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Editors' Note - Action, Scene, And Voice: 21st-Century Dialogues With Edward Gordon Craig, Jennifer A. Buckley, Anne Holt

Mime Journal

A roadmap to this Special Issue of Mime Journal. This issue emphasizes the tissue of influences that shaped Craig’s own work and continue to impact contemporary theater and performance. By focusing on the historical contexts in which his ideas were developed and those in which they have been received, the essays counter the widely held perception of Craig as the solitary genius of the “Art of the Theatre.” His claims of originality and singularity have too often obscured the connections between his work and that of other artists—especially the dancer Isadora Duncan, upon whom two of the pieces included here …

The Revolutionary: On Isadora Duncan And Edward Gordon Craig, Jennifer A. Buckley, Lori Belilove

Mime Journal

Jennifer Buckley interviews dancer, choreographer, and teacher Lori Belilove on Isadora Duncan’s practice and legacy. Belilove argues for Duncan’s modernism, and emphasizes her impact upon Edward Gordon Craig’s developing aesthetic and his career. This edited transcription of their conversation takes its point of departure from Craig’s portfolio of six drawings of Duncan in action, Isadora Duncan: Sechs Bewegungsstudien, Insel Verlag, 1906. Belilove sees both Craig and Duncan as poised between late Victorianism and modernism, and she contends they shared a modernist impulse toward abstraction. Belilove also comments on her own practice as a performer and as a teacher passing …

The Dancer And The Übermarionette: Isadora Duncan And Edward Gordon Craig, Olga Taxidou

Mime Journal

Olga Taxidou analyzes the ambiguous concept for which Edward Gordon Craig is best known—the “übermarionette”—alongside Isadora Duncan’s discussions of the liberated dancer. Highlighting the emphasis on futurity in Craig’s and Duncan’s manifestos and theories, she contends that this pairing works to undo the binaries between Hellenism and modernism, and between mechanistic and vitalistic aesthetics. Emphasizing the impact of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872) and Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories upon Duncan’s theory and practice, Taxidou locates Duncan within an intellectual vanguard that includes Jane Harrison and her fellow Cambridge Ritualists as well as major modernist poets.

Edward Gordon Craig's Übermarionette And Étienne Decroux's "Actor Made Of Wood", Thomas Leabhart, Sally Leabhart

Mime Journal

Thomas Leabhart testifies to Edward Gordon Craig’s continuing influence on postmodern mime and movement. Leabhart discusses the influences that shaped Craig’s theory of acting. He then considers what the living actor and Craig’s “übermarionette” have to say to each other, putting pressure on the binary between human and non-human performers, especially in physical theater. Himself a student from 1968-72 of Étienne Decroux, the French corporeal mime and teacher whom the elderly Craig recognized as an “artist of the theatre,” Leabhart relates how he carries on Decroux’s pedagogy and legacy as a performer and teacher of corporeal mime.

Speaking Looks: A Conversation About Costume With Edward Gordon Craig, Léon Bakst, And Pablo Picasso, Annie Holt

Mime Journal

Holt focuses on Craig’s influential stage designs in relation to the performing body. Through costume design, Holt rethinks Craig’s relationship with the designs of the Ballets Russes, placing him in context with the experimentations of his contemporaries Leon Bakst and Pablo Picasso. Holt frames these designers’ historic opposition as a difference of opinion around the way that costumes can carry meaning. She argues that while all three designers used similar visual language and agreed that costumes should communicate with audiences, each artist used a different model for this communication – speech (Craig), music (Bakst) and writing (Picasso).

