The movie Hamlet 2, is about high school director Dana Marschz, a man who definitely has a love for the art, even though he might not actually have any talent in it. After a shock of brilliance from teaching his “inner city children”(which also just so happen to be all Hispanic.) I have decided to use this film teamed with the perspective of deconstructive criticism, to further analyze this film.
In order for us, the audience, to understand the ideology behind Hamlet 2, I believe it is fundamentally important to dissect the play down to it’s most basic forms. When we break Hamlet 2 down, we find that it not only an insanely humorous comedy, but a social commentary of the theatre world. To begin with, I feel the Shakespearean title is appropriate for a variety of reasons. First, the movie is an extremely comical take on the theatre world so I feel that it is only appropriate that the title chosen for his new play is a sequel to probably one of the most well known text in theatre history. There is a good amount of comedy in the fact that almost everyone knows and understands that everyone dies at the end of Hamlet, but this also shows us an insight into how ridiculous the rehashing of film and stage sequels has become in our modern age. Third, there is a bit of irony for those who know Shakespeare well, in that the play Hamlet 2 is itself, a play with in a play, mirroring such famous Shakespeare plays as a Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the end of the movie we even get a speech which is very reminiscent of Puck’s if we shadows have offended speck at the end of Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Now to pull away a little bit from the Shakespeare congruencies, I would like to move to the subject of the Hispanic kids in what appears to be a predominantly white society. Racial stereotypes are definitely being used and over exaggerated which cannot only be seen in the Hispanic kids but also in the characters of Rand Postin and Epiphany Sellars, who are meant to represent the typical, white theatre student. I found this to be one of the most intriguing themes to be presented because it is a very untouched subject in film. I do believe it is the standard stereotype that not only are most theatre students predominantly white but also they are extremely needy as far as attention is concerned, as can be shown by the way Rand is constantly trying to seek the approval of director Dana Marschz. Another interesting theme is brought up when Epiphany starts trying to mimic the Hispanic girl’s mannerisms and vocal patterns. This is an interesting social commentary because this theme of the white girl trying to sound like another race can even be seen in the halls of our own college. There is also the theme of dissention in the white race between social groups in Hamlet 2. This can be seen in the tension between the coach and Dana Marschz. I must remind readers that this movie is set in Tuscon, AZ, which is in the Midwestern United States. Themes like football rules all in highschool ring true there, very similar to the way they do here in Texas. This underlying theme of the general, unlearned community not really caring about theatre is very prominent in this movie. Yet another theme is approached however, when people begin to become offended with Marschz’ self-wrote piece. This gives us our final theme of people not caring about the arts until it becomes offensive, and then they react both positively and negatively. This gives us the presumption that art does not become important until it stirs the thoughts of the people it is presented to.
I feel that Hamlet 2 is not only a clever, satirical comedy, but also an interesting social commentary of the modern theatre lifestyle. I would suggest this movie to any person who is involved in the theatre world.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Project 4: Uncoventional Theatre
Jane Eyre
Gorrilla Theatre Company
"In the Gorilla Theatre production of Polly Teale’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s famous tale, plain Jane Eyre had an alter ego: the woman “Bertha,” locked in an attic cage but yearning to be allowed the free expression of all her capacities, female and human."
http://tampahappenings.creativeloafing.com/gbase/BestOf/BestOfAwards?Award=oid%3A287507
This production is an unconventional look at the classic novel Jane Eyre preformed by the Gorilla Theatre Company. The play is about the life of Jane's alter ego who lives in the attic and observes her story as it goes on. This website gives directions as well as upcoming events for the Gorilla Theatre.
The Sky Tumbles 2
UPT FORMA (Lithuanian Puppet Theatre)
Directed by Victorija Rudyte
http://www.upt-forma.org/?menu=1&ln=en
This is the website link to a Lithuanian puppet theatre company. The specific show that is linked, The Sky Tumbles 2, the website gives us a complete plot breakdown as well as a couple of still shots of one of the performances. We also have a list of puppeteers, director, opening day, and where it was performed listed.
