ok so I lost my list of assigned terms so you all will have to figure out which ones are not done. Some of you have emailed your terms because you could not comment on the blog so I'm putting them here.
Surrealism- (ch 13) Developed out of the dada movement in 1924. The major exponent was the French writer Andre Breton, and France was the center of the movement. The surrealists argued that the subconscious was the highest plane of reality and attempted to re-create its workings dramatically. Many of their plays seem to be set in a dreamworld, mixing recognizable events with fantastic happenings.
Found Spaces- (ch 14) spaces such as factory lofts, churches, and warehouses that were not originally intended for theatre. Many off off Broadway groups use them.
Arthur Miller- (ch 14) Repeatedly tried to make us examine our own lives. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman. Is also well known for the Crucible. He wrote selective realism
Eclectic: theatre artist who works in a variety of moods and does not identify with one particular artistic movement
August Wilson: African American playwrite that became one of the major American dramatists of the 20th century; author of Fences and Ma's Rainy Black Bottom
Proletarian theatre: idea developed by Erwin Piscator that was influenced by the communist revolution in Russia
proletarian: a memeber of the lowest social or economic class
Provincetown- development of 'little theatre movemen'
Absurd Drama- the rediculous aspects of life in dramactic form
Stella Adler- Founded Group Theatre in 1931. She fought for the dramatic workshop that based its focus on the Stanislavskian System
Dadaism- 1916 series of manifestos written- later influenced avant-garde movements. Railed against traditional art and wanted to confuse and antagonize their audience but they were pacifists.
- Concentrated on nonsense and irrationality and questioned conventional definitions of artà anything can be art
- Presented short plays that defied rational explanation
- Emphasized a mixture of arts and the use of techniques of popular entertainmentà foreshadowed today’s performance art
Happenings- non structured events that occurred with a minimum of planning and organization
- popular in 1960’s à art should not be restricted to museums, galleries, or concert halls, but can happen anywhere
- street corner, grocery store, bus stop and only took place in one place
- Originator with a few colleagues set up a situation and acted it out through improvisation
Bertolt Brecht- Epic theatre- to instruct
- history, foreign lands, covered long period of time, shift locales frequently, intricate plots, many characters
- an ardent socialist, believed theatre could create an intellectual climate for social change- wrote short dramas called “Lehrstucke”
- “learning pieces”- attacked “entertainment” theatre
- very controversial figure
Lorraine Hansberry- Raisin in the Sun- turning point in American theatre
- 1st black female playwright
- youngest American playwright of her time
- inspired by O’Casey’s ability to universalize a specific people and their culture
Angry Young Men- a group of antiestablishment playwrights in England during the 1950’s that dealt with dissolving the British Empire, class conflict, and political disallusionment
- dramas in traditional, realistic form, slightly modified
- most famous for “Look Back in Anger”
- 2 theatre companies popular for introducing them, The English Stage Co. and Theatre Workshop
The Group Theatre- referred to as America’s Moscow Art Theatreà a noncommercial co. that produced plays in the Broadway district.
- dedicated to introducing Stanislavski’s system to the U.S. and producing socially relevant drama
- politically they leaned Left and they hoped to motivate political and social action through theatre
- dissension over correct interpretation of Stanislavski’s system was eventually the cause of their downfall in 1941
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i wasnt in class when the were assigned!
ReplyDeleteHello Dolly: music and lyric by Jerry Herman, and book by Michael Stewart. A musical about a woman from Yonkers who entraps a wealthy merchant. Page 479
ReplyDeleteEthel Merman: (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer known for musical theatre, well known for her powerful voice, and often hailed by critics as "The Grande Dame of the Broadway stage". Gershwin once told her never to take singing lessons after her performance of Girl Crazy. Noted for taking down lyrics in shorthand.
Al Jolson: (1886 –1950), born in Lithuania, Russian Empire, was a highly acclaimed American singer, comedian, and actor, and, the "first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in America." His career lasted from 1911 until his death in 1950, during which time he was commonly dubbed "the world's greatest entertainer.”
