals for her students. Many are published now and Frumi is delighted that they have been produced all over the U.S. and even overseas. Kids inspire Frumi and so does musical theater. Using a measure of both, she writes musicals that tell stories of unlikely, unsung heroes. She aims to write stories that are honest, fast-moving and believable, yet full of magic. And she doesn't write happy endings, just satisfying ones. She says, "I want to see young people and their families as both actors and audience for my work. I want to show them that musical theater is every bit as gripping and in many ways more alive than an action film."
Pat Cook got his first taste of seeing his work in print while still in high school in Frankston, Texas, writing for the school paper. Then, during the summers, he wrote a column for his hometown newspaper. It wasn't until college, however, when he saw the movie version of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" that he decided to try his hand at writing plays. His first one-act, "The Boys in the Halls," a play about dorm life, was produced at Lon Morris Junior College in 1968 and has since vanished in some forgotten trash can. After moving to Houston he soon found other writing assignments at AstroWorld and in educational radio, night clubs and local television. His first play was published six years later. Still, writing was only a sideline along with several other odd jobs, which included playing piano in pizza parlors, acting in local commercials, industrial films and on stage, building scenery and selling pianos and organs. However, more plays got published and along the way, his wife, Rose Ann, taught him the joys of using a computer. This, coupled with his conviction to everything else and write full time, proved to be a turning point in his life. He has more than a hundred plays published by seven publishers. Many of these plays have been translated into Dutch and German. Further, he is also published in Eldridge's religious drama catalog (www.95church.com). He firmly believes that old saying, "The harder I work, the luckier I get," and that everyone has a story to tell, a dream to pursue. "And, believe me, if I can do it, anybody can!"
Patricia (Pat) is from a small town in southeastern Michigan. She grew up listening to songs (on vinyl LPs) from shows like The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Camelot, Oliver! and Brigadoon. She and her friends learned the songs, put on variety shows, and played the Broadway characters, in costume, in games of “dress-up.” She wrote stories and poetry, drew comic books, took piano lessons and ballet, and loved school, sailing and going to camp. She learned the fun of singing harmonies in church choir and around a campfire. High school developed strengths in English, art and music. In her senior year, she joined the concert choir and was pianist for Balladiers, a “show choir” of the early 70s (theme song: “Consider Yourself” from Oliver!). She fell in love with Melzor, choir president. When they graduated, she was co-valedictorian of their class. Patricia and Melzor married and moved to Iowa (echoes of The Music Man!). They started a family. They attended college and graduated together, twelve years after high school graduation. Their commencement speaker was actress Helen Hayes. Pat majored in English and Art. Graduating summa cum laude, with an award for superior accomplishment in English, she was one of two nominees for a fellowship. Not selected for the award, Pat took II Timothy 2:15 to heart: “Study to show thyself approved unto God…” and determined to use her gifts and talents in her church family. During thirty-seven years in Iowa, she directed church choir, led worship, taught Sunday School and midweek children’s ministries and directed summer Bible camps. She served as state-level secretary, wrote Bible studies and arranged choir music. She wrote a few songs, then a cantata, and then a full musical. This was followed by another musical, and another; to a total of eight, over a twenty-three-year span. She also became a writer for Dr. Wonder’s Workshop, a Christian TV series for the Deaf. Two years after her husband retired, Pat and Mel left children and grandchildren in Iowa and moved to Florida. She continues to write plays, music and lyrics, in between salt water fishing, canoeing, tandem bicycling and recumbent tricycling. Sailing is on the near horizon, too. Pat says, “If God says ‘Yes,’ don’t let anyone say you can’t. And trust His timing.”
MARC is a healthy, employed middle-aged man with vibrant parents, a loving wife of twenty years and two bright, funny kids. That he has been able to last nearly four decades on and around the stage is a blessing and a miracle. As a performer he has recently portrayed both Atticus Finch and Willy Loman, having acted in front of over 100,000 ticket holders through the course of his career. With Mike Davis, Marc is the co-author of three plays (available from Eldridge Publishing) that have been produced from Seattle to South Africa, as well as twenty-six episodes of radio comedy on “The Moosehead Comedies Theatre of the Air.” In the future, Marc hopes to laugh more, worry less and find the cure for male pattern baldness.
Also known as “Miss Kitty,” KATHY is consistently surprised by the things her husband has succeeded in encouraging her to try. The first time she ever stepped on a stage, voiced a radio character (or two) and yes, contributed to the writing of Warren’s Peace is all due to her association with Marc “Danger Boy” Holland. And wow, what a ride it has been! After twenty years of marriage and two sparkling children, she is looking forward to what comes next. Kathy works full time, gardens, goes bowling and dabbles in photography. She also is looking for a new gig, now that Ray Charles has left this mortal coil and left her with no one to sing back-up for. (She can dream, can’t she?)
BOB MARSHALL Bob Marshall is professional musician (woodwind specialist), arranger and orchestrator and teacher with over forty-five years of experience. His background includes performance of and writing for most musical genre from classical to jazz. In addition to performing and writing, he also served as a performing arts consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Western States Arts Federation. For over 15 years he taught elementary school classroom music, band and choir and just recently retired. However, he continues full-time work in his music publishing/production company Snowflower Music where he arranges, orchestrates, and produces CD rehearsal tracks for music composers and playwrights around the country.
JJ LEWIS-NICHOLS Born and raised in NYC, JJ’s passion for the theatre started by seeing the original Mary Martin “South Pacific” at age 2 ½. Her theatre education included attending all the major Broadway shows from the 50’s through 2010. After attending Denison University, she graduated the first year of the Tisch School of the Arts in “acting”. Her Broadway credits include the French maid in “Private Lives” in 1969 and as Frances Hunter in “No Sex Please, We’re British” in 1973. Based in NYC, her 17-year professional career included national tours, the Cleveland Playhouse, and the Mark Taper Lab. Television credits include appearances in many soap operas, the sit-com “The Madhouse Brigade”, numerous TV commercials, and over 400 radio ads. Her film work includes “Dead Ringer” with Meatloaf and “Dreamchaser” with Harold Gould and Jeff Tambor. In 1981, she moved to Northern California where she is artistic director of the Siskiyou Performing Arts Center and currently working on her 112th show as director. She has taught “acting/directing/playwrighting” for College of the Siskiyous as adjunct faculty for 25 years. In addition to “Little Women – A Merry Christmas” (the musical), she has written and produced other musical adaptations including “The Littlest Angel” and “Christmas Carol”.
MELINDA FIELD Melinda Field is an award winning writer/poet/playwright who lives in the mountains of Northern California. A version of her short story The Ledge, excerpted from True, was an award winner in the Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition. She has authored three sets of wisdom cards with photographic artist Lani Phillips, that were created to inspire and empower women of all ages on a daily basis. They are Wisdom of the Crone, Wonder of the Mother and The Journey. Melinda is currently working on a sequel to True.
Craig Sodaro is one of Eldridge Publishing's most popular and prolific playwrights with over 60 titles currently in print. Most of his work is ideal for children's theatre and school performances, and several plays have been turned into musicals. His audience participation plays are extremely well received. For community theatre plays he writes under the pen name of Sam Craig. Mr. Sodaro taught for 33 years in public schools, but now writes full time. He and his wife Sue have four grown daughters. Here he speaks in his own words about his love of writing. "I always wanted to write. From the first time I read my first full-fledged book - a long-forgotten mystery - I wanted to be an author. I've always had an imagination that runs overtime. My mind has always been more interested in the possibilities of what if two times two equaled five rather than four. "I grew up in Chicago, but I don't think the Midwest has had a great deal of influence on my writing. I was fortunate enough to travel as a youngster, and the places we visited - the West, East, and South, all seemed steeped in atmosphere and dramatic possibilities. Eventually, I traveled to Alaska, Europe, and Africa, and each experience planted seeds for future stories. "I wrote my first play in high school - an anti-administration absurdist comedy performed in my last period art class. Our teacher turned a deaf ear to the proceedings, but we all caught her laughing. I liked this idea of audience response, and during college, I entered a playwriting contest. I won the fifty dollar prize and saw my characters come to life under the blue, red, and amber stage lights. I knew that this was the direction my writing obsession would have to take. "Success on stage would have to wait for a number of years, however, since I married, began teaching, and had four children and received many, many rejections slips. Eventually I found a formula that worked: large cast mystery with mainly female parts, one setting, and a lot of one-liners. Since then, I've written a hundred and thirty plays, many of which have been published and/or produced. I've had the thrill of walking down 54th Street in New York to a flag-adorned theater where one of my plays premiered. I've received terrific letters from kids who have had parts in the plays I've written, and I've found myself in Amazon.com. "Once in a while people ask me how I write so fast. I guess it’s that I have a lot of stories to tell. And idea will grab me, and then for quite some time—even while working on another script—I’ll keep thinking about the characters and develop the major plot points in my imagination. Once I sit down to the computer to write, the characters really tell the story almost too quickly for me to write down what they’re saying. And that's what I think playwriting is all about. It's telling a story in the simplest but most dramatic way possible. There's a ninety minute or so limit on reaching the climax, and for literature that's quick. I write fast simply so I can find out what's going to happen at the end, just like anybody who watches the play."
BRYAN STARCHMAN (left photo) BRYAN STARCHMAN grew up in the small foothill town of Mariposa, CA., just outside of Yosemite National Park. He began writing short stories in the first grade and fell in love with screenwriting in high school. Soon he tried his hand at playwriting. At UCLA, he spent four years honing his craft. There, he won the UCLA playwriting award for his satire on fraternity life. Unfortunately Bryan and Los Angeles went together like Elizabeth Taylor and husbands -- it just wasn’t meant to be. Now he lives in Mariposa with his beautiful wife Noel (even a geek sometimes gets the girl!) and his cats, Wily and Pinkerton. He teaches American Literature, Advanced Placement Language, and Theatre at his old high school. His plays have been produced over 1300 times in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, 9 out of 10 Canadian Provinces (come on Prince Edward Island!)and six more countries including Mexico, England, Italy, Dubai of the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and Portugal. He has also collaborated with fellow Eldridge playwright and composer Stephen Murray to create "Just Another High School Musical." More information at www.bryanstarchman.com
STEPHEN MURRAY (right photo) is a composer, lyricist and playwright who has been a Performing Arts Educator since 1985. Steve's plays and musicals have been produced throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Germany, South Africa, Malta, The Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and China. Some of his award-winning titles can be found in the Eldridge catalog. "Musical! The Bard is Back!" was the 2000 winner of the Columbia Entertainment Company National Playwriting Contest, the first musical ever to win the award. Two other Eldridge titles have also been recognized by the CEC Contest, "Mother Goose, Inc." and "The Universe and Other Stuff." Steve has a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Boston University. By day he is a humble music teacher, but by night, you may find him performing on various stages in Massachusetts.
MATT STEELE (Left photo) is a Los Angeles-based actor and writer who has been performing from a very early age. He began acting in a self-constructed theatre he built in his basement. For years, he and his older brother, performed, directed, and designed high-quality productions - at least as high quality as theatre can be with no budget, two actors, and curtains made from bedsheets. Matt performed with community theatre companies and in his high school plays before attending New York University as a Drama major at the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. There, he studied musical theatre under CAP21 and acting for the screen with Stonestreet Studios. Since graduation, Matt's acting work has been seen on screens, both large and small, and he has performed in theaters across the US, ranging from the grand Town Hall in NYC to the most intimate of performing spaces. He recently garnered international media acclaim for his original web series, "The Doomsday Diaries," for which he was reviewed in various publications and social media outlets, including The Huffington Post and the Village Voice. His performances in his school plays, however, will always remain his favorite memories as an actor. It's these memories that have given him a passion for writing for young performers. For more information, visit www.mattsteeleonline.com.
MIKE STEELE (Right photo) has been writing and directing from far back as he can remember. His life in the theatre began at the age of five when he gathered old bedsheets and constructed a stage in his basement so that he could direct a production of Snow White and the Two Dwarfs. Mike could not round up enough friends to cast seven dwarfs, so his adaptation had to be slightly non-traditional. His childhood weekends consisted mostly of forcing his friends and family to watch his original basement plays. Mike spent the bulk of his teenage years performing in school and community theatre productions and continued to act through college while he completed a BS in elementary education and sociology. Shortly before earning his degree, a local high school asked Mike to direct a play for a small group of students. The gig continued through the next year, and then the next, and he hasn't looked back since. Mike soon began to write full length plays and found ways to incorporate his students into the creative process. This evolved into what he now refers to as his cooperative drama program. Mike continues to direct school and community theatre productions and has taught cooperative drama workshops to a variety of students throughout the years - from elementary schoolers to senior citizens - as near as his hometown of Trenton, New Jersey, to as far as Bangkok, Thailand. He is happy to have found a way to combine his love of theatre and his passion for education. In Mike's spare time he enjoys exploring new places, watching television and films, and pretending like he knows how to play tennis. For more information, visit www.mikesteeleonline.com.
Playwright, editor and journalist EDWARD J. WALSH (far left) has had an award-winning career as a writer. At various local and national publications, he has served as a general assignment reporter, business reporter, travel writer, columnist and editor. For radio, he has written and helped produce programming for National Public Radio. Walsh also has contributed to or edited several books, including a 150th anniversary edition for Cleveland Cliffs, Inc. In addition, as a playwright his work has been produced Off-Off Broadway, and in many community and college theaters in the Greater Cleveland area. “Harry and Mary,” originally staged and televised on NBC in Cleveland, became the basis for “Two Can Play,” which was produced at the Barter Theatre in Virginia, and again in Kansas City, featuring Hayley Mills. Walsh is a graduate of John Carroll University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and did post-graduate work in English literature.
ROBERT THOMAS NOLL has written 30 produced plays. His works have been performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including six Off-Off Broadway productions. Eight are published. As a TV producer/writer, he has won nine Emmys and a Silver Medal from the International Film and TV Festival of New York. For NBC, he served as producer/writer for their multi-award-winning syndicated children’s TV series, “Hickory Hideout.” He teaches playwriting and other courses at John Carroll University’s Tim Russert Department of Communication and Theatre Arts in Cleveland, Ohio. (They also produced four of his plays there.) At John Carroll, he also serves as adviser to their award-winning newspaper, The Carroll News. For nearly 20 years, he taught playwriting at The Cleveland Play House. Robert has degrees from Kent State University and Ohio University. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
E. Jack Williams --Upon graduation from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, in 1969, Mary and I moved to Waseca, Minnesota to accept a teaching position in media, speech, and theater which included directing plays. I’ve directed elementary, junior, and senior high school productions as well as community theater and after 43 years of directing, I am often asked which play is my favorite. The answer is always, “The one I’m working on.” Now I’m busy writing plays. In 1991 I was the recipient of the Minnesota Arc of Excellence Community Media Award for writing a play on bullying called CARL.
Mr. Williams has provided the following FREE monologue relating to his one-act play, "Carl."
SPEAKER: There aren’t many things about my high school days I would do over. I loved every minute of it. We had the greatest time: the dances, dates, games, everything. We all had fun. (Pause) Almost all. There isn’t much I would change about high school, not much ... just one thing ... Carl won’t be here ... Carl was one of those lost souls. The guy everybody loved to pick on ... I remember as if it were yesterday. I’ll never forget the time he was called on to give his Pet Peeve Speech. He walked slowly up to the front of the room and started his speech.
As CARL: “My name is Carl ... my pet peeve is this ... I don’t like it here ... I’m not having any fun. I don’t like school. You don’t know what it’s like to be alone, to have no one to talk with. When people talk to me, it’s only to tease, never had a friend, a buddy ... and it hurts. I see you with your friends before and after school. And I ask why not me? You knock my books to the floor. I’m different I know it. But, why do you have to tell me I’m different? I’m not stupid. I’d like to wear nice clothes, but this is all I have. You live in nice homes with your moms and dads ... I live with my father ... My mother died a long time ago. I miss her. She loved me. The worst part of school is being laughed at. I don’t want to be laughed at ... Do you? “
SPEAKER: There was dead silence as Carl walked back to his seat. Some students bowed their heads unable to look him in the eye. Miss McCloud wiped away a tear. Carl was self-conscious of many things especially the way he looked, walked and talked ... That’s why he surprised us when he actually read his manuscript. As it turned out, that was the only time he ever talked in front of the class. The only thing he seemed to care about was a small piece of paper he kept tucked in his pocket. As bad as school was for CARL, things didn’t get much better at home ... he could never seem to please his “old man.” Nothing he did was good enough ... nothing. The summer after graduation, Carl’s lifeless body was found hanging in the shed next to his house. Not many attended Carl’s funeral. Few heard about his death. Fewer even cared. His obituary simply read, “Carl Chapman died, suddenly, on August 12. Arrangements are pending.” We will never know what caused Carl to take his own life, but we do know this ... everything he learned about life, we taught him. Everything he experienced in life, we showed him. Everything we did to him prepared him for that moment. When the police discovered Carl’s body, they found him clinging tightly to a crumpled-up piece of paper. I’d like to tell you what it said, “If they could hear my prayers – I may be relieved of some of my pain.” THE END
Mike studied theatre arts with an emphasis on acting at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. His professional acting credits include seventeen seasons of regional theatre, thirteen of those with either the Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival Theatre Company or the South Dakota Shakespeare Company, where he also taught play writing workshops for youth. Mike has been the recipient of numerous directing, acting, and writing awards. In 1990 he was recognized for his contributions to the arts in secondary education by the Southwest Wisconsin Educational Alliance. Mike is a nine-time winner of the Wauwatosa Village Playhouse’s One-Act Playwriting Competition, a competition for Wisconsin writers, where his play, The Runaway, enjoyed a three week run in 2015 and was voted favorite script and favorite production. A U.S. army veteran, Mike’s Vietnam agent-orange drama, Who Said Life Was Fair, won the 1995 Wisconsin Section of the American Association of Community Theatre’s AACT-FEST Play Competition and was a runner-up at the Region III level. The author of over fifty plays, Mike’s works have varied from adult Vietnam War dramas to teen awareness plays and Shakespearean spoofs. He currently has thirty-five plays in publication. His plays have been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and numerous international schools. Many of his teen awareness plays have received awards in high school play contests. Mike has worked as a high school drama director and was the Artistic and Technical Director for the former Main Street Player’s Theatre Co. of Galena Illinois. During his career, Mike has directed over one hundred plays and presented workshops on set and light design, directing and play writing. Mike and his wife Sandy, split their time between their hometown of Platteville, Wisconsin and their winter home in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, but I attended college in Iowa, and, once here, I decided to stay. I am a high school/middle school Spanish and English instructor with over 25+ years of teaching experience in the River Valley School District. Even though I have been directing plays for years, WILD PINK was the very first play I ever wrote, and I owe a lot its success to the talented young actors who helped me bring my characters to life. Since then, I have written a play every year for my students to perform. Both my second play, SEALED IN SPIT and my fifth play, THE DOUBLE L DUDE RANCH, are now published by Eldridge. My hobbies include reading just about anything and writing stories for my friends and students. I also love attending my plays whenever they are close by to see how other directors portray what I have written. It seems like every performance has been different, but I have truly enjoyed each show as well as the time spent chatting with the directors, getting their insights, and meeting their outstanding casts and answering lots of questions. My husband, Thomas, my son, Chris, and my Shih Tzu, Maya, make up my small family but, on Friday nights during the football season, my house is usually full of teenagers who always seem to drop by after games for my “famous” chocolate chip cookies, a cold glass of milk, and a safe place to hang out.
Ken Womble is the Head of Acting and Professor of Theatre at the University of Northern Colorado.
His book, Inside Act: How Ten Actors Made It—and How You Can Too (Hansen Publishing Group), was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a 2014 book that flew under the radar.”
Ken’s adaptations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Importance of Being Earnest, published with Eldridge Publishing, have been produced throughout the U.S. Arms and the Man is his third adaptation for Eldridge.
Ken wrote and directed the first-ever documentary film on novelist James Michener, James A. Michener, An Epic Life, for which he was named UNC Scholar of the Year. He also directed and co-produced the short film An Equal Opportunity, which was named Best Inspirational Short at the Olympus Film Festival Los Angeles.
As an actor, Ken has appeared in two Off Broadway premieres and was the voice of a BBC radio announcer in the world premiere of Freud’s Last Session. He has had recurring roles on Guiding Light, General Hospital and All My Children, and is a member of Actors Equity and SAG/AFTRA.
Ken has directed over sixty plays, including Lobby Hero, Proof and First Date at Colorado’s Little Theatre of the Rockies, and award-winning productions of August: Osage County, Clybourne Park, and The Cherry Orchard at UNC.
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10×10 New Play Festival 2021
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Celebrating 10 years!
BSC’s 2021 10x10 NEW PLAY FESTIVAL
Streaming March 11–14 & 18–21
Sponsored by Pittsfield Cooperative Bank
10 TEN-MINUTE PLAYS x 10 PLAYWRIGHTS = 100 MINUTES OF PURE JOY
"Gets better each year. It is a highlight of the winter theater season."
—Albany Times-Union
"one of the winter’s most eagerly awaited theatre offerings."
—The Westfield News
Sponsored in part
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Barrington Stage Company
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https://barringtonstageco.org/10x10-new-play-festival-2021-ri/
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CAST
DOUG HARRIS* BSC: 10×10 2020. Recently seen as Lt. (j.g.) Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men at The Pittsburgh Public. NYC Credits: Disco Pigs (Drama League), The Rape of The Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias (Playwrights Realm), The Glass Menagerie (Masterworks Theater Company), Unity: 1918 (Project: Theater). Regional Theatre: We’re Gonna Be Okay (B Street Theatre), The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Oh, Gastronomy! (Humana Festival). Doug has developed new works with Playwrights Realm, NYTW, The Lark, Less Than Rent, Ensemble Studio Theater, CTG, Pipeline and more. Films: December 1, 1969; Day One; The Wait; Viking Funeral. dougharrisactor.com MAYA LOREN JACKSON* BSC: 10×10 2020. Recent credits include: The Fleecing Virtual (Almanac Dance Circus Theatre); The Adrienne Kennedy Play Festival (McCarter Theatre/Roundhouse Theatre); Kid Prince and Pablo (Kennedy Center); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Shipwrecked, Comedy of Errors (Great River Shakespeare Festival); Jar the Floor (Arkansas Repertory Theatre). Maya holds a BA in Theatre from The University of Maryland, College Park and an MFA in Acting from The University of Missouri, Kansas City. Special thanks to her family and the Luedtke Agency. MATT NEELY* is delighted to return to Barrington Stage! At BSC: 10×10 New Play Festival (8th year!), The Crucible. Off Broadway: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Hospital. Off-Off Broadway: The Trial, The Heart of a Dog, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck), The Furies, Twelfth Night (Sebastian), Sex and Other Collisions, Spare Change, Marriage, Unreal City. When not acting, Matt is a Financial Advisor at Inspire Confidence Group in Williamstown, MA and teaches yoga. MFA in Acting from Carnegie Mellon University and The Moscow Art Theater, BS in Theater from Skidmore College. Love to Margo, Allie and Tommy! KERI SAFRAN* BSC: fourth year in a row of 10×10, Dr. Saltzer/Typhoid Mary (dir. Matt Penn) and Dialect Coach for Harry Clarke and The Cake. Recent credits: Forbidden Broadway (dir. Gerard Alessandrini); titular canine in Sylvia (Flat Rock Playhouse); It’s a Wonderful Life (Gulfshore Playhouse, dir. Peter Amster); Lina Lamont/Singin’ in the Rain (Zach Theatre); City of Light (dir. Cady Huffman, opposite Val Pettiford); multiple workshops of Stu for Silverton (dir. Andrew Russell), a new musical about the first transgender mayor elected in America. TV/Film: Blush (Sundance 2019); Netflix’s Soundtrack; Ray Donovan; Richard Linklater’s $5.15/hr.; The Blacklist; The Real O’Neals; HIMYM et al. Groundlings Sunday Company Alum, Antaeus Classical Theater Member, Dialect & Acting Coach. Keri is one of the Dialect Coaches for NBC’s Young Rock and Showtime’s The First Lady.kerisafran.com; @kerisafran PEGGY PHARR WILSON* BSC: Associate Artist; America v. 2.1: The Sad Demise & Eventual Extinction of The American Negro, Gaslight, His Girl Friday, The Crucible, To Kill a Mockingbird, Guys & Dolls, Carousel, Laramie Project: Epilogue and 10×10 New Play Festival (all ten years!). BAT: Doubt (Best Actress nominee BroadwayWorld). Shakespeare & Co: Leap Year. New York: Six Women With Brain Death (co-author, and performed it also in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City). Regional: 10 seasons with Creede Repertory Theatre in Colorado performing over 50 roles, including Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (Best Actress Ovation Award Denver Post), Shirley Valentine, Josie in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Mac in 3 Viewings. Many other regional including: Dallas Theatre Center, Theatre 3, Kansas City Rep, Unicorn, KC Lyric Opera, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, White River in Vermont and Rose Theatre in Chicago. Best role ever: Mrs. Tristan Wilson. ROBERT ZUKERMAN* BSC: If I Forget, His Girl Friday, The Crucible, Ring Round the Moon, The Importance of Being Earnest, Thief River, 10×10 (’12, ’14, ’15, ’18, ’19). Other regional work includes Pittsburgh Public Theater (PA), Florida Studio Theatre, Firehouse Theatre (VA), Triad Stage (NC), Franklin (NY) Stage, Penguin Rep, Hubbard Hall, Arena Stage, Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Two dozen plays Off Broadway at Irish Rep, Atlantic, CSC, TFANA, the Pearl, etc. Narration: Talking Books (Library of Congress). Tour: USAF bases in Greenland for the USO. Former Theatre Program Director at the NY State Council on the Arts. Last Santa Claus at B. Altman & Co.
CREATIVES
JULIANNE BOYD† (Director) is the Founder (1995) and Artistic Director of Barrington Stage Company (BSC) where she has directed many productions, including the critically acclaimed West Side Story (2018) and the 2017 hit production of Company, starring Aaron Tveit. She also directed the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son, which won the Laurents-Hatcher Award for Best New Play by an Emerging Playwright in 2016. Other productions include the world premieres of Mark St. Germain’s Dancing Lessons, The Best of Enemies and Dr. Ruth, All the Way and the critically acclaimed revival of Goldman and Sondheim’s Follies. In 1997 she directed BSC’s smash hit production of Cabaret, which won six Boston Theater Critics Awards and transferred to the Hasty Pudding Theatre in Cambridge for an extended run.
Boyd conceived and directed the Broadway musical Eubie!, a show based on the music of Eubie Blake which starred Gregory Hines and garnered three Tony nominations. She also co-conceived and directed (with Joan Micklin Silver) the award-winning Off Broadway musical revue A…My Name Is Alice (Outer Critics’ Award) and its sequel A…My Name Is Still Alice.
In 2000 Ms. Boyd created the Playwright Mentoring Project, BSC’s underserved youth program that won the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award in 2007. In 2015, the Playwright Mentoring Project also won the Commonwealth Award for Creative Youth Development. From 1992 to 1998 Ms. Boyd served as President of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the national labor union representing professional directors and choreographers in the U.S.
She and her husband Norman have three grown children.
MATTHEW PENN† (Director) BSC: Typhoid Mary, 10×10 2017–20. Penn most recently directed Glenn Close in the Public Theater’s production of Mother of the Maid. Ben Brantley praised the production and said: “under Penn’s lucid direction…Close offers dazzling evidence of a bona fide stage star at the height of her powers.” Penn is an Emmy-nominated director who has directed and/or produced over 200 hour-long dramatic television shows. Penn’s credits include some of TV’s most iconic dramas: Law & Order, The Sopranos, NYPD Blue, Orange Is the New Black. Other credits include: The Mist, Queen of the South (Co-Executive Producer/Director), Blue Bloods, Damages, Royal Pains, Secrets and Lies. Penn began his television career at Law & Order where he earned an Emmy nomination for his direction of the episode “Empire” starring Julia Roberts. Berkshire theatre audiences also know Penn from his work at many of the region’s most significant theatres: Shakespeare & Co.: The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike and Mother of the Maid by Jane Anderson. Berkshire Theatre Group: Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You and The Actor’s Nightmare. Penn has been co-Artistic Director of the Berkshire Playwrights Lab for the last 13 seasons.
AZALEA FAIRLEY (Costume Designer) is making their Barrington Stage debut! Off Broadway, they recently designed TJ Loves Sally Forever (NYT Critics Pick—Jack Theater), Under the Overture (Westside Theater) and Mine all Mine (Triskelion Arts Center). Regional credits include School Girls: Or, the African Mean Girls Play (TheatreSquared AR). They have also held many positions over the years at the Public Theater. Film costume design credits include Paris in Harlem (AlleCine Productions) and The Rainbow Experiment (AlleCine Productions). They hold a BA in African and Black Diaspora Studies with minors in Theater and French from DePaul University in Chicago. They also hold certification in Costuming for Film and TV from the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC.
JOSEPH MARTIN (Scenic Design) is starting his fifth season as BSC’s Director of Production and Operations. Before joining Barrington Stage he worked as a Production Manager at Arizona Theatre Company, Cleveland Play House, La Jolla Playhouse and Northwestern University. Joe has also worked as an Equity Stage Manager with the Denver Center Theatre Company, Resident Sound Designer for Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival and Technical Director at the University of Notre Dame. He has toured productions nationally and internationally, performing in over 200 venues around the world.
SCOTT PINKNEY (Lighting Designer) BSC Associate Artist. Scott is returning for his 17th season. Past designs include If I Forget, Well Intentioned White People, Typhoid Mary, American Son, Gaslight, This, The Best of Enemies, Muckrakers, The Crucible, Whipping Man, Carousel, A Streetcar Named Desire and Follies. On Broadway, he designed Harvey Fierstein’s Tony Award-winning Torch Song Trilogy. Off Broadway credits include Vincent, Becoming Dr. Ruth, Majestic Kid, Divine Fire and The World is Made of Glass. Regional designs include: MALA for The Guthrie, Don Juan for Denver Center (Denver Critics Circle Award), Comedy of Errors for Commonwealth Shakespeare (Elliot Norton Award), Balkan Women for Bristol Riverside Theatre (Barrymore Nomination) and My Fair Lady for TheatreVirginia (Phoebe Award). Internationally, he has designed for Singapore Rep and Club Mohamed-Ali in Cairo. slpinkney.com
ALEXANDER SOVRONSKY (Sound Designer) BSC: The Supadupa Kid 2, Harry Clarke, The Glass Menagerie, The Cake, Typhoid Mary, 10×10 New Play Festival (2017–2020). Original Music/Sound Design credits include: Broadway: Cyrano de Bergerac (starring Kevin Kline). Off Broadway: Mother of the Maid (The Public); Bottom of the World (Atlantic); Women Beware Women (Red Bull Theatre); King Lear, Three Sisters (Classical Theatre of Harlem); As You Like It (Happy Few Theatre Co); Cyrano de Bergerac (Resonance Ensemble). Regional: Arena Stage, KC Rep, Baltimore Center Stage, Seattle Rep, Shakespeare & Co., Berkshire Theatre Group, Hartford Stage, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Wharton Salon, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare Theater of NJ, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Off-Square Theatre Co., WAM Theatre. AlexanderSovronsky.com
RENÉE LUTZ* (Production Stage Manager) BSC Associate Artist. Over 55 productions for BSC including Into the Woods, West Side Story, The Royal Family of Broadway, Gaslight, Company, Ragtime, American Son, Tribes, Sweeney Todd, Man of La Mancha, Cabaret, Follies, etc. Recent credits: Skin of Our Teeth (directed by Arin Arbus) and Pericles (directed by Trevor Nunn; Theatre for a New Audience). Credits include: Merchant of Venice (directed by Darko Tresnjak — both national tour and the Royal Shakespeare Company), Hamlet (directed by Darko; Hartford Stage), ART, New York Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Signature, Classic Stage, Vienna Festwochen, BTF, Yale Rep., Coconut Grove, etc. Her very best credit and longest run is her husband, actor Gordon Stanley.
HANNAH KATZ (Producer) BSC: Artistic Fellow & Executive Assistant to the Artistic Director, Assistant Director Harry Clarke (dir. Julianne Boyd). Hannah has directed productions including See Rock City and Other Destinations (Independent Production) and The Bald Soprano (Act Two at Florida State University). She has also assistant directed Seminar (FSU Mainstage Season, dir. Cameron Jackson) and Twelfth Night (FSU Mainstage Season, dir. Michael Hayden). Previously, Hannah acted as the Artistic and General Production Assistant at Bay Street Theater. She is slated to direct an upcoming digital reading of The Laramie Project (BSC Youth Theatre) with local Berkshire County youth.
MCCORKLE CASTING LTD; PAT MCCORKLE (Casting) (C.S.A.) Casting actors for Barrington Stage for 19 years. Pat McCorkle is pleased to be an Associate Artist at BSC. Broadway: Over 50 productions including On the Town, Amazing Grace, End of the Rainbow, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, She Loves Me, A Few Good Men. Off Broadway: highlights — Clever Little Lies; Sheer Madness; Tribes; Our Town (Barrow Street); Freud’s Last Session; Toxic Avenger; Almost, Maine; Driving Miss Daisy. Feature film: Premium Rush, Ghost Town, The Thomas Crown Affair, Die Hard with a Vengeance, School Ties, etc. Television: Twisted, St. George, Sesame Street, Hack, Californication, Max Bickford, Chappelle’s Show, Strangers with Candy, Barbershop, etc. mccorklecasting.com
CHARLIE SIEDENBURG (Berkshire Press Representative/Associate Artist) (17th Season) joined the BSC family in 2005 and has represented over 130 BSC productions. His work has led to features in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, USA Today and American Theatre Magazine. His many PR credits include the Metropolitan Opera (Live in HD), Paper Mill Playhouse (1999–2004), George Street Playhouse, Hartford Stage, Goodspeed Musicals, Long Wharf Theatre, Surflight Theatre and Two River Theater Company. He serves as Press Rep for Wagner College Theatre, The Minty Awards, Ghostlight Productions and In The Wings Productions. Charlie is a 1995 Theatre/Arts Administration graduate of Wagner College on Staten Island, where he currently teaches Theatre Appreciation. Last year he was appointed Director of Alumni Relations for his alma mater, Moore Catholic High School.
THE PRESS ROOM (National Press Representatives) Broadway: Hamilton, The Book of Mormon and upcoming productions of The Brothers Size, Chasing Rainbows, Born for This, Paradise Square and Working Girl: The Musical. Recent Broadway credits: The Waverly Gallery, Three Tall Women, Farinelli and the King. Off Broadway: Gloria: A Life, Beyond Babel. Other clients include: Vineyard Theatre, The Wooster Group, Shakespeare’s Globe, Theatre Row, Rosie’s Theater Kids, Hunter Theater Project, NY Classical Theatre, Southern California’s 3-D Theatricals, the award-winning web series “Indoor Boys,” actor/pianist Hershey Felder, Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata for the Shaw Festival, and Miami New Drama’s world premiere musical, A Wonderful World.