The Who's Tommy

Theatre Programs

The Who's Tommy
Book by Des McAnuff and Pete Townshend
Music and Lyrics by Pete Townshend
Additional Music and Lyrics by John Entwistle and Keith Moon
Directed by Oanh Nguyen

Rock musical; adult language and content as well as strobe lighting effects will be utilized

Based on the iconic 1969 rock concept album, The Who’s Tommy is an exhilarating story of hope, healing, and the human spirit. The story of the pinball-playing, deaf, dumb and blind boy who triumphs over his adversities has inspired, amazed, and puzzled audiences for more than 40 years. This five-time Tony Award-winning musical was translated …

On Behalf Of Theatre In Rural America, Robert J. Hubbard

Northwestern Review

This essay is a theatre review with a sense of place: the small-town-rural upper Midwest in the spring of 2008. The author assesses Tim Robbins, Dead Man Walking, as staged at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa; Jeff Barker, Terror Texts, as staged at Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa; and Adam Long, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged, as staged at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Création, Jeu Et Contemplation : L’Art Comme Exercice Spirituel, Ivan Magrin-Chagnolleau

Presidential Fellows Articles and Research

"Je voudrais commencer en parlant d’un livre que j’ai lu il y a quelques années déjà, et qui pour moi a été très influent et très important, qui s’appelle « Free play », qui est un livre de Stephen Nachmanovich. C’est un livre que je trouve passionnant à plusieurs titres. D’abord parce que l’idée centrale du livre, c’est de dire qu’on ne peut créer que dans le jeu, c’est-à-dire que toute création doit être ludique pour pouvoir exister vraiment. Et ça, c’est une prise de conscience. J’allais dire une découverte, mais je ne pense pas, parce que je pense que …

Gender Counts: An Analysis Of Gender In Irish Theatre 2006-15, Brenda Donohue, Ciara O'Dowd, Tanya Dean, Ciara Murphy, Kathleen Cawley, Kate Harris

Books/Book Chapters

In 2016, thanks to support from The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, #WakingTheFeminists commissioned groundbreaking research into the gender balance in Irish theatre. Here are the results.

The research was conducted by a team of six researchers led by Dr. Brenda Donohue, in collaboration with Irish Theatre Institute and the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance at NUI Galway. Their work looks at key creative roles in ten of the top Arts Council-funded theatre organisations in the country over a ten year period from 2006-15

Lighting Questions List, Brandon Washington

The Flick (2017) - Lighting

The realistic environment, story, dialogue, and characters fed the ideas of light that would help tell this story. Later in the show, the movie theater called “The Flick” is taken under new ownership and is remodeled into “The Venue.” Changes in color accents and temperature of light within the theater provided us with the larger visual switch and passage of time that happens towards the last quarter of the play.

Magic Sheet, Brandon Washington

The Flick (2017) - Lighting

The realistic environment, story, dialogue, and characters fed the ideas of light that would help tell this story. Later in the show, the movie theater called “The Flick” is taken under new ownership and is remodeled into “The Venue.” Changes in color accents and temperature of light within the theater provided us with the larger visual switch and passage of time that happens towards the last quarter of the play.

Lighting Key, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

Sun Path, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

Research Analysis: Act Iii, Scene Ii, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

Lighting Questions List, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

Scene Breakdown, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

Research Analysis: Act Ii, Scene I, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

“Why (Not) Philosophy Of Stand-Up Comedy?”, Sheila Lintott

Faculty Contributions to Books

Stand-up comedy has been largely ignored by analytic philosophers of art, including those interested in comedy and humor. This is somewhat surprising, given the immense popularity of stand-up comedy and the rock star status enjoyed by some comedians today. I suspect that philosophers are just as likely to enjoy stand-up comedy as anyone else; in some cases (i.e. for some philosophers and some comedians), probably more likely. Here I offer some reasons philosophers of art should take the time to consider stand-up comedy and possible explanation for why philosophers of art have paid far less attention to stand-up comedy than …

Magic Sheet, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.

Electrical Equipment List, Brandon Washington

Journey's End (2017) - Lighting

The lighting design for Journey's End needed to create the dark and claustrophobic environment of a war dug-out. Candles from low angles and slivers of natural light that could barely penetrate the dug-outs were the only sources of illumination. The high-contrast world that was composed only added to the hell that these soldiers endured.