Al Jolson was the most famous performer to wear blackface makeup, and is known today for singing George Gershwin's first hit Swanee, and for starring in the first talking picture The Jazz Singer.
Tennesse Williams- Thomas Lanier Williams (1911-1983) was one of the foremost 20th century playwrights in the US. He wrote The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire,and a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
ReplyDeleteLuigi Perandello- (1878-1936) An Italian dramatist. Wrote: Right You Are If You Think You Are,Henry IV, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Each in His Own Way, and Tonight We Improvise.
Paul Robeson-An African American internationally known as an actor, singer, athlete, scholar, and political activist. His career spanned 50 years and included roles such as the lead in the Emperor Jones. Founded a Harlem-based journal.
expressionism: a movement that was created in Germany after WWI. It is characterized by an attempt to depict subjective states through distortion, grotesque images and lyrics and unrealistic dialogue.
ReplyDeleteAmiri Baraka (1934- ): Protest dramatist, but uses allegory and lyricism in his plays changing 'the format' of protest drama. His famous play is Dutchman. He was also a poet, novelist, musicologist, essayist, critic, and editor. He was a Marxist.
The Living Theatre: Founded in 1946 by Julian Beck and Judith Malina it was an influential avant-garde acting group in 1950s and 1960s. Experimentd in styles and old theatrical conventions (like masks). Though founded in America, they are now in Italy because the company had issues with the law.
documentary dramas: performances where actor's tell and act out their own real-life dramas. Telling the true story.
ReplyDeleteCircle Repertory Company: founded by Marshall W mason, Lanford Wilson, Rob Thikield and Tanya Berzin. The plan was to establish a group of artists (actors, directors, playwrights, and designers) who would work together in the creation of plays.
New-Stagecraft: a response to the increasingly crowded and overly detailed excesses of the late 19th century naturalism. New-Stagecraft was typified by simplicity, suggestion, adn impressionism.
Futurism originated in 1909 with Filippo Marinetti. They idealized war and the machine age, they ridiculed the “Museum Art” of the past and wanted industrialization in their country. Short illogical pieces.
ReplyDeleteJerzy GRotowski. Born in Poland. Well educated. Became interested in Stanislavski. Director of the Opole Theater. Began Polish Laboratory Theatre. Criticized for being interested in nature and form rather than political reform like Brecht. Developed Poor Theatre. There are only two important things about the theatre, the Actor and the Audience. In 1970 he stopped producing theatre and involved himself with Paratheatrical Experiments, which were described as Sociodrama or Psychodrama.
Eugene O’Neill. Leading American Playwright. Wrote in realism expressionism, modern versions of greek drama. Alcoholic. Went to Princeton but was expelled and went to Harvard. Ana Christie, The Hairy Ape, Great God Brown, Iceman Cometh. Won Noble Prize for Literature.
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ReplyDeleteLawrence Olivier
ReplyDeleteConsidered one of the greatest modern English-speaking actors. Acclaimed in both Shakespearean and modern roles. Posessed tremendous range, noted for intelligence and discipline. Became known as a stage and film director.
Federal Theatre Project
An experiment in noncommercial American theatre between WWI and WWII. A part of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) it was a theatre funded by Congress during the depression to give work to theatre professionals. It nurtured a great deal of talent and showcased some important productions. For four years it supported theatrical ventures in the US, and helped revitalize interest in theatre outside of New York City.
Ethel Waters
An early Broadway and motion picture actress and singer who was one of the few black performers in the 1920’s to achieve recognition in serious drama. She was known for the class and innocence she brought to her repertoire of mostly “blue” material.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)- was the most renowned of the absurdist playwrights. His dramas deal with the dullness of routine, the futility of human action, and the inability of humans to communicate. He had a normal childhood in a cultured, affectionate, upper-middle-class Irish family. He was brilliant and popular in prep school. Received his M.A. in modern languages from the U of Dublin in Ireland. With the publication of three novels and the play Waiting for Godot (1953), that he cam to be considered one of the major writers of the postwar generation. Received Nobel Prize in 1969 but did not attend the ceremony.