PLAYWRIGHTS
ELLEN ABRAMS (Lizzie Borden Gets Engaged): Eleanor and Alice: Two Remarkable Roosevelts: Roosevelt House; Franklin Roosevelt Historic Site; Emerging Artists Theatre (E.A.T.). Intentions: semi-finalist, O’Neill Playwrights Conference; New American Voices Reading Series. Hamlet Investigations, Inc.: Bobcat Players Community Theatre; E.A.T.; adapted into a mini-opera by Boston Opera Collective; first-place winner, True Acting Institute’s Best Ten-Minute Plays; published by Smith & Kraus. Handsome: finalist, Garry Marshall Theatre’s New Works Festival; Scribe Theatre competition. Eulogy(s): Rhino Theatre’s One-Act Jamboree. Metonym Or the Almost Completely False Story Behind the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus: Secret Theatre; Manhattan Repertory Theatre. Relations: Ten-Minute Taste Festival; E.A.T. The Ransom of Rona: E.A.T. On the Couch: reading, E.A.T.
BRENT ASKARI (Protecting the Innocent) is excited to be working at Barrington Stage again after the world premiere of his play American Underground. Other plays include Hard Cell (PlayPenn Conference 2017, world premiere at Geva Theatre Center 2019), The Refugees (Winner of National New Play Network’s 2019 Smith Prize for Political Theatre) and White Party (Public readings at EST LA and Palm Beach Dramaworks, workshopped at Florida Repertory Theatre). Brent was part of HBO’s New Writers Project and has written screenplays for Paramount Pictures, Marvel Films and MTV. Brent is a National New Play Network affiliate artist and a member of Mad Horse Theatre Company. He is currently working on a new commission for Barrington Stage.
JONATHAN COOK (Don’t Call Me Cupid) is heavily involved in the fine arts as an actor, director and writer based in South Carolina. Many of his short plays have been produced in theatres around the world and, most notably, he was a semi-finalist in the 37th annual Samuel French Off Broadway Festival in New York with his post-apocalyptic play Lobster Man. He is a four-time recipient of the Porter Fleming Literary Award and several of his works have been published in anthologies by Smith & Kraus. Aside from playwriting, he has also written and directed several short films that have been presented in regional film festivals. In 2020, he launched a radio theatre podcast called Gather by the Ghost Light where he is the host and main writer.
ALEX DREMANN (Speed Play) is a Philadelphia-based playwright who studied playwriting at the University of Southern California and has had over 400 productions of his short plays. Full-lengths include: Split Pea Pod (The Brick Playhouse), Postcoital Variations (Philadelphia Theatre Workshop), The :nv:s:ble Play (PTW, Madlab Theatre, Theatre of NOTE & Cone Man Running) and The Pear-Shaped Man Fights Crime (PlayPenn workshop reading). Evenings of his collected short plays include: Slap Happy (Madlab Theatre), B-Sides, Rarities and Unreleased Tracks (Wilmington City Theatre), Bipolar by Thursday (Theatre Neo) and 13 Lemonade Ave. (Secret Room Theatre). alexdremann.com
CHRISTINE FOSTER (Blind Larks) BSC: Joy Ride (10×10 2018). Christine’s plays have been seen in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Denmark, Mexico, Korea and the US, along with dozens of scripts written for CBS, CTV, History and The Family Channel. In 2018 she won the Marion Thauer Brown New Audio Drama Award and her full-length black comedy Four Thieves Vinegar had a successful three-week run in London before being remounted at the Brighton Fringe. Her monologue Cousins was the winner of the Soundworks.co.uk Contest 2020, while more recent work has been performed on podcasts, BBC Radio and on SuperSound Scotland’s Writer’s Block Radio Hour.
JOHN MINIGAN (A Dateless Bargain with Engrossing Death) BSC: Closing Doors (10×10 2020). John is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow in Dramatic Writing. His full-length Queen of Sad Mischance was a 2020 winner of the New American Voices Festival and a 2019 Clauder Competition Gold Prize winner. Full-length Noir Hamlet was an EDGE Media Best of Boston Theater 2018 selection, a 2019 Elliot Norton nominee for Outstanding New Script and was produced at Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. His work has been included in the Best American Short Plays, Best Ten-Minute Short Plays and New England New Plays anthologies. John is a Dramatists Guild Ambassador for Eastern New England. johnminigan.com
SCOTT MULLEN (People Will Talk) BSC: Jill Takes a Leap (10×10 2020), 172 Push-Ups (10×10 2019), Sandbox (10×10 2017). Scott is a longtime Hollywood screenplay analyst and screenwriter, a two-time winner of Amazon Studios’ screenwriting contest, whose thrillers The Summoning, In Broad Daylight and Blood on Her Badge aired on TV One. His short plays have been produced hundreds of times around the world.
MARJ O’NEILL-BUTLER (Finding Help), a resident of Miami Beach, Florida, is the Regional Rep for the Dramatists Guild — Florida Region. She is also a member of the New Play Exchange and the International Center for Women Playwrights. Her work has been seen in 29 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, Hong Kong and Seoul, S. Korea. She has had 51 different plays produced in multiple theatres, numerous readings and of course, many rejections. A published playwright and mother of two grown sons, Marj is a proud member of Actors Equity and SAG-AFTRA.
JESSICA PROVENZ (On the Rocks) BSC: Stay, Please (10×10 2020). Jessica’s plays have been workshopped or produced at Cape Cod Theatre Project, Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Irish Rep and E.S.T, among others. On the Rocks is her second 10×10 play, following 2020’s Stay, Please, both of which are set in Boca Raton and part of a commission for BSC. Jessica is BSC’s Director of Development, a marriage of her passion for theatre and fundraising. A two-time recipient of the LeComte Du Noüy Award for Emerging Playwrights, Jessica was Playwright-in-Residence at Juilliard and is a graduate of Northwestern University. She is a member of Berkshire Voices and lives in Lenox with her 9-year-old son.
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Profile Books: Living the Artist's Way
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Living the Artist's Way Profile Books
|
en
|
https://www.jonathanball.co.za/component/virtuemart/living-the-artists-way
|
Julia Cameron
How can we tap into the wisdom inside ourselves?
Living the Artists Way is a Six-Week Artist's Way Program that explores the fourth essential Artist's Way tool of guidance. Bestselling author Julia Cameron has inspired millions through creative recovery with her essential tools including Morning Pages, Artist Dates, Walks, and now, Writing for Guidance. Through the practice of morning rituals and the faith of listening, Julia takes us further and shows how we can set the stage to receive guidance in both our lives and creative art.
Writing about how she uses these tools to handle doubts in her life, Living the Artist's Way reveals a personal side and shares Julia's pathway toward a happier, lighter life. Grounding and reassuring, guidance can quell our doubts and fears, and lead us to our inner wisdom and authentic selves. Living the Artist's Way is an invitation to seek the answers to navigate all areas of our lives, by tapping into our own wisdom and ultimately, guiding ourselves back to creativity.
Julia B. Cameron is an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. She is best known for her book The Artist's Way. She also has written many other non-fiction works, short stories, and essays, as well as novels, plays, musicals, and screenplays.
Category: Psychology & Self-help ISBN: 9781800817982 Publisher: Profile Books On sale: February 2024 Format: Trade Paperback eBook ISBN
|
||||||
692
|
dbpedia
|
2
| 5 |
https://95church.com/playwright
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en
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Eldridge Christian Plays and Musicals
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[
"play scripts",
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[] | null |
Eldridge Publishing, a leading play publisher since 1906, offers hundreds of full-length plays, one - acts, melodramas, holiday and religious plays, children's theatre plays and musicals of all kinds.
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https://95church.com/favicon-2.ico
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https://95church.com/playwright
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Jeff Zimmer was born in Oak Park, Illinois and raised in Schaumburg. He wrote his first play "The Secret of the Underground Tunnel" in 5th grade with Michael Harper. Despite the title, the play featured no secret nor any tunnels.
He wrote a weekly humor column "Hellzapoppin' " for the Long Beach Union Daily and was awarded second place for Best Column of Opinion by the California State College Press Association in 1981.
Jeff was named Outstanding Graduate of the Radio-TV-Film Department at California State University at Long Beach and then became a contributor to the late-night ABC show "Fridays." He then worked as a staff writer for such TV shows as "Not Necessarily the News," "The Dom DeLuise Show," "D.C. Follies," "The Mickey Mouse Club," "Candid Camera," "Histeria," and "America's Funniest Home Videos." He also worked as field producer/director/writer and puppet wrangler on "Talk Soup" with Senor Sock, the Toast of Argentina.
In recent years he has worked as a post producer for the syndicated TV series "ElimiDATE!" and "The Doctors." Along the way he has been nominated for 7 Daytime Emmy Awards and 4 Cable Ace Awards. He hasn't won any but has enjoyed the award ceremonies' dinner entrees.
Jeff has been associated with ELATE (Emmanuel Lutheran Actors Theatre Ensemble) for many years, acting, directing and writing a number of plays including "Law & Elvis," "Five Days in the Carter County Jail," "Who Wants to Be a Disciple?" "BB-48" and of course "The Golgotha Project."
Jeff is a member of the National Honor Society, International Thespian Society, National Forensics League, the Writers Guild of America West and for some inexplicable reason is a lifelong fan of the Chicago White Sox.
I was born and raised by my grandparents on a farm in Southern Kentucky. With no brothers or sisters in my early childhood, and few children my age nearby, I filled my time alone pretending and making up characters, stories, and situations to act out. I would often pray as I walked the farm, that God would send me a special friend. One day He did, and has sent many others since. My writings will most always be about the value of having a friend and beginning a friend, and how faithfulness, love, and loyalty are at the heart of true friendship. My experiences have since gone far beyond the farm. Majoring in design and another degree in marketing, I went from college advertising intern at a footwear company to being their shoe designer . For the next 25 years I would work for other footwear brands which carried me to several countries around the world creating shoes and boots. I have cherished these experiences and the friendships I made along the way. I now live on the farm I grew up on. I spend my time recollecting and writing about these experiences, personalities, and journeys in the form of plays and children's books.
I have lived in rural Westmoreland County, Virginia all of my life. My husband and I are retired and we have two grown children and five grandchildren. One of my fondest memories from childhood was when I was able to be part of the Christmas play at our tiny church in Baynesville, VA. I don't remember the plot or even the title of the play but I do remember that the father in the play was played by my dad and he also appeared as Santa Claus. I think this is when I fell in love with Christmas plays. When I was a kid, my cousin and I would write short skits and perform them for our family. I joined a community theatre group in the late 1980's where I had a few on-stage roles and also worked back stage. My favorite on-stage role was that of Sister Hubert, a singing, tap-dancing nun in the musical, Nunsense. That was quite a challenge to my alto voice and my slow moving feet. I've had the privilege of directing Christmas plays at our church for the last 18 years. My best friend, Donna, and I have worked backstage every year. We started out small but our group has grown to about twenty-five members. We have produced full length Christmas plays every year since 2005 and we have a very talented and dedicated group. My favorite playwrights are Andrew Frodahl, Pat Cook and Cheryl Harrison.
Frumi Cohen is a playwright, composer and lyricist. Her writing career started by accident. She was a first year music teacher in Pennsylvania one Spring and she was supposed to put on a choral concert with her fifth and sixth grade students. She envisioned those boring concerts of her childhood where they would all dress alike, stand on shaky risers, and sing songs about trees and robins while the music teacher stood up front and waved her arms around. She would rather have had her teeth drilled than do that. A sympathetic colleague suggested she write a musical. Frumi had written many songs, but never a musical. She went home that night and began to write. It took about a week and she had a short musical for her students to present. They were a big hit. Twenty some years, two grants and several national playwriting prizes later, she is still writing musicals for her students. Many are published now and Frumi is delighted that they have been produced all over the U.S. and even overseas. Kids inspire Frumi and so does musical theater. Using a measure of both, she writes musicals that tell stories of unlikely, unsung heroes. She aims to write stories that are honest, fast-moving and believable, yet full of magic. And she doesn't write happy endings, just satisfying ones. She says, "I want to see young people and their families as both actors and audience for my work. I want to show them that musical theater is every bit as gripping and in many ways more alive than an action film."
Pat Cook got his first taste of seeing his work in print while still in high school in Frankston, Texas, writing for the school paper. Then, during the summers, he wrote a column for his hometown newspaper. It wasn't until college, however, when he saw the movie version of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" that he decided to try his hand at writing plays. His first one-act, "The Boys in the Halls," a play about dorm life, was produced at Lon Morris Junior College in 1968 and has since vanished in some forgotten trash can. After moving to Houston he soon found other writing assignments at AstroWorld and in educational radio, night clubs and local television. His first play was published six years later. Still, writing was only a sideline along with several other odd jobs, which included playing piano in pizza parlors, acting in local commercials, industrial films and on stage, building scenery and selling pianos and organs. However, more plays got published and along the way, his wife, Rose Ann, taught him the joys of using a computer. This, coupled with his conviction to everything else and write full time, proved to be a turning point in his life. He has more than a hundred plays published by seven publishers. Many of these plays have been translated into Dutch and German. Further, he is also published in Eldridge's religious drama catalog (www.95church.com). He firmly believes that old saying, "The harder I work, the luckier I get," and that everyone has a story to tell, a dream to pursue. "And, believe me, if I can do it, anybody can!"
Patricia (Pat) is from a small town in southeastern Michigan. She grew up listening to songs (on vinyl LPs) from shows like The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Camelot, Oliver! and Brigadoon. She and her friends learned the songs, put on variety shows, and played the Broadway characters, in costume, in games of “dress-up.” She wrote stories and poetry, drew comic books, took piano lessons and ballet, and loved school, sailing and going to camp. She learned the fun of singing harmonies in church choir and around a campfire. High school developed strengths in English, art and music. In her senior year, she joined the concert choir and was pianist for Balladiers, a “show choir” of the early 70s (theme song: “Consider Yourself” from Oliver!). She fell in love with Melzor, choir president. When they graduated, she was co-valedictorian of their class. Patricia and Melzor married and moved to Iowa (echoes of The Music Man!). They started a family. They attended college and graduated together, twelve years after high school graduation. Their commencement speaker was actress Helen Hayes. Pat majored in English and Art. Graduating summa cum laude, with an award for superior accomplishment in English, she was one of two nominees for a fellowship. Not selected for the award, Pat took II Timothy 2:15 to heart: “Study to show thyself approved unto God…” and determined to use her gifts and talents in her church family. During thirty-seven years in Iowa, she directed church choir, led worship, taught Sunday School and midweek children’s ministries and directed summer Bible camps. She served as state-level secretary, wrote Bible studies and arranged choir music. She wrote a few songs, then a cantata, and then a full musical. This was followed by another musical, and another; to a total of eight, over a twenty-three-year span. She also became a writer for Dr. Wonder’s Workshop, a Christian TV series for the Deaf. Two years after her husband retired, Pat and Mel left children and grandchildren in Iowa and moved to Florida. She continues to write plays, music and lyrics, in between salt water fishing, canoeing, tandem bicycling and recumbent tricycling. Sailing is on the near horizon, too. Pat says, “If God says ‘Yes,’ don’t let anyone say you can’t. And trust His timing.”
MARC is a healthy, employed middle-aged man with vibrant parents, a loving wife of twenty years and two bright, funny kids. That he has been able to last nearly four decades on and around the stage is a blessing and a miracle. As a performer he has recently portrayed both Atticus Finch and Willy Loman, having acted in front of over 100,000 ticket holders through the course of his career. With Mike Davis, Marc is the co-author of three plays (available from Eldridge Publishing) that have been produced from Seattle to South Africa, as well as twenty-six episodes of radio comedy on “The Moosehead Comedies Theatre of the Air.” In the future, Marc hopes to laugh more, worry less and find the cure for male pattern baldness.
Also known as “Miss Kitty,” KATHY is consistently surprised by the things her husband has succeeded in encouraging her to try. The first time she ever stepped on a stage, voiced a radio character (or two) and yes, contributed to the writing of Warren’s Peace is all due to her association with Marc “Danger Boy” Holland. And wow, what a ride it has been! After twenty years of marriage and two sparkling children, she is looking forward to what comes next. Kathy works full time, gardens, goes bowling and dabbles in photography. She also is looking for a new gig, now that Ray Charles has left this mortal coil and left her with no one to sing back-up for. (She can dream, can’t she?)
BOB MARSHALL Bob Marshall is professional musician (woodwind specialist), arranger and orchestrator and teacher with over forty-five years of experience. His background includes performance of and writing for most musical genre from classical to jazz. In addition to performing and writing, he also served as a performing arts consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Western States Arts Federation. For over 15 years he taught elementary school classroom music, band and choir and just recently retired. However, he continues full-time work in his music publishing/production company Snowflower Music where he arranges, orchestrates, and produces CD rehearsal tracks for music composers and playwrights around the country.
JJ LEWIS-NICHOLS Born and raised in NYC, JJ’s passion for the theatre started by seeing the original Mary Martin “South Pacific” at age 2 ½. Her theatre education included attending all the major Broadway shows from the 50’s through 2010. After attending Denison University, she graduated the first year of the Tisch School of the Arts in “acting”. Her Broadway credits include the French maid in “Private Lives” in 1969 and as Frances Hunter in “No Sex Please, We’re British” in 1973. Based in NYC, her 17-year professional career included national tours, the Cleveland Playhouse, and the Mark Taper Lab. Television credits include appearances in many soap operas, the sit-com “The Madhouse Brigade”, numerous TV commercials, and over 400 radio ads. Her film work includes “Dead Ringer” with Meatloaf and “Dreamchaser” with Harold Gould and Jeff Tambor. In 1981, she moved to Northern California where she is artistic director of the Siskiyou Performing Arts Center and currently working on her 112th show as director. She has taught “acting/directing/playwrighting” for College of the Siskiyous as adjunct faculty for 25 years. In addition to “Little Women – A Merry Christmas” (the musical), she has written and produced other musical adaptations including “The Littlest Angel” and “Christmas Carol”.
MELINDA FIELD Melinda Field is an award winning writer/poet/playwright who lives in the mountains of Northern California. A version of her short story The Ledge, excerpted from True, was an award winner in the Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition. She has authored three sets of wisdom cards with photographic artist Lani Phillips, that were created to inspire and empower women of all ages on a daily basis. They are Wisdom of the Crone, Wonder of the Mother and The Journey. Melinda is currently working on a sequel to True.
Craig Sodaro is one of Eldridge Publishing's most popular and prolific playwrights with over 60 titles currently in print. Most of his work is ideal for children's theatre and school performances, and several plays have been turned into musicals. His audience participation plays are extremely well received. For community theatre plays he writes under the pen name of Sam Craig. Mr. Sodaro taught for 33 years in public schools, but now writes full time. He and his wife Sue have four grown daughters. Here he speaks in his own words about his love of writing. "I always wanted to write. From the first time I read my first full-fledged book - a long-forgotten mystery - I wanted to be an author. I've always had an imagination that runs overtime. My mind has always been more interested in the possibilities of what if two times two equaled five rather than four. "I grew up in Chicago, but I don't think the Midwest has had a great deal of influence on my writing. I was fortunate enough to travel as a youngster, and the places we visited - the West, East, and South, all seemed steeped in atmosphere and dramatic possibilities. Eventually, I traveled to Alaska, Europe, and Africa, and each experience planted seeds for future stories. "I wrote my first play in high school - an anti-administration absurdist comedy performed in my last period art class. Our teacher turned a deaf ear to the proceedings, but we all caught her laughing. I liked this idea of audience response, and during college, I entered a playwriting contest. I won the fifty dollar prize and saw my characters come to life under the blue, red, and amber stage lights. I knew that this was the direction my writing obsession would have to take. "Success on stage would have to wait for a number of years, however, since I married, began teaching, and had four children and received many, many rejections slips. Eventually I found a formula that worked: large cast mystery with mainly female parts, one setting, and a lot of one-liners. Since then, I've written a hundred and thirty plays, many of which have been published and/or produced. I've had the thrill of walking down 54th Street in New York to a flag-adorned theater where one of my plays premiered. I've received terrific letters from kids who have had parts in the plays I've written, and I've found myself in Amazon.com. "Once in a while people ask me how I write so fast. I guess it’s that I have a lot of stories to tell. And idea will grab me, and then for quite some time—even while working on another script—I’ll keep thinking about the characters and develop the major plot points in my imagination. Once I sit down to the computer to write, the characters really tell the story almost too quickly for me to write down what they’re saying. And that's what I think playwriting is all about. It's telling a story in the simplest but most dramatic way possible. There's a ninety minute or so limit on reaching the climax, and for literature that's quick. I write fast simply so I can find out what's going to happen at the end, just like anybody who watches the play."
BRYAN STARCHMAN (left photo) BRYAN STARCHMAN grew up in the small foothill town of Mariposa, CA., just outside of Yosemite National Park. He began writing short stories in the first grade and fell in love with screenwriting in high school. Soon he tried his hand at playwriting. At UCLA, he spent four years honing his craft. There, he won the UCLA playwriting award for his satire on fraternity life. Unfortunately Bryan and Los Angeles went together like Elizabeth Taylor and husbands -- it just wasn’t meant to be. Now he lives in Mariposa with his beautiful wife Noel (even a geek sometimes gets the girl!) and his cats, Wily and Pinkerton. He teaches American Literature, Advanced Placement Language, and Theatre at his old high school. His plays have been produced over 1300 times in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, 9 out of 10 Canadian Provinces (come on Prince Edward Island!)and six more countries including Mexico, England, Italy, Dubai of the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and Portugal. He has also collaborated with fellow Eldridge playwright and composer Stephen Murray to create "Just Another High School Musical." More information at www.bryanstarchman.com
STEPHEN MURRAY (right photo) is a composer, lyricist and playwright who has been a Performing Arts Educator since 1985. Steve's plays and musicals have been produced throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Germany, South Africa, Malta, The Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and China. Some of his award-winning titles can be found in the Eldridge catalog. "Musical! The Bard is Back!" was the 2000 winner of the Columbia Entertainment Company National Playwriting Contest, the first musical ever to win the award. Two other Eldridge titles have also been recognized by the CEC Contest, "Mother Goose, Inc." and "The Universe and Other Stuff." Steve has a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Boston University. By day he is a humble music teacher, but by night, you may find him performing on various stages in Massachusetts.
MATT STEELE (Left photo) is a Los Angeles-based actor and writer who has been performing from a very early age. He began acting in a self-constructed theatre he built in his basement. For years, he and his older brother, performed, directed, and designed high-quality productions - at least as high quality as theatre can be with no budget, two actors, and curtains made from bedsheets. Matt performed with community theatre companies and in his high school plays before attending New York University as a Drama major at the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. There, he studied musical theatre under CAP21 and acting for the screen with Stonestreet Studios. Since graduation, Matt's acting work has been seen on screens, both large and small, and he has performed in theaters across the US, ranging from the grand Town Hall in NYC to the most intimate of performing spaces. He recently garnered international media acclaim for his original web series, "The Doomsday Diaries," for which he was reviewed in various publications and social media outlets, including The Huffington Post and the Village Voice. His performances in his school plays, however, will always remain his favorite memories as an actor. It's these memories that have given him a passion for writing for young performers. For more information, visit www.mattsteeleonline.com.
MIKE STEELE (Right photo) has been writing and directing from far back as he can remember. His life in the theatre began at the age of five when he gathered old bedsheets and constructed a stage in his basement so that he could direct a production of Snow White and the Two Dwarfs. Mike could not round up enough friends to cast seven dwarfs, so his adaptation had to be slightly non-traditional. His childhood weekends consisted mostly of forcing his friends and family to watch his original basement plays. Mike spent the bulk of his teenage years performing in school and community theatre productions and continued to act through college while he completed a BS in elementary education and sociology. Shortly before earning his degree, a local high school asked Mike to direct a play for a small group of students. The gig continued through the next year, and then the next, and he hasn't looked back since. Mike soon began to write full length plays and found ways to incorporate his students into the creative process. This evolved into what he now refers to as his cooperative drama program. Mike continues to direct school and community theatre productions and has taught cooperative drama workshops to a variety of students throughout the years - from elementary schoolers to senior citizens - as near as his hometown of Trenton, New Jersey, to as far as Bangkok, Thailand. He is happy to have found a way to combine his love of theatre and his passion for education. In Mike's spare time he enjoys exploring new places, watching television and films, and pretending like he knows how to play tennis. For more information, visit www.mikesteeleonline.com.
Playwright, editor and journalist EDWARD J. WALSH (far left) has had an award-winning career as a writer. At various local and national publications, he has served as a general assignment reporter, business reporter, travel writer, columnist and editor. For radio, he has written and helped produce programming for National Public Radio. Walsh also has contributed to or edited several books, including a 150th anniversary edition for Cleveland Cliffs, Inc. In addition, as a playwright his work has been produced Off-Off Broadway, and in many community and college theaters in the Greater Cleveland area. “Harry and Mary,” originally staged and televised on NBC in Cleveland, became the basis for “Two Can Play,” which was produced at the Barter Theatre in Virginia, and again in Kansas City, featuring Hayley Mills. Walsh is a graduate of John Carroll University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree and did post-graduate work in English literature.
ROBERT THOMAS NOLL has written 30 produced plays. His works have been performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including six Off-Off Broadway productions. Eight are published. As a TV producer/writer, he has won nine Emmys and a Silver Medal from the International Film and TV Festival of New York. For NBC, he served as producer/writer for their multi-award-winning syndicated children’s TV series, “Hickory Hideout.” He teaches playwriting and other courses at John Carroll University’s Tim Russert Department of Communication and Theatre Arts in Cleveland, Ohio. (They also produced four of his plays there.) At John Carroll, he also serves as adviser to their award-winning newspaper, The Carroll News. For nearly 20 years, he taught playwriting at The Cleveland Play House. Robert has degrees from Kent State University and Ohio University. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
E. Jack Williams --Upon graduation from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, in 1969, Mary and I moved to Waseca, Minnesota to accept a teaching position in media, speech, and theater which included directing plays. I’ve directed elementary, junior, and senior high school productions as well as community theater and after 43 years of directing, I am often asked which play is my favorite. The answer is always, “The one I’m working on.” Now I’m busy writing plays. In 1991 I was the recipient of the Minnesota Arc of Excellence Community Media Award for writing a play on bullying called CARL.
Mr. Williams has provided the following FREE monologue relating to his one-act play, "Carl."
SPEAKER: There aren’t many things about my high school days I would do over. I loved every minute of it. We had the greatest time: the dances, dates, games, everything. We all had fun. (Pause) Almost all. There isn’t much I would change about high school, not much ... just one thing ... Carl won’t be here ... Carl was one of those lost souls. The guy everybody loved to pick on ... I remember as if it were yesterday. I’ll never forget the time he was called on to give his Pet Peeve Speech. He walked slowly up to the front of the room and started his speech.
As CARL: “My name is Carl ... my pet peeve is this ... I don’t like it here ... I’m not having any fun. I don’t like school. You don’t know what it’s like to be alone, to have no one to talk with. When people talk to me, it’s only to tease, never had a friend, a buddy ... and it hurts. I see you with your friends before and after school. And I ask why not me? You knock my books to the floor. I’m different I know it. But, why do you have to tell me I’m different? I’m not stupid. I’d like to wear nice clothes, but this is all I have. You live in nice homes with your moms and dads ... I live with my father ... My mother died a long time ago. I miss her. She loved me. The worst part of school is being laughed at. I don’t want to be laughed at ... Do you? “
SPEAKER: There was dead silence as Carl walked back to his seat. Some students bowed their heads unable to look him in the eye. Miss McCloud wiped away a tear. Carl was self-conscious of many things especially the way he looked, walked and talked ... That’s why he surprised us when he actually read his manuscript. As it turned out, that was the only time he ever talked in front of the class. The only thing he seemed to care about was a small piece of paper he kept tucked in his pocket. As bad as school was for CARL, things didn’t get much better at home ... he could never seem to please his “old man.” Nothing he did was good enough ... nothing. The summer after graduation, Carl’s lifeless body was found hanging in the shed next to his house. Not many attended Carl’s funeral. Few heard about his death. Fewer even cared. His obituary simply read, “Carl Chapman died, suddenly, on August 12. Arrangements are pending.” We will never know what caused Carl to take his own life, but we do know this ... everything he learned about life, we taught him. Everything he experienced in life, we showed him. Everything we did to him prepared him for that moment. When the police discovered Carl’s body, they found him clinging tightly to a crumpled-up piece of paper. I’d like to tell you what it said, “If they could hear my prayers – I may be relieved of some of my pain.” THE END
Mike studied theatre arts with an emphasis on acting at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. His professional acting credits include seventeen seasons of regional theatre, thirteen of those with either the Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival Theatre Company or the South Dakota Shakespeare Company, where he also taught play writing workshops for youth. Mike has been the recipient of numerous directing, acting, and writing awards. In 1990 he was recognized for his contributions to the arts in secondary education by the Southwest Wisconsin Educational Alliance. Mike is a nine-time winner of the Wauwatosa Village Playhouse’s One-Act Playwriting Competition, a competition for Wisconsin writers, where his play, The Runaway, enjoyed a three week run in 2015 and was voted favorite script and favorite production. A U.S. army veteran, Mike’s Vietnam agent-orange drama, Who Said Life Was Fair, won the 1995 Wisconsin Section of the American Association of Community Theatre’s AACT-FEST Play Competition and was a runner-up at the Region III level. The author of over fifty plays, Mike’s works have varied from adult Vietnam War dramas to teen awareness plays and Shakespearean spoofs. He currently has thirty-five plays in publication. His plays have been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and numerous international schools. Many of his teen awareness plays have received awards in high school play contests. Mike has worked as a high school drama director and was the Artistic and Technical Director for the former Main Street Player’s Theatre Co. of Galena Illinois. During his career, Mike has directed over one hundred plays and presented workshops on set and light design, directing and play writing. Mike and his wife Sandy, split their time between their hometown of Platteville, Wisconsin and their winter home in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, but I attended college in Iowa, and, once here, I decided to stay. I am a high school/middle school Spanish and English instructor with over 25+ years of teaching experience in the River Valley School District. Even though I have been directing plays for years, WILD PINK was the very first play I ever wrote, and I owe a lot its success to the talented young actors who helped me bring my characters to life. Since then, I have written a play every year for my students to perform. Both my second play, SEALED IN SPIT and my fifth play, THE DOUBLE L DUDE RANCH, are now published by Eldridge. My hobbies include reading just about anything and writing stories for my friends and students. I also love attending my plays whenever they are close by to see how other directors portray what I have written. It seems like every performance has been different, but I have truly enjoyed each show as well as the time spent chatting with the directors, getting their insights, and meeting their outstanding casts and answering lots of questions. My husband, Thomas, my son, Chris, and my Shih Tzu, Maya, make up my small family but, on Friday nights during the football season, my house is usually full of teenagers who always seem to drop by after games for my “famous” chocolate chip cookies, a cold glass of milk, and a safe place to hang out.
Ken Womble is the Head of Acting and Professor of Theatre at the University of Northern Colorado.
His book, Inside Act: How Ten Actors Made It—and How You Can Too (Hansen Publishing Group), was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as “a 2014 book that flew under the radar.”
Ken’s adaptations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Importance of Being Earnest, published with Eldridge Publishing, have been produced throughout the U.S. Arms and the Man is his third adaptation for Eldridge.
Ken wrote and directed the first-ever documentary film on novelist James Michener, James A. Michener, An Epic Life, for which he was named UNC Scholar of the Year. He also directed and co-produced the short film An Equal Opportunity, which was named Best Inspirational Short at the Olympus Film Festival Los Angeles.
As an actor, Ken has appeared in two Off Broadway premieres and was the voice of a BBC radio announcer in the world premiere of Freud’s Last Session. He has had recurring roles on Guiding Light, General Hospital and All My Children, and is a member of Actors Equity and SAG/AFTRA.
Ken has directed over sixty plays, including Lobby Hero, Proof and First Date at Colorado’s Little Theatre of the Rockies, and award-winning productions of August: Osage County, Clybourne Park, and The Cherry Orchard at UNC.
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Reflections on The Artist’s Way, Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion — Francesca Sciandra
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This is the ninth post in a series on The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity , a book and a self-study program developed by Julia Cameron in the 1990s. I’m looking back on Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion .
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Francesca Sciandra
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This is the ninth post in a series on The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, a book and a self-study program developed by Julia Cameron in the 1990s. I’m looking back on Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion.
‘One of the most important tasks in artistic recovery is learning to call things—and ourselves—by the right names. Most of us have spent years using the wrong names for our behaviours. We have wanted to create what we want to create and we have been unable to create and we have called that inability laziness. This is not merely inaccurate, It is cruel. Accuracy and compassion serve us far better.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 9
Cameron opens week nine by suggesting we make a distinction between being lazy and being blocked. ‘Blocked artists are not lazy. They are blocked.’
She tells us blocked artists spend energy on self-hatred, regret, grief, jealousy, and self-doubt.
They let the big vision become a prison of procrastination. Instead of breaking free and taking steps in the right direction, blocked artists stay trapped.
She says there is only one cure for this fear, and it’s love. ‘Use love for your artist to cure its fear.’
‘The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist. The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any at all.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 9
Enthusiasm
‘Over any extended period of time, being an artist requires enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual committment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 9
I remember learning to draw in my studio art class in high school. As a teenager, I tapped into the magic of making something from nothing.
I remember drawing a perfect bird, and the moment when I realised my drawing was more beautiful than I was. Where did this beauty come from? From me? It seemed impossible. I felt afraid, as though I had discovered a secret that I couldn’t share. Who would understand this?
The word enthusiasm comes from Greek, meaning ‘filled with God’.
Enthusiasm is our connection to something greater than ourselves. The higher power moves through us, between us, around us. We pull down the line and plug in.
‘As attractive as the idea of a pristine cell, monastic in its severity, is to our romanticised notion of being a real artist, the workable truth may be somewhat messier than that.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 9
I have a recurring dream where I discover a new room in my home. It’s not exactly the same dream each time—the house is different and the rooms change—but the theme is consistent.
Last night I dreamt I lived in a large American-style country house, possibly in New England or somewhere in New York State. I found a new space next to my bedroom that would make a perfect art studio. There was light coming in from windows on three sides. The painted wooden floors had a slight spring under my feet. There was enough wall space to hang and prop up canvases. Have I been there before? Will I find it in my future? I’m unsure. It’s nothing like where I live or work at the moment, but this space is inside me.
‘Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.’
— Pablo Picasso
People ask me where I get my inspiration. What they are asking, it seems, is where I get the ideas for my artwork. It’s a kind question and I appreciate people asking, but I’m sensitive to the idea of inspiration.
The need for inspiration as a starting point can be an avoidance strategy, a tool for staying blocked. I’d paint, but I don’t know what to make. I’d write, but I don’t know what to say.
‘Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait for the clouds to part and a bolt of lighting to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.’
— Chuck Close
To trust the process, even when the work is bad or uninspired (especially when the work is bad or uninspired), is to believe you’re worthy of the time and resources it takes to get to the good work.
The rough drafts, the discarded recordings, the pages of sketches—these are the evidence of our self-love.
Sometimes I don’t want to get to work. I don’t want to play. I don’t feel inspired. I have little enthusiasm.
When this happens, I parent myself. I let my inner child choose between two options so she feels encouraged and guided.
I can start making and doing without an agenda. I trust that I’ll find the flow and connect with the beat as I move. I step through the discomfort until I’ve forgotten about it.
