Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

The Shadow Puppets Of Elsinore: Edward Gordon Craig And The Cranach Press Hamlet, James P. Taylor

Mime Journal

Taylor considers the role that book arts may play in Craig’s theories of the new theatre, or the Art of the Future. He expands our understanding of Craig’s design work to include print culture, examining his engravings for the monumental editions of Hamlet published by Count Harry Kessler’s Cranach Press in 1929–30. Taylor explores the relationship of Craig’s designs for the 1912 Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet to his engravings for the German and English-language Cranach Press editions of the play. He suggests that it was only with this print publication that Craig finally achieved the absolute artistic control …

Our Puppets, Our Selves: Puppetry's Changing Paradigms, Claudia Orenstein

Mime Journal

Taking up the topic of puppetry, Orenstein forges connections between Craig’s vision of the übermarionette and the rise of “New Puppetry” today. She examines the use of puppets to explore similarities and differences between the technological anxieties of modernists versus contemporary artists. In addition, she calls for a more careful and contextualized attention to Craig’s puppet theory, with a close reading of the übermarionette passage in "On the Art of the Theatre." Orenstein returns to some of the most well-known and much-studied passages and theories from Craig’s early work, but considers them from the fresh vantage point of contemporary puppetry …

Contents - Edward Gordon Craig Special Issue 2017, Jennifer A. Buckley, Anne Holt

Mime Journal

Cover, front matter, and contents for Mime Journal Special Issue, "Action, Scene, and Voice: 21st-Century Dialogues with Edward Gordon Craig." Guest editors: Jennifer Buckley and Annie Holt.

Appendix: Program, Edward Gordon Craig Conference 2013, Pomona College, Mime Journal

Mime Journal

Conference program for "Action, Scene, and Voice: 21st-Century Dialogues with Edward Gordon Craig," at Pomona College, Claremont, California, March 2013.

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.

Nine Ways Of Opening Macbeth, Patrick Le Boeuf

Mime Journal

A previously unpublished essay by Edward Gordon Craig in which Craig considers various directorial and casting choices for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Edited, with notes, by Patrick Le Boeuf.

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).

Hester, Elizabeth Allen "Beth," B. 1956 (Fa 1003), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1003. Paper written by ElizaBeth Hester titled, “It Was Just a Good Wholesome Social Time: The Revival of Square Dance in Meador, Kentucky During the 1930s.” This paper was written as part of an assignment for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

When The Rain Stops Falling

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s performance of When the Rain Stops Falling by Thornton Andrew Bovell.

Performed February 24-26, March 3-5, 2017.

It’s 2039. A fish falls from the sky and lands at Gabriel’s feet. Where did it come from? Gabriel’s estranged son decides to visit for dinner. What does he want? To know about his past? Gabriel barely knows his own past. From 1959 to 2039, from London to Australia, When the Rain Stops Falling follows the fragmented history and mystery of Gabriel’s family and the falling fish.

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 …

Heathers: The Musical (February 23-25, 2017), Kevin Murphy, Laurence O'Keefe

Student Theatre Programs

Program for Heathers: The Musical (February 23-25, 2017).

To view the photos from this production of Heathers, please click here.

The Crucible, School Of Theatre Arts

All Production Programs

Winner of the 1953 Tony Award for Best Play, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory in response to McCarthyism and the US government’s blacklisting of its citizens accused of being communists. Using the Salem witch trials which occurred in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692 and 1693, the play is a partially fictionalized and dramatized account of some of those events. The piece has become an American classic and a central work in the canon of American drama.

Haunted Houses: A Directorial Exploration Of Expressionism, Jose Martinez-Chavarria

Honors Theses

The purpose of “Haunted Houses: A Directorial Exploration of Expressions” is to demonstrate the effectiveness of my directorial skills in staging a drama on stage with both an objective and subjective reality. The play Haunted Houses by Kathryn Schultz-Miller served as the chosen work whose staging would implement the common expressionist staging strategies of abstraction, simple and flexible blocking, nonrealistic lighting and a strong emphasis on visuals and stage images. The following thesis provides a detail directorial book containing the blocking, scenery, props and creative concepts used in this original production that allows it to be recreated if desired. A …

Into The Woods - Cinderella At Ball Illustration, David Cabral

Playbill and Promotion

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance & Film

Into the Woods - Cinderella at Ball illustration by David Cabral

February 27, 2017

A Love Untaught By Law, Emma Oliver

VA Engage Journal

A self-proclaimed “live and let live” society, Laramie, Wyoming quickly became everything but when studied by the Tectonic Theater Company following the murder of Matthew Shepard. By drawing attention to disturbingly inherent elements of Laramie’s culture including verbal distancing, an elitist sentiment, and the belief that apathy is acceptable, the theater company exposes the hostile climate that has made this Wyoming city nearly unlivable for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning community. In analyzing the language and attitudes of the residents of Wyoming as brought to light in the play The Laramie Project, this paper confirms the danger in …

Winter Dance Concert (February 9-11, 2017), Lindenwood University

Student Dance Programs & Brochures

Program for the Winter Dance Concert (February 9-11, 2017), Lindenwood University.

Top Girls, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2016-2017 Season

Top Girls is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It is about a woman named Marlene, a career-driven woman who is only interested in women's success in business. In the famous opening scene, she hosts a dinner party for a group of famous women from history. As the play unfolds we find Marlene has left her 'poor' life, and illegitimate child with her sister Joyce, in order to tread the path to 'success'. The play is contemporary and examines the role of women in society and what being a successful woman means.