ReplyDeleteSome of his works include: Act without Words 1(1957) & 2 (1960), Endgame (1957), Happy Days (1961), Krapps’s Last Tape (1958), Catastrophe (1982), Play( 1963), Come and Go (1966), Not I (1971), Rockaby (1981)
Cole Porter-Kiss Me Kate- Kiss me Kate is the highlight of Cole Porter’s career. It is the only one of his musicals to run past 1000 performances on Broadway
“…Veteran comedy writers Samuel and Bella Spewack had been separated for some time, they reunited to write the libretto for Kiss Me, Kate, and after the production, they chose to stay together permanently. Their libretto creates a play-within-a-play that follows the lives of egotistical actor-producer Fred Graham and his temperamental co-star and ex-wife, Lili Vanessi in a production of, you guessed it, Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Cole Porter's brilliant score borrows freely from Shakespeare's dialogue for lyrics in the musical numbers that take place "onstage" but makes use of more modern syntax in the "backstage" numbers.
Kiss Me, Kate opened at the New Century Theatre on December 30, 1948, with Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison in the lead roles. The production went on to win 5 Tony Awards including "Best Musical," "Best Script" and "Best Score" before closing on July 28, 1951 after 1,070 performances”.
< http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/albm60.html>
Porgy and Bess- Gershwin- (1934)
In 1926 George Gershwin read Porgy by DuBose Heyward, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and immediately wrote to the author suggesting that they collaborate on a folk opera based on the novel. Heyward was enthusiastic, but it was 1934 before Gershwin's composing and performing schedules permitted him to begin actual work on the project. Meanwhile, Heyward and his wife Dorothy dramatized Porgy for a 1927 production which incorporated spirituals into the action. This Theater Guild presentation of Porgy ran for 367 performances and elicited interest from others, among them Al Jolson, in using it as a basis for some sort of musical production. However, nothing came of these ideas and in 1934, after years of correspondence, George and Ira Gershwin joined DuBose Heyward in Charleston to write the opera which had been germinating in George's imagination for several years.
They settled for the summer at Folly Beach, located on a barrier island about ten miles from Charleston, where they could observe the Gullahs an isolated group living on adjacent James Island who became the prototypes of the Catfish Row residents. It was a happy collaboration as DuBose Heyward wrote the libretto, and Ira Gershwin and Heyward wrote the lyrics. (Heyward's contributions included the lyrics to Summertime and My Man's Gone Now.) By mid-August the Gershwins left Charleston, and George applied himself to finishing the recitatives and orchestrating the opera. When it was finally completed in July, 1935, the 700 pages of music represented his most ambitious creation and his favorite composition. According to David Ewen, Gershwin's first biographer, he "never quite ceased to wonder at the miracle that he had been its composer. he never stopped loving each and every bar, never wavered in the conviction that he had produced a work.
You can read more about Porgy and Bess at http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/gershwin/porgy&bess.php>
That’s where I found all this other info.
The Cradle will Rock-Mark Blitzstein-
Written in 1937 by Marc Blitzstein as part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project, "The Cradle Will Rock" is a musical satire about union organization and societal corruption. Set in fictional Steeltown, USA, on the night of a labor union rally, the play critically examines corporate greed, media, and the arts, and draws from a variety of musical styles including vaudeville, blues, the music of Kurt Weill and American protest songs.