Or, I can choose to take a meaningful pause to reset my energy. I can take a nap, go for a walk, meditate, do my artist date, take a trip. I am allowed to take care of my inner artist. I give myself what feels right—45 minutes, 45 hours, 45 days—then I go back to the process.
Creative U-Turns
‘Recovering from artist block, like recovering from any major illness or injury, requires a commitment to health. At some point, we must make an active choice to relinquish the joys and privileges accorded to the emotional invalid. A productive artist is quite often a happy person. This can be very threatening as a self-concept to those who are used to getting their needs met by being unhappy.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 9
When we go through a recovery of any type, we step into a higher version of ourselves. What should we do with the person we once were? It’s tempting to disregard this old self—the addict, the doormat, the victim, the loser, the blocked artist.
We have the option to integrate the old self as we grow and evolve. We can mourn, love, and understand who we have been, and accept our path through life more fully.
Shadow work is a powerful way of honouring all parts of ourselves. We can put the focus on the dark parts that we might want to avoid while understanding their essential purpose for our survival in the world.
Blasting Through Blocks
‘In order to work freely on a project, an artist must be at least functionally free of resentment (anger) and resistance (fear). What do mean by that? We mean that any buried barriers must be aired before the work can proceed.’
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 9
Cameron suggests a five-step process to clear resentment and resistance. 1. List the resentments, 2. List the fears, 3. Double-check they are all there, 4. Ask yourself what you gain by not doing it, and finally, 5. Make your deal. The deal is: ‘Okay Creative Force, you take care of the quality. I’ll take care of the quantity.’
If we dig deep enough when asking what we gain by not breaking through resentment or resistance, it’s usually the chance to stay in a state of resentment or resistance. By staying in our suffering, we can continue to get the sharp hit of pain and discomfort that makes us feel alive and gives our lives meaning.
Between staying with our suffering and letting go, there’s a process of healing.
When I work with clients experiencing fear, there’s usually a good reason for their fear. When it’s not fully expressed, it gets stuck and moves around. Smaller fears stand-in for the big fear that needs to be witnessed and honoured.
The same goes for sadness, anger, grief, and any other emotional state that can overwhelm us. Like honouring our shadow and its protective forces, we can honour, understand, and integrate our challenging emotional states as we grow.
As artists, we have a choice to transmute our emotions and experiences into our creative work or let them go so we can be free to do different work. Giving ourselves the option is an act of compassion and self-love.
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https://firstonlinewithfran.com/tag/theatre-education/
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Theatre Education – First Online with Fran
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First Online with Fran
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https://firstonlinewithfran.com/tag/theatre-education/
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How do I make sure every kid gets that kind of emotional connection to their education? The Arts are how you do that. I am passionate about working with schools and spreading the word on how powerful and impactful learning through the arts can be. I have seen schools transform time and time again, and I want to help all schools find this success.
QUESTION: Comment on how an arts-inclusive education impacted your life?
Dr. Jennifer Katona, President and Founder 3 Looms Creative Education Consulting is currently the Visual and Performing Arts Sr. Manager for the Norwalk Public Schools is the former Director and Founder of the Graduate Program in Educational Theatre at the City College of New York (CCNY), where she oversaw the certification of pre and in-service Theatre teachers and training of non-certified theatre educators.
Through her work at CCNY Jennifer created and oversaw the middle school afterschool drama program at PS 161 the neighboring K-8 school in Harlem. Another hallmark of the CCNY Educational Theatre program was the partnership with Roundabout Theatre Company and Teaching Technical Theatre course which was taught in the off-Broadway studios of Roundabout Theatre Education. Additionally, under her leadership CCNY Educational Theatre Program partnered with the Arthur Miller Foundation to create the scholar’s program to help support the preparation of more arts teachers for the New York City public school system. Jennifer has served as mentors for Fulbright scholars through her work at CCNY.
The name 3 Looms is homage to the influential work that started my journey into education over twenty years ago.
My first taste of how to liberate a classroom came from watching Dorothy Heathcote’s documentary, 3 Looms in Waiting. Dorothy famously would walk into a classroom and ask students, “What shall we do a play about today?”
Now while I recognize we cannot walk into a class and ask students what they want to learn, I strive to create environments that take us as close to learner-centered as possible. As close to allowing students to say, “This is what I would like to learn about today…”
Jennifer served as the Arts Education consultant for Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut and has served as a curriculum consultant for Disney Theatrical Education, Broadway’s Come From Away, created study guides for Broadway’s Once on this Island Revival, and facilitated workshops on curriculum mapping for the Arthur Miller Foundation Fellows, New York City Department of Education Office of Arts and Special Projects as well as facilitated webinars on the same topics for teachers nationwide through AATE where she currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors and has previously served as Director of Regional Programming –overseeing Theatre In Our Schools initiatives. As Board Chair Jennifer serves as representative to National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) which is a partnership of organizations and states leading the development of new core arts standards for the United States.
Prior to coming to CCNY Jennifer taught middle school theatre in Brooklyn and worked as Teaching Artist for numerous cultural organizations throughout the Tri-State area most notably New Victory Theatre, Arts Connection, NorthShore Music Theatre and Starlight Youth Productions. She has an extensive performance, directing, choreography resume and extensive experience in technical theatre and stage management.
Jennifer holds a Ph.D. in Urban Education: Arts Policy and her current research explores Factors Which Influence the Decision of a School Leader to Maintain or Eliminate Arts Programming in their School and building sustainable arts programming in urban schools.Jennifer has spoken and presented on this topic at many conferences across the country. As well as worked closely with Americans for the Arts on arts advocacy related matters.
Twitter @profkatona
Theatre Communications Group Essay Salon
BY MONICA BAUER
On the last day of the run of the “three plays against Islamophobia”, Aizzah Fatima called me to come down from the audience to share our final bows together. She told the story of this crazy Christian woman who called her out of the blue months earlier to brainstorm ways to use theater to confront Islamophobia. At that moment, we both felt “mission accomplished.” We had met each other in common cause, to do our jobs to tell the truth in front of an audience.
In May of 2016, I watched with horror as Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for President. Back then, we all knew what he’d said about Muslims. Still to come would be the horrendous attack on the Khan family after Khizr Khan, father of American hero Captain Humayan Khan, spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Ever since I graduated from playwriting school at Boston University in 2004, I had been sharpening one tool for communicating to the world; theater. I knew I wanted to say something theatrically about Trump, particularly about his fanning the flames of Islamophobia.
Much of my passion to fight against Islamophobia comes from my personal history: I spent a year teaching at the American University in Cairo, in the 1990’s. I didn’t just come for a weekend seminar. I was there for a year, living in the suburb of Ma’adi, having serious conversations with my students, some taking up the hijab out of devotion, some proudly wearing their hair in the latest styles and wearing the tightest jeans they could buy. And I was teaching in a delicate area- Political Science. So I had good reason to lead some very sensitive discussions with my students about politics. I had one student, a serious looking young man, whose answer to everything was “Islam is the answer.” As often happens, they taught me more than I taught them.
When I came back to the U.S., I was changed forever. I was attuned to the problems of the Middle East. When 9-11 happened, and Bush turned to bomb Iraq after Afghanistan, I felt like I was a tiny voice screaming at the top of my lungs “Saddam Hussein is Sunni and secular and Osama bin Laden is Wahhabi and they hate each other!” And I knew right away there’d be a wave of Islamophobia washing over America. I was pleased when George W. Bush refused to use Islamophobia as a political weapon, but furious he was taking us into Iraq. By 2016, I had seen Trump use Islamophobia to gin up hatred against an entire world religion that he obviously knew nothing about. And I was pissed.
When you’ve lived in another culture, “they” are no longer “the other.” They are your friends and neighbors. They have names: Mohammed, Kareem, Fatima. Majidah. So when Trump turned his toxic spotlight on the Muslim community, I had to do something.
Luckily, one of my playwright pals is Aizzah Fatima, a Pakistani-American artist I first met at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was over there producing a play of mine, “Made for Each Other,” and doing some blogging for the Huffington Post. They wanted short pieces from Americans doing their first Edinburgh Fringe, so I signed up, and decided to review Aizzah’s show, “Dirty Paki Lingerie.” Her one woman show blew me away– I felt I suddenly knew six different Muslim-American women, each with an important story about being Muslim in America. The show was theatrical, well-written, funny, poignant, and Aizzah was perfect in all six roles. That’s how we became friends.
In May of 2016, when I wanted more than anything to hit Trump’s Islamophobia full force with theater, I knew exactly who to call.
I put up the money from my retirement savings, rationalizing that if I lost it all I’d just have to die a few months earlier. Aizzah put up her talent and connections with the Muslim, Arab, and Middle Eastern theater community in New York. I wanted to showcase her performances in “Dirty Paki Lingerie”, which I knew she had just toured to the UK and Pakistan. She’d already done several runs of the show in New York as a solo show artist, and she said we needed to do something more to get audience and press. At first we wanted to call it “A Theater Festival Against Trump,” but our landlords at Urban Stages Theater said that was too political. They’d help us promote our show, but only if their Board didn’t deem it “too political.” That’s when we came up with the title, “The Lady Liberty Theater Festival.” I wrote a short play as a curtain raiser called “Lady Liberty’s Worst Day Ever,” a two-hander between Lady Liberty and her agent Vinnie, who gives her the bad news that Trump wants to buy her and rebrand her as “Lady Trump.” I even managed to create a rap based on the Emma Lazarus poem on the statue’s base!
We had a 60 minute show (“Dirty Paki Lingerie”) and a short curtain raiser. If we didn’t add anything else, it would be a short lopsided night of theater, with no intermission. So I expanded a short play called “No Irish Need Apply,” which had just been done at the Kennedy Center’s “Tiny Plays for Ireland and America.” The play is about a Syrian refugee looking for a job, and an old Irish-American woman who may or may not be prejudiced. Now we had one play by a Pakistani-American, and two short plays by me. We needed more diversity.
Could we expand into a real festival with numerous plays by a wide variety of playwrights? It was just the two of us, Aizzah in New York and me currently based in Tucson, Arizona. We quickly realized we didn’t have the organization necessary to run anything approaching a real festival. But we could manage one day of staged readings! We made the connection that our rental at Urban Stages included September 11th, so we began to plan for a two-fold event: an evening of three plays against Islamophobia running nightly from September 7th through the 25th, and a day long festival of staged readings against Islamophobia, showcasing the work of a diverse group of writers, actors, and directors for the 15th anniversary of September 11th.
On September 11th we produced staged readings collaborating with a diverse group of actors, directors, and writers: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians from Iran, plus the usual theater percentage of agnostics and atheists. Participants included director Kareem Fahmy, from an Egyptian family that settled in Canada, and Ali Andre Ali, an actor whose background is half Palestinian and half Irish! The playwrights included Mona Mansour, Maximillian Singh Gill, Emma Goldman-Sherman, and me. Aizzah Fatima played two roles in the reading of my play “Anne Frank in the Gaza Strip.” We asked for donations for the International Rescue Committee for Syrian refugees.
On the last day of the run of the “three plays against Islamophobia”, Aizzah Fatima called me to come down from the audience to share our final bows together. She told the story of this crazy Christian woman who called her out of the blue months earlier to brainstorm ways to use theater to confront Islamophobia. At that moment, we both felt “mission accomplished.” We had met each other in common cause, to do our jobs to tell the truth in front of an audience. We had gone beyond just talking about creating theater to actually creating theater, putting up money and talent and time. Not everyone is able to do these things. Most of us are living day to day and can’t spend the time and effort to do this sort of work. It was a joy and a privilege for Aizzah and me to actually roll up our sleeves and get it done, during the most important election season in our life times, in the home town of Donald Trump.
MONICA BAUER
Full length plays produced Off Broadway, Off-Off Broadway, regionally in Denver, Boston, Providence, Omaha, Detroit, Tucson, and internationally in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Brighton (England) Fringe Festival. Education includes a B.A. from Brown,
M. Div. from Yale, M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska. Monica was the 2004 Teaching Fellow in the Graduate Playwriting Program at Boston University, where she received an MA in playwriting. Short plays produced in the Boston Theater Marathon, National 15 Minute Play Festival, and many others. Conferences include Sewanee, Great Plains Theater Conference (twice), Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive, and Kenyon Playwrights’ Conference. Outstanding Playwriting of a New Script, for “The Higher Education of Khalid Amir,” Midtown International Theater Festival, 2008. Her musical, “Lighter”, for which she wrote book, music, and lyrics, was presented at the New York Musical Theater Festival in 2009. Her full length play about race, “My Occasion of Sin,” was part of the 2014 season of the Detroit Repertory Theater. Her play for one actor, “Made for Each Other” has been in various production since 2009. In September of 2014, “Chosen Child” was given two staged readings in New York as part of the Indie Theater Now/Stage Left Studio Reading Series, directed by Austin Pendleton. “Chosen Child” was also part of the 2014-2015 season at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, where it was nominated for an IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) award for Best New Play. Heideman Finalist for multiple award-winner “Answering,” published by Heuer. Winner, Emerging Playwright Award, Urban Stages. Winner, Kennedy Center’s Tiny Plays for Ireland and America, 2016, for “No Irish Need Apply.” Plays published by Heuer, Brooklyn, and online at Indie Theater Now. Proud member, Dramatists Guild and League of Professional Theatre Women. Full production history at www.monicabauer.com.
BLOG SALON CURATOR
Ruth Margraff is a playwright and writing program chair at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Margraff’s plays, poetry and opera works include Anger/Fly; Three Graces; Temptation of the Fresh Voluptuous; Cafe Antarsia Ensemble; Seven; Stadium Devildare; The Cry Pitch Carrolls; The Elektra Fugues; Night Vision; Deadly She-Wolf Assassin At Armageddon, Voice of the Dragon 1,2,3; Judges 19: Black Lung Exhaling; All Those Violent Sweaters; Red Frogs; Night Parachute Battalion; The State of Gristle; Centaur Battle of San Jacinto; Wallpaper Psalm. Her work has been performed at various festivals and venues throughout USA; UK; Canada; Russia; Romania; Serbia; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Greece; Turkey; Slovenia; Czech Republic; Croatia; France; Austria, Sweden; Japan; Egypt; India, Azerbaijan. She is recipient of numerous awards from institutions including Rockefeller Foundation; McKnight Foundation; Jerome Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Theater Communications Group; Fulbright; New York State Council on the Arts; Illinois Arts Council; Arts International; Trust for Mutual Understanding of New York, CultureConnect.
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/18/i-thought-drink-and-drugs-enabled-my-creativity-julia-cameron-on-the-drama-behind-the-artists-way
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‘I thought drink and drugs enabled my creativity’: Julia Cameron on the drama behind The Artist’s Way
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When even Hunter S Thompson tells you to take it easy, you must be overdoing it. The bestselling author talks about marrying Martin Scorsese, sobering up, and writing a bestseller
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the Guardian
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/18/i-thought-drink-and-drugs-enabled-my-creativity-julia-cameron-on-the-drama-behind-the-artists-way
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The first and only rule of morning pages is that you must do them every morning – no exceptions. In practice, everyone makes exceptions. But, in the more than 30 years in which Julia Cameron has started her day by writing down three pages of stream-of-conscious thoughts, she has only ever missed one. That was years ago, when she was travelling to New York from her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over several flights. Her cherished morning routine was lost in transit. The impact of the disruption is what Cameron, 74, remembers.
“I felt scattered and disorganised, and unable to think clearly,” she says, sounding dismayed all these years later. Then she brightens. “I realised: oh my God, the morning pages really shaped my life.”
She started the habit in her 30s, just after her divorce from film director Martin Scorsese, as she battled alcoholism and cocaine addiction – and raised their baby daughter. In all this chaos, she settled on three handwritten pages as an achievable target, no matter how difficult it might seem.
Cameron’s morning pages have, also, of course, shaped the lives of millions of others. They are a central tenet of her bestselling book The Artist’s Way: a publishing phenomenon that still connects with people 30 years after it was first published. The book is a practical guide to “creativity as a spiritual practice” and has sold more than 4m copies since it came out in 1992.
Over the 12-week course it lays out, Cameron leads the reader through exercises to “discover and recover” their inner artist, which she believes is often buried by factors such as fear of judgment or shame. Much of the strategy and advice in the Artist’s Way is common sense, such as protecting time for creativity and prioritising play. But Cameron’s whimsical, idiosyncratic voice elevates it beyond the obvious.
On the page, she is compassionate and cajoling, convincing you of your capability and jollying you along with anecdotes about her Hollywood years. I’m not surprised to find that Cameron is just as lively and engaging in person – but I am touched by the interest she shows in me.
She has even dressed up for our call, her berry-coloured lipstick matching her glasses and her hair in a loose up-do. I apologise for my own relative scruffiness. “I wanted to look particularly nice,” Cameron says. “Then I woke up this morning, and I thought, ‘Oh dear! My hair is all awry!’”
She recently revisited her 2006 memoir Floor Sample, now published for the first time in the UK. “I found myself feeling that maybe it’s time to give people a glimpse of the artist behind The Artist’s Way,” she says.
“I was able to take a look at exactly how very resilient I had been as an artist. I hadn’t allowed adversity to stop me.” It’s true that in reading Floor Sample I was flabbergasted by the turbulence, hardship and angst that Cameron has endured over her life – as well as the matter-of-fact, even sanguine way she recounts it.
Growing up in Libertyville, Illinois, Cameron was the second-eldest of seven children, born to parents who treasured music and literature. She was only allowed to watch films that received an A-grade for decency – but she could read whatever she liked, fostering a passion for writing.
Living in Washington, in her early 20s, Cameron talked her way into an office job at the Washington Post, and then a byline. She became known for snappy, stylish pieces on everything from nail polish trends to politics. When her bosses suggested she might like to do her actual administrative job, she quit to freelance.
Her big break came when she interviewed the children of the Watergate conspirator E Howard Hunt, a scoop for Rolling Stone. She had a hot new career and a new journalist crowd, “many of them heavy drinkers”. Cameron fitted right in, to such an extent that Hunter S Thompson told her she might like to cut back on the booze. “Five nights out of six, you are the best date in town,” she says he told her. “But on that sixth night …”
But drinking had become central to Cameron’s identity as a hard-nosed, hard-living reporter and her mounting sense of herself as an aspiring spiritual artist.
Striving for control, she imposed rules: no hard spirits, don’t drink and write – unless she had amphetamines to keep her lucid. “I thought that the drinking and the drug use were enabling my creativity … We have a mythology that tells us artists should be drunk and in pain.” But by 1976, she had graduated to cocaine – and married Scorsese.
They met when Cameron was sent to profile the then up-and-coming director. The commission was spiked after their interview concluded in his hotel suite (where she zhooshed up the script for Taxi Driver). Cameron writes in her memoir that she knew within seconds of meeting Scorsese that they would marry; she even called her mother to say so, halfway through their interview.
Their daughter Domenica, an artist, was born within a year of their wedding. The relationship tarnished Cameron’s reputation as a journalist – one editor advised her to get a divorce – but it led to opportunities in screenwriting. Had she stayed married to Scorsese, The Artist’s Way would not have been written, says Cameron. “He was very generous; he shared his films with me and wanted to use my talents – and I was delighted to do that … I would have spent my time aiding and abetting and helping him.”
But Cameron’s escalating reliance on alcohol and cocaine – plus Scorsese’s highly public affair with Liza Minnelli while making New York, New York – put pressure on the marriage. They divorced the following year, after Cameron was hospitalised with a nervous breakdown.
She finally hit rock bottom and got help. “When I started getting sober, I was told that I had to pray,” Cameron says. “I said: ‘Prayer? Not me!’
“They said: ‘You must believe in something.’ I thought about it and then I realised that I believed in a line from Dylan Thomas: ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’, that particular creative energy that makes something grow to be a petunia or a pansy …
“It struck me as being far more benevolent than the concepts of God that I had grown up with.” The thought freed her own tortured artist, facilitating free and full expression; she has been sober for 44 years.
God looms large in The Artist’s Way as – Cameron explains – a shorthand for some kind of creative force or higher power working through us, and the strange synchronicity and mysticism of making art. Now, when she writes her morning pages, Cameron will explicitly address “the Great Creator” or “Little Julie”, her younger self, and ask for guidance. “Then I listen, and I write down what I hear.”
That has included past directives to go to New Mexico (“this was before New Mexico was chic”), and even which route to take there; she went on to split her time between there, Los Angeles and New York.
In the late 80s, she began to test her approach on her fellow “blocked” artist friends and students of the creative writing programmes she was teaching in New York. When her course notes were passed around, Cameron began to circulate photocopies, then selling them for $20.
Word of mouth led them to be picked up by what is now an imprint of Penguin; the first run was just 9,000 copies. On Zoom, triumph glints behind Cameron’s glasses. “They thought: ‘It’s a little teeny California woo-woo book.’ It was only once we had sold about 100,000 copies that they said: ‘Maybe we should pay some attention to this.’”
Was she surprised by the response? No, she says – not because of ego, but because of the wide range of test subjects she had had in her creativity workshops. “Lawyers, judges, sculptors, actors, writers, housewives, accountants, ballerinas – all were finding that they opened up to their creativity through using the tools.”
“What I say is: you’re falling in love with yourself,” she says. “When you write your three pages, you’re sending a telegram to the universe, saying: ‘This is what I like. This is what I want more of. This is what I want less of.’”
She advises doing the pages immediately on waking, before your mental defences are up (and certainly before looking at your phone) – and only three pages. Any more feeds the ego, she says, in itself a block to free creativity.
However, “There is no wrong way to write morning pages,” says Cameron. “It can be as negative as you wish, as positive as you wish, about an issue which is deep or shallow.”
My unbroken streak of morning pages is nowhere near Cameron’s, but, even in my stints of three weeks or so, I have found that they settle me for the rest of the day, a bit like going for a run first thing. The effect is to bring whatever might be rolling around in your subconscious mind out into the open: whether latent desires or uncomfortable truths. For instance, Cameron mentions someone who was forced to confront their problem drinking after realising all their daily pages mentioned a hangover.
The other pillar of The Artist’s Way is “artist’s dates”: a weekly sojourn, specifically to inspire. Like the morning pages, it is simple to do and hard to maintain. But, with consistency and commitment, Cameron swears, “It does transform lives.”
“One of the things I really love is that it forces you to take ownership of your creativity,” the actor Ito Aghayere tells me. Aghayere stumbled upon Cameron’s book in 2018, while feeling adrift not long after moving to LA; within six months, she had landed a CBS show. Most recently, she has appeared in Star Trek: Picard.
She says the book changed her life: “It’s an existential journey into rediscovering that sense of possibility that we can all engage with, no matter what industry you’re in … I’ve bought so many copies for friends.”
It’s not just the conviction of Cameron’s celebrity following that is telling, it’s the diversity. Fans include Patricia Cornwell, Reese Witherspoon, Pete Townshend, Alicia Keys and John Cleese, while Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, has completed the entire course at least three times.
Cameron is always being confronted by the impact she has made. “People will come up to me and say, ‘Here’s the book that I wrote’, or ‘the necklace that I made’, or ‘I have my own one-woman show now’. I’m so grateful to think that my work has been a building block in someone else’s.”
No one is exempt. Underpinning The Artist’s Way is Cameron’s belief that everyone is creative and capable of becoming more so. “We all have an inner spark,” Cameron says – and her books give us permission to pursue it. “What I have found is that people read The Artist’s Way with a sense of relief: ‘Oh, so I’m not crazy.’”
Could she imagine her own life without the morning pages?
“No,” she answers, with certainty. “And I don’t want to.”
This article was amended on 21 August 2022 to remove a personal detail.
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The Playwriting Podcast — How to Write Plays.com
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Episode 413 of da Playwriting Podcast: Inside and Outside Problems vith Professor Albert.
“I have stolen da podcast forever. Dis is no longer Mr. Volf's podcast. He is locked in da basement until da end of time or sooner!
GET BACK IN DERE OR I WILL SING TO YOU!!!!! GET IN DERE NOW!
"Edelveiss...
Edelveiss...
Every morning you kiss me
Small und vite clean und bright
You look happy to miss me!"
Come listen to me as I teach da amazing playwriting, und tell you da secrets to the Universe so you can be da greatest playwright in da vurld, almost as good as me!
Dis time on dis podcast I talk about Inside Problems und Outside problems vatever dat is.
You are a very special and beautiful human being. (I am only saying dat for I want you to listen to dis podcast. He He He!)
Do you have vat it takes to be great playwright?
Do you have da supreme motivation?
Do you have indigestion?
Den listen to dis podcast and learn from da greatest playwriting coach in da vurld:
Professor Albert, da greatest playwriting coach in da vurld! Dat's me!”
In this episode, I share some very cool techniques for you to Get into that Elusive Creativity Zone consistently, and if you are in the Creativity Zone consistently, your creative output is going to soar! Check this out and change your life!
Bio:
Playwright/ Screenwriter, Director and Producer Sarah T. Schwab
Initially developed for the stage, the film Sarah wrote and produced “A Stage of Twilight” stars Karen Allen and William Sadler. This film is a love story set in the final chapter of Cora and Barry's lives. The film premiered in a limited theater run this March and is now available to stream on demand on Amazon, Vudu, Vubiquity/Verizon Fios, Hoopla, Charter/Spectrum, Comcast/Xfinity, and Cox.
Sarah is an active member of the Playwright/Directors unit at the Actors Studio in New York City and has previously won Best Director in an English Language Feature Film at the Madrid International Film Festival in 2020 for her first feature film, “Life After You.” Sarah was also honored in 2022 with the Best Emerging Director award at the Woods Hole Film Festival for "A Stage of Twilight.” In 2023, “A Stage of Twilight” won the Filmmaker Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival.
In this awesome episode, I interview Playwright, Director and Producer, Freedom Farlow Cooke! She talks about her writing workflow, her new play which is being produced in Philadelphia in June, and both Freedom and I, invite you to direct some of your own work for it will change your life. Check out this episode. Freedom is a fantastic creator and she has a lot of wonderful insights to share!
More about Freedom:
Bio
Playwright - Freedom Farlow Cooke
I have written several plays (a number of which have been produced) that relate to social issues within the African American community. I have also received a grant for my short film entitled “AMELIKA.”
I write because it allows me to tell stories that are not only relatable, but encourage others to explore their own perspectives of thought.
Playwriting is a gift that allows the audience to view stories through the lens and imagination of others, a wonderful journey into unique life experiences told through beautiful and compelling stories. While some stories have been told, many have yet to be explored - so anytime I can be a conduit to bridge the gap, I am willing to write!
In this very cool episode of The Playwriting Podcast, I talk about how to make BIG and congruent choices in your work, so that you are not a mediocre playwright! Wow! Tough love! But heck, wimpy choices create wimpy plays, and yes, you have to risk being over the top, in order to land on the precipice called BIG and PERFECT. Do you have the Beach Balls to make some big choices and take a risk? You only live once, so what are you waiting for?
And in this process of talking BIG Choices…
I talk about WITCHLAND which Manhattan Rep is producing and bringing to stunning life.
What better than a play about and EVIL WITCH in a town maybe poisioned by Nuclear waste?
Sound like the perfect play to make some big choices!
Check this out!
Listen online at the button below.
And get your tickets to Witchland at the link below opening April 5th in NYC!
https://witchlandplay.com/get-tickets/
In this exciting episode, I talk about editing, and I offer my 10 Editing Questions again as a means of editing your work as you write and editing your first draft, second draft and more. Editing is often tedious but it is one of the most important things you can do to refine your play. And with my 10 Editing Questions (Below) - Wow! Editing your play will be more effective and faster than you have ever experienced before!
My 10 Editing Questions:
These questions are like filters to refine your play and make it more concise.
And concise is good.
1. Is there a clear problem & action related to the problem that needs to be solved in each scene? If not, fix it.
2. Does this scene top the scene before? If not, fix it.
3. Are your characters saying too many words? Do they need to say three sentences when they could say the same thing in one sentence?
4. Do your characters speak in clear and distinctly different ways? If not, how can you make them consistently different?
5. Are your characters telling stories that don’t have a dramatic event attached to the telling of the story? If not, cut them or make them two sentences tops. I’m serious. (A story with a dramatic event attached could be a Coming Out story, or a Break Up story.)
6. Are the characters saying too little? Is it clear what is happening in each EVENT?
7. Are you telling BACK STORY to the audience that is not intrinsically told during a dramatic action moment in the scene? If not, fix it!
8. Is the scene too long? Could it be a page or two shorter and still convey all the important information and ACTION that will propel this play to its dramatic conclusion?
9. Is the scene too short? Are the actions and events in this scene big enough?
10. Do you need this scene? Does this scene top the scene before, and propel the dramatic action of the play? If you answer yes to this - keep the scene. If no, cut it!
In this episode, I talk about how you can take IDEAS from plays, film and TV and make those ideas your own and put them into your plays. This is not plagiarism, for you are not taking lines, just concepts and adapting them for your own amazing uses. I talk about FROM SCRATCH on Netflix that steals from Chekhov in an incredible and amazing way, but if you don’t know The Three Sisters as well as I know it, you would never see it. (BTW, FROM SCRATCH is one of the best TV series I have ever seen. It is brilliant and so beautifully constructed, and acted. Bravo!). And then I talk about all the ways you can take these concepts and ideas to improve your playwriting. This one is fun!
In this episode, I talk about the opportunities for playwrights in this very Brave New Normal. The Theatre world has been disrupted by the pandemic, making now the perfect time to connect with theatres and producers and Theatre ANGELS, to get your play produced.
I talk about Powerhouse by David Harms which we are producing OFF-BROADWAY in October and I talk about the wild process of reaching out to Agents to find Name Talent for the lead, and how that process too has changed because of this pandemic. Then I tell a quick Zen story, and invite you to use this time to get your plays produced! This nutty new time is filled with opportunity if you look at this world as it is and not as you think it was. Don’t miss this one. Super Fun!
My old pal, Professor Albert is back and he has hijacked the podcast again to talk to playwrights all over the world about creating specific characters, and to demonstrate his intense acting abilities in the process.
Aren’t you tired of Ken Wolf on this podcast telling you that you need to do this and you need to do that to propel your playwriting career to the next level? Now you can listen to Motivational Music Superstar Professor Albert as he tells you that you need to do this, and you need to do that to propel your playwriting career to the next level. And then for the first time on this podcast, Professor Albert shares a hypnosis meditation so that you can write better characters and also, become one with the universe! Don’t miss this exciting episode!
In this episode, I rail about how often writers will play with new ways to TELL a story at the expense of creating a clear context, so that the people watching will actually UNDERSTAND what is going on! I see it in movies, TV and alas, in plays.
Then I talk about the importance of creating a clear context and how it will ultimately be the foundation on which to build your play. And as usual, I tell a cool story to illustrate all.
Then, I talk about Powerhouse by David Harms, the Off-Broadway show we are producing opening next October in Midtown Manhattan. I talk about working on the script and how my intention is to create a perfect rehearsal draft for this play.
And lastly, I offer up really good reasons why you need to take one of my Master Academy Zoom Courses: The Playwright’s Reading, or Rewriting Your Play, and I share the wonders of a great playwright website and how we will build it for you.
All this in under 18 minutes. What fun!
In this episode, I talk about FEAR, our old Pal who often comes a callin’ when we are moving forward in our lives and doing new things.
I take you through a process to challenge your FEAR and find a better emotional answer, so you can move forward in your playwriting career with new clarity and passion, and BE MORE.
Becoming a working playwright is not just about writing a great play. You need to become FEARLESS and relentless and connect to theatres, producers, agents and more.
And to do that, often, you have to change how you think.
Wow, a podcast about playwriting that is not about playwriting…
…and it is.
Check this out. Do the work. Change your thinking and get your work out into the world!
In this episode, I talk about Amsterdam’s Orange Theatre Company’s Short Zoom Theatre Film - FEVER DREAMS, which was one of the most exciting and creative Zoom presentations that I have ever seen! (It is a part of Manhattan Rep’s Stories Film Festival in May. Don’t miss it!)
In this amazing Zoom Film there was a Big Problem, Big Events happening in the story (AND ON THE COMPUTER!) It was so well rehearsed and filled with INSANE PASSION!!
I outline these FOUR STEPS to take your PLAY to the next level. How can you go further with your work? And get your work out into the world as we move into this NEW RENAISSANCE OF THEATRE! Don’t miss this!
In the episode, I ask the BIG QUESTION: Do you want to join the REVOLUTION?
Do you want to be part of tomorrow’s theatre, a vibrant and passionate community of artists writing plays that make a difference? Do you want to be a part of this NEW AGE of live storytelling? Are you willing to do the work to write like you have never written before to help transform this BRAVE NEW WORLD?
As storytellers, we have more power to create a shift in consciousness than all the politicians in the world. Playwrights are magicians and miracle makers. (Yes, you are!) So are you ready to create some miracles with your work? Are you willing to be bigger, bolder, more passionate and work harder than ever before to create some transformational plays for this New Age? How can you with your storytelling skills be a part of the solution as we return to live theatre?
Ah yes, that is the question!
In this episode, I interview Broadway Producer, Ken Davenport, about the road back for Broadway and for theatre opening around the world. This interview is inspiring and sheds some glorious light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. Ken talks about what is happening now, and what the process moving forward might look like as theatre reopens! Don’t miss this episode!
Ken Davenport’s Bio:
Ken Davenport is a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer whose credits include Once On This Island (Tony Award), Gettin’ the Band Back Together, The Play that Goes Wrong, Groundhog Day (Tony nomination), Deaf West Theatre’s Spring Awakening (Tony nomination), It’s Only a Play, Macbeth starring Alan Cumming, Godspell, Kinky Boots (Broadway - Tony Award, National Tour, Toronto, Australia, and West End), The Visit (Tony nomination), Mothers and Sons (Tony nomination), The Bridges of Madison County (National Tour), Allegiance, Chinglish, Oleanna starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, Speed-the-Plow, Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America (Tony nomination), Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury (Broadway, West End and National Tour), and 13.
Off-Broadway, Ken has produced Daddy Long Legs, Altar Boyz (Co-Conceiver), My First Time (Author), The Awesome 80’s Prom (Creator), That Bachelorette Show! (Creator), and Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating, & Marriage (Author). Ken's productions have been produced internationally in over 25 countries around the world.
In 2019, Inc. 5000 named Ken’s production company, Davenport Theatrical Enterprises, one of America’s fastest-growing private companies.
He is the founder of TheaterMakersStudio.com, a one-of-a-kind "masterclass" community that provides training and inspiration from Broadway's best to writers, directors, producers and more.
Ken also serves as the Executive Producer for North America for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group.
Outside of theatre, he has produced the award-winning These Magnificent Miles: On the Long Road with Red Wanting Blue, a documentary on one of the top unsigned rock bands in the country, and an award-winning TV pilot entitled The Bunny Hole which has appeared in the LA Indie Film Festival, the Orlando Film Festival, the LA Comedy Festival and more. Ken was featured on a national commercial for Apple’s iPhone, named one of Crain’s “Forty Under 40” and is one of the co-founders of TEDxBroadway. He created the best-selling Broadway board game Be A Broadway Star. His blog, TheProducersPerspective.com, has been featured in Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, The Gothamist and more. He has written articles for Forbes, Mashable, and many others. Ken’s unique production and marketing style has garnered him international attention, including two front page articles in the NY Times and features on MSNBC, Rock Center, Fox News, BBC, and his favorite, a mention in Jay Leno’s monologue on “The Tonight Show.”
Upcoming projects include Broadway Vacation, Joy the Musical, My Life In Pink, a revival of The Great White Hope, Harmony: A New Musical written by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, a musical based on the life and songs of Neil Diamond, and a musical based on the life of Harry Belafonte.
Prior to his career as a Producer, Ken was a Company Manager and General Manager for Broadway shows and National Tours including Show Boat, Ragtime, Jekyll & Hyde, Chicago, Candide, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Gypsy and others.
Get ready for a really wild ride as I talk to actors Dave Silberger & Florence Pape about Play Development, specifically on their work on Mike Zielinski’s awesome comedy entitled “HE’S YOUR DADDY” which Manhattan Rep produced in March 2019, directed by yours truly. Florence and Dave have worked with me on a myriad of productions over the past 3 years, and they are fantastic actors and awesome human beings. This episode is great fun, and an inside look at what happens in rehearsal.
My intention with this episode is for playwrights to get a real sense of what play development is, as we talk about the process of bringing this comedy to life.
Florence’s Bio
Florence Pape Theatre: Marti, Mints by George Cameron Grant (Best Actress-Think Fast Festival, Secret Theatre, Best Play-Manhattan Rep., United Solo Festival, Theatre Row), Wendy, Grant’s Lovers Kiss (Manhattan Rep. & Think Fast Festival - Best Actress nom.), Mae West, Laugh Supper, Connie Conrad, He’s Your Daddy (Manhattan Rep); Doris, Can You Hear Me Now?, Dottie,It Gets Better, Lucy, Criminally Insane, Mrs. Mendelson,Sorry For Your Loss, Grandma,Family Secrets, God,Strong Meds and Jewish Guilt (Alternative Theater), Helene Berman, Significant Other (nom. best actress BroadwayWorld.com Regional Awards, NJ Theater), Lavinia Penniman,The Heiress and Marietta Claypoole, Regrets Only, Nutley Little Theatre, Motherhood Out Loud and Virginia,Three Viewings, Hackensack Performing Arts/Hoboken Library. Favorite roles Hudson Theatre Ensemble: Joanne, Company, Martha,Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Reba, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Ouisier, Steel Magnolias. Commercials/TV/Film: Major Pharmaceutical Commercial (also print/ internet), Immersive Installation Facebook Portal, Twin Chef Infomercial, Comedy Central Mini-Mocks, Comcast Spotlight. Film: Wendy, Lovers Kiss (filmed/directed Michael Stever) florence@fpls.com
Dave’s Bio
Dave Silberger has been entertaining audiences at Renaissance Festivals for eons as Half Wit Henry in The Sturdy Beggars Mud Show. He has also performed with Theater Companies in Chicago, New Jersey and New York, as well as indie films and the occasional commercial. There is nothing he likes better then collaborating on exciting projects with generous and talented people.
In this episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Playwright Coni Koepfinger, who is one of our Resident Playwrights at Manhattan Rep. We talk about her plays, how she writes and what she often writes about, and the future of theatre as we move into this Brave New World.
Coni Koepfinger (Playwright in residence at Manhattan Rep and Cosmic Orchid)
A recent finalist in Playbill’s inaugural Virtual Theatre Festival, 2020,
Coni Koepfinger is the host of AIRPLAY, a weekly theatre program now in its 12th season that gives voice to artists worldwide and DETERMINED WOMEN, a monthly feature that interviews women who share stories to encourage and inspire. In addition to teaching theatre and composition at prominent universities, Koepfinger is an internationally published and produced playwright, theatre theorist, and librettist. Coni is a Media Advisor for the Lifeboat Foundation who recently published her play, Get the Message in their Visions of the Future anthology; a contributing writer for the Center of Conscious Creativity in LA; a Member of The Dramatists Guild, and an instrumental member of the International Center for Women Playwrights and the League of Professional Theatre Women. Recent work includes three new powerful pieces with her writing partner Joe Izen: including Eve of Beltane -a fresh look at political corruption in the face of ancient Celtic mythology that was given a 29 hr AEA staged reading at Broadway Bound Festival (2019),; Schoolhouse - an ultramodern musical that takes the young victim of a school shooting through a magical journey into an imaginary schoolhouse to find compassion and joy; and the new age musical, Kingdom Come, where technology meets its match in matchmaking with TED, the world's first transhuman who falls in love with boss only to reveal a bigger, brighter picture for all humanity. She has written well over 40 plays, short stories , books and commissions such as Takin’ It Back, a ten-minute play for THE ME TOO PROJECT in Harlem, and Playing House a commissioned one-act about Bella Abzug for the UNTOLD STORIES OF JEWISH WOMEN and Playing Fate which was accepted for New Blood Series at Theatre for the New City. In 2020 Koepfinger is virtually all over, with Caging the Spirit, a short James Scheider at Walls & Bridges at California State University's \\ and her new full-length, My Dinner with Mary, which was read online for The Producer’s Circle in March, and will be produced in the Dream Up Festival in 2021 at Theatre for the New City. Simonyt, New Blood Series at TNC; Caging the Spirit at California State University and My Dinner with Mary, read for cutworms The Producer’s Circle and was chosen for the Dream Up Festival 2021 at Theatre for the New City and The Simon Says in the Playbill VTF.
On this Episode, I talk about how to refine your play and make it absolutely perfect! I offer these 10 Editing questions below, along with the process of editing and I talk about the importance of having a reading of your play after you finish your first draft, that is a reading for you, not for feedback. And I talk about this website How To Write Plays.com.
Here are the 10 Editing Questions to refine your first draft:
1. Is there a clear problem & action related to the problem that needs to be solved in each scene? If not, fix it.
2. Does this scene top the scene before? If not, fix it.
3. Are your characters saying too many words? Do they need to say three sentences when they could say the same thing in one sentence?
4. Do your characters speak in clear and distinctly different ways? If not, how can you make them consistently different?
5. Are your characters telling stories that don’t have a dramatic event attached to the telling of the story? If not, cut them or make them two sentences tops. I’m serious. (A story with a dramatic event attached could be a Coming Out story, or a Break Up story.)
6. Are the characters saying too little? Is it clear what is happening in each EVENT?
7. Are you telling BACK STORY to the audience that is not intrinsically told during a dramatic action moment in the scene? If not, fix it!
8. Is the scene too long? Could it be a page or two shorter and still convey all the important information and ACTION that will propel this play to its dramatic conclusion?
9. Is the scene too short? Are the actions and events in this scene big enough?
10. Do you need this scene? Does this scene top the scene before, and propel the dramatic action of the play? If you answer yes to this - keep the scene. If no, cut it!
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https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1193447515/the-artists-way
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How I learned that creativity and vulnerability go hand in hand
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[
"Lauren González"
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2023-09-05T00:00:00
|
I often call Julia Cameron, the luminary behind The Artist's Way, my fairy godmother. Her philosophy has helped me understand that the ability to be artistic comes more naturally than one would think.
|
en
|
NPR
|
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1193447515/the-artists-way
|
Eight summers ago, I found myself in a D.C. yoga studio sitting in a circle with several other women. No one was in a downward dog position, and hardly any of us were wearing stretchy pants. Any curious passerby might have assumed we were part of a support group of some kind, and in some ways, we were. We were a motley group of struggling creatives practicing The Artist's Way.
The Artist's Way is a 12-week course that helps people unlock their capacity for creativity — whether in art, at work, or in life. At its core, it's a great practice to access more delight, curiosity, and creative inquiry within your daily life. But for me, The Artist's Way grew to mean more than just a fun summer project or a tool to overcome writer's block. It helped me face my fears around trying new things, and gave me a better framework to live with the vulnerability and uncertainty that comes with life. I will gab about it to anyone who lets me in on their secret desires to pursue their artistic dream — be it tiny or grand.
Getting in an artist's mindset
The luminary behind The Artist's Way is Julia Cameron, and I often call her my fairy godmother. Her philosophy has helped me understand that the ability to be artistic comes more naturally than one would think. Cameron believes that the "refusal to be creative is self-will and counter to our true nature." In other words, we all possess an inner creativity; we just willingly choose to block ourselves from that impulse. Her course is meant to help us unlock the artist that lives within each and every one of us.
Did I consider myself an artist at the time? Not in the slightest. I had forsaken dance classes in my teen years, and most of my creative writing was tucked away in personal journals alongside to-do lists and reflections of the week. I was too much of a nervous millennial to pursue anything as bohemian as the life of an artist.
In many ways, I felt like the complete opposite of one. I was a bumbling and uncertain post-grad, trying to build a life on my own for the very first time. I played it by the books, landing a job in D.C. that looked good on paper. But it felt like I'd stepped into a pair of shoes that didn't feel like my style. But where would I go from here? What else could I do? I didn't have the slightest idea, so I waited for inspiration to strike.
And inspiration did strike. While taking a yoga class, I noticed a promotion for a summer workshop centered around The Artist's Way. I figured a workshop would keep me accountable to the process, and for the next three months, I'd meet with this group of women to discuss weekly readings as well as share our progress, frustrations, and aha moments.
The path that Cameron lays out is a simple one, but it requires commitment. There are weekly readings and exercises, all geared toward helping you understand your artistic hang-ups and how to get out of your own way. You're required to write your morning pages at the start of every day. It's meant to be an uninhibited style of free-writing: no stopping and no editing until you fill up at least three full pages.
And then, there's the artist date — a weekly commitment to take yourself on a solo activity all for the purpose of indulging in a sense of fun and delight. No agenda, just play. All to say, The Artist's Way packs in quite a bit in three short months.
Inviting playfulness into your life
However you pursue The Artist's Way, my advice is to stick to it, even if you feel some resistance. Can Cameron's New Agey platitudes feel a little hard to swallow? For some, maybe. But there's a way to connect to this process that doesn't require a spiritual understanding of creativity.
Whether or not you believe that human creativity is inspired by a divine force, it's easier to see how our aversion to risk, failure, and humiliation prevents us from taking a creative leap. My practice with morning pages revealed just how often fear would eclipse my own creative ambitions. I'd always find an external circumstance or an internal flaw as a reason to skip out on a dance class or exciting job opportunity, and those limiting beliefs started making their way to the page.
That's because free-writing is sort of like gargling for the soul. You write a lot of nonsense early in the morning, but eventually you start revealing and shedding your hang-ups, fears, and the stories you tell yourself to protect you from taking a risk. But eventually, you start recognizing they're just that — stories.
My morning pages helped me recognize that I tend to avoid any situation that made me feel vulnerable. And yet, creativity and vulnerability go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other, and Cameron's writings make that tension resoundingly clear.
But Cameron also offers a respite for dislodging your writer's block, or any block for that matter. Fear is the most immobilizing force, but its antidote can sometimes be a dose of levity.
That's where the artist dates come in. Cameron stresses that recognizing your limiting beliefs is only half the battle on the path to artistic enlightenment. You also have to work actively in inviting pleasure, delight, and playfulness into your life. Without these ingredients, your end result will be half-baked. It's like a cake without frosting — who would want a slice of that?
And so I went on a journey of indulging in simple pleasures. I baked blueberry muffins on a Sunday morning. I went to a meditation series held at a paddock among the horses of Rock Creek Park. I listened to my favorite album of the Gipsy Kings from start to finish, no skips. I collected fallen summer flowers and pressed them between the pages of my notebook. I went to a park tucked behind Embassy Row and stared at the fireflies at dusk.
My favorite artist date was one of the last ones. I rented a car and drove out to Saint Michaels, a beautiful little coastal town in Maryland that feels worlds away from the D.C. metropolis. As I made my way back, I crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge right during sunset. I don't remember what song was playing, but I'll always remember what it felt like to roll down the windows, sing at the top of my lungs, and stare at the pink and orange sky that appeared before me.
The path beyond The Artist's Way has been a crooked one for me, with many starts and stops. But I've come to learn that life never gives it to you straight. It took a year to work up the courage to quit my job, and a few months after to land a job in a creative field. It took three more years to get back on stage and perform a dance routine for an audience. I still haven't published any short stories, but perhaps that's for next summer.
I come back to The Artist's Way often during this season, and each practice brings new insight. And yet each time, I relearn how important it is to indulge my curiosity and transcend the limiting beliefs I've set around my creative potential. And whenever I get caught up in the uncertainty that comes ahead of a new adventure, I remember Cameron's mantra: "Jump, and the net will appear."
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692
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dbpedia
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1
| 40 |
https://www.pittsburghclo.org/shows/the-color-purple
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en
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THE COLOR PURPLE
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CHRISTOPHER D. BETTS (Director) is thrilled to be making his Pittsburgh CLO debut, especially with a story so near and dear to the heart. Christopher recently directed The Color Purple (North Carolina Theatre), Trouble in Mind (Hartford Stage), Dreamgirls at The Paramount and at North Carolina Theatre, Choir Boy (Yale Rep), Legally Blonde The Musical (NYU Tisch), In the Southern Breeze (Off-Broadway), and Dutch Kings (Off-Off-Broadway). At Yale School of Drama, Is God Is, We Are Proud to Present..., Fireflies, littleboy/littleman, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play and The Winter’s Tale. Christopher is also the creator, writer, director, and executive producer of the film MAJOR. Other collaborations include Spring Awakening (NYU Tisch); Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors (PopArt Johannesburg/Market Theatre Lab); The Cave: A Folk Opera (New York premiere); Carrie (2015 Broadway World Best Musical nomination); a series of new works with the OBIE Award-winning Fire This Time Festival; workshops of Goodnight Tyler (Kennedy Center/Alliance Theatre), Refuge of the Damned (Long Wharf); and Barbecue (movement director, The Public Theater). Betts is a recipient of the Julie Taymor World Theater Fellowship, the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship, and a two-time recipient of the SDCF Observership. He has been an artist in residence at Kampala International Theater Festival and PopArt Johannesburg and a teaching artist at The Market Theatre Lab. Betts is currently a professor in the Department of Undergraduate Drama at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, New Studio on Broadway, a support team member at artEquity, and The Joyce C. Willis Fellow at Hartford Stage. He received his BFA with triple honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (Bachelor’s Representative) and his MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama.
TISLARM BOUIE (Choreographer) is a Brooklyn native and alumnus of the Professional Performing Arts School and The University of the Arts. He has been honored with the Princess Grace Award in Theater and received a Drama Desk nomination for 'Outstanding Choreography' in Roundabout’s Off-Broadway production of the bandaged place. Additional choreographic work includes The Salvagers at Yale Rep and The Wiz at Children’s Theater of Cincinnati (Broadway World Regional Theater Award for Best Choreography). Select performance credits include the film adaptation of In the Heights, Saturday Night Live, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Manhattan Love Story, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (Broadway), Blueprint Specials (Public Theater), and Carmen (Houston Grand Opera). He has also performed in regional productions of Annie, The Bodyguard, and Swing! Additionally, he has danced for artists such as Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jon Batiste, and Bebe Rexha, and appeared in campaigns for Vogue, Estée Lauder, Cadillac, Samsung, and Toyota. | @tislarmbouie
ILANA ATKINS (Music Director, Conductor) is so thrilled to be collaborating with Pittsburgh CLO, and on a bucket list show at that! The journey toward The Color Purple has been a long time coming but, as they say, good things come to those who wait. Ilana is a conductor/pianist currently working on Jersey Boys - back in Vegas to stay! Other credits include: Bat out of Hell: The Meatloaf Musical (Regional), Mrs. Doubtfire the Musical (Broadway), Dreamgirls (Regional), and Once on this Island (1st National Tour). Ilana's most recent and exciting collaborative effort has resulted in the birth of her beautiful son, Jean-Anthony. He puts even the most prestigious artistic endeavors in perspective. Thank you to my family, my husband, and my fantastic children for their love and support of my career.
BRITTON MAUK (Scenic Designer) has scenic designed for regional theaters Syracuse Stage (Clyde’s), Portland Center Stage (Hedwig and the Angry Inch and RENT), Long Wharf Theatre (I am My Own Wife), Resident Ensemble Players (In the Heat of the Night), Constellation Stage (Fun Home), Gulfshore Playhouse, and Mixed Blood. Closer to home, he has designed for City Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh Playhouse, Front Porch Theatricals, CLO Cabaret, Prime Stage, and Quantum Theatre. Britton is a member of the USITT IDEAS Committee and is the co-coordinator for the USITT Gateway Program. For more visit brittonmaukdesign.com.
PAUL MILLER (Lighting Designer) 8 Seasons at Pittsburgh CLO. Internationally, Paul’s work has been seen on stage at the Stratford Festival, London’s West End, Vienna, Teatro alla Scala (Milan), South Africa, China, Manila, Iceland and São Paulo. On Broadway, he has designed 5 musicals and been the Associate/Assistant on 22 others. Notable Off-Broadway favorites include: Desperate Measures, Clinton!, Pageant, Vanities - the Musical, Waiting for Godot, Nunsense, Encores! (9 shows). National Tours: Hairspray, Elf, Wizard of Oz, Sweeney Todd, The Producers, RENT, Shrek. Regional: Arizona Theatre Company, The Old Globe, Dallas Theater Center, Chicago Shakespeare, Idaho Shakespeare, Asolo Rep, ACT, Cleveland Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, Goodspeed, and others. Television: Evil (CBS & Paramount+), Live from Lincoln Center, more than 20 Netflix specials, and the internationally televised New Year’s Eve Celebration from Times Square (for 25 years).
CLAUDIA BROWNLEE (Costume Designer) is a costume designer from the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Throughout her career Claudia has worked in various positions in theatre, opera, and film. She is excited about projects that bridge cultural gaps, and costume history. Claudia is also interested in finding sustainable practices for the costume industry. She is currently the Costume Director of Pittsburgh Opera and an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
CHRIS EVANS (Sound Designer) is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University (Drama ’83). He has been teaching the Advanced Sound System Design course in the School of Drama for the past 8 years and also advises student sound designers who are assigned to musical productions. He has served as the House Sound Engineer at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, PA since 1987. During this time, he has designed and engineered shows for the Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Ballet, and Pittsburgh CLO. In addition to his professional career in Pittsburgh, he has lectured for the Broadway Sound Master Class Series in New York City and designed sound for the Jimmy Awards at the Minskoff Theater.
TENEL DORSEY (Hair and Makeup Designer) is a passionate owner of Dreamz Hair Salon in Homestead, PA, boasting over 30 years of industry expertise. As a renowned wig designer for Pittsburgh Cultural District productions like A Midsummer Nights Dream in Harlem and Steel Magnolias, Tenel's talent shines on stage and in her salon. With an NPI accreditation, she extends care to clients battling hair loss, accepting health insurance. Committed to community engagement, Tenel nurtures her team, making Dreamz Empire a beacon of excellence.
KYLEE LOERA (Video Designer) is a video designer for live theatre, dance, and musicals based in New York. Kylee has worked at The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Opera, The Lincoln Center, The Muny St. Louis, The Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, The 92 YMHA Theater in NYC, Signature Theater, Theatre Row, Arts Emerson, MCC Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and the Pittsburgh CLO.
MARTY SAVOLSKIS (Props Designer) is ecstatic to be spending his summer with Pittsburgh CLO! He has been designing and coordinating props with CLO since 2002. Memorable past productions include tick, tick... BOOM!, Once on this Island, Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812, The Drowsy Chaperone, Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's Mary Poppins, Disney's Newsies, In the Heights, AIDA, Hairspray, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Producers, Oklahoma!, Sunset Boulevard, West Side Story, and A Musical Christmas Carol. When not at Pittsburgh CLO, you can find Marty teaching at his family's dance studio in Munhall, Fran’s School of Dance, designing, choreographing, or directing locally. Marty is also an adjunct professor technical theatre and design with CCAC. Thank you to mom, dad, my husband Sam, and Colby for everything! Cheers!
GEOFF JOSSELSON (Casting Director) is a New York-based casting director, handling productions for theatre, film and television. Recent work includes productions for Arena Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Baltimore Center Stage, Cape Playhouse, Denver Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Irish Repertory Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Paper Mill Playhouse, Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Round House Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Theaterworks Hartford, and Weston Playhouse.
MARSHA NORMAN (Book) won the Pulitzer Prize for her play, Night, Mother and a Tony Award for her book of the Broadway musical, The Secret Garden. Ms. Norman is co-chair, with Christopher Durang, of the Playwriting Department of the Juilliard School and vice president of the Dramatists Guild of America. Her other plays include Getting Out, Traveler In The Dark, Sarah And Abraham, Trudy Blue, and Last Dance. Her published work includes Four Plays, Vol. I: Collected Plays of Marsha Norman and a novel, The Fortune Teller. She has numerous film and TV credits, Grammy and Emmy nominations, and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She is a native of Kentucky who lives in New York City and Long Island with her two children.
BRENDA RUSSELL (Music, Lyrics) has a unique musical perspective, intimate voice, and prolific treasure-trove of lyrics, that prove that a truly glowing talent only deepens with time. Composer of the classics Get Here, If Only For One Night, and the Grammy-nominated Piano In The Dark, Brenda’s songwriting prowess and chameleon-like ability to shift between musical genres and combine styles trumpeted ovations in 2005 with the opening of the Tony Award-winning hit Broadway musical The Color Purple, for which she, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray co-wrote the music and lyrics. Brenda and her co-authors were also nominated for a 2007 Grammy in the Best Musical Show Album category for the original cast album.
ALLE WILLIS (Music, Lyrics) is a one-woman creative think-tank. A multi-disciplinary artist and visionary thinker whose range of imagination and productivity knows no bounds, her success exuberantly defies categorization; ‘unique’ pales as a descriptor. Willis is a Grammy-winning and Emmy- and Tony-nominated composer whose hit songs – including Earth, Wind & Fire’s September and Boogie Wonderland, The Pointer Sisters’ Neutron Dance, Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield’s What Have I Done To Deserve This, and The Rembrandts’ I’ll Be There For You (Theme From Friends) – have sold over 50 million records. In 2006, Willis’ songs were also featured in three of the top grossing films of the year, Happy Feet, Night At The Museum and Babel.
STEPHEN BRAY (Music, Lyrics) made their Broadway debut with The Color Purple. After beginning music studies with private instruction in Detroit, Bray continued training at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Working with Madonna, he wrote and produced many of her top-ten recordings, including Angel, Into the Groove, Papa Don’t Preach, True Blue and Express Yourself. Performing with Breakfast Club, he earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist and a top-ten single. He has composed and produced for multiplatinum artists including The Jets, Gladys Knight and Kylie Minogue. Film and television projects include Beverly Hills Cop II, Who’s That Girl?, All About The Benjamins, and the theme for PBS’s California Connected. Stephen is developing artists for his Soultone label and looks forward to more musical theatre. He would like to thank his daughter Milena for her eternal patience and his family for their continuing support.
RENÉE RIMLAND (Production Stage Manager) is so happy to be back for another fabulous summer at Pittsburgh CLO! Broadway: Beauty and the Beast, Cabaret, Fosse, Jekyll & Hyde, Steel Pier. National Tours: 42nd Street, Beauty…, Les Misérables, Joseph ... Dreamcoat, The Phantom of the Opera, Savion! Footnotes, Buddy! The Buddy Holly Story, Evita, Bye Bye Birdie. PSM for over 13 seasons at Pittsburgh CLO. Other credits include Off-Broadway productions and regional theatre. For JRR, always! Proud AEA member.
PAM BRUSOSKI (Assistant Stage Manager) This is Pamela’s second season with Pittsburgh CLO and she is thrilled to be back. Broadway: Little Women and Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Off-Broadway: 20 years and over 45 shows at Irish Repertory Theatre, also Primary Stages, New Federal Theater, York Theatre, Mint Theatre, Carnegie Hall. Regionally: Pittsburgh Public Theater, Pioneer Theater, PICT Classic Theatre. MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College, CUNY.
KELLY HAYWOOD (Assistant Stage Manager) is excited to spend her 9th summer at Pittsburgh CLO. Favorite past Pittsburgh CLO productions: Aida, Shrek The Musical, Peter Pan, In The Heights, Mamma Mia!, A Musical Christmas Carol, 42nd Street, A Chorus Line, Disney’s High School Musical, Into the Woods, Titanic, Pittsburgh Public Theater: A Christmas Story, Little Shop of Horrors, Steel Magnolias, Dragon Lady, Baltimore Centerstage: The Importance of Being Earnest.
THEATRICAL RIGHTS WORLDWIDE (Licensing) Founded in 2006, Theatrical Rights Worldwide (TRW) is an innovative, plays and musicals licensing company thriving with every opportunity presented – where writers, artistic directors, educators, and theatre administrators are authentically engaged to balance the integrity and demands of theatrical performance with that of commerce in a dynamic, growing and ever-changing marketplace. TRW license their shows to a broad range of customers, including schools; colleges and universities, community, civic, amateur and religious organizations; summer stock and dinner theatres; regional, professional and residential theatres; youth theatres, and producers of touring and Off-Broadway or off-West productions. | Theatricalright.com
MARK FLEISCHER (Executive Producer) serves as the artistic and administrative head of the Pittsburgh CLO producing the company’s 6-show summer season, Kara Cabaret Series and its annual production of A Musical Christmas Carol. Mark’s passion for developing new musicals led to the creation of CLO’s SPARK Festival initiative to develop new small musicals – a program made possible by the CLO’s Next Generation Capital Campaign. Prior to joining the CLO, Mark was the Producing Artistic Director of Adirondack Theatre Festival from 2007–2014 where he was named the Region’s Best Artistic Director by Metroland in 2009. From 1993–2002 he served as the Managing Artistic Director of Plano Repertory Theatre in suburban Dallas. With a passion for new plays and musicals, he has directed readings and world premiere productions for theatres across the country. He is a Board Member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), chairing the organization’s Educational Resources Committee and is also a member of The Broadway League where he serves on the Intra-Industry committee. Mark holds a BA in English Literature and Communication Arts from Austin College and MFA in Directing from the Theatre School at DePaul University.
PITTSBURGH CLO (Producing Company) has been the driving force for 78 years behind the preservation, creation and promotion of live musical theatre since 1946. Founded in the years following WWII as a way to bring Pittsburgh together for a community experience, the company has grown to become one of the largest regional musical theatre organizations in the country. The organization's commitment to preserving, creating, and promoting live musical theatre is evident in its diverse programming, which includes beloved Broadway classics as well as the development of new works. PCLO's dedication to nurturing emerging talent is commendable, with numerous artists (Billy Porter, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Rob Marshall, Kathleen Marshall, Shirley Jones and many more) launching their careers under its wing. The mission extends beyond the 6 show summer series with other ongoing initiatives such as the Pittsburgh CLO Academy of Musical Theatre, the Construction Center for the Arts, the acclaimed Gene Kelly Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theater and The National High School Music Awards (The Jimmys). Every ticket purchased impacts our own hometown, Pittsburgh, in a variety of ways beyond the stage performance. Pittsburgh CLO has always been a proud economic generator, hiring local theatre professionals to bring the best musical theatre to life. Since 1946, loyal Patrons, Subscribers, and Donors have stood beside our organization to ensure production of Broadway caliber shows right here in our hometown. Pittsburgh CLO is excited to continue creating magical musical memories that are by Pittsburgh, for Pittsburgh and partnered with Pittsburgh all year long! For more information, please visit PITTSBURGHCLO.ORG.
CHRISTOPHER D. BETTS (Director) is thrilled to be making his Pittsburgh CLO debut, especially with a story so near and dear to the heart. Christopher recently directed The Color Purple (North Carolina Theatre), Trouble in Mind (Hartford Stage), Dreamgirls at The Paramount and at North Carolina Theatre, Choir Boy (Yale Rep), Legally Blonde The Musical (NYU Tisch), In the Southern Breeze (Off-Broadway), and Dutch Kings (Off-Off-Broadway). At Yale School of Drama, Is God Is, We Are Proud to Present..., Fireflies, littleboy/littleman, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play and The Winter’s Tale. Christopher is also the creator, writer, director, and executive producer of the film MAJOR. Other collaborations include Spring Awakening (NYU Tisch); Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors (PopArt Johannesburg/Market Theatre Lab); The Cave: A Folk Opera (New York premiere); Carrie (2015 Broadway World Best Musical nomination); a series of new works with the OBIE Award-winning Fire This Time Festival; workshops of Goodnight Tyler (Kennedy Center/Alliance Theatre), Refuge of the Damned (Long Wharf); and Barbecue (movement director, The Public Theater). Betts is a recipient of the Julie Taymor World Theater Fellowship, the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship, and a two-time recipient of the SDCF Observership. He has been an artist in residence at Kampala International Theater Festival and PopArt Johannesburg and a teaching artist at The Market Theatre Lab. Betts is currently a professor in the Department of Undergraduate Drama at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, New Studio on Broadway, a support team member at artEquity, and The Joyce C. Willis Fellow at Hartford Stage. He received his BFA with triple honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (Bachelor’s Representative) and his MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama.
TISLARM BOUIE (Choreographer) is a Brooklyn native and alumnus of the Professional Performing Arts School and The University of the Arts. He has been honored with the Princess Grace Award in Theater and received a Drama Desk nomination for 'Outstanding Choreography' in Roundabout’s Off-Broadway production of the bandaged place. Additional choreographic work includes The Salvagers at Yale Rep and The Wiz at Children’s Theater of Cincinnati (Broadway World Regional Theater Award for Best Choreography). Select performance credits include the film adaptation of In the Heights, Saturday Night Live, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Manhattan Love Story, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (Broadway), Blueprint Specials (Public Theater), and Carmen (Houston Grand Opera). He has also performed in regional productions of Annie, The Bodyguard, and Swing! Additionally, he has danced for artists such as Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jon Batiste, and Bebe Rexha, and appeared in campaigns for Vogue, Estée Lauder, Cadillac, Samsung, and Toyota. | @tislarmbouie
ILANA ATKINS (Music Director, Conductor) is so thrilled to be collaborating with Pittsburgh CLO, and on a bucket list show at that! The journey toward The Color Purple has been a long time coming but, as they say, good things come to those who wait. Ilana is a conductor/pianist currently working on Jersey Boys - back in Vegas to stay! Other credits include: Bat out of Hell: The Meatloaf Musical (Regional), Mrs. Doubtfire the Musical (Broadway), Dreamgirls (Regional), and Once on this Island (1st National Tour). Ilana's most recent and exciting collaborative effort has resulted in the birth of her beautiful son, Jean-Anthony. He puts even the most prestigious artistic endeavors in perspective. Thank you to my family, my husband, and my fantastic children for their love and support of my career.
BRITTON MAUK (Scenic Designer) has scenic designed for regional theaters Syracuse Stage (Clyde’s), Portland Center Stage (Hedwig and the Angry Inch and RENT), Long Wharf Theatre (I am My Own Wife), Resident Ensemble Players (In the Heat of the Night), Constellation Stage (Fun Home), Gulfshore Playhouse, and Mixed Blood. Closer to home, he has designed for City Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh Playhouse, Front Porch Theatricals, CLO Cabaret, Prime Stage, and Quantum Theatre. Britton is a member of the USITT IDEAS Committee and is the co-coordinator for the USITT Gateway Program. For more visit brittonmaukdesign.com.
PAUL MILLER (Lighting Designer) 8 Seasons at Pittsburgh CLO. Internationally, Paul’s work has been seen on stage at the Stratford Festival, London’s West End, Vienna, Teatro alla Scala (Milan), South Africa, China, Manila, Iceland and São Paulo. On Broadway, he has designed 5 musicals and been the Associate/Assistant on 22 others. Notable Off-Broadway favorites include: Desperate Measures, Clinton!, Pageant, Vanities - the Musical, Waiting for Godot, Nunsense, Encores! (9 shows). National Tours: Hairspray, Elf, Wizard of Oz, Sweeney Todd, The Producers, RENT, Shrek. Regional: Arizona Theatre Company, The Old Globe, Dallas Theater Center, Chicago Shakespeare, Idaho Shakespeare, Asolo Rep, ACT, Cleveland Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, Goodspeed, and others. Television: Evil (CBS & Paramount+), Live from Lincoln Center, more than 20 Netflix specials, and the internationally televised New Year’s Eve Celebration from Times Square (for 25 years).
CLAUDIA BROWNLEE (Costume Designer) is a costume designer from the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Throughout her career Claudia has worked in various positions in theatre, opera, and film. She is excited about projects that bridge cultural gaps, and costume history. Claudia is also interested in finding sustainable practices for the costume industry. She is currently the Costume Director of Pittsburgh Opera and an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
CHRIS EVANS (Sound Designer) is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University (Drama ’83). He has been teaching the Advanced Sound System Design course in the School of Drama for the past 8 years and also advises student sound designers who are assigned to musical productions. He has served as the House Sound Engineer at the Benedum Center in Pittsburgh, PA since 1987. During this time, he has designed and engineered shows for the Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Ballet, and Pittsburgh CLO. In addition to his professional career in Pittsburgh, he has lectured for the Broadway Sound Master Class Series in New York City and designed sound for the Jimmy Awards at the Minskoff Theater.
TENEL DORSEY (Hair and Makeup Designer) is a passionate owner of Dreamz Hair Salon in Homestead, PA, boasting over 30 years of industry expertise. As a renowned wig designer for Pittsburgh Cultural District productions like A Midsummer Nights Dream in Harlem and Steel Magnolias, Tenel's talent shines on stage and in her salon. With an NPI accreditation, she extends care to clients battling hair loss, accepting health insurance. Committed to community engagement, Tenel nurtures her team, making Dreamz Empire a beacon of excellence.
KYLEE LOERA (Video Designer) is a video designer for live theatre, dance, and musicals based in New York. Kylee has worked at The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Opera, The Lincoln Center, The Muny St. Louis, The Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, The 92 YMHA Theater in NYC, Signature Theater, Theatre Row, Arts Emerson, MCC Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and the Pittsburgh CLO.
MARTY SAVOLSKIS (Props Designer) is ecstatic to be spending his summer with Pittsburgh CLO! He has been designing and coordinating props with CLO since 2002. Memorable past productions include tick, tick... BOOM!, Once on this Island, Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812, The Drowsy Chaperone, Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's Mary Poppins, Disney's Newsies, In the Heights, AIDA, Hairspray, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Producers, Oklahoma!, Sunset Boulevard, West Side Story, and A Musical Christmas Carol. When not at Pittsburgh CLO, you can find Marty teaching at his family's dance studio in Munhall, Fran’s School of Dance, designing, choreographing, or directing locally. Marty is also an adjunct professor technical theatre and design with CCAC. Thank you to mom, dad, my husband Sam, and Colby for everything! Cheers!
GEOFF JOSSELSON (Casting Director) is a New York-based casting director, handling productions for theatre, film and television. Recent work includes productions for Arena Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Baltimore Center Stage, Cape Playhouse, Denver Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Irish Repertory Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Paper Mill Playhouse, Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Round House Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Theaterworks Hartford, and Weston Playhouse.