In light of the battles raging across the country between labor and management groups at that time, the federal government deemed the play too controversial and tried to shut down the opening-night production by sending armed guards to prevent anyone from entering the theatre. The acting company, under the direction of a young Orson Welles, found a vacant theatre and led a growing crowd of audience members through the streets of Manhattan to the new location. Since the actors were forbidden to perform the play on stage, Blitzstein planned to play and sing the show to the packed house by himself. The actors circumvented the ban, however, by performing from their seats throughout the theatre. "The Cradle Will Rock" became a hit and continued to run in the same manner night after night
http://www.whitworth.edu/News/2008_2009/Fall/CradleWillRock.htm>
Rogers and Hart- Richard Charles Rodgers was born in New York City on June 28, 1902. His earliest professional credits, beginning in 1920, included a series of musicals for Broadway, London and Hollywood written exclusively with lyricist Lorenz Hart. In the first decade of their collaboration, Rodgers & Hart averaged two new shows every season, beginning with POOR LITTLE RITZ GIRL, and also including THE GARRICK GAIETIES (of 1925 and 1926), DEAREST ENEMY, PEGGY-ANN, A CONNECTICUT YANKEE and CHEE-CHEE. After spending the years 1931 to 1935 in Hollywood (where they wrote the scores for several feature films including LOVE ME TONIGHT starring Maurice Chevalier, HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM starring Al Jolson and THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT starring George M. Cohan), they returned to New York to compose the score for Billy Rose's circus extravaganza, JUMBO. A golden period followed -- golden for Rodgers & Hart, and golden for the American musical: ON YOUR TOES (1936), BABES IN ARMS (1937), I'D RATHER BE RIGHT (1937), I MARRIED AN ANGEL (1938), THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE (1938), TOO MANY GIRLS (1939), HIGHER AND HIGHER (1940), PAL JOEY (1940), and BY JUPITER (1942). The Rodgers & Hart partnership came to an end with the death of Lorenz Hart in 1943, at the age of 48.(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/rodgers_r.html)
You can read more about Lorenz Hart at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/hart_l.html
Rogers and Hammerstein-Oklahoma-
Premier: March 31, 1943
Theater: St. James Theater
Music by: Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by: Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by: Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the play "Green Grow the Lilacs" by Lynn Riggs
Directed by: Rouben Mamoulian
Choreography by: Agnes de Mille
Produced by: The Theatre Guild
Composer Richard Rodgers had wanted to adapt a rural folk drama of the 1930s -- "Green Grow the Lilacs" -- to the musical stage and felicitously, lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, who also admired the play, accepted Rodgers' proposition to collaborate. By the spring of 1942, they were officially partners. From the beginning, their collaboration was going to be different: Hammerstein would write the lyrics first and Rodgers would set them to music. And both collaborators were determined to put the narrative of the story and the journeys of their characters before any concessions to musical comedy conventions. Aided by the brilliant choreography of Agnes de Mille, their simple tale of cowhands and farmers finding love and community in the Oklahoma territory caught the imagination and patriotic passion of wartime America. Laurey, a spunky girl who runs her aunt's farm, is courted by two very different young men: Curly, an brash cowhand, and Jud, a surly, pathological farmhand. Her journey to find the man of her dreams and the satisfaction of settling down with the right one (it's Curly, if you hadn't guessed) underscores the journey of the territory toward progress, community, and statehood.
In the decade before "Oklahoma!" opened, not a single hit show ran over 500 performances; "Oklahoma!" ran for 2,212. Even the songs, which Rodgers and Hammerstein worked so hard to keep within the context of the setting, broke out to achieve extraordinary popularity; the self-defensive love song "People Will Say We're in Love" was a number-one song in 1943 and "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" also topped the charts. "Oklahoma!" was more than a hit -- it was the first real phenomenon in modern Broadway history.( http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/musicals/oklahoma.html)
Shame on all of you who are just taking terms without contributing.
ReplyDeleteJason Robards, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino are all now famous actors who got their start in Off Broadway shows.
ReplyDeleteStephan Sondheim- recognized as one of the most important figures in musical theatre history, his career has spanned 4 decades and is still going. His musicals combined complicated lyrics, ingenious characters, intriguing subject matter, and complex music and lyrics.
Fiddler on the Roof- Marks the end of a Golden Era. It tells the story of a Jewish family trying to uphold traditions in Russia amidst revolution and persecution
ReplyDeleteThe Sound of Music- a musical about a governess who becomes a mother to a large family in pre-war Austria. This was the last musical Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein collaborated on. Edelweiss was the last song that Hammerstein wrote for theatre before his death.
West Side Story- A modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in NYC pitting the European immigrants against the Puerto Rican Immigrants. This musical is significant because it integrated dance in a way not seen before. The dances flowed with the story and were not separate from the action. there was no 20 min random ballet rather the whole show is a faux ballet.