MARSHA NORMAN (Book) won the Pulitzer Prize for her play, Night, Mother and a Tony Award for her book of the Broadway musical, The Secret Garden. Ms. Norman is co-chair, with Christopher Durang, of the Playwriting Department of the Juilliard School and vice president of the Dramatists Guild of America. Her other plays include Getting Out, Traveler In The Dark, Sarah And Abraham, Trudy Blue, and Last Dance. Her published work includes Four Plays, Vol. I: Collected Plays of Marsha Norman and a novel, The Fortune Teller. She has numerous film and TV credits, Grammy and Emmy nominations, and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She is a native of Kentucky who lives in New York City and Long Island with her two children.
BRENDA RUSSELL (Music, Lyrics) has a unique musical perspective, intimate voice, and prolific treasure-trove of lyrics, that prove that a truly glowing talent only deepens with time. Composer of the classics Get Here, If Only For One Night, and the Grammy-nominated Piano In The Dark, Brenda’s songwriting prowess and chameleon-like ability to shift between musical genres and combine styles trumpeted ovations in 2005 with the opening of the Tony Award-winning hit Broadway musical The Color Purple, for which she, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray co-wrote the music and lyrics. Brenda and her co-authors were also nominated for a 2007 Grammy in the Best Musical Show Album category for the original cast album.
ALLE WILLIS (Music, Lyrics) is a one-woman creative think-tank. A multi-disciplinary artist and visionary thinker whose range of imagination and productivity knows no bounds, her success exuberantly defies categorization; ‘unique’ pales as a descriptor. Willis is a Grammy-winning and Emmy- and Tony-nominated composer whose hit songs – including Earth, Wind & Fire’s September and Boogie Wonderland, The Pointer Sisters’ Neutron Dance, Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield’s What Have I Done To Deserve This, and The Rembrandts’ I’ll Be There For You (Theme From Friends) – have sold over 50 million records. In 2006, Willis’ songs were also featured in three of the top grossing films of the year, Happy Feet, Night At The Museum and Babel.
STEPHEN BRAY (Music, Lyrics) made their Broadway debut with The Color Purple. After beginning music studies with private instruction in Detroit, Bray continued training at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Working with Madonna, he wrote and produced many of her top-ten recordings, including Angel, Into the Groove, Papa Don’t Preach, True Blue and Express Yourself. Performing with Breakfast Club, he earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist and a top-ten single. He has composed and produced for multiplatinum artists including The Jets, Gladys Knight and Kylie Minogue. Film and television projects include Beverly Hills Cop II, Who’s That Girl?, All About The Benjamins, and the theme for PBS’s California Connected. Stephen is developing artists for his Soultone label and looks forward to more musical theatre. He would like to thank his daughter Milena for her eternal patience and his family for their continuing support.
RENÉE RIMLAND (Production Stage Manager) is so happy to be back for another fabulous summer at Pittsburgh CLO! Broadway: Beauty and the Beast, Cabaret, Fosse, Jekyll & Hyde, Steel Pier. National Tours: 42nd Street, Beauty…, Les Misérables, Joseph ... Dreamcoat, The Phantom of the Opera, Savion! Footnotes, Buddy! The Buddy Holly Story, Evita, Bye Bye Birdie. PSM for over 13 seasons at Pittsburgh CLO. Other credits include Off-Broadway productions and regional theatre. For JRR, always! Proud AEA member.
PAM BRUSOSKI (Assistant Stage Manager) This is Pamela’s second season with Pittsburgh CLO and she is thrilled to be back. Broadway: Little Women and Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Off-Broadway: 20 years and over 45 shows at Irish Repertory Theatre, also Primary Stages, New Federal Theater, York Theatre, Mint Theatre, Carnegie Hall. Regionally: Pittsburgh Public Theater, Pioneer Theater, PICT Classic Theatre. MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College, CUNY.
KELLY HAYWOOD (Assistant Stage Manager) is excited to spend her 9th summer at Pittsburgh CLO. Favorite past Pittsburgh CLO productions: Aida, Shrek The Musical, Peter Pan, In The Heights, Mamma Mia!, A Musical Christmas Carol, 42nd Street, A Chorus Line, Disney’s High School Musical, Into the Woods, Titanic, Pittsburgh Public Theater: A Christmas Story, Little Shop of Horrors, Steel Magnolias, Dragon Lady, Baltimore Centerstage: The Importance of Being Earnest.
THEATRICAL RIGHTS WORLDWIDE (Licensing) Founded in 2006, Theatrical Rights Worldwide (TRW) is an innovative, plays and musicals licensing company thriving with every opportunity presented – where writers, artistic directors, educators, and theatre administrators are authentically engaged to balance the integrity and demands of theatrical performance with that of commerce in a dynamic, growing and ever-changing marketplace. TRW license their shows to a broad range of customers, including schools; colleges and universities, community, civic, amateur and religious organizations; summer stock and dinner theatres; regional, professional and residential theatres; youth theatres, and producers of touring and Off-Broadway or off-West productions. | Theatricalright.com
MARK FLEISCHER (Executive Producer) serves as the artistic and administrative head of the Pittsburgh CLO producing the company’s 6-show summer season, Kara Cabaret Series and its annual production of A Musical Christmas Carol. Mark’s passion for developing new musicals led to the creation of CLO’s SPARK Festival initiative to develop new small musicals – a program made possible by the CLO’s Next Generation Capital Campaign. Prior to joining the CLO, Mark was the Producing Artistic Director of Adirondack Theatre Festival from 2007–2014 where he was named the Region’s Best Artistic Director by Metroland in 2009. From 1993–2002 he served as the Managing Artistic Director of Plano Repertory Theatre in suburban Dallas. With a passion for new plays and musicals, he has directed readings and world premiere productions for theatres across the country. He is a Board Member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), chairing the organization’s Educational Resources Committee and is also a member of The Broadway League where he serves on the Intra-Industry committee. Mark holds a BA in English Literature and Communication Arts from Austin College and MFA in Directing from the Theatre School at DePaul University.
PITTSBURGH CLO (Producing Company) has been the driving force for 78 years behind the preservation, creation and promotion of live musical theatre since 1946. Founded in the years following WWII as a way to bring Pittsburgh together for a community experience, the company has grown to become one of the largest regional musical theatre organizations in the country. The organization's commitment to preserving, creating, and promoting live musical theatre is evident in its diverse programming, which includes beloved Broadway classics as well as the development of new works. PCLO's dedication to nurturing emerging talent is commendable, with numerous artists (Billy Porter, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Rob Marshall, Kathleen Marshall, Shirley Jones and many more) launching their careers under its wing. The mission extends beyond the 6 show summer series with other ongoing initiatives such as the Pittsburgh CLO Academy of Musical Theatre, the Construction Center for the Arts, the acclaimed Gene Kelly Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theater and The National High School Music Awards (The Jimmys). Every ticket purchased impacts our own hometown, Pittsburgh, in a variety of ways beyond the stage performance. Pittsburgh CLO has always been a proud economic generator, hiring local theatre professionals to bring the best musical theatre to life. Since 1946, loyal Patrons, Subscribers, and Donors have stood beside our organization to ensure production of Broadway caliber shows right here in our hometown. Pittsburgh CLO is excited to continue creating magical musical memories that are by Pittsburgh, for Pittsburgh and partnered with Pittsburgh all year long! For more information, please visit PITTSBURGHCLO.ORG.
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https://lafpi.com/tag/kitty-felde/
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Kitty Felde
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2020-01-02T15:15:18-08:00
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https://lafpi.com/tag/kitty-felde/
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by Kitty Felde.
There’s something about a new year. It’s a new start, a “do-over,” a chance to be a better version of ourselves. As playwrights, it’s a good time to set a few goals.
Or not.
May I offer my own Top Ten List for 2020.
1. Stop being so hard on myself.
Last year, there was too much chaos in my life to even think about writing a new play, let alone revising an old draft or sending out scripts. And the fact that there wasn’t enough bandwidth in my brain to think about theatre in 2019 doesn’t mean I’m a bad person or a lousy playwright. Life happens. I vow to do better this year. But if life throws a curveball, I will be forgiving and kind and encouraging: the same way I am to every other writer but myself.
2. Write 500 words a day, five days a week.
I think I can commit to this goal. Five hundred words may not sound like much, but those words add up. They don’t even have to be any good. But as Jodi Picoult famously says, “you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”
3. Submit.
The same way you can’t edit a blank page, you can’t get a play produced if you don’t show it to someone. Send it out. Set a goal of 20 rejections in 2020! Or 100 rejections!
4. Look at ALL of my unfinished, bad drafts, ideas. Decide which are worth my time.
This is a great way to cheat. I may not have a new play dying to be written, but I know I have a decent first act in some computer file somewhere. If I can find it, and find a way to finish it, half my work is done. Or I can look at it and decide to trash it and move on. Either way, it feels very Marie Kondo of me to pick up a piece of old writing and ask myself whether it still “gives me joy.”
5. Go see more theatre.
We are blessed with dozens of terrific theatres in Los Angeles. How many have I visited? Not enough.
I know traffic is horrible and most theatres seem to be on the other side of the hill. But last year, I started making the rounds, seeing some terrific shows in 3 new-to-me theatre spaces. I will continue to make my way around town in 2020.
6. Read other people’s plays.
This is not only polite, it’s also a great way to see how other writers construct an evening of theatre.
It’s also a way of creating community. Writing is lonesome work. Knowing that someone else is laboring to create good work is a small comfort. There’s even a Facebook group that reads plays and makes recommendations. So far, I’ve been a lurker in the NPX Challenge Group. This year, I’ll start reading and recommending.
7. Celebrate the small victories.
I need to count all of my blessings, large and small. It may not be a Tony Award, but my day got a whole lot better when my cleaning lady showed me the book report her granddaughter wrote about MY book. I felt like a New York Times bestselling author. Yay.
8. Have coffee with people.
I used to tell my summer interns back in Washington that D.C. was a coffee kind of place. I’ve sat in Starbucks and Caribou Coffee and Coffee Bean stores all over DC, overhearing job interviews, congressional staff meetings, even lobbyist meet and greets. If you want to do business there, you start with “a coffee.”
To re-establish myself here in Los Angeles, I need to follow my own advice and start setting up coffee dates.
9. Think outside the box.
I’ve never really been interested in pop culture. I was the odd kid who organized the “Save Star Trek” campaign in elementary school, got busted in high school for wearing skirts that were too LONG, and became a groupie for “Bonanza” star Pernell Roberts because “every balding middle aged actor should have one diehard fan.”
So why did it surprise me to look at everything I’ve written over the years and discovered that none of it was “top ten list” material. It’s all quirky, quiet, and important to me.
So why am I kicking myself that none of my work is being picked up by Signature Theatre in New York or South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa or any of the other well-established theatres across the country?
I realize that my longest running play isn’t being performed in a theatre at all. It’s a commission I got to write a one-man show about Theodore Roosevelt’s youngest son Quentin and it’s been running every weekend for years, playing on the sidewalks around the White House. I’ve directed plays performed in people’s living rooms, written a play performed in a D.C. National Park that celebrates water lilies, and this past summer, penned an audio play (THE FINA MENDOZA MYSTERIES) that was taped in a library, the L.A. Zoo, and in the middle of a jazz concert in a park.
This year, I vow to continue to look for unusual spaces where I can put my work before an audience. Got any suggestions?
10. Be Persistent. And if the door keeps getting slammed in your face, try another door. Or keep knocking.
For most of 2019, I’ve been trying to get the LA Public Library to carry my book “Welcome to Washington, Fina Mendoza.” It’s carried by lots of other library systems (L.A. County and the DCPL to name but two) but I’ve been hitting my head against the way trying to get LAPL to put the book on their shelves. Today I sent yet another email to their acquisitions person, fully expecting to get yet another rejection. But I asked myself: what did I have to lose? It’s a definite “no” if I don’t follow up. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe.
Five minutes ago, I got a response: “Done!” The book will be on LA Public Library shelves by the end of the month! Maybe 2020 won’t be so bad after all.
Do you have resolutions for 2020 that you’re willing to share?
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by Kitty Felde
When it comes to playwriting, I’m pretty confident. I’m pretty good at character and dialogue, though my plotting could use a lot of work. And I know the basics about how to format a draft that is acceptable for submission.
But I’ve learned a hard lesson of late: I don’t remember a thing from 5th grade grammar class.
Apparently it didn’t matter in my career as playwright and radio journalist. Nobody really cares where you put your commas. There are no quotation marks. You never have to worry about tense in radio reporting: live spots are always in present tense; radio features are told in past tense. Plays on the other hand always take place in the “now” – even when we’re having onstage flashbacks to past events.
Why this trip down grammatical worry lane? I have my first “prose” book coming out in late February and correcting the galleys has made me realize that as a writer, I really don’t know what the heck I’m doing.
The book is a middle grade novel, “Welcome to Washington, Fina Mendoza.” It’s the tale of the ten year old daughter of a congressman who solves the mystery of the Demon Cat of Capitol Hill to save her family from “cat”astrophe.
The publisher, Black Rose Writing, is a small indie house out of Texas that pretty much requires you to be your own editor. That means it’s my job to identify all the grammar mistakes. And there are many.
I never realized what a messy writer I am – throwing dashes and commas into the same sentences and (what do you call these things that I usually use as smiley faces in texts?) I had to look up whether to capitalize the first word in a quote and whether the period goes before or after the quotation mark. I’m pretty good with apostrophes, but what about phrases like “kids book?”
I slip back and forth through tenses without considering the poor reader. Even re-reading this blog post is sending shudders through my heart.
I have half a dozen writing manuals on my desk. And I use a “bible” – a text by a writer that I admire. I flip through the pages to see how she solved a particular grammar issue.
I’m lucky to be married to a guy who has even more writing books on his shelves than I have on mine. (I was going to write “than I do” but was unsure of the grammatical correctness…) I can walk down the hall to query him about various rules. But even he was stumped from time to time.
It’s enough to make you want to give up writing.
On the other hand, how many times are we given the opportunity to learn something new? Something hard. Something useful.
I like the idea of switching back and forth between writing for the stage and writing books for kids. I want to feel as confident about the latter as I do (sometimes) about the former. I want to be a writer!
But I am still looking for the perfect grammatical writing book. Any suggestions?
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by Kitty Felde
It all started when I missed an appointment.
These days, I produce a podcast called the Book Club for Kids. A trio of middle graders discuss a novel, there’s an interview with the author and a reading from the book by a “celebrity.”
Last month, I blew it. I was a no-show at a scheduled taping. More than a dozen young readers were waiting for me that Sunday afternoon and I stood them up.
I could use the excuse that I was jet lagged, arriving after midnight the night before from a cross-country flight. Or I could plead that Sundays I take a tech Sabbath, not looking at my phone – and its calendar – at all. But excuses didn’t make any difference to the dozen or so disappointed young readers awaiting their chance at podcast stardom…and their angry parents who’d driven for miles to get their kids to the bookstore for the taping.
It was then that it became very clear that I needed to get organized.
I’m not the only one – particularly at this time of year. You can’t even go in to the Home Depot without stumbling over a display of 2018 calendars for sale. At Fed Ex, pickings were slim among the display of pretty, fat calendar books with floral motifs. Even my husband gets into the act every December, watching the mailbox for the one thing on which he spends an absurd amount of money: the new filler for his portable paper calendar book.
Then I stumbled across Bullet Journals. There’s an enormous cult following for “BuJo” as the aficionados call them. Invented by a digital designer named Ryder Carroll, Bullet Journals seem to have captured the imagination.
The basic idea is simple: a blankish book and a variety of colored pens and perhaps a ruler are all it takes. I say blankish because “BuJos” prefer blank pages with dots that they can use as grid makers to create weekly or monthly pages full of “things to do” lists and food diaries and weather reports and words of the day.
Things get more extravagant after that.
Some “BuJos” fight on social media about page thickness and the bleed level of pens. They proudly show off their collection of highlighter pens. (Who knew there was a gray highlighter pen?) There’s a debate about whether stickers are appropriate. I counted eight different groups on Facebook devoted to Bullet Journals, including the Minimalist Bullet Journal group that still seems overly complicated to me. Pinterest, as you can imagine, has hundreds of pictures of Bullet Journals.
Buzz Feed has an article to tell you what your style of Bullet Journaling says about you. I realized my style says I am not a Bullet Journaling kind of girl. I can’t draw. I never scrapbooked in my life. And why would I spend hours drawing in the dates of a 2018 calendar when I can get a perfectly good one at any store in America?
I think the BuJo serves the same purpose for visual people as my Morning Pages do for a word person like me. Julia Cameron’s classic “Artist’s Way” assignment has always helped me untangle my disorganized brain. Sitting down first thing in the morning to scribble away for three pages in a cheap composition book – part diary, part writing ideas, mostly things to do lists – grounds me and helps me sort out what’s important in my life and what to let go. Obviously it wasn’t enough to keep me from missing an important appointment.
So I bought a nice, light paper calendar that fits in my handbag. I’ve started marking it up with travel plans and podcast tapings. More important, I vowed to look at it every day. Even on my tech Sabbath.
What about you? How do you keep organized? Please share your secret!
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By Kitty Felde
Sometimes facing a blank page on your laptop can be the most depressing sight on planet earth.
Nobody said playwriting was going to be easy. But the email rejections, the harsh feedback from your writing group, the statistics on the tiny number of new plays that get produced every year (and the even smaller number by female playwrights not named Lauren Gunderson) can just shut you down. Or, as I put it, take the heart out of the writing.
How do you get your mojo back?
I had the pleasure of interviewing writer Laurel Snyder whose middle grade novel “Orphan Island” is a very odd book – orphan kids on a desert island who come as toddlers and depart as teenagers to parts unknown. Needless to say, it’s not like anything else Laurel has previously written.
She says the book started as her own prescription for writers block. She was stuck in the “business” of writing and forgot about the joy. So she bought herself some toys – markers and paint and notebooks and her favorite mechanical pencil. She vowed to write the entire project in longhand and take the time to illustrate the characters. She drew islands and maps. She drew animals that didn’t exist that didn’t make it into the book. She had fun – the same fun she felt when she started writing when she was eight years old.
She promised herself that she wouldn’t show the project to anyone until it was done and if it didn’t get published, that would be okay, too. She would write a book just for herself.
Laurel got back in touch with the reason she started writing in the first place. She was writing out – putting on paper something inside of her that needed to get out in the world. In the process, she rediscovered the joy.
And of course, the book she created was so unique, it made the longlist for the National Book Award.
We’re not guaranteed such a reward of public recognition, but we can at least make the journey more enjoyable. Slow down. Buy a fabulous red gel pen with sparkles for the editing process. Find some fun stickers and reward yourself when you put down 500 words. Take yourself out for an outrageously fattening Toasted White Chocolate Mocha at Starbucks when you’ve written every day for a week. Give yourself permission to watch hours of Hallmark Christmas movies. Find a way to make the writing fun again.
And share YOUR secrets with us.
You can hear the whole interview with Laurel Snyder here. You can even hear kids dissect the book on this episode.
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By Kitty Felde
This is the third year I’ve flown to Denver for the annual festival of new play readings. In the past, I’ve attended Humana, CATF and the National New Play Festival, but the Colorado New Play Summit at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts is my favorite. Seven new plays in three days! It’s like a combination of cramming for midterms, eating everything in sight at a buffet table, and using all your season subscription tickets in a single weekend.
As a playwright, I find it extremely helpful to see that much new work all at once. It allows you to see trends and fall in love with new playwrights and come away with 101 ideas for your own plays.
Here’s a few trends spotted at this year’s Summit:
STRONG WORK
It was a particularly good year for new plays in Denver. Strong writing, big thoughts.
MOST LIKELY TO BE PRODUCED A LOT:
THE BOOK OF WILL by Lauren Gunderson is a love letter for every Shakespeare theatre in America. The late Will’s friends race against time and lawsuits to publish as many of his scripts as possible. It’s a big cast show, a perfect complement to a season of TEMPESTs and HENRY IVs. Round House Theatre in Maryland has already announced it will be part of its 2017-2018 season.
TWO WORD TITLES:
Don’t ask me why, but I’m fascinated with titles. Maybe because I’m so bad at writing them myself. This year, the trend seemed to be plays with two word titles. HUMAN ERROR and BLIND DATE were two of the new plays featured in readings. THE CHRISTIANS and TWO DEGREES were onstage for full performances.
POLITICAL PLAYS
I predicted that we’d get a flood of anti-Trump plays NEXT year, but they were already popping out of printers by the time I got to Denver. Political plays were everywhere.
The cleverest of the bunch was Rogelio Martinez’ play about Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the battle to come up with a nuclear treaty in BLIND DATE. Call it ALL THE WAY for the Reagan years. Very well researched, very funny. Martinez carries off an interesting balancing act, portraying a much more savvy and sympathetic Reagan than you’d expect, perhaps looking back at him with different eyes now that there’s a very different sort of president in the White House. Bravo. (I’d vote for a better title, but that’s my only complaint.)
The politics of Nazi Germany were the focus of a play by the man who wrote ALL THE WAY. Robert Schenkkan’s piece HANUSSEN is the tale of a mesmerist who dabbles in Nazi party politics. It has a highly theatrical beginning, and ends with a pretty blatant rant against Donald Trump.
Schenkkan pulled off a very difficult trick: bringing Adolph Hitler onstage and allowing him to come off as a rather likeable character. Perhaps it’s because he followed the Hollywood solution to making villains less unlikeable by giving them a dog. Hitler’s relationship with his annoying dog was quite delightful. (One wag of a fellow playwright at the conference observed that our new standard for unlikeable characters is now to ask: is he/she more or less likeable than Hitler?)
TWO DEGREES by Tira Palmquist is a climate change play. It received a fully staged production this year, after its debut as a staged reading at last year’s festival. It featured a set with panes of ice that actually melted as the play progressed.
There was also a nod to the protestors in pink hats (I actually spotted one or two of those in Denver) with Lauren Yee’s play MANFORD AT THE LINE OR THE GREAT LEAP. It’s a lovely piece about a young man’s search for an absent lost father, basketball, and Tiannamen Square. How can someone that young write that well? MANFORD is terrific and should get productions everywhere.
WHERE ARE THE LADIES?
Two of the five new play readings were by female playwrights, as were two of the three fully staged productions. (Thanks to Artistic Director Kent Thompson who established a Women’s Voices Fund in 2005 to commission, develop, and produce new plays by women.)
Yet, despite the healthy representation of female playwrights, there was a decided lack of roles for the ladies. Of the 34 named characters, fewer than a third were female. And with the exception of the terrific family drama LAST NIGHT AND THE NIGHT BEFORE by Donnetta Lavinia Grays, few plays featured roles of any substance for actresses. Nearly every one flunked the Bechdel test. The sole female in one particular play will likely be best remembered for her oral sex scene. Sigh.
PLAYING WITH TIME AND PLACE
I always come away from new plays with new ideas about what I want to steal for myself. In this case, the overlapping of scenes in different times and places happening at the same time on stage. Lauren Gunderson’s BOOK OF WILL very cleverly juxtaposed two scenes on the same set piece at the same time and it moved like lightening. Look something similar in the play I’m working on.
CHANGE IN THE AIR
The man who made the New Play Summit possible – Kent Thompson – is leaving. Kent’s gift – besides putting together a rocking new play festival – was making playwrights like me – those of us not invited to bring a new play to his stage – feel welcome. At the opening luncheon, all playwrights – not just the Lauren Yees and Robert Schenkkans – are invited to stand and be recognized by the theatrical community with applause from the attendees. That may sound like a small gesture, but it’s symbolic of the open and kind community Kent created. He made every one of us who pound away at our keyboards feel that we are indeed a vital part of the new play community. Thank you, Kent.
PS
In the interest of full disclosure, I will share that I had my agent send my LA Riots play WESTERN & 96th to the New Play Summit this year. It was not selected. I never received an acknowledgment that it was even received or read. But the non-rejection does not diminish my affection and admiration for the Colorado New Play Summit.
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by Kitty Felde
I’ve been thinking a lot about spectacle.
Aristotle included spectacle – or opsis – as one of the requirements of tragedy. Of course, his description of tragedy includes the physical elements of theatre: the set, the costumes, music and sound effects, and the physical and vocal performance of actors. (It should be noted that Aristotle lists “spectacle” last, believing that a truly good tragedy doesn’t require a stage experience; he believed that a tragedy can create a catharsis in a reader – even from the written page.)
I think of spectacle in terms of a high wire act at the circus, fireworks over the Washington Monument, a three year old throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. Leslie Kan at the University of Chicago says, “much of the spectacle’s appeal (or repugnance) derives from its visual power and ability to hold the gaze of the viewer.” In other words, made you look.
Last night, I covered the State of the Union address for public radio. It was my seventh SOTU, and I found myself looking at it analytically, as though I was an anthropologist. Or a theatre historian. The event was full of spectacle.
There is no more monumental setting in Washington. The U.S. Capitol is an architectural marvel that never fails to fill me with awe whenever I walk on those marble floors or look up at a magnificent chandelier or the miles of murals and friezes on the walls.
Costume design may seem tame most of the time in Congress, but on the night of the SOTU, the brightest jackets come out of the closets for the lady lawmakers: reds, purples, a neon orange sherbet, turquoise – anything that might catch the eye of the cameras or the President as he makes his long walk down the center aisle, shaking hands every step of the way. Supreme Court justices also parade in, looking like they’re going to a graduation ceremony in their ceremonial black robes. The First Lady reminds the audience that she is the leading lady, wearing a fluorescent banana yellow dress and false eyelashes that can be seen a mile away. She’s also the only woman allowed to bare her arms in that House Chamber. And she does.
There’s the sound effect of House Speaker Paul Ryan, tapping his oversized mallet to announce the impending entrance of the President to the House floor.
The President’s performance was relaxed, almost a little too casual at times, as he paused for the expected applause or laughter from the Democratic side of the House and ignored the folks seated on their hands on the GOP side. (He had a tough act to follow. The last time all of Congress gathered to hear a speaker was this summer when Pope Francis was in town. His performance so-moved John Boehner that he turned in his gavel as Speaker.)
What will I remember of that speech, that evening, after I move from Washington? Not much.
Think back to your strongest memories of an evening in the theatre. What was the show? I’ll bet it was some element of spectacle that imprinted that performance in your memory.
For me, it was a Shakespeare in the Park production of “Henry V” with Kevin Kline as the (then) young monarch. It was a hot, humid evening performance that was interrupted frequently by rain. The show would stop, and everyone would run for cover. When it was over, lackies would descend upon the stage to mop up with what looked like old tee shirts and the show would continue. When it came time for the St. Crispin speech –
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
The skies opened up again, accompanied by fierce winds, lightening, thunder, and sheets of rain. Kline lifted his head, raised his fist to the heavens and dared the elements to defeat him. Talk about spectacle!
It was Kline’s physical and vocal performance, the sound effects and lighting show provided by nature, that transported all of us sitting on our soaking wet picnic blankets in Central Park to that battleground.
So many playwrights are again turning to spectacle in their plays.
Lucas Hnath takes us to a Sunday service in a modern mega-church. Church and theatre have long borrowed from each other in all the elements of spectacle – from architecture to music to monologues, er, sermons. And with theatre’s reputation as a place filled with refugees from religion, a safe, theatrical trip to a place many hadn’t stepped inside of for years gave audiences the theatricality without the guilt.
Rajiv Joseph takes us to one of the most spectacular pieces of architecture in the world – the Taj Mahal – in his “Guards at the Taj.” He’s not content to rely on someone else’s theatrical spectacle for his play. He adds his own with a most bloody scene of cutting off limbs and cleaning up blood.
Lauren Yee calls upon ghosts to create the spectacle in her play “The Tiger Among Us.” Charise Castro Smith also goes the monster route in “Feathers and Teeth.” She creates a flesh-eating monster in a saucepan. And Matthew Lopez takes us to a Florida drag show in “The Legend of Georgia McBride.” Talk about use of costumes and music.
I know budgets are small. And as playwrights, we have to mindful of cast size, stage space, and other practicalities if we want our work to get produced.
But we can dream, can’t we? Why not create something larger than life? A play that makes a set designer’s mouth water, that leaves an audience saying “wow”, that creates a memory of a theatrical spectacle as fresh today as it was that hot and stormy evening in Central Park with Shakespeare.
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Happy Anniversary to the LA FPI Person of Interest Blog! Today we celebrate four years of blogging.
by Robin Byrd
I have enjoyed our diverse group of voices. I have enjoyed the moments when after reading these ladies or watching a video or film, I break out into laughter or tears – those moments when I am found…. There is nothing like being in a funk and have someone write “Oink! Oink!” or having to leave my desk to shake myself after reading “When Playwrights Get Old” which came about after “Too old?” left me numb and very contemplative. When I look in the mirror, I see me and have to remind myself that the first set of students at the university where I work my day job have graduated and are in their thirties now. The few that have stayed on in employment shock me when I run into them yet when I look in the mirror I don’t see age — I see me. One wonders if after all the “Taking Stock” we do if a change is gonna come – ever – but we keep hoping and pushing and fighting for that “Stillness” that drives us.
“Drive, She Said“.
How much more drive does it take for a woman to succeed than a man? Can it even be measured? Who cares? Trying to keep myself moving. No time to research how a man does it unless it helps me.
Writers are always “On a new path…” to stay motivated and to be able to encourage oneself to do one’s art which is supposed to lead to “When you hear your words in someone else’s mouth…” You hope. One hopes.
The goal is to be a working artist. By that I mean, you don’t have to have a day job to pay the rent, pay for submission fees, or afford you food while you write. Living in near poverty to be an artist should be against the law especially because that same art could end up being a national treasure; the following terms are not interchangeable: “Working Artist – Donating Artist – Surviving Artist“.
Zora Neale Hurston author of Their Eyes Were Watching God died in poverty; her work was rescued from a fire after her death (Florida had a habit of burning the belongings of the dead). Zora Neale Hurston’s life work is a national treasure…
There should be no limitations or rules on where or in what form a writer creates story as there are no rules to who can be “The Happiest Person in America” or one of the happiest people – let us do our art and we are there… Gender does not dictate what shared work will change the world in some way — “And The Female Play at the Tonys was…” and it should not dictate who has access to the stage, the screen or the bookshelf. Great stories all start the say way — with words and the “Voice…” of the writer. All are needed, each soprano, alto, tenor and bass… There should not have to be “The Bechdel Test for the Stage“; there should not have to be a Bechdel test at all – why can’t all stories worth telling be treated equal? Why can’t the journey be easier? Why can’t handling “Our Expectations, Our Fears” as artists be easier? Perhaps even this tug-of-war on gender parity fits into the “Everything Is A Creative Act” category; it is, after all, fodder.
I especially like what Pulitzer Prize Finalist playwright Lisa Kron said at the last Dramatists Guild Conference “Having Our Say: Our History, Our Future” about what she does when something rubs her the wrong way “I’m going to write a play about this” — The Veri**on Play is what resulted.
Just wondering, do you have any favorite LA FPI blog articles?
Bloggers Past and Present:
Jessica Abrams, Tiffany Antone, Erica Bennett, Nancy Beverly, Andie Bottrell, Robin Byrd, Kitty Felde, Diane Grant, Jen Huszcza, Sara Israel, Cindy Marie Jenkins, Sue May, Analyn Revilla, Cynthia Wands and special input by Laura Shamas and Jennie Webb.
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https://bigthink.com/words-of-wisdom/julia-cameron-the-creative-process-is-a-process-of-surrender-not-control/
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Julia Cameron: “The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.”
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"The creative process is a process of surrender, not control... Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise." -Julia Cameron, American artist, from The Artist's Way, 1992
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Big Think
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https://bigthink.com/words-of-wisdom/julia-cameron-the-creative-process-is-a-process-of-surrender-not-control/
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Julia Cameron (b. 1948) is an American artist and author famous for her 1992 self-help book The Artist’s Way. Her artistic philosophy is founded on a belief that creativity is bred from self-confidence, personal development, and divine influence (rather than from the human ego). Cameron, who was once married to Martin Scorsese, is a prolific writer who has authored over three dozen books, plays, and film scripts.
“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control… Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.”
-Julia Cameron, American artist, from The Artist’s Way, 1992
(h/t WikiQuote)
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https://www.londonpubtheatres.com/interview-graham-watts-on-lost-ladies-of-theatre
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Interview with Director Graham Watts on lost ladies of theatre and his work dedicated to giving them the prominence they deserve.
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Director GRAHAM WATTS talks about founding LOST LADIES OF THEATRE with a You Tube channel dedicated to performances of their work.
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“David Hare could write out his shopping list and they’d give it a production in the Olivier” jokes Watts. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers, a nonfiction book describing a present-day slum of Mumbai, was a prime opportunity to get a young Indian woman to adapt it but it went to David Hare”, explains Watts. “He’s had about 20 plays on at the National - the plays I’ve been doing are a much better quality” he adds with sincerity. Watts admits that plays of this calibre “don’t just come your way”. It takes a lot of research to discover the plays and he’s spent more than a few hours at the British Library and elsewhere chasing them down. “If we could start to put them on and show the quality, we can give these ladies the recognition they deserve,” says Watts. “There has to be a more gender balanced repertoire and all of these plays deserve a place at the table,” he adds.
With perseverance the interest in these lost ladies of theatre has started to awaken. If it had not been for the pandemic, Watts would have completed a trilogy of women’s plays at the White Bear Theatre with the World Premiere of DIRECT ACTION by Githa Sowerby (1876 – 1970), subsequently presented via Zoom. Now Watts is ensuring that the plays have a dedicated platform to become accessible to a world-wide audience. He is making them freely available on a You Tube Channel LOST LADIES (found)
On the You Tube page he encourages others to join the campaign and as a result two plays are in the pipeline. They will be streamed live this month and then made freely available to watch on the You Tube channel. He has already directed Margaret Cavendish’s play THE UNNATURAL TRAGEDY on zoom with an all-Indian cast. Part of the beauty of it is that people can sit and watch the play performed with a cast from Kerala to Calcutta, New Delhi to Mumbai.
He is tremendously excited about the possibilities offered by Zoom. “It’s working brilliantly well in terms of theatre practice and it’s changing our way of thinking.” says Watts. He is rightly proud of the results of his first zoom play and is frankly astonished to discover it is opening up new ways of presenting theatre. One actor was caught in traffic in the back of a taxi in Calcutta and you can hear the background noise which adds a layer of authenticity. On another occasion an actor in Colorado (US) who has new-born twins was able to put the babies down to sleep and work with another actor in Florida for two hours. Watts explains that “Apart from that, she probably wouldn’t have been able to do any kind of acting (in a theatre) for years.”
His interest in lost plays from female writers began when he was asked to direct plays at the British American Drama Academy. “The students came over from all over the States” he explains “most of them a cohort of young females of 19 or 20 and I couldn’t see the point of bringing them from America just to do ordinary plays.” He didn’t want these great female actors playing men, painting on moustaches, so he started to research parts that would work for them. “It was that WTF phrase when I found the plays and I could not believe that they hadn’t been produced” says Watts with some relish.
The plays are not centred around women, although some are about limitations put on women and the pressure to get married. They cover all concerns from political to comedy and are often about social issues. Actress, novelist, and dramatist Elisabeth Inchbald’s play THE MASSACRE is about migrants to an unnamed country. “The local populace turns on them and tries to massacre them” says Watts. “It’s about 200 years old and comes off the page really fresh. Nigel Farage is nothing new….What we’ve found out is just how imaginative these women are” he says. “They don’t form any set pattern because they weren’t produced so they aren’t inside the system. If they were, they would tend to reflect the politics of the male-dominated theatre companies, but they don’t.”
It is hard to imagine why these plays have been overlooked. “It didn’t used to be like that” explains Watts. “Some women did have their plays staged. Two years after the first female actors were permitted, in the early Restoration period, there were all-female casts”. Today all-female casts are deemed radical but Watts found a newspaper article about this trend in the late 1700s. Unfortunately, it did not last. “11 actresses and one man wanted to change the repertoire back then and they came up with a list of plays that they thought would be appropriate for female actors” Watts explains. “They presented it to Mr Sheridan at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, but he wasn’t interested.”
Watts is hoping that Zoom is here to stay as a new form of theatre, in the same way that radio has achieved this. “It’s much more flexible than people realise. It’s a powerful weapon. Each actor has an individual camera and can use 2 or 3 devices.” He’d like to see it become part of popular entertainment because it is possible to do things you cannot do on stage or could not afford to do such as filmed extracts or changing the background for every scene. “It’s important to avoid the University Challenge look,” he jokes. Zoom offers all the same thrills as live performance with first night nerves and learning lines.
Watts is particularly conscious of the benefit of these plays to teachers at Universities or Drama Schools. Cavendish’s THE UNNATURAL TRAGEDY has 9 roles for young women and a cast for 13. It would seem to be an ideal play for theatre studies and students everywhere. Texts are available from Watts and he just asks that people acknowledge LOST LADIES (found) and support the work. “Plays are chosen on the basis of their quality. Not because they are written by women; they’re up there because they’re written by extraordinary women” he says.
NOTE: Graham Watts would be pleased to hear from anyone who would like to collaborate, contribute, act, or direct. At the moment participation is entirely voluntarily and unpaid.
He also welcomes plays by women from the past written in their original language. Graham can be contacted via his email address: grahamwatts@supanet.com
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Is Edward Snowden Single? Virtual Program — Jungle Theater
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LETTER FROM OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Sussing out the truth in a pile of lies seems to be a national hobby these days. We are in a moment of uncovering, of chasing the truth—and the truth runs really fast sometimes. It’s necessary to question, to uncover the reality that has been lurking under the surface, and to reconcile our own complicity in these lies. But beware, our familiar lies have a beguiling comfort making the truth the unfamiliar, the unknown—and the unknown is unsettling. How do we move forward if there isn’t agreement on the truth?
I love this play for its surreal ingenuity, its bonkers nimbleness, and the loving way it chases the truth. Kate Cortesi reveals a relationship at the moment of change, a friendship that is deeply loving and deeply flawed. This delicious beastie called Is Edward Snowden Single? is full of Kate’s unflinching, hilarious and heartfelt pursuit of truth. Once we know the truth, perpetuating lies is a choice to hurt others in our world.
We are also chasing the unknown these days—actually, we are living in the unknown. COVID has laid bare many questions of its own, and the impact is enormous on human lives, not to mention livelihoods. For Theatre artists—the questions of how exactly to pivot (ugh, that word) to virtual performances, as well as the unknown of when performances will return to the stage loom large. There are so many Theatre artisans, craftspeople, designers, technicians, staff and creators that are not working due to the pandemic. I miss you and I miss the skills and experience you bring to this craft.
I am grateful for the chance I had to be in a virtual room with some amazingly intrepid folk, and I look forward to the day when we can be together again in an actual room. My respect and admiration for my collaborators has grown tenfold throughout this process. The actors you see on screen have had to wear many hats—literally and figuratively. They have had to assume more roles than the ones you see them play on your screen—I thank you, Isabella, Becca & Eric for upending your lives to bring these characters to life. I thank the amazing production team that discovered answers to questions that had never before been on our horizons, I thank the Jungle staff with whom invention becomes the everyday, and I thank you—our audience, our families, our community. Your support of new work is necessary and appreciated. Here’s to making the unfamiliar familiar, and here’s to chasing the truth.
CHRISTINA BALDWIN
Interim Artistic Director
LETTER FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
Question: What do oat milk espresso beverages, public bathroom quickies, and Rosa Parks all have in common?
Answer: They’re in my play Is Edward Snowden Single? And yeah, it’s a stretch.
But—a powerful stretch!—a life-bolstering stretch!—hopefully?—like one you’d feel in an excellent yoga class. (As opposed to one that causes bridges to tumble into the sea.) But instead of stretching your body, this play wants to stretch, well, everything else: your mind and your heart; your sense of humor and moral certitude; maybe even your assumptions about what a night at the theater can be. And now, in the winter of 2020, the play’s virtual reality is a reach I didn’t anticipate but one I gladly join you in making. Christina Baldwin’s astonishing screen adaptation has expanded our way of coming together in this art form.
Edward Snowden demands real elasticity from its actors, as well. Two leading women embody nineteen different roles in a workplace morality tale that lurches, slows, drops and loops at the whiplash tempo of a rollercoaster. Sometimes the actors play a scene “straight.” Other times they co-narrate for the audience, bickering about what comes next. And then there are the love scenes with Edward Snowden himself, who may or may not be an adorable puppet.
As the play’s author, I cop to being stretched beyond my comfort zone writing the script. Aiming to create something that feels bit like stand-up, a bit like a drinking game, and a bit like going to confession, I often got lost in the wilderness of those early drafts. Is this bombastic piece playing too fast and loose? But wouldn’t slowing it down kill it? And are these dumb jokes funny, or just… dumb? Because, in this play, while silliness abounds, our ultimate project is deadly serious. Okay, maybe not quite deadly. Unless you count the death of the soul as mortal stakes. Which, for what it’s worth, I do.
Of all the play’s elastic contortions, this stretch between silliness and utter seriousness is perhaps the riskiest. Thank you for trying it at home.
Next year, in the room together.
KATE CORTESI
Playwright
Our Values
STORIES MATTER
Because we believe in the power of live theater to interrogate and celebrate our shared experience, we create work that helps our audience make meaning of the world and deepen connections with each other.
ARTISTRY IS A HABIT OF ATTENTION
Because we believe that exquisitely crafted theater makes us feel more alive and calls to our highest potential, we pursue beauty in our work by practicing care and attention to detail in all that we do.
A PLAY ISN’T COMPLETE WITHOUT AN AUDIENCE
Because we see our audience as our final collaborators, and because we believe meaningful encounters demand intimacy, we strive to make the Jungle a place where all are welcome and everyone is home.
A GREAT THEATER CARES FOR ITS PEOPLE
Because the work we make and share depends on human time, labor, and love, we are committed to being good to one another. This means we challenge one another creatively, value each other’s time and talent, and collaborate in a spirit of good will and abundance.
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Citation preview
ASIAN AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS
ASIAN AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook Edited by Miles Xian Liu
Emmanuel S. Nelson, Advisory Editor
GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Asian American playwrights : a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook / edited by Miles Xian Liu. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–31455–1 (alk. paper) 1. American drama—Asian American authors—Bio-bibliography—Dictionaries. 2. Dramatists, American—Biography—Dictionaries. 3. Asian Americans in literature—Dictionaries. 4. Asian Americans—Biography—Dictionaries. I. Liu, Miles Xian. PS338.A74 A9 2002 812'.509895'03—dc21 [B] 2001037680 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright 2002 by Miles Xian Liu All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001037680 ISBN: 0–313–31455–1 First published in 2002 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America TM
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Preface
ix
BRENDA WONG AOKI by Melinda L. de Jesu´s
1
JEANNIE BARROGA by Jie Tian
6
MEI-MEI BERSSENBRUGGE by Martha J. Cutter
14
EUGENIE CHAN by Sean Metzger
18
FRANK CHIN by Guiyou Huang
24
PING CHONG by Douglas I. Sugano
33
GOVINDAS VISHNUDAS DESANI by Uppinder Mehan
41
LOUELLA DIZON by Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns
45
MAURA NGUYEN DONOHUE by SanSan Kwan
49
LINDA FAIGAO-HALL by Gary Storhoff
57
ALBERTO S. FLORENTINO by Andrew L. Smith
63
PHILIP KAN GOTANDA by Randy Barbara Kaplan
69
JESSICA TARAHATA HAGEDORN by Victor Bascara and Miles Xian Liu
89
AMY HILL by Yuko Kurahashi
98
VELINA HASU HOUSTON by Masami Usui and Miles Xian Liu
103
SHIH-I HSIUNG by Yupei Zhou
121
vi
CONTENTS
DAVID HENRY HWANG by Esther S. Kim
126
MOMOKO IKO by Louis J. Parascandola
145
SUSAN KIM by Andrew L. Smith
151
VICTORIA NALANI KNEUBUHL by Elizabeth Byrne Fitzpatrick
156
DAN KWONG by SanSan Kwan
162
leˆ thi diem thu´y by Roberta Uno
170
CHERYLENE LEE by Randy Barbara Kaplan
175
LING-AI (GLADYS) LI by Shuchen S. Huang
185
GENNY LIM by Miles Xian Liu
189
PAUL STEPHEN LIM by Miles Xian Liu
201
SANDRA TSING LOH by Lynn M. Itagaki
212
DARRELL H.Y. LUM by Masami Usui
218
MARLANE MEYER by Shuchen S. Huang
227
NOBUKO MIYAMOTO by Roberta Uno
233
MILTON ATSUSHI MURAYAMA by Nikolas Huot
239
JUDE NARITA by Melinda L. de Jesu´s
245
LANE NISHIKAWA by Randy Barbara Kaplan
251
DWIGHT OKITA by John Jae-Nam Han
263
HAN ONG by John Jae-Nam Han
271
UMA PARAMESWARAN by Rashna B. Singh
278
˜ A by Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns RALPH B. PEN
283
SANTHA RAMA RAU by Leela Kapai
288
SUNG JUNG RNO by Daphne P. Lei
292
DMAE ROBERTS by Gary Storhoff
298
EDWARD SAKAMOTO by Nikolas Huot
303
BINA SHARIF by Rashna B. Singh
310
R.A. SHIOMI by Josephine D. Lee
315
DIANA SON by Esther S. Kim
321
ALICE TUAN by Jie Tian
328
CONTENTS
vii
DENISE UYEHARA by Yuko Kurahashi
334
ERMENA MARLENE VINLUAN by Theodore S. Gonzalves
340
ELIZABETH WONG by Randy Barbara Kaplan
347
MERLE WOO by Janet Hyunju Clarke
361
WAKAKO YAMAUCHI by Douglas I. Sugano
367
LAURENCE MICHAEL YEP by Uppinder Mehan
377
CHAY YEW by Josephine D. Lee
384
Selected Bibliography
391
Index
395
About the Editor and Contributors
403
Preface During the embryonic stage of Asian American writings in the 1880s, Asian American authors mainly detailed the customs, lifestyles, and traditions of their Asian homeland. In contrast to the early novels and autobiographies, however, Asian American drama made its debut with the spotlight firmly on the lives and struggles of Asians in North America. In what might be considered the earliest Asian American dramatic works in the United States—Confucius, Buddha, and Christ—which Sadakichi Hartmann wrote between 1889 and 1897, the playwright attempted to transform the American theater of the late Victorian period by employing a fusion of poetry, music, and mystic elements. Ling-ai (Gladys) Li, the first Asian American woman playwright on record, focused on the conflict between two sets of equally compelling values from the cultures of America and China in The Submission of Rose Moy (1924). Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, their works together started a tradition still evident today in Asian American dramatic literature, namely, challenging the limitations of established theater conventions and directing popular attention to issues and experiences that might otherwise be ignored or marginalized. But the continental U.S. theater was not ready for Asian American plays when they first appeared. Although Li wrote and reportedly produced her first play without incident in Hawaii, Hartmann’s scripts never saw production. Instead, he saw the inside of Charles Street Jail in Boston because his Christ was deemed “vicious and salacious according to American ideas,” and all its copies were confiscated.1 He was fined $100 for violating the community’s sensibilities. Yet Asian American drama as a literary canon has been composed and produced for domestic consumption. From the commercially successful productions, such as M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang and Tea by Velina Hasu Houston, to staged readings of scripts unheard of outside the field, the wide-ranging themes like
x
PREFACE
identity struggles, cultural adjustment, immigration stigma, racism within, and the joys and hardships of diasporan experience as well as the possibilities and limits of multiethnicity continue to be appreciated by the multicultural audience more than by a homogeneous crowd. The diverse voices that Asian American plays present not only have enriched the American stage, but also have delineated the struggles of all Americans in an ever-changing racial landscape. However, an overview of ethnic drama yields an unfortunate fact. While Asian American literature has come into full efflorescence in the past two and a half decades, Asian American drama has yet to receive the kind of critical attention it warrants. Its production is discussed primarily in the theater reviews of newspapers; its writers are known only to the scholars, producers, and acting professionals of ethnic and academic theaters; and most of its scripts remain unpublished despite the warm reception of their productions. This reference book is intended to serve as a versatile vehicle for exploring the field of Asian American drama from its recorded conception to its present stage. The selection of playwrights and performance artists for this volume is based on a combination of recommendations from theater scholars, the existing record of publication or production, and a playwright’s ethnicity. While the first two criteria are more or less self-evident, the ethnicity test deserves explanation. The intent of this book is to reflect the demographics of the diverse Asian American communities in North America, but in an era when ethnicity is becoming increasingly a matter of personal choice rather than heritage, neither geography nor nationality helps define what constitutes “Asian American.” Playwrights of the Pacific islands would be excluded if the term were defined geographically; the latest talents of Asian immigrants would be ignored if the term were delimited by citizenship; and it would go against everything this undertaking stands for if the term were prescribed by a playwright’s percentage of “Asian blood.” This dilemma exposes the very fallacious nature of defining artists, and humanity, by race. While the best-defined racial labels must be mutually exclusive in theory, they will be the least accurate in reality. Yet an all-inclusive category is not feasible because of space constraints. With the recognition of “Asian American” as a bureaucratic and editorial convenience rather than a precise racial category, this volume has thus included fifty-two established and emerging American playwrights and performing artists of origins from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and China in order to articulate a presence that has been traditionally appropriated for the tourist gaze in the collective mind of North American audiences. As a reference tool, this book is designed to provide a comprehensive but practical resource to educators and scholars engaged in teaching and researching Asian American drama and to students and theater practitioners interested in reading and producing new plays. The fifty-two entries—one for each playwright—are arranged alphabetically. Each entry consists of four sections: Biography, Major Works and Themes, Critical Reception, and Bibliography. At the end of the book, a general Selected Bibliography compiles, separately, both the primary and secondary sources for further reading.
PREFACE
xi
The Biography within each entry is a succinct narrative that places the accomplishments of a playwright in a cultural context. Major Works and Themes is an interpretive description of plays that highlights recurring themes and plots. Critical Reception is an overview that provides the most up-to-date critical assessment of the playwright under discussion. Bibliography is a compilation that lists both the published and unpublished works of the playwright, their selected production history, and sources of critical studies. Although each entry makes no claims to being definitive, it does strive to be comprehensive enough for advanced scholars and general readers alike in their inquiry into each playwright. The selected production history of an entry serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it gives credit to the crucial role of theaters to playwrights like that of publishers to authors; on the other, it documents the vitality and struggles of Asian American plays. The successful development of Asian American drama would not have been possible without the establishment of Asian American theaters across the nation. The East West Players in Los Angeles (1965), the Kumu Kahua Theatre in Hawaii (1971), the Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco (1973), the Northwest Asian American Theatre in Seattle (1976), the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York (1977), the New WORLD Theater in Amherst (1979), and Theater Mu in Minneapolis (1992), to name just a few, have all helped create a permanent space on the American stage for Asian America. Although many of them were founded primarily as alternatives to mainstream-dominated venues for Asian American acting professionals, the circuitous trail they blazed has not only galvanized Asian American playwriting to emerge, but has also provided the continuity of that asserted presence in flesh and blood. The postcolonial gaze of Asians is being transformed into an appreciative eye for their cultures and hopefully an eventual embrace of their humanity. While the selected production history credits and honors these theaters and professionals, it is not meant to be complete or comprehensive, but illustrative of the vivacity of Asian American drama in its efforts to reach a larger audience. On behalf of all the contributors, I wish to acknowledge the playwrights and performance artists for their patient cooperation. My gratitude also goes to all the contributors. Their dedication to Asian American dramatic literature, commitment to original research, and attention to detail have made this reference volume a reality. Appreciation is due as well to Professor Emmanuel Nelson of the State University of New York at Cortland and Dr. George Butler of Greenwood Press for their trust and support throughout the project. In its completion, I must pay special tribute to Roberta Uno, Josephine Lee, and Jie Tian for their field-tested expertise, professional guidance, and generous assistance. NOTES 1. Harry Lawton and George Knox, Introduction, Buddha, Confucius, Christ: Three Prophetic Plays, by Sadakichi Hartmann, ed. Harry Lawton and George Knox (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971) ix–xliv.
ASIAN AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS
Brenda Wong Aoki (1953–
)
Melinda L. de Jesu´s
BIOGRAPHY Brenda Wong Aoki was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on July 29, 1953, and was raised in Los Angeles. She is of Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and Scots descent. Aoki studied dance and majored in community studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, graduating with a B.A. (with honors) in 1976. An Asian American actress, singer, and musician, Aoki grew tired of the stereotypical roles available to her; during the 1970s and 1980s, she became a founding member of the Asian American Dance Collective and the Asian American Theater Company. She then studied commedia with the Dell’Arte Players as well as Noh and Kyogen (Japanese classical theater) with Yuriko Doi’s Theatre of Yugen and later traveled to Japan to work with Noh master Nomuro Shiro and Kyogen master Nomura Mansaku at Chusonji Temple. Aoki also cofounded SoundSeen, an “extraordinary, if short lived, zen-jazz-performance ensemble” (Hurwitt, “Brenda” 266). Since 1988, Aoki has concentrated primarily on solo performance. She and her partner, composer/musician Mark Izu, are the artistic directors of First Voice, a San Francisco–based nonprofit arts organization dedicated to the “music and stories of people caught between cultures, speaking in their own voice” (“About Us”). Currently, Aoki is a member of the Theater-arts faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Eclecticism, individuality, and diversity are the hallmarks of Aoki’s work. Her plays are inspired by Japanese folktales and her own autobiography and delve into the themes of secrets, betrayal, danger, passion, love, forgiveness,
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and family. In regard to theatrical form, Aoki’s work “is a distinctive melding of dance, music and theatre from both Western and Japanese dramatic traditions” (Perkins and Uno 14). Obake! Some Japanese Ghosts (or Obake! Tales of Spirits Past and Present) (1988) is a unique synthesis of Asian, Asian American, and autobiographical storytelling. Aoki presents five distinct vignettes here: “Black Hair,” the story of what happens when a samurai deserts his devoted wife; “Dancing in California,” adapted from Hisaye Yamamoto’s short story “Miss Sasagawara,” which tells of a Japanese American ballerina’s struggle to maintain her sanity while interned during World War II; “Havoc in Heaven,” a retelling of the Monkey King’s epic battle; “The Bell of Dojoji” (an adaptation of Noh and Kabuki plays), in which a woman’s passion transforms her into a snake; and “Grandpa,” based on Aoki’s recollections of her Chinese immigrant grandfather. The Queen’s Garden (1992) is an autobiographical work that describes Aoki’s adolescence on the fringes of Asian and Pacific Islander gang life in Long Beach. It explores her romance with gangster Kali, her inability to escape her past, despite graduating from college and moving north, and her desperate but futile attempts to save Kali from his destiny. Kali’s entanglements in drugs and crime foretell a tragic firestorm at the play’s end. Random Acts of Kindness (1992) continues Aoki’s autobiographical musings. It is a story of a single woman solo performer, “consumed with worries about aging and her own ethnopolitical relevance . . . beset by Christian fundamentalist protesters who suspect that her Japanese children’s songs might be satanic incantations” (Hurwitt, “Brenda” 266). Mermaid Meat (1997) is a fantastic and sensuous tale of love, betrayal, and forgiveness that melds Aoki’s unique brand of storytelling with live symphonic accompaniment. Drawing upon the Japanese folkloric belief that one can gain eternal life by eating mermaid meat, Aoki embellishes the story, creating what she calls “nouveau myth”: an old fisherman reels in a mermaid from the sea, and they fall in love (Telephone interview). They live happily together with the fisherman’s daughter for many years, until the day the daughter notices herself aging. In a moment of insanity, she cuts a slab of flesh from the back of the mermaid and devours it; meanwhile, a giant turtle comes forth to rescue the wounded mermaid and return her to the sea. The final scene depicts the daughter’s great remorse and the mermaid’s forgiveness, a powerful vision of transformation and love. Aoki returns again to autobiography in Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend (1998). This one-woman show explores Aoki’s discovery of and reactions to her family’s secret: the 1909 interracial marriage of her granduncle, Gunjiro Aoki, to Gladys Emery, daughter of the archdeacon of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. Fleeing angry mobs and the anti-miscegenation laws hastily passed to prevent their union, Gunjiro and Gladys settle in Seattle. The piece documents their family’s persecution through World War II, when the widowed Gladys and her children hide in the Sierra to avoid internment. Thematically, Uncle Gunjiro’s
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Girlfriend, like much of Aoki’s work, explores how family secrets and shame haunt generations of a family, and how the act of uncovering and reclaiming family history offers healing as well as a means to honor and celebrate one’s past. Aoki is currently writing a novel based on this play. CRITICAL RECEPTION Recently anthologized, Aoki’s work has received considerable acclaim. In 1992, The Queen’s Garden garnered four Dramalogue awards for Best Performance, Best Writing, Best Original Music, and Best Lighting as well as a San Diego Critics Circle Award; likewise, both of Aoki’s two spoken-word CDs, Dreams and Illusions: Tales of the Pacific Rim (1990) and The Queen’s Garden (1999), have received the National Association of Independent Record Distributors (NAIRD) Indie Award for “Best Spoken Word Album of the Year.” Mermaid Meat received an American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) special award in 1998. Nancy Churnin describes Aoki’s storytelling talents in The Queen’s Garden as “formidable” and “extraordinary” (“Memories” F1), and Cheryl North proclaims Mermaid Meat to be “impressive” (1). However, Robert Hurwitt notes that the ambitious scope of Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend undermines its effectiveness: “Too many characters, too many themes and too many performance styles compete for our attention” (“Tale” D1). By virtue of her mixed heritage and through the content and the formal aspects of her solo work, Aoki has been heralded as the literal embodiment of multicultural American theater. An iconoclastic, daring American playwright whose work continues to astound, Brenda Wong Aoki consistently redefines the concept of Asian American cultural fusion. BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Brenda Wong Aoki Drama The Queen’s Garden. Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. Ed. Kathy A. Perkins and Roberta Uno. New York: Routledge, 1996. 14–31. Mermaid Meat: A Piece for Symphony. Excerpt. Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. Ed. Jo Bonney. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2000. 271–75. Random Acts of Kindness. Excerpt. Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. Ed. Jo Bonney. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2000. 267–70.
Unpublished Manuscripts Whisperings. 1985. Obake! Some Japanese Ghosts (or Obake! Tales of Spirits Past and Present). 1988.
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Tales from the Pacific Rim (The Phoenix and the Dragon). 1988. Random Acts of Kindness. 1992. Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend. 1998.
Selected Production History Obake! Some Japanese Ghosts (or Obake! Tales of Spirits Past and Present) Solo performances, dir. Jael Weisman. National Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough, TN, 1988. ———. Foot of the Mountain Theatre, Minneapolis, 1988. ———. Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, 1990. ———. Whitney Museum of Art, New York City, 1990. ———. Aaron Davis Hall, New York City, 1991. ———. Solo Mio Festival, Climate Theatre, San Francisco, 1991. ———. East/West Center, Honolulu, 1992. ———. San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Diego, 1992. ———. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1992. ———. New Victory Theatre, New York City, 1996. ———. Graz Festival, Graz, Austria, 1999. ———. Sapporo University, Sapporo, Japan, 1999.
The Queen’s Garden Solo performances, dir. Jael Weisman. Solo Mio Festival, Climate Theatre, San Francisco, 1992. ———. East/West Center, Honolulu, 1992. ———. San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Diego, 1992. ———. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1992. ———. Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA, 1995. ———. Asia Society, New York City, 1996.
Random Acts of Kindness Solo performances, dir. Jael Weisman. La Pen˜a, Berkeley, CA, 1992. ———. Dallas Theater Center, Dallas, 1994. ———. National Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough, TN, 1994. ———, dir. Amy Mueller. Field Museum, Chicago, 1998.
Mermaid Meat Solo performances, dir. Jael Weisman; monodrama with Berkeley Symphony, cond. Kent Nagano, and composer Mark Izu. Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA, 1997. ———, dir. Jael Weisman; monodrama with Torrance Symphony, cond. Frank Fetta, and composer Mark Izu. Armstrong Theater, Torrance, CA, 1997. ———, dir. Patricia Pretzinger; composer Mark Izu. Fringe Club, Hong Kong, 1999.
Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend Solo performances as work in-progress, dir. Paolo Nun˜ez-Ueno. New American Playwrights Festival, Villa Montalvo, San Jose, CA, 1997. ———, dir. Diane Rodriguez. Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Intersection, San Francisco, 1998.
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Solo performaces. Solo Mio Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 1998. ———. Japan America Theatre, Los Angeles, 2000. ———. McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, CA, 2000.
Interviews Telephone interview. 6 Dec. 2000. Salovey, Todd. “Interview with Brenda Wong Aoki.” San Diego Repertory Theatre News. Nov.–Dec. 1992: 1⫹.
Recordings Dreams and Illusions: Tales of the Pacific Rim. Perf. Brenda W. Aoki. Rounder Records, 1990. Black Hair: Some Japanese Ghost Stories. Perf. Brenda W. Aoki. Audiocassette. Pele Records, 1997. The Queen’s Garden. Perf. Brenda W. Aoki. Asian Improv Records, 1999.
Studies of Brenda Wong Aoki “About Us.” Home page. 21 June 2000. First Voice. 5 Jan. 2001 ⬍http://www. firstvoice.org/about_firstvoice.html⬎. Cheng, Scarlet. “Speaking of the Unspoken: Brenda Wong Aoki Bases Her Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend on a Long-held Family Secret.” Los Angeles Times 30 Apr. 2000, Calendar: 48⫹. Churnin, Nancy. “Memories of the Gang Trap.” Rev. of The Queen’s Garden. Los Angeles Times 6 Nov. 1992: F1. ———. “Storyteller Stirs Myth, Memory.” Rev. of Obake! Some Japanese Ghosts. Los Angeles Times 5 Nov. 1992: F1. Helig, Jack. Rev. of Random Acts of Kindness. Reader: Chicago’s Free Weekly 27.2 (17 Apr. 1998): 2. Hurwitt, Robert. “Brenda Wong Aoki.” Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. Ed. Jo Bonney. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2000. 265–66. ———. “One Woman’s Tales Paint a Portrait of a Nation.” San Francisco Chronicle 23 Aug. 1998: D7. ———. “A Tale of Love and Racism.” Rev. of Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend. San Francisco Chronicle 12 Oct. 1998: D1. North, Cheryl. “It’s a Scream at Berkeley Symphony.” Rev. of Mermaid Meat with composition by Mark Izu. Oakland Tribune 17 May 1997, Cue: 1, 5. Perkins, Kathy A., and Roberta Uno, eds. Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. New York: Routledge, 1996. Winn, Steven. “Aoki’s Garden Needs Weeding.” Rev. of The Queen’s Garden. San Francisco Chronicle 10 Oct. 1992: C6. ———. “Aoki Tells Adult Tales with Flair.” Rev. of Obake! Some Japanese Ghosts. San Francisco Chronicle 14 Sept. 1990: E7.
Jeannie Barroga (1949–
)
Jie Tian
BIOGRAPHY Jeannie Barroga was born in Milwaukee in 1949. She graduated with a B.A. in fine arts from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee in 1972. After graduation, she moved to northern California and felt a connection with this place that hosts rich and diverse cultures and people from different backgrounds. Since then, the San Francisco Bay Area has been home for Barroga and a prominent stage for her career as a playwright. Barroga started playwriting in 1979 as a personal response to her father’s passing. Later she explored her own Filipino heritage and a broad range of cultural, political, racial, and ethnic issues in her plays. In two decades, she has written more than fifty plays, including five that have been broadcast on cable television. Her work has been published, anthologized, and produced nationwide. Today, Barroga plays an active role in many theater groups in northern California and in the nation: the Dramatists Guild, Theater Bay Area, Marin Theater Lab, Quarry (A.C.T.), New Works Forum (formerly Playwright Forum), TheaterWorks, and Teatro Ng Tanan. Since the 1990s, Barroga has been teaching playwriting in colleges, universities, and theater groups. She has taught playwriting for California State University at Monterey Bay and Colorado College and for theater groups such as Pintig Group in Chicago, Peninsula Civic Light Opera in San Mateo, Teatro Ng Tanan, and the Asian American Theater Workshop in San Francisco, as well as for numerous Bay Area high schools and universities. A playwright and teacher, Barroga is also a producer, director, and literary manager. In 1983, Barroga founded the Playwright Forum in Palo Alto, California. She has served as literary manager for the Oakland Ensemble Theater.
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Since 1985, she has been the literary manager/spectrum artist of TheaterWorks in Palo Alto. Barroga has directed and produced many plays, including When Stars Fall for the Playwright Forum, Bubblegum Killers at TheaterWorks and Il Teatro in San Francisco, Kin at the Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco, Horner Performance Center in Portland, and El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Baustista, and Kenny Was A Shortstop for Brava! Women for the Arts in San Francisco. Assisting Amy Gonzalez, Barroga directed Voir Dire by Joe Sutton at TheaterWorks in Palo Alto, as well. Barroga’s accomplishments have placed her on grants panels, won her commissions, and garnered her numerous awards. They include the Maverick Award from the Los Angeles Women’s Festival, the Joey Award from TeleTheatre, the Tino Award from TeleTheatre, and Work of Excellence from Cupertino, as well as awards from the Bay Area Playwrights Festival Ten-Minute Play Contest and the Inner City Cultural Center Short Play Competition in Los Angeles. MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Barroga writes with passion, perseverance, and a blend of stylistic innovations. Her plays are an ardent quest into the self, the Filipino American experience, and American national identity. They embrace the personal and the public, individual lives and public history, and spheres personal, cultural, and political. Intergenerational conflict, the tension between tradition and assimilation, ethnic culture, and mainstream culture are the focus of Barroga’s earlier plays. Eye of the Coconut (1986) epitomizes the classic conundrum through the stories of a Filipino American family in Milwaukee. Dad, who came from the Philippines as a child to pursue a career as a musician, is confronted with three teenage daughters who have minds and dreams of their own. They prefer to date Caucasian men rather than Filipino men, for example. Their preference inevitably intensifies the struggle of assimilation their parents themselves are encountering. In Rita’s Resources (1995), Barroga uses highly symbolic devices to capture the reality of the Filipino immigrant family in Milwaukee of the 1970s and the illusion of the pursuit of the American dream. As symbols of the American dream and materialism, the Statue of Liberty, the car, Big Bird, and the spaceman present a contrast to the plight and challenges of Rita, the Filipino American seamstress. Barroga’s plays also move beyond the tale of assimilation to portray immigrant groups’ quest for identity, truth, and understanding. Her recurrent use of newspaper reporters as the main characters in her plays is a bold device. Her Asian American female characters are active, inquisitive, conscious, and awake, quite the opposite of Asian females stereotyped as geishas, ornaments, prostitutes, or submissive human beings. They are engaged in a search for meaning of personal, cultural, and historical magnitude, sometimes in angry, confounded, tormented, and emotionally charged states. In Talk-Story (1992), Dee, a Filipino
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American heroine, is a copy girl striving to be a newspaper columnist in order to uncover new angles and write stories featuring her father and uncle in the Philippines and in California. Cora in Kenny Was a Shortstop (1990) is a newspaper reporter who covers the story of a young Filipino killed in a gang accident. In the process, she also uncovers hidden angers and resentments of Kenny’s mother as well as her own painful memories. Barroga’s exploration of the complexity of politics, race, and ethnicity in America unfolds more deeply in Walls (1989), a play inspired by Jan Scrugg and Joel Swerdlow’s book To Heal a Nation. Vi, a Chinese American reporter, probes the controversial and entangled issues centered around the Vietnam War Memorial and challenges the war of indifference and prejudice on race and ethnicity. The play reflects multicultural America. Barroga creates in the play racially diverse characters—five Asian Americans, three African Americans, and six Caucasians—in representative roles as patriotic veteran, army nurse, protester, and others who were wounded or victimized. In touching and powerful ways, the play acknowledges the traumatic history of the war, probes divisions arising from it, and examines the power of politics over art, the victimization of white and ethnic Americans, and the building of “walls” of division and separation. Despite her use of walls as a metaphor denoting multiple levels of separation and gap between mainstream Americans and ethnic Americans, Barroga urges the necessity to break down the walls and presents her hope and vision for healing, reconciliation, and understanding. CRITICAL RECEPTION Productions of Jeannie Barroga’s plays have drawn critical attention from theater reviewers in the mainstream media, ethnic newspapers, and magazines published in English, as well as more serious examination recently from scholars in academic institutions. Theater reviews written for the mainstream media can hardly be counted as rigorous studies of Barroga’s plays. The reviewers demonstrate some understanding of the issues and struggles of the characters. However, they seldom achieve an insight, depth, or empathetic understanding that is satisfying. The reviews are impressionistic and episodic, revealing little about the characters, the plays, or the playwright. They can be read as phantasmagoria—mainstream America holding a mirror to ethnic America and startled to discover a foreign and unfamiliar assemblage, very much unlike their own, and not knowing what to make of it except labeling it as wild, comic, and absurd. Criticism from theater reviewers centers on the plays’ structural and character development. In a Seattle Times article, Wayne Johnson praises the Northwest Asian American Theatre production of Eye of the Coconut as “boisterous” and “spirited” (E9). Laurie Winer of the Los Angeles Times writes of the anthologized Talk-Story as a “thin work.” While Winer acknowledges that Dee, the heroine of the play, has “personality and integrity,” she questions the internal logic of the character and her actions and terms one of the most passionate
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speeches of Dee as “impossible to imagine” (42). In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Steven Winn comments that characters in Eye of the Coconut are “unmotivated” “synthetic emblems” lacking “an authentic human ring” (C7). Theater critics seem to urge plausible actions and dialogue to achieve unity in artistic creation. In the San Francisco Examiner, Robert Hurwitt sees Eye of the Coconut as evidence of the harm sitcoms have done to theater. He sees the performance as “generally ringing from underdeveloped to amateurish mugging” (C1). In his review for the Village Voice, Luis H. Francia deftly captures the conflicts and central issues of the play Rita’s Resources as revolving around the racially divided America of the early 1970s and the disappointments in the character’s quest for the American dream. Yet he questions the play’s artistic creation and views the play as “largely predictable” and the portrayal of the family’s world and the larger American society as “sketchy” and “more uttered than shown” (90). Ethnic newspapers published in English—A. Magazine, Filipino Reporter, The Filipino Express, International Examiner, the Asian Reporter, AsianWeek, and Filipinas Magazine—offer another source for the reception of Barroga’s plays. Devoid of derogative perceptions like those in the mainstream media, the reviews in ethnic periodicals center on the themes, productions, and casts of the plays. However, they are brief and are more factual than critical or analytical. In the academic arena, a generation of scholars and writers has become conscious of new ethnic and women’s literature. These scholars collect, publish, study, and teach less represented writers as a deliberate effort to expand boundaries and lift new artistic creation out of the shadow of silence, denial, and misunderstanding. Jane T. Peterson and Suzanne Bennett dedicate a biobibliographical entry to Jeannie Barroga in Women Playwrights of Diversity. Roberta Uno at the University of Massachusetts is outspoken and bold in voicing the sensibilities and experience of Asian American women playwrights. She places Barroga’s Walls among the best dramatic literature written by Asian American women since the 1970s. In her introduction to Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women (1993), Uno powerfully and convincingly argues for a place for Asian American theater and justifies “the ongoing battle by Asian Americans to interpret their own images in both the popular media and the stage” (3). Uno sees the plays and performances as a thread, “a cultural continuum” and a “continuing sense of cultural connection” that “marks the dynamic response of Asians in America” (8–9). In 1997, Barroga’s Talk-Story was anthologized in another important collection, But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian American Plays, edited by Asian American playwright, activist, and scholar Velina Hasu Houston of the University of Southern California. Though the collection is not an analytical study of Barroga’s play, Houston offers rich historical, social, and cultural contexts in which to view new Asian American plays. Her primary goal is to redress a critical history that is written from “the heterosexual, patriarchal, Euro-centric
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perspective” that “presents itself as unchallengeable, immortal, and righteous” (Houston xv). She claims the playwrights of Asian descent residing in the United States as a liberating force: “They lift stereotypes to the wind, broaden the perspectives of ethnic identities of color, and flood people’s understanding, in the hope of greater ethnic tolerance” (Houston xvi). Josephine Lee, associate professor of English at the University of Minnesota, devotes the first scholarly and critical attention to Barroga’s Walls in her book Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage. Lee discusses the performance of race and ethnicity on the stage, the varying perceptions of Asian American performance, and the value of constructing race and ethnicity in theater and American culture. She speaks of the exploration of “Asian Americanness” as necessary not only in forming a “pan-ethnic identity” but also in the “formation of alliances across racial, gender, and class lines . . . to combat racism, sexism, poverty, and systematic discrimination that hurt society as a whole” (209). While Lee acknowledges the complexity in the portrayal of racial, social, cultural, and personal differences in Walls, she sees the value of the play in particular as “helping to define relationships among dominant and minority cultures . . . and envision situations in which some understanding can take place” (210). BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Jeannie Barroga Drama Two Plays: Kenny Was a Shortstop and The Revered Miss Newton. San Francisco: Philippines Resource Center, 1993. Walls. Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women. Ed. Roberta Uno. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1993. 201–60. Talk-Story. But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian American Plays. Ed. Velina Hasu Houston. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1997. 1–47. Excerpts. Monologues for Actors of Color: Men. Ed. Roberta Uno. New York: Routledge, 2000. 137–38.
Unpublished Manuscripts Gets ’Em Right Here. 1982. Donato’s Wedding. 1983. The Flower and the Bee. 1983. Reaching for Stars. 1983 Wau-Bun. 1983. Bachelorettes. 1984. The Deli Incident. 1984 Pigeon Man. 1984. Waiting Room. 1984. Batching It. 1985. Lorenzo, Love. 1985.
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Night before the Rolling Stones Concert 1981. 1985. Paranoids. 1985. When Stars Fall. 1985. Eye of the Coconut. 1986. Sistersoul. 1986. Angel. 1987. Adobo. 1988. Family. 1988. Musing. 1989. My Friend Morty. 1989. Kin. 1990. Letters from Dimitri. 1992. King of Cowards. 1993. Shades. 1993. Sabi-Sabi. 1994. Remnants. 1995. Rita’s Resources. 1995. A Good Face. 1996. Passkey of Hearts. Screenplay. 1996. The Seed. Screenplay. 1997. Bubblegum Killers. Musical. 1998. Gadgets. 2000. Returns. 2000. Tracking Kilroy. 2000.
Selected Production History Eye of the Coconut Production, dir. Bea Kiyohara. Northwest Asian American Theatre, Seattle, 1986. ———, dir. John Shin. Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1987. ———, dir. Ann Fajilan. Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1991. ———, dir. Cary Haguchi. East West Stage, Berkeley, CA, 1993. ———, dir. Maria Zaragoza. Asian American Repertory Theatre, Modesto, CA, 1995.
Lorenzo, Love Production, dir. Jeannie Barroga. Foothill College Theatre, Los Altos Hills, CA, 1986.
When Stars Fall Production, dir. John McDonough. Playwright Forum, San Francisco, 1986.
Sistersoul Production, dir. Kathleen Woods. Playwrights Center Blue Bear Theatre, San Francisco, 1988. ———, dir. Kathleen Woods. TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, CA, 1988. ———. Crystal Springs Uplands School, Hillsborough, CA, 1988. ———. San Jose State Theatre, San Jose, CA, 1988. ———. Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 1988.
Family Production, dir. Gary Martinez. Northside Theatre Company, San Jose, CA, 1989.
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My Friend Morty Production, dir. Jeannie Barroga. Playwrights Center, San Francisco, 1989.
Walls Production, dir. Marian Li. Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1989. ———, dir. David Kurtz. Stanford Drama Department, Stanford, CA, 1991. ———, dir. Michael Birtwhistle. New WORLD Theater, U of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1991. ———, dir. Ray Newman. Asian American Repertory Theatre, Stockton, CA, 1993. ———. Asian American Repertory Theatre, Modesto, CA, 1994. ———, dir. Roberta Uno. Shipboard Education, International Dateline, 1995. ———, dir. Sharon Bandy. Oakes Acting Troupe, Santa Cruz, CA, 1995.
Kenny Was a Shortstop Production, dir. Jeannie Barroga. Brava! Women for the Arts, San Francisco, 1990.
Kin Production, dir. Chris Millado. Teatro Ng Tanan (Cowell Theatre), San Francisco, 1991. ———, dir. Jeannie Barroga. Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1991. ———. Horner Performance Center, Portland, OR, 1991. ———, dir. Ann Fajilan. TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, CA, 1991. ———. El Teatro Campesino, San Juan Bautista, CA, 1991.
The Revered Miss Newton Production, dir. Alissa Welch. San Francisco State U, San Francisco, 1991. ———, dir. Amanda Egron. San Francisco State U Film Department, San Francisco, 1992.
Talk-Story Production, dir. Marc Hayashi. TheatreWorks, Palo Alto, CA, 1992. ———, dir. Kati Kuroda. Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, New York City, 1995. ———. Kumu Kuhua Theatre, Honolulu, 1995. ———, dir. B. Sellers-Young. Theatre/Dance Department, U of California, Davis, 1999.
Sabi-Sabi Production, dir. Edgardo de la Cruz. Pintig Cultural Group, Chicago, 1994.
Rita’s Resources Production, dir. Kati Kuroda. Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, New York City, 1995.
A Good Face Production, dir. Kathleen Woods. Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, 1997. ———, dir. Pam McDaniels. 450 Geary Studio/Theatre of Yugen, San Francisco, 1997. ———, dir. Kathleen Woods. Stanford U, 1998. ———. Quarry (A.C.T./Berkeley Repertory), San Francisco, 1998. ———. Warehouse Repertory Theatre, Fort Bragg, CA, 1998.
Tracking Kilroy Production, dir. Kelvin Han Yee. ODC Theatre, San Francisco, 2001.
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Essays “One Fil-Am’s Experience in American Theatre.” Fil-Am: The Filipino American Experience. Ed. Alfred A. Yuson. Makati City: Publico, 1999. 158–59.
Television Reaching for Stars Production, dir. Judith Abend. Viacom Cable Television, Mountain View, CA. 1983. ———, dir. Bruno Borello. Midcoast Cable Television, Half Moon Bay, CA. 1985.
The Deli Incident Production, dir. Bruno Borello. United Cablevision, Cupertino, CA. 1984. ———, dir. Bruno Borello. Midcoast Cable Television, Half Moon Bay, CA. 1985.
Pigeon Man Production, dir. Bruno Borello. United Cablevision, Cupertino, CA. 1984. ———, dir. Bruno Borello. Midcoast Cable Television, Half Moon Bay, CA. 1985.
Sistersoul Production, dir. Kathleen Woods. Viacom Cable Television, Mountain View, CA. 1989.
Batching It Production, dir. Jean Slanger. Viacom Cable Television, Mountain View, CA. 1991.
Studies of Jeannie Barroga Francia, Luis H. “Colored Too.” Village Voice 40.20 (1995): 90. Houston, Velina Hasu, ed. But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian American Plays. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1997. Hurwitt, Robert. “Coconut Falls from Sitcom Tree: Asian Theater Play Finds the Laughs Are Hard to Come By.” San Francisco Examiner 31 Jan. 1991: C1. Johnson, Wayne. “Eye of the Coconut Takes a Warm Look at a Filipino-American Family in Transition.” Seattle Times 15 Oct. 1987: E9. King, Jennifer, and Thomas A. Gough, eds. Reflections of Diversity: A Scenebook for Student Actors. Davis: U of California, 1997. Lee, Josephine. “Walls.” Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1997. 208–15. Peterson, Jane T., and Suzanne Bennett, eds. Women Playwrights of Diversity: A Biobibliographical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1997. Uno, Roberta, ed. Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1993. Weiner, Bernard. “A Dramatic Reflection of the Wall.” San Francisco Chronicle 28 Apr. 1989: E8. Winer, Laurie. “A Collection with Much Missing.” Rev. of But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian American Plays, ed. Velina Hasu Houston. Los Angeles Times 31 Aug. 1997, Calendar: 42. Winn, Steven. “An Ethnic Comedy That Loses Its Way.” San Francisco Chronicle 2 Feb. 1991: C7.
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge (1947–
)
Martha J. Cutter
BIOGRAPHY Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing, China, on October 5, 1947, to a Chinese mother and a Dutch American father. Berssenbrugge grew up in Massachusetts and received a B.A. from Reed College in 1969 and an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 1973. She has lived and/or worked in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Ohio, Massachusetts, Oregon, New York, and numerous other locations. It is not surprising, then, that one strong theme of her drama is cultural and geographical crossings—from the past to the present, from China to the United States, and from the world of the parents to the world of the children. Berssenbrugge has authored one play but is known primarily for her poetry and her collaborations with visual artists such as Kiki Smith and Richard Tuttle. She has won numerous awards, including the American Book Award (1980, 1984), National Endowment for the Humanities awards (1976, 1981), the Before Columbus Foundation Book Award (1980), and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Annual Literary Award (1997). Her poetry has been featured in journals such as East-West Journal, Partisan Review, American Rag, and River Styx and has frequently been anthologized. Her only play, One, Two Cups, highlights themes of her work as a whole and articulates dilemmas that are central for many Asian American women writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston.
MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Ian Hamilton calls Berssenbrugge “a philosophical poet” who questions “being and language simultaneously” (43). The same can be said of Berssenbrugge’s poetry and drama in general. Her poetry blurs the boundaries between
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visual art and words, between music and language, and between self and other. For example, one of her books, Mizu, tells a Japanese folktale about a boy who disappears underwater; the book is structured as an accordion and unfolds to almost fourteen feet so that the poem itself becomes visual art. Berssenbrugge has also collaborated with choreographers and has had her poems set to music, once again undermining boundaries between “different” art forms. A poem such as “Sphericity,” written just before and after the birth of Berssenbrugge’s daughter Martha, blurs gradations between “self” and “other”: “The time of having her becomes an absorptive surface, instead of when the person was alive/ . . . As if a person being was like hearing” (Sphericity 26). Like Berssenbrugge’s poetry, One, Two Cups (1974) experiments with form and with the blurring of boundaries and borders. This densely lyrical, abstract play questions identity through the merging of the three principal characters, Lily, Lillian, and Leilani, and questions language and storytelling through its musings on this very subject: “They put the stories inside you, wrapped in cloth. But then the threads began to rot away, and the stories and the rags lie jumbled in the bottom of the jar” (68). At times it is difficult to tell who is speaking to whom, or whether the dialogue is actually enunciated to another person. In her “remarks,” Berssenbrugge herself says that sometimes the speaker is a voice and not a character; she also comments that perhaps neither mother should speak (51). Furthermore, the characters of the two mothers (Lillian and Emily) are deliberately blurred into the characters of the two daughters (Lily and Leilani). The play also shifts from a contemporary time period in the United States to Beijing in the 1940s and back to what seems to be the United States. These shifts and blurrings underscore the play’s major theme: the confusion of identity between mothers and daughters and the difficulty of hearing the stories of the past that actually construct us in the present. Like Maxine Hong Kingston’s mother in The Woman Warrior, these mothers are difficult to know, difficult to hear. Yet their voices are crucial since it is precisely the stories of the mothers in the play that create the daughter/author: “What is this but being switched on us as if we were invented by them and without their consulting us?” (One, Two Cups 51). We are “invented” or created at least in part by the past—and by the stories of our relatives in the past even when they remain unarticulated. We must therefore struggle to hear these allusive and elusive voices. CRITICAL RECEPTION Berssenbrugge’s poetry has been reviewed favorably and frequently. For example, Jackson Mac Low states that “calmly and convincingly she leads our attention from confidence of passion or attention itself to ice crystals, gulls, fireworks, or apple trees and to very specific qualities of perception, especially vision . . . in poetry that always speaks equally about ‘the world’ and ‘herself.’ ” Rosemarie Waldrop calls Empathy a “dialogue of an extremely fine-tuned in-
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telligence with the world” and argues that it “is not just a fine book. It is an event. An important event.” To date, however, Berssenbrugge’s drama has received no critical attention.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge Drama One, Two Cups. Summits Move with the Tide: Poems and a Play. Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Review P, 1974. 51–68.
Selected Production History One, Two Cups Production. Basement Workshop, New York City, 1979. ———. Northwest Asian American Theatre, Seattle, 1980.
Poetry Fish Souls. San Francisco: Greenwood P, 1972. Summits Move with the Tide. Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Review P, 1974. Chronicle. N.p.: Basement Editions, 1978. Random Possession. New York: I. Reed Books, 1979. The Heat Bird. Providence, RI: Burning Deck, 1983. Pack rat sieve. New York: Cambridge Graphic Arts, 1983. Hiddenness. Drawings by Richard Tuttle. New York: Library Fellows of Whitney Museum, 1987. Tan Tien. Tucson: Chax P, 1988. Empathy. Barrytown, NY: Station Hill P, 1989. Mizu. Art by Cynthia Miller. Tucson: Chax P, 1990. Sphericity. Drawings by Richard Tuttle. Berkeley: Kelsey Street. P, 1993. Endocrinology. Art by Kiki Smith. Berkeley: Kelsey Street P, 1997. Four-Year-Old Girl. Berkeley: Kelsey Street P, 1998.
Studies of Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge Bernstein, Charles. Rev. of Empathy. 1989. 3 Dec. 2000. ⬍http://www.stationhill.org/ Fauthor.html⬎. Fisher, Dexter, ed. The Third Woman: Minority Women Writers of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. Hamilton, Ian, ed. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. Mac Low, Jackson. Rev. of Empathy. 1989. 3 Dec. 2000 ⬍http://www.stationhill.org/ Fauthor.html⬎. Tabios, Eileen, ed. Black Lightning: Poetry-in-Progress. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1998.
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Waldrop, Rosemarie. Rev. of Empathy. 1989. 3 Dec. 2000 ⬍http://www.stationhill.org /Fauthor.html⬎. Wang, L. Ling-chi, and Henry Yiheng Zhao, eds. Chinese American Poetry: An Anthology. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1991.
Eugenie Chan (1962–
)
Sean Metzger
BIOGRAPHY A fifth-generation Chinese American, Eugenie Chan grew up in San Mateo, California. Her parents lived and initially met among the congested streets of Chinatown in nearby San Francisco. The local church provided a social connection for them and proved formative, in Chan’s estimation, of much of their community’s cohesiveness. While her parents came of age in a relatively bilingual environment, she spent her youth in the suburbs speaking English along with a smattering of Cantonese. However, during my interview with her, she discussed at length her family trips to Arizona. If the southwestern landscape looms large in her writings, it may well be her early experiences in that region that contribute to its significance. For Chan, such early travel enhances her knowledge of and insight into the interracial dynamics that help construct Chinese identities in the United States. Chan studied literature at Yale University and subsequently became a YaleChina teaching fellow, which enabled her to teach English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the mid-1980s. Such experience apparently proved valuable, for she currently holds a position at the Marin Academy, where she teaches various courses in English literature and creative writing to high-school students. In the period between these positions, Chan worked as a dramaturge and literary manager at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco (1988–91) and helped with Berkeley Repertory’s production of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. In spite of Chan’s involvement with the theater and her composition of choreopoems in college, she did not write her first play until the age of twentynine, as part of the prerequisite for entering graduate school. Chan received her
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M.F.A. in dramatic writing from New York University in 1993. Her awards include winning the Mixed Blood versus America Playwriting Contest (1994) and a New York University graduate achievement award in screenwriting and playwriting (1993). Her screenplay Willy Gee! was a 1997 CineStory Competition finalist as well as a semifinalist for the Nicholl Fellowship. MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES Chan’s corpus consistently engages the intersecting issues of class, religion, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity. By setting the majority of her dramatic productions in the western or southwestern United States, she exposes the oftencontradictory affiliations that help to construct Chinese identities in the “American” landscape. Her works thus deal with the specific material and fantastic relationships among Chinese immigrant, Latino, and native American populations. Characteristic of Chan’s writings, Novell-Aah! (1993) examines the position of two Chinese women in a world structured by men, particularly in the realm of male fantasies materialized through popular culture. The women in the play seem capable of nothing more than reproducing the milieu of cliche´s established by the narrating voice-over of El Locutor as they await the presence of a man to activate their lives. The one-act’s conclusion, however, finds the women establishing a relationship with one another; female homoeroticism offers an alternative to the futile and endless wait for a man. Departures and arrivals, of course, mark the immigrant experience also. Chan most explicitly explores the comings and goings that buttress contemporary concerns such as migrancy, diaspora, and borders in Emil, a Chinese Play (1994). Using the device of the mother-daughter dyad along with the absent father and pseudoincestuously driven relative (a cousin, whom the audience may view as an actual member of the protagonist’s clan or the son of an “uncle” or “auntie”— paper or otherwise), this drama bears a certain intertextual resemblance to some of Chan’s other works, but in this play, the stage suggests movement. The title character, a “foreign” man from “South America,” begins his journey in Miami through the South, the Midwest, and Disneyland, eventually arriving in San Francisco’s Chinatown. In a cinematic type of construction, the scenes in the first half of the piece crosscut between Emil and a young Chinese woman named Maggie (the daughter of the mother/daughter pair). The three principal characters come together and split apart in the space of Chinatown through the theatrical devices of a comic panorama of the United States in act 1 and a bizarre love triangle in act 2. Mother and Maggie alternate investment in Emil. The love story provides a unique vision of interracial romance. From food to offspring to chopsticks, Emil, a Chinese Play interrogates what constitutes the boundaries of “Chinese” and the forces invested in constructing a “Chinese” lineage. A more rustic landscape sets the stage for Willy Gee! (1994), a Depression-
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era tale of a Chinese family in California. Perhaps the closest piece to a history play, this work interrogates the Chinese mythology of the American West. Lily and Augustine Gee run a brothel, with grandma and their adolescent son Willy on the premises. Exposing the hypocrisy of the white “Anglo” establishment, the screenplay comically shows the entrepreneurial ingenuity of a Chinese family in the midst of racial and religious misunderstanding. At the center of the narrative, Willy comes of age and works toward a better understanding of his peers, his family and their business, and his own sexuality. Chan’s full-length play Rancho Grande (1997) opens in “a desert expanse in the American Southwest.” Mixing Spanish, English, and Chinese, the protagonist Mamie begins with a narrative variant of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (zhongqiu jie). The folktale informs the audience specifically about the role of women and coming of age in the lives of a Chinese family of sojourners, but Chan complicates the very notion of home for this nonnuclear familial unit. In addition to interacting with two deities that seem infused with Chicano and Native American influences as much as Chinese ones, Mamie develops cognizance of her sexuality and its attendant expectations in and through the absence of her father. To confuse this scenario even further, Mamie’s brother, Sammy, queerly identifies with his sibling, in whom he displays an incestuous interest, as well as his father, who is mostly absent from home. This tension between and within gender characterizes the bulk of Chan’s dramatic storytelling. Given her proclivity for producing work concerned with generations of gendered Asians, audiences may expect perplexing parental figures and meandering men to recur as figures and themes throughout many of Chan’s productions. In the short film Paradise Plains (1993), Chan again addresses the topic of incest. This time, the relationship occurs between an uncle and niece. Although Chan does not deal at all with Chinese characters in this film, she said in my interview with her that an Asian American play is anything that falls “within the imagination and experience” of a writer who might identify with such a label. Chan thus expands the boundaries imposed by a theater of cultural nationalism in favor of a more expansive definition of the term “Asian American.” In so doing, she helps add a new chapter in Asian American theater history by moving beyond the conventions established in the 1960s and 1970s to a more fluid conception of Asian American identity and concomitant cultural production. The screenplay Athena Adrift (1997) also uses Chinatown as a setting. However, this scenario invokes Chinatown as an ambivalent space. Living with her mother Flora and her brother Nelson, Athena longs to find romance. While she dreams through the literature that she teaches—be it through the words of Sor Juana or a Bronte¨—her quixotic fantasies eschew a Chinese cultural connection, much to the chagrin of her mother, whose own suitor is a wealthy Chinese entrepreneur. The play explores the dynamics of heterosexual relationships of different generations and across racial lines. Nelson engages in an affair with a South American named Cleopatra, while Athena’s dating attempts find her in bed with a Japanese-identified Italian. By the end, Athena must negotiate her
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own relationship to her Chinese heritage both emotionally and professionally. Her final confrontation with her obnoxious and mysterious admirer takes her through San Francisco into Chinatown’s crowds. The brief piece Sticks and Stones (1999) comments on gender and sexual difference in a slightly different way. This work stages the attempts of two characters (“Girl” and “Boy”) to communicate with one another. Moving from their verbal misfires, the pair eventually finds some sort of connection through one another’s corporeality. A similar theatrical device seems to inform the oneminute drama Esmerelda (1997). This pithy monologue presents the physical processes of a woman’s waiting for someone who never arrives. Chan’s current project Snakewoman (2001) is a taiko percussion piece. The story concerns a half woman, half snake with three breasts and three children (one black, one white and one lemon), whose fathers are gods. This latest work continues Chan’s exploration of the diverse myths and fantasies that impinge on any conception of reality. Central to all of Chan’s works, issues of family, gender, and identity continually resurface in a variety of contexts. Family, in particular, is a well-worn trope in Asian American drama. Chan’s remarkable ability to affirm and interrogate Chineseness in a multiethnic landscape both enriches and problematizes any attempt to claim cultural membership and thus refigures old familial models of ethnicity. In other words, Chan’s writings attest to the complicated material and psychic affiliations that render the term “Asian American” both meaningful and highly contentious. CRITICAL RECEPTION Because only two of Eugenie Chan’s works have been published, critical literature on her work remains minimal. BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Eugenie Chan Drama Novell-aah! Seattle: Rain City Projects, 1993. Esmerelda. Seattle: Rain City Projects, 1997.
Unpublished Manuscripts The Fan. Choreopoem. 1984. Tour Sino: A Short Radio Play. 1992. Emil, a Chinese Play. Ms. 345. Roberta Uno Asian Women Playwrights Scripts Collection 1924–1992, Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, U of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1994. Paradise Plains. 1995. Rancho Grande. Ms. 345. Roberta Uno Asian Women Playwrights Scripts Collection
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1924–1992, Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, U of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1997. Sticks and Stones: A Short Play. 1999. Snakewoman. 2001.
Selected Production History The Fan Production, Yale U, New Haven, 1984. ———. Chinese U of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1985.
Emil, a Chinese Play Workshop, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, New York City, 1992. ———, dir. Tim Bond. Seattle Group Theatre’s Multicultural Playwrights Festival, Seattle, 1992. ———, East West Players, Los Angeles, 1993.
Novell-aah! Production. Brava! For Women in the Public Theatre, San Francisco, 1993. ———, dir. Rebecca Patterson; perf. Michelle Ching, Pin-Pin Su, and Angela Fitzgerald. Perishable Theatre, Providence, RI, 1996.
Tour Sino Production (radio), dir. Eugenie Chan. WBAI, New York City. 1993.
Rancho Grande Workshop, dir. Phyllis S.K. Look; perf. Kerri Higuchi, Dian Kobayashi, Sean San Jose, and John Cho. Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Magic Theatre, San Francisco, 1994. ———, perf. Kerri Higuchi. PlayLabs at the Playwrights Center, Minneapolis, 1995. ———. Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1996. ———, dir. Phyllis S.K. Look; perf. Kerri Higuchi, Dian Kobayashi, Radmar Agana Rao, Tamlyn Tomita, Stan Egi, and Jim Ishida. East West Players, Los Angeles, 1997. Production, dir. Jane Kaplan; perf. Leilani Wollam, Tony Colinares, Mona Armonio Leach, Vera Wong, Jose Abaoag, and Chris San Nicholas. Northwest Asian American Theatre, Seattle, 1999. ———, dir. Tony Kelley. Thick Description, San Francisco, 2001.
Paradise Plains vox i Productions, dir. Elizabeth Schub. VHS. 1995. Production. Bilbao International Film Festival, 1995. ———. Cinequest Film Festival, 1995. ———. Mill Valley Film Festival, 1995. ———. Warner Prize, New York U, New York City, 1995.
Esmerelda Performance. “Night of 1,000 Playwrights,” Rain City Project, Seattle, 1997.
Snakewoman Workshop. New Music Theatre Project, San Francisco, 1998. ———. Brava! For Women in the Arts, San Francisco, 2000.
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Sticks and Stones Staged reading. Djerassi Foundation, Woodside, CA, 1999.
Interview Personal interview. 6 May 2000.
Screenplays Winnie’s World. Fifteen-minute short film. 1992. Paradise Plains. Short film. 1993. Street X. Series of shorts. 1993. Willy Gee! Feature film. 1994. Athena Adrift. Feature film. 1997.
Studies of Eugenie Chan Peterson, Jane T., and Suzanne Bennett, eds. Women Playwrights of Diversity. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 1997.
Frank Chin (1940–
)
Guiyou Huang
BIOGRAPHY Few Asian American writers are as controversial as Frank Chin and yet as influential as he is in his own way on Asian American literary and cultural discourses. Born in Berkeley, California, on February 25, 1940, Chin graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. At an early age, he moved to Oakland to realize “big ideas.” He was the first Chinese American brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad, an experience that he masterfully sketches in various works of fiction and drama. Chin also takes pride in being the first Asian American playwright to have a play produced at the American Place Theatre in New York in 1972, when Asian American writing as literature had hardly been heard of, not to mention recognized. Chin became a playwright by chance. In 1970, he went to Maui, Hawaii, where he worked with friends in construction. When the East West Players in Los Angeles held a playwriting contest, Chin, prompted by an urge to get off the island, wrote The Chickencoop Chinaman in six weeks, won the $500 contest, and left the island. Then Chin met Randy Kim, a Chinese/Korean American actor who made his writing “fast, fun, and sharp,” and with Kim in mind he wrote his second play, The Year of the Dragon, which was also staged at the American Place Theatre (Davis 86). In 1988, Chin published a collection of short stories under the title The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co., which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. In the early 1990s, Chin turned his creative energy to writing novels, publishing Donald Duk in 1991 and Gunga Din Highway in 1994. Chin’s novels were influenced by writers such as the renowned African American novelist Ishmael Reed as well as by classical Chi-
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nese writers like Luo Guanzhong and Shi Nai’an, respective authors of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, and Sun Tzu, whose Art of War is a must read for all Chinese military academies and many U.S. military institutions. Indeed, Chin’s thinking on social, cultural, intellectual, and racial issues has benefited from these masterpieces. To say that Chin emulates the black revolutionaries of the 1960s is to underestimate the shaping power of Chinese classics. Chin is a controversial figure in the Asian American literary and cultural communities. Some have recognized him as the “Godfather” of Asian American writing (The Big Aiiieeeee! 529); others have called him an acrimonious critic. In any case, Chin has contributed to almost every major literary genre as playwright, novelist, essayist, critic, and editor. He was first editor of the groundbreaking Asian American anthology Aiiieeeee!, second editor of The Big Aiiieeeee!, and author of such widely cited essays as “This Is Not an Autobiography” and “Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and the Fake,” though he is primarily regarded as a playwright and a novelist. MAJOR PLAYS AND THEMES The themes that Chin explores in his plays, novels, stories, and essays all concern Asian America, which he handles in such a way that they do not seem to be intended to please any one particular group or another. In his plays, Chin writes about historical, social, and intellectual issues relevant to Chinese and Asian American cultural heritages, expressing concerns over race relations, racial stereotyping, identity, family, history, and Hollywood. The Chickencoop Chinaman (1971) is noteworthy for being the first play by an Asian American produced at New York’s American Place Theatre, where it opened on May 27, 1972, and closed on June 24 “after a limited engagement of 33 performances” (Willis, vol. 28, 129). The play follows one main story line: The search for a father figure starts the play, and the failure to find one concludes it. The dramatic plot involves major U.S. races: Caucasian, Native American, black, Asian, and in-between products of interracial marriages; it explores issues such as assimilation, the social and political predicament of Asians in the United States, their cultural and racial identities, and their struggle to debunk racial stereotypes, especially of Asian men, who are believed to make “lousy fathers.” Complicating these issues are the endangered condition of the Asian American family and the persistent presence of racial violence on and prejudice against minority groups and individuals. In the play, the viewer/reader cannot find a complete, unbroken family that symbolizes unity and happiness. Tam Lum, a writer and filmmaker whose first name is often mocked for its resemblance to Tampax and the Anglo name Tom, flies out of Oakland, California, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in search of the father of Ovaltine Jack the Dancer, a former lightweight champion, for his documentary film, only to find that Charley Popcorn is not Ovaltine’s father but a
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former boxer trainer who now runs a porno movie house, and who is a “bigot . . . nothing but a black racist when it comes to yellow people” (42). Even though Tam is looking for someone else’s father, he misses a real father and is himself not a good father because he is divorced from his Caucasian wife and his two children do not miss him. He tells Lee, the Eurasian girl who lives in Kenji’s apartment, “Chinamans do make lousy fathers. I know. I have one” (23); he even insults Lee with an ethnocentric observation: “I reminded you of your Chinese husband” (23). Thus the manhood of Chinese American males is drawn into question. Kenji, a research dentist and Tam’s longtime Japanese American friend, is not married to Lee but plays the role of a surrogate father to Lee’s son Robbie. Robbie claims that he has several fathers, though he knows not which one is his biological dad. Tom, Lee’s former Chinese husband, wants to be Robbie’s father and remarry Lee, but neither seems genuinely interested in returning to him. When the curtain finally falls on the audience, one is made to realize that the search for a father figure results in no hit, thus exposing the lack of manhood in Asian American males. Robbie is a male child under twelve, but he talks like a man. He has no innocence and cooks for all the adults under the roof of Kenji’s apartment. Tam, who went out of his way to Pittsburgh to locate Ovaltine’s father, in the end finds himself cooking in Kenji’s kitchen, too, while thinking about the ears his grandmother had for trains. Asian American men’s habitual use of the kitchen as a terrain of work, Chin seems to imply, results from the mainstream culture’s emasculation of them—thus Chin’s satirical portrayal of their loss of manhood. Another theme closely interwoven with the loss of Asian American manhood in the play is Chin’s concern with American racism and race relations. Representing white American racism is the Lone Ranger, who, with his faithful Indian companion Tonto, shoots Tam in the hand, calls himself “the law” and Asians “honorary white,” tells them to be “legendary obeyers of the law, legendary humble, legendary passive,” and directs them to go back to Chinatown to preserve their culture (37). The Lone Ranger offers Helen Keller as a compact model for all minorities (36). Tam sarcastically sums up this racist mentality: “Helen Keller overcame her handicaps without riot! She overcame her handicaps without looting! She overcame her handicaps without violence! And you Chinks and Japs can too” (11). Tam’s anger at racist America affects his perceptions of all races, including people of his own Chinese race such as Tom and the part-Chinese Lee. Tom is writing a book called Soul on Rice about Chinese American identity. He insists that he is not prejudiced against Chinese, that he is assimilated and accepted in white America, and that Lee is non-Chinese. Tom’s assimilationist attitude causes Tam to accusingly call him an “ornamental Oriental”: “You wanted to be ‘accepted’ by whites so much, you created one to accept you. You didn’t know Lee’s got a bucket of Chinese blood in her? At least a bucket? . . . You wanted a white girl so bad, so bad, you turned her white with your magic
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eyes. You got that anti-Chinaman vision” (59–60). On the other hand, Lee appears to be more egalitarian in her views of race relations—she has married Chinese, white, and black; now she is living with a Japanese and claims that she is on her way to Africa. Lee is not as race sensitive as Tam, nor is she as biased as Tom; she does not seem perfectly comfortable with her mixed identity, nor does she know what to do with it; hence the purposelessness of her life and her inability to acquire an identity that fits her. Also salient in The Chickencoop Chinaman is the role that language plays in defining identities. In Tam’s dialogue with the Hong Kong Dream Girl during his flight to Pittsburgh, the latter narcissistically believes that she has rid herself of her Hong Kong accent when speaking English, hoping that she sounds and will be considered Americanized. Like Tom, the Hong Kong–born stewardess yearns for assimilation and acceptance, though Tam offers her no such affirmation. On the other end of the linguistic spectrum, however, Tam’s and Kenji’s ebonic accent due to growing up in Oakland’s black ghettos confuses black men like Charley Popcorn. In fact, Tam’s black speech offends Popcorn because Popcorn never dreams that a Chinaman like Tam can speak his language, which causes him to mistake him for a black man on the phone, a mistake that is not corrected until the two actually meet in person at Popcorn’s porno movie house. It is obvious in Chin’s play that language can help both make and break one’s cultural identity, and that it bears little on the formation of identities. Tam and Kenji can fluently use different accents to sound like Helen Keller, like blacks or whites, but they are Americans of Asian descent. As Elaine Kim asserts, culture is not passed down through the blood (68). Chin’s second play, The Year of the Dragon, was also first produced at the American Place Theatre, where it opened on May 22, 1974, and closed on June 15 after thirty performances (Willis, vol. 30, 98). In January 1975, PBS aired the play as a ninety-minute television drama, with George Takei in the leading role (Kurahashi 73). Like Chin’s novel Donald Duk, the play unfolds its events on the Chinese New Year of the dragon, and like his first play, this one treats the Chinese American family from inside San Francisco’s famous Chinatown, though it looks more gloomily into the disintegration of the family. The drama revolves around several significant events occurring to the Eng family during the New Year: Pa Wing Eng’s imminent death; the arrival of China Mama, Pa’s Chinese wife; the return of the daughter Mattie (Sis) with her white husband Ross on a tour promoting her cookbook; the completion of little brother Johnny’s probation for possessing a gun; and the central character Fred Eng’s last tour of Chinatown. The play ends with Pa’s expected death and Fred’s continuation as a Chinatown tourist guide. The play is close to what may be called a modern tragedy, not unlike Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which also centers on the family and father/son relationships and features the death of the father. The most tragic dimension of Chin’s play is not the expected and even anticipated death of the tyrannical father, but rather the disintegration of the Chinese American family as a result
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of societal and political circumstances beyond their control. Pa Eng is a bigamist and brings his Chinese wife over for the mere sake of dying Chinese. His American Chinese wife, Hyacinth, has no control over her husband’s decisions or her children’s (one of them, Fred, is not her biological son), but she seems capable of finding release from her stress by hiding in the bathroom, the only quiet spot in her Chinatown apartment. China Mama, though physically present, remains motionless and speechless for the majority of the duration of the play. Her dramatic name symbolizes the remote, ancient China that the Eng family has left behind and that is now brought back by the tyrannical wish of the dying father. Mattie, who wanted to be just people and not Chinese and married a white guy to live her philosophy, is assimilated into the mainstream culture in Boston, and now she wants her family to move out, too. Johnny, on the other hand, hates white people and refuses to leave Chinatown because that is where he feels at home. Fred, stuck between these two positions, sacrificed his youth and his dream to become a writer by helping Mattie out of Chinatown; now he wants to do the same for Johnny by trying to prevent him from becoming a tourist guide like himself and urging him to marry a white girl while he is young. But Johnny turns out to be a Chinatown tourist guide despite Fred’s opposition. Pa Eng’s death wish for Fred to become Chinatown’s mayor is shattered; Mattie presumably returns to Boston; Fred and Johnny both work as tourist guides in Chinatown. Fred in the end “appears to be a shrunken Charlie Chan, an image of death” (141). Elaine Kim’s reading of Jeffery Paul Chan’s “Auntie Tsia Lays Dying” seems pertinent here: “Chinatown is a ‘fraud,’ a place of death where listless celibacy and sterile incompleteness are thinly veiled by a cheap facade for tourists” (73). The fact that Fred hates his job and swears so much indicates that he feels confused about his identity: Chinese or American, neither or both? His father wants him to be Chinese and responsible; indeed, Fred has been responsible and even filial, despite Pa’s accusation of him otherwise. In contrast, his American Ma seizes opportunities to remind him, “Don’t forget you’re ‘Chinese of American descent’ ” (92). As a result, Fred has to struggle in this “catch-22” situation—after his father’s death he is expected to take care of both his biological China Mama and his American Ma, being forced by familial circumstances to be both Chinese and American. He understands his American mother perfectly, but he cannot even say a word and make sense to his Chinese mother. Out of frustration and anger, Fred tells China Mama: “I’m not Chinese. This ain’t China. Your language is foreign and ugly to me, so how come you’re my mother?” (115). Through disclaiming China Mama, Fred dissociates himself from China and its culture. But because the woman is his biological mother and now a U.S. citizen, she constitutes a new burden to Fred, so his never-stable identity is made even more insecure by this responsibility. The problematic identity issues are further dramatized in Mattie’s willingness to assimilate through interracial marriage. Mattie left Chinatown not to return
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until fifteen years later, and now she calls Boston with Ross her home, not Chinatown with her folks in it. Fred enlightens his white brother-in-law about assimilation: “It’s the rule not the exception for us to marry out white. Out in Boston, I might even marry me a blonde” (85). This marrying out, to Chin, contributes to the disintegration of the Chinese American family, and ultimately to the extinction of Chinese American culture. It is an end result of assimilation, an issue that Chin drives home in his novel Gunga Din Highway, in which he relentlessly attacks Chinese Americans who take the highway of assimilation for white acceptance. Chinatown, for good or bad, betokens Chinese American culture, and for Fred it is “as real as China,” but if he steps out of its customary boundaries, he fears that he will become nobody (116). Chinatown itself is also in the process of disintegrating, however, because the people who inhabit and represent this coop are dying out. Pa Eng, for example, as Chinatown’s mayor, is sick and decrepit, losing not just health but also respect and control. When Fred answers no to his recurrent question “You my son yes or no?” Pa hits him and then collapses. Fred not only beats on his dead body but calls him “ ‘Mayor of Chinatown’ Flop” (140). Chinatown therefore is also a flop and should be abandoned, but fear of becoming a nobody outside it propels Fred to pathetically continue his existence as a tour guide in Chinatown for its performance value. CRITICAL RECEPTION Critical discourse on Frank Chin’s work varies from gender to gender. An investigation of the reception of his plays is inseparable from critics’ perceptions of his work in other genres. However, Chin’s views on Asian American history and culture and on specific issues such as family, assimilation, and racism were first formed and expressed in his two plays under discussion here. Reviews of The Chickencoop Chinaman are mixed. Jack Kroll views the play as an addition to “the roster of alienation coming out of our theatre and fiction,” though he is disappointed about the play’s roughness (55). “This first play needs more work—the basic emotional tone of hysteria is too unmodulated, the action is too thin, and awkward structure wrenches the play in and out of fantasy. But there is real vitality, humor and pain on Chin’s stage” (55). Responding to Betty Lee Sung’s charge reported in Dorothy Ritsuko McDonald’s introduction to Chin’s plays that the audience did not enjoy the play and kept dwindling, Joseph S.M. Lau writes that the reason for the dwindling was that “no one could possibly finish watching the play without feeling scathed. . . . Language offends as much as the smell of Wing Eng’s long turd” (101). Chin is unpopular because, according to Lau, “the work of a writer suffering from self-contempt naturally makes unpleasant reading. . . . In a solitary way, however, Chin has fulfilled the essential moral obligations of a negative serious writer” (104). David Leiwei Li offers a more sympathetic reading: Chin’s play “exemplifies his tenacious drive to combat the discursive modes of domination that encode
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the object position of the minority. . . . Chin wages war against the hegemonic exercise of power in the form of language” (215). Though Li is critical of Chin’s partial blindness to “the multiplicity of contemporary Chinese American reality,” he lauds Chin’s sense of responsibility as a writer. “There is little question that Chin is everywhere motivated by this sense of moral integrity” (221). Erik MacDonald reads The Chickencoop Chinaman as Chin’s effort to “create a location and a politics of identity amid a world that both shatters his identity and tries to provide instead a ready-made ‘Chinese American’ character” (142); in the end, “Chin discards the icons offered to the Asian Other, disemboweling the language, and thus apparently places Tam at once both inside and outside his society” (149). Elaine Kim views Chin’s work more critically, as an attempt “to reassert male authority over the cultural domain and over women by subordinating feminism to nationalist concerns,” and therefore “Chin’s indisputable status as pioneering advocate for Asian American literature and culture is undermined by his insistence on a system of binary oppositions that denies women an autonomous selfhood” (75). King-Kok Cheung agrees and considers Chin’s work as an effort to redefine “both literary history and Asian American manhood” (234), though she finds it disturbing that Chin “should lend credence to the conventional association of physical aggression with manly valor” (237). The Year of the Dragon has garnered similarly mixed receptions. Clive Barnes finds Chin’s second play an exploration of identity: how Chinese or how American is the Chinese American? Barnes appreciates Chin’s fascination with bicultural and generational issues, “especially if we think of his play in the terms of that American melting pot that never seems to be properly heated and never seems to be properly stirred” (39). Like some reviewers of The Chickencoop Chinaman, Barnes finds gaps and a lack of energy in the new play. Jim Moore, though not impressed with the performance of some actors, praises the play’s sophisticated presentation of Chinatown life: “It’s an angry, biting, funny, despairing play about real, invisible people struggling to escape stereotypes. Chin’s version of America’s Chinatowns is utterly convincing” (19). Dan Sullivan also faults the play for lacking a beat and being “a bit choked by all the stories Chin wants to tell”; nonetheless, Sullivan finds that Chin’s “Chinatown from the inside is much more interesting than it is from the bus” and that the play is “easily the strongest full-length script East/West has done” (17). Yuko Kurahashi views the play as Chin’s attempt to reclaim Chinese American manhood as well as a criticism of the assimilation of Chinese Americans. Chinatown thus is a contested battleground. Chin’s view of Chinatown is twofold: “Chin regards Chinatown as the center of Chinese American life, which preserves ancient Chinese culture and traditions. On the other hand, he also views Chinatown as a product of American racism” (73). Therefore, neither leaving Chinatown nor remaining there is a desirable and winning option. As David Leiwei Li points out, Chinatown is treated as “a special hegemonic creation of the Chinese American sociogeographic space,” but the drama does not
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focus on “Chinatown as an exotic setting but on the burden and dilemma it poses as an existential space for the Chinese Americans there” (217). Even though Li construes Fred’s rebellion as “an act of resistance to the authoritarian father figure of the dominant” (218), the rebellion is not productive, for Fred in the end chooses to stay in Chinatown and becomes a Charlie Chan, who constitutes the most favorite target (created out of the white imagination) of Frank Chin’s scathing barrages of verbal attacks in almost all of his writings—novels, stories, essays, interviews, and last, but also the most important, his plays.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Frank Chin Drama “Act I of The Chickencoop Chinaman.” Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers. Ed. Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Hsu Wong. Washington, DC: Howard UP, 1974. 49–74. The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1981.
Selected Production History The Chickencoop Chinaman Production, dir. Jack Gelber, perf. Randall (Duk) Kim. American Place Theatre, New York City, 1972.
The Year of the Dragon Production, dir. Russell Treyz; perf. Randall (Duk) Kim. American Place Theatre, New York City, 1974. ———, perf. George Takei. Television-Drama. PBS. 1975.
Essays “This Is Not an Autobiography.” Genre 18 (Summer 1985): 109–30. “Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and the Fake.” The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. Ed. Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong. New York: Meridian, 1991. 1–92. “Uncle Frank’s Fakebook of Fairy Tales for Asian American Moms and Dads.” Amerasia Journal 18.2 (1992): 69–87. Bulletproof Buddhists and Other Essays. Honolulu: U of Hawai’i P, 1998.
Interviews Davis, Robert Murray. “Frank Chin: An Interview with Robert Murray Davis.” Amerasia Journal 14.2 (1988): 81–95.
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———. “West Meets East: A Conversation with Frank Chin.” Amerasia Journal 24.1 (1998): 87–103.
Novels Donald Duk. Minneapolis: Coffee House, 1991. Gunga Din Highway. Minneapolis: Coffee House, 1994.
Short Stories The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. Minneapolis: Coffee House, 1988. “The Only Real Day.” The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. Ed. Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong. New York: Meridian, 1991. 529–62.
Studies of Frank Chin Barnes, Clive. “Year of the Dragon Is New Frank Chin Play.” New York Times 3 June 1974: 39. Cheung, King-Kok. “The Woman Warrior versus the Chinaman Pacific: Must a Chinese American Critic Choose between Feminism and Heroism?” Conflicts in Feminism. Ed. Marianne Hirsche and Evelyn Fox Keller. New York: Routledge, 1990. 234– 51. Huang, Guiyou. “Frank Chin.” Asian American Novelists: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Emmanuel Nelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 2000. 48–55. Kim, Elaine H. “ ‘Such Opposite Creatures’: Men and Women in Asian American Literature.” Michigan Quarterly Review 29.1 (Winter 1990): 68–93. Kroll, Jack. Rev. of The Chickencoop Chinaman. Newsweek 19 June 1972: 55. Kurahashi, Yuko. “Gender, Cultural Nationalism, and Between Worlds: The Year of the Dragon and The Soul Shall Rise.” Asian American Culture on Stage: The History of the East West Players. New York: Garland Publishing, 1999. 69–89. Lau, Joseph S.M. “The Albatross Exorcised: The Rime of Frank Chin.” Tamkang Review 12.1 (1981): 93–105. Li, David Leiwei. “The Formation of Frank Chin and Formations of Chinese American Literature.” Asian Americans: Comparative and Global Perspectives. Ed. Shirley Hune, Hyung-chan Kim, Stephen S. Fugita, and Amy Ling. Pullman: Washington State UP, 1991. 211–23. MacDonald, Erik. “ ‘The Fractured I ⫽ the Dissolved Self’: Ethnic Identity in Frank Chin and Cherrı´e Moraga.” Theater at the Margins: Text and the Post-Structured Stage. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993. 137–72. McDonald, Dorothy Ritsuko. Introduction. The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of the Dragon. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1981. ix–xxix. Moore, Jim. “East-West Players’ Year of the Dragon.” Los Angeles Herald Examiner 10 October 1974: 19. Sullivan, Dan. “The Scrutability of Frank Chin.” Los Angeles Times 4 Oct. 1974: 17. Willis, John. “Season 1971–1972.” Theatre World 28 (1972): 129. ———. “Season 1973–74.” Theatre World 30 (1974): 98.
Ping Chong (1946–
)
Douglas I. Sugano
BIOGRAPHY Ping Chong was born on October 2, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, but grew up in New York City’s Chinatown. After high school, he went on to study filmmaking and graphic design at Pratt Institute’s School of Visual Arts. From 1964 to 1966, Chong started his theatrical career with Meredith Monk’s House Foundation, where he collaborated with Monk on several major works, including The Travelogue Series and The Games, for which they shared an Outstanding Achievement in Music Theatre Award in 1986. Chong’s first independent theater work was Lazarus, which was produced at the Lee Nagrin Studio in New York City. Since that time, he has created dozens of works for the stage, several of which have won prestigious awards, including Humboldt’s Current, which won an Obie Award in 1977, A.M./A.M.—The Articulated Man, which won a Villager Award in 1982, Kind Ness, which won a USA Playwrights’ Award in 1988; and Brightness, which garnered two 1990 Bessie awards. In 2000, Ping Chong received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement from the Village Voice. Ping Chong and Company was formerly called the Fiji Theatre Company, which Chong founded in 1975 to explore performances that combine contemporary theater, multicultural issues, movement, and art. It is difficult to categorize Chong’s works, as they are all, to some degree, multimedia projects on wide-ranging and eclectic subjects. In 1990, Ping Chong created Deshima, the first of a series of performance works that explore East-West relations. In 1992, at New York City’s Artists’ Space, Chong created Undesirable Elements, an ongoing series of performance pieces that explore the effects of culture, history, and ethnicity on the lives of people in different communities. Chong created
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different versions of the show for Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle, Rotterdam, and Tokyo. Deshima was followed by Chinoiserie (1995) and by After Sorrow (1997). His two latest shows are Pojagi, which is about Korean history, and Truth and Beauty (1999). In 1998, Chong further demonstrated his versatility when he collaborated with set designer Mitsuro Ishii and puppet artist Jon Ludwig to create Kwaidan, a puppet-theater work based on three Japanese ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn. Chong’s other multimedia projects include directing television specials— Paris with Meredith Monk for KCTV in Minneapolis and Turtle Dreams for WGBH in Boston, which won the Grand Prize at the Toronto Video Festival. His other original video works include I Will Not Be Sad in the World and Place Concrete for both WNET and WGBH. Chong has also created many video installations for museums and galleries: In the Absence of Memory (Hartford, Connecticut), Tempus Fugit (Marquette University), A Facility for the Containment and Channeling of Undesirable Elements (New York City), and Testimonial (Venice). Even though he has created dozens of plays, multimedia works, and performance works, Chong’s published theatrical works include only Kind Ness, Snow, and Nuit Blanche. MAJOR WORKS AND THEMES As indicated earlier, Ping Chong’s dramatic work is difficult to categorize and to describe because it combines performance art, multimedia installations, dance, and conventional theater. His influences, hence, are many, and his works are filled with allusions to history, philosophy, science, religion, and popular culture. It is unfortunate that just three of his dozens of performance works are available in print. Much of the performance’s effect may be diminished on the printed page anyway, because of the technical and choreographic nature of his work, but the three printed plays will receive most of the attention in this entry. Chong’s first major dramatic production was Nuit Blanche: A Select View of Earthlings (1981), which premiered at New York City’s La Mama in 1981. This play, like all of Chong’s, takes advantage of various media to give a cosmic view of colonial oppression and imperialism around the world. In Nuit Blanche’s eleven scenes, the audience is treated to a dramatic lens that yields a cosmic view of earth and zooms in on specific, yet paradoxically generic, locations: a South American estancia, a prehistoric cave, the Carolinas, and an undesignated third-world location. The audience moves through an ever-accelerating chronology as well. Scenes 1–5 encompass six years in the 1800s; scenes 6–8 take in a few days; the last three scenes take place in a matter of hours. The first scene begins with a fund-raiser who is “handling” the (imaginary and real) audience with flattery and with dire descriptions of the world’s extreme needs. Scene 2 presents a slide sequence of earth from space. Scenes 3–5 concern colonialism, classicism, and slavery on an unnamed South American plantation. Scene 6 is a slide sequence of a prehistoric cave with a soundtrack of bat sounds.
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Scene 7 leaps into the 1960s in the Carolinas, but the issues (with different characters) still involve the effects of slavery in the South. Scene 8 recalls the slides of earth from scene 2, but the last three scenes take place in a third-world resort in a country on the verge of revolution. As in the previous two locations, these scenes reveal the colonial attitudes of tourists through mundane conversations and interactions. The last scene (11) depicts in dumb show how consumerism and colonialism are destroying indigenous cultures. Kind Ness (1986) premiered in Boston and New York. Unlike Nuit Blanche, Kind Ness takes place in American suburbia of the 1960s and 1970s. Chong parodies American popular culture to reveal the ludicrousness of cultural constructs and the exploitation of intelligent animal life. The striking first scene is a slide show of paired disparate ideas with a humorous narration that contrasts images that are “like and . . . not alike. . . . What is harmonious and what is dissonant” (5). The rest of the play follows the loves and changes in five children and one precocious gorilla, named Buzz, as they grow up together through grade school and high school. Throughout the play, Buzz is taken to be one of the human group of friends, even though he speaks in his own primate language. The scenes take the audience through common school experiences—dances, dating, and learning about ethnic, physical, and class differences. There are two slapstick routines (scenes 4 and 7) that satirize popular American notions about colonialism and the great White Bwana, a scene that alludes to Buzz’s jungle roots. The last scene takes place in a zoo where Buzz and Daphne, now married, visit a captive gorilla and make ironic comments about his ungainly size and appearance. The couple wrongly believes that they understand the differences between themselves and the primate in captivity. Snow (1988) leaps forward and backward in time, beginning and ending in postwar Berlin (1946), but also covering World War I’s western front, Meiji Japan, seventeenth-century France, prehistory, nineteenth-century Massachusetts, and suburban Minnesota of the 1980s. If the play can be characterized, it seems to be, much like Nuit Blanche, a tone poem or meditation. Snow considers how all people of all different cultures and time periods are linked by life’s certainties: everyone’s struggle for survival interspersed by occasional acts of mercy. As in Chong’s other plays, there is a mix of media: projected images of snow and music that link the various scenes. The first scene reveals the grimness of postwar survival and the random oppression of the occupying Russian army. Scene 2 introduces Meiji Japan and the appearance of the Yuki Onna (“Snow Demon”) who sucks life out of the living. In most scenes, the falling snow reminds the audience of this common thread that connects all people of all times, all subject to the inclement weather and to death. An exception appears in scene 6 (near the middle of the play, the end of act 1) when seventeenth-century French nuns find and care for an abandoned baby boy, but the other scenes remind us that such grace derives from others’ profound suffering. Scene 7, the beginning of act 2, takes place at Mt. Chocorua in 1992 (four years in the audience’s future) and portrays a meeting of census takers. Each
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member reports, some humorously so, on the number of surviving indigenous peoples, location by location. In the last three scenes (9 through 11), the figure of Death takes the place of the snow and makes timely appearances, showing the mundanity and banality of each situation. The play ends with snow falling, a boy’s narration recounting epic events in world history, concertina music, and a parade of people. As in Nuit Blanche and Kind Ness, Chong problematizes the survival of humanity and endangered species, as well as universal notions of otherness that both describe and perpetuate human suffering. CRITICAL RECEPTION Critics have responded to Ping Chong in a variety of ways: first, as a multivalent performance artist/director; second, as an Asian American; and third, as an avant-garde metaphysical playwright. In the first category, audiences have noted his training as a cinematographer, his collaborations with choreographer Meredith Monk, and his penchant for stylized visual-effect performance art rather than “conventional” theater. Noel Carroll observes: “Chong embellishes the themes of loneliness and alienation by utilizing several distinct techniques. . . . Even a normal movement like walking is de-familiarized” with an actor pacing across the stage repetitively, and “[a] familiar pose such as resting an arm on a table is alienated by sustaining it for a very long time” (Carroll, “Earthlings,” 74–75). Several of the numerous interviews with Chong mention his ethnic identity and his development as an artist. Many theater reviews have noted his jolting visual effects and the multicultural themes of his work. It is apparent that his body of work accentuates ideas of “culture and the other” (Chong, “Notes” 63). But Chong is careful to add that his work is not just “ethnic,” or Asian American. “I’m addressing an American audience, whoever they might be. . . . The basic issue of how our culture deals with another is primal, basic” (Chong, “Notes” 64–65). That intercultural relationship is another important key to appreciating Chong’s work. His plays reveal cultural tensions—a relational push and pull—that exist in all relationships and all cultures. That effect is largely responsible for his being classified as “a postmodern playwright of a dreamlike bricolage” (Moynihan 105). In his plays, characters converse, but do not actually respond to each other: scene changes also indicate radical shifts in perspective and t
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The artistic staff listed here is lined up for 2025. This list is subject to change.
Jill Bess began her theatre career in Southern California where she performed professionally in shows in the L.A. area, including Fiddler on the Roof, Company, Dames at Sea, Strider, and Godspell at the Huntington Hartford Theatre in Hollywood. Jill holds a BA in Acting from U.C., Irvine and studied the Meisner method with Maria Gobetti at the Victory Theatre in Burbank for two years. In 2013 she received her Meisner Teaching Certification from True Acting Institute, where she studied with Master Teacher Larry Silverberg. In Alaska, Jill performed in A Christmas Carol with the original Alaska Repertory Theatre and spent two madly creative years with Mr. Whitekeys in The Whale Fat Follies. She is a director, visual artist, and award-winning actress and playwright who, during the last thirty years, has worked in over 100 shows with nearly every theatre company in Alaska. Jill has directed over 60 shows including Guys and Dolls, Into the Woods, Blithe Spirit, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, her award-winning one-woman show The Mommy Dance (recently updated and restaged at Cyrano’s in 2022 with Linnea Hollingsworth as Mommy) and her newest play, The Old Woman Who Lost Her Voice. Jill has served as the Artistic Director for Anchorage Community Theatre, Founding Artistic Director for Alaska Broadway Kidz, and taught theatre at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School from 2007-2020. In 2014 she founded Alaska True Acting, where she coaches acting and teaches Improvisation and Meisner classes. Check out more at www.jillbess.com.
Ryan Buen is an Anchorage-based actor, director, playwright, and producer. He holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a Master’s in Acting from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in England. Over the past 20 years, Ryan has worked with numerous theatre companies throughout Alaska, including Blue Chair Productions (of which he is the co-founder), TBA Theatre, Three Wise Moose, Cyrano’s, UAA Theatre, Anchorage Opera, ACT, TossPot Productions, Out North, and PWSC. Recent productions include the role of William Tell in Greg Romero and Mike Vernusky’s Radio Ghosts (TBA Theatre) and the Narrator in Duncan Macmillan’s one man show Every Brilliant Thing (Blue Chair Productions) which was awarded Best Play and Best Performance by Broadway World Anchorage 2023. In August, he will be traveling to Edmonton to perform the role of Peter Pumpkin Eater in Mother Goose on the Loose at the Edmonton Fringe with TBA Theatre. He has been a reader in the Play Lab for over 20 years, performed in numerous evening performances, and has had three plays read in the Lab. Ryan is committed to continuing to give the best experience possible to all playwrights, actors, and panelists who give us the privilege of presenting and workshopping their art.
Ben Corbett returns for his eighth year at Valdez Theatre Conference. He is an Assistant Professor of Voice and Acting at the University of Arkansas. He is also a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and a Certified Colaianni Speech Instructor. Ben previously taught voice and acting at the William Inge Center for the Arts/Independence Community College as an Associate Professor of Theatre, and at Oklahoma City University as an Associate Professor of Voice and Acting. He also served a voice residency at the University of Kansas. His professional vocal coaching credits include Ronin Theatre Company, TheatreSquared, City Rep, the William Inge Theatre Festival, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, the Hollywood Fringe Festival, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Barter Theatre, Burning Coal Theatre Company, Bare Theatre, Shakespeare Dallas, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He is a Senior Editor for the International Dialects of English Archive, and the creator of the Arkansas Accent Project. He will be shooting a documentary based on the Arkansas Accent Project this summer.
Laura Gardner appeared on Broadway in Smile, Off Broadway in The Cocktail Hour, Other People’s Money, and Welded, directed by Jose’ Quintero. She toured nationally in Showboat, Doonesbury, Oliver, and My Fair Lady. Her extensive regional credits include the Arena Stage (DC), Huntington Theatre (Boston), Cleveland Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, and the NC Shakespeare Festival in roles that ranged from Lady Macbeth to Miss Hannigan. Los Angeles credits include six plays for the Pasadena Playhouse, Will Geer Botanicum, Westwood Playhouse, Tiffany Theatre, Fountain Theatre, Deaf West, and the Celtic Arts Centre. She is a member of the Road Theatre and Rogue Machine. Some of her TV and film credits include Guest Star appearances on Chicago Med, Law and Order: SVU, Seal Team, Animal Kingdom, Outcast, The Romanoffs, and Criminal Minds. She was a lead in Marriage Material, a short film Oscar finalist in 2019. Laura kept busy during the pandemic doing three Zoom benefits for the Actors Fund: Two performances of Marilyn, Mom, and Me by Luke Yankee, playing his mother, Oscar- and Tony-winner Eileen Heckart, which she recently performed at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, Lia Romeo’s Sitting and Talking, with Frank Collison and directed by Dawson Moore, and a radio version of Janice Goldberg’s Rose Colored Glass. Laura was on the faculty of the Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood for over 19 years and then at the satellite school in Australia. She has taught actors with disability in Los Angeles and Berkeley. Ms. Gardner has taught in NYC at HB Studio, Stella Adler Institute, and the American Academy of Art. She teaches workshops all over the country as well as in Great Britain. www.lauragardner.org
Leslie Ishii (Perseverance Theatre, AD) debuted in Northwest Asian American Theater’s Breaking The Silence to raise legal defense funds for WWII US Concentration Camp Resister, Gordon Hirabayashi’s Supreme Court Case. This ignited Leslie’s passion for justice, directing, working cross-racially and cross-culturally deep in community. She developed anti-racism/liberation actor/director training based in decolonizing/liberation theory and practix. Directing/Acting/Dramaturgy: Co-Pro Penumbra Theatre & Theatre Mu; East West Players, Native Voices, El Teatro Campesino; Oregon Shakespeare Festival; FAIR, APII 2×2 New Work Lab, Founder/Producer; South Coast Repertory Theatre, and other regional theatres; Broadway, TV and Film. Service: CAATA: Board President, National BIPOC/BITOC Coalition/Commons, Founder; artEquity: National Faculty; Tsuru For Solidarity; National New Play Network: Board Member; National Theatre Conference; Professional Non-Profit Theater Coalition: Co-Lead, Coalition/Website Subcommittee. Awards: Teachers Making A Difference; Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Integrity Award; US Artist Fellow 2023; SDC 2016,2017 National Standout Recognition for championing equity/inclusion.
Arthur M. Jolly (he/him) is thrilled to be back in Valdez for a twelfth time – and his sixth time as a respondent. As a playwright, Jolly has penned over 75 produced plays, drawing from his typical playwright background of starting in the NY film industry as a stunt performer, snake wrangler, and special effects artist, then becoming a helicopter pilot, training pilots for the US Army in Alabama, and later flying tourists from Las Vegas into the Grand Canyon. Given such a predictable trajectory, his decision to quit flying and move to Los Angeles to write is all too familiar. As a screenwriter, Jolly was recognized by the Academy with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Produced screenplays include Where We Disappear on Amazon Prime, based on his play A Gulag Mouse; and the short films Still Waters, Childish Things, and Eight Ball. Valdez productions include A Very Modern Marriage (2017) and A Gulag Mouse (2013); previous Play Lab readings include The Lady Demands Satisfaction (2018), Straw, Sticks, Bricks (2015), Mission: Colusa (2014), A Very Modern Marriage (2013), and Trash (2012). Jolly is a proud member of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. Repped by Brant Rose Agency. More at www.arthurjolly.com
Rob Lecrone, attending his fifteenth Conference, celebrates his ninth year as a coach in the Monologue Workshop and as a host and co-producer of the nightly Valdez Theatre Fringe. Since 2012, he’s moved from Anchorage to LA to Albuquerque and, in November, to Denver. He teaches a weekly online Scene Study & Acting Exploration and recently joined the improv faculty at Denver’s Rise Comedy. Rob has trained at Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood; Cal State LA (MFA in Acting); HB Studios in New York (Hagen Teacher’s Lab), Upright Citizens Brigade (improv), and at other institutions. Besides his MFA in Acting, he has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska. He performs improv with Future Ghost in Denver, Left on Read in Albuquerque, and Squirrely Bird online (and once in New York). Rob co-produced and acted in the world premiere of Conference playwright Nicholas Walker Herbert’s Bloodless (2020) and the Conference mainstage performance of Julia Lederer’s With Love and a Major Organ (2017). He’s also proud of his work as lead producer for the U.S. version of international digital theatre production, The Art of Facing Fear (2020), partnering with Brazil’s Os Satyros, Sweden’s Darling Desperados, and LA’s Company of Angels. The Art of Facing Fear won Best Production in India’s Good The@tre Festival, the Worldwide Award for Collaborative Work of the Year in the Young-Howze Theatre Awards, and received seven nominations in the 2020 Broadway World LA Awards. Last year, he wrote his own lines for a small part in a feature film called The Unexpecteds. Rob was once shot in the ankle during a carjacking attempt in New Jersey. Most importantly, he ate the bear that almost ate him and worked on the cleanup of the Valdez oil spill. www.roblecrone.com
Dawson Moore just completed his twenty-first year as Coordinator of the Valdez Theatre Conference. He recently moved to San Francisco, where he is renovating the family home and wondering what to do with twenty-thousand books. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the National Theatre Conference.
Gregory Pulver is the Theater Program Director and Professor of costume design, make up and choreography for the University of Portland (UP) Performing and Fine Arts Department and a Resident Artists at Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon. At UP Gregory has developed the New Works/New Voices annual staged reading series featuring new plays dedicated to women and BIPOC playwrights. He is the creator of UP’s British Theater Experience where he and 10 students curate a production of 10-minute plays for annual performances and theater workshops in towns around Oxfordshire, England. Gregory is also a faculty member of the Dramatist Guild Institute of Dramatic Writing and teaches Storytelling Through Design each fall. Mr. Pulver holds an MFA in costume design and choreography from Humboldt State University, CA. He is the 1993 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Costume Design Winner for his work on Threepenny Opera. Among designing both sets and costumes for Bag and Baggage Theatre, and costumes for Broadway Rose Theatre and Corrib Irish Theatre, and designs for Artists Repertory Theatre which include The Hombres, Small Mouth Sounds, The Humans, Tribes, Broomstick, Cuba Libre, and Foxfinder. Gregory has also designed for several short films and TV spots in Washington including a dance for the camera film titled Egg Skin. Gregory is an accomplished director, singer, actor, and dog owner.
Kalli Randall is an Alaskan actor and director whose journey in theatre began as a casual engagement with her college community, ultimately blossoming into a lifelong passion, particularly after discovering her love for directing during her senior year at UAA. Following her graduation, Kalli relocated to Chicago, where she spent six years honing her craft. It was during this time that she founded Midnight Summit Ensemble, a theatre collective dedicated to both reviving classical works and showcasing new pieces from emerging playwrights. Kalli’s directing credits are a series of plays by Ashley Rose Wellman, including Shrines and You Are The Blood; Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Don Zolidis’ The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon; Joanna Castle Miller’s Around and Around and Around The Static Sun, Karen Zacarías’s Book Club, Gary Steven’s Uncle Ted, and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar. This is Kalli’s 13th Conference and she could’t be more excited to be here with all you fine folks…and Potato Head!!
Schatzie Schaefers first came to the VTC in its second year in 1994 as a UAA Theatre student and slept on the floor in the gym. Playwright, director, actor, and producer. Vocalist for Alaska’s Agents of Karma and Karmic Reduction. Development Director for Anchorage Concert Association. Proud member of Blue Roses Theatre Company. Schatzie will direct Eric Coble’s dark comedy Bright Ideas for Anchorage Community Theatre in 2025. Schatzie is a single mother to Lionel Richie, Chandler Bing, and Knox. You will see Schatzie every night of the conference at Magpie’s on the Fly where she co-hosts the Valdez Fringe.
Jayne Wenger is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is the development of new works for the theater. Her work is interdisciplinary, encompassing opera, dance, solo performance, new music and site-specific collaboration. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation and Women’s Ensemble of New York. She was the original director and dramaturg for The Winter Bear Project, written by Anne Hanley, an on-going performing arts and social outreach initiative focused on teen suicide in rural Native Alaskan communities. She has collaborated with many playwrights and performers from Alaska including Arlitia Jones, Schatzie Schaefers, Sandy Harper, among many other talented artists. She has been working for over 30 years with longtime collaborator Deke Weaver; her latest work with Deke was his new multimedia performance piece entitled Cetacean (WHALE), the fifth installment of his lifetime work, The Unreliable Bestiary (www.unreliablebestiary.org), which premiered at the University of Illinois in September 2023. Current and upcoming projects include a new solo work by Margery Krietman for 3Girls Theatre in SF entitled The Fall/Out. She is working on a new jazz opera entitled Leelah, an international collaboration by Renee Benson and Vincent Pongracz and The Trees, an eco-home-erotic musical by Larry Lariosa and Kristy Lin Billuni. Recent work includes Vivien Straus’s solo show about the Straus Family Dairy and her mother Ellen’s work to save the farms along the coast of West Marin from overdevelopment, the piece was performed in the family barn in Marin County; and Loving Janis, a solo work with music by Kyra Gordon focused on the lives of Janis Joplin and Janis Ian. A selection of other projects include: The Lariat, an opera about colonial Spaniards’ destruction of the California Esselen Native American world, by Lisa Scola Prosek; Michelle Carter’s Rose In America; Blues is a Woman by Pamela Rose; Men Think They Are Better Than Grass with the Deborah Slater Dance Theater; and Colette Uncensored by Lorri Holt and Zack Rogow. She wrote the libretto for Neuromancer, a new opera adapted from William Gibson’s novel. From 2018 to 2022 she was the Director of Creative Process for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She is an alumna of Djerassi Resident Artist Program; a frequent guest artist and advisory board member for The Valdez Theatre Conference; has taught at ArtWorkshop International in Assisi, Italy; and is an annual guest artist at San Francisco State University teaching dramaturgy and new play direction. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and the League of Professional Theater Women and a board member of Playwrights Foundation. She works privately with playwrights across the country.
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