Crimes
International Student Network (ISN-R Theatre Group)
"Crimes dwells on the idea of Reality as a human construct, on the plurality of meanings that may bloom from the very same phenomenon: as many as individuals implied."
http://www.isn-rleiden.nl/theatre.html
The show Crimes which is performed by the Internation Student Network takes a short scene where a murder has takn place and replays it. The concept that makes this performance uncoventional is that everytime the scene replays, instead of moving the actors, the show moves the audience giving them different point of views for each experience. This website has an email contact as well as a section on recent workshopping.
The Dream House
The Independent Eye Theatre
Directed by Conrad Bishop and music by Elizabeth Fuller
http://www.independenteye.org/plays/dreamhouse.html
The Independent Eye Theatre is a theatre that specializes in obscure works. In this particular performance named Dreamhouse, the play is done completely with clowns. This website gives us a director and a writer as well a section that covers reviews. This website also gives a link where we can view the whole script or a video of the show.
Shun-kin
Complicite
Directed by Simon McBurney
http://www.complicite.org/productions/detail.html?id=44
Shun-kin, performed by the Complicite Theatre Company, is unconventional in that it delves completely into the Japanese culture, which most non-japanese people have little exposure to. This webpage gives us a listing for the director, composer, set designer, light, sound, projection, costume, puppetry, assistant director, and script editor. This website also gives us a link to reviews as well as a link to the awards that the production had won. This website also gives us when and where the show first started touring.
Gorrilla Theatre Company
"In the Gorilla Theatre production of Polly Teale’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s famous tale, plain Jane Eyre had an alter ego: the woman “Bertha,” locked in an attic cage but yearning to be allowed the free expression of all her capacities, female and human."
http://tampahappenings.creativeloafing.com/gbase/BestOf/BestOfAwards?Award=oid%3A287507
This production is an unconventional look at the classic novel Jane Eyre preformed by the Gorilla Theatre Company. The play is about the life of Jane's alter ego who lives in the attic and observes her story as it goes on. This website gives directions as well as upcoming events for the Gorilla Theatre.
The Sky Tumbles 2
UPT FORMA (Lithuanian Puppet Theatre)
Directed by Victorija Rudyte
http://www.upt-forma.org/?menu=1&ln=en
This is the website link to a Lithuanian puppet theatre company. The specific show that is linked, The Sky Tumbles 2, the website gives us a complete plot breakdown as well as a couple of still shots of one of the performances. We also have a list of puppeteers, director, opening day, and where it was performed listed.
Crimes
International Student Network (ISN-R Theatre Group)
"Crimes dwells on the idea of Reality as a human construct, on the plurality of meanings that may bloom from the very same phenomenon: as many as individuals implied."
http://www.isn-rleiden.nl/theatre.html
The show Crimes which is performed by the Internation Student Network takes a short scene where a murder has takn place and replays it. The concept that makes this performance uncoventional is that everytime the scene replays, instead of moving the actors, the show moves the audience giving them different point of views for each experience. This website has an email contact as well as a section on recent workshopping.
The Dream House
The Independent Eye Theatre
Directed by Conrad Bishop and music by Elizabeth Fuller
http://www.independenteye.org/plays/dreamhouse.html
The Independent Eye Theatre is a theatre that specializes in obscure works. In this particular performance named Dreamhouse, the play is done completely with clowns. This website gives us a director and a writer as well a section that covers reviews. This website also gives a link where we can view the whole script or a video of the show.
Shun-kin
Complicite
Directed by Simon McBurney
http://www.complicite.org/productions/detail.html?id=44
Shun-kin, performed by the Complicite Theatre Company, is unconventional in that it delves completely into the Japanese culture, which most non-japanese people have little exposure to. This webpage gives us a listing for the director, composer, set designer, light, sound, projection, costume, puppetry, assistant director, and script editor. This website also gives us a link to reviews as well as a link to the awards that the production had won. This website also gives us when and where the show first started touring.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Project 3: Too Hot to Handle Part 2
Raided or Closed-
Pleasure Man
March 1930
"A hung jury caused the judge to dismiss obscenity charges against Mae West's Pleasure Man."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/bway101/5.html
This article covers a few different theatres that were closed during the depression period. This article also covers the closing of Mae West's Pleasure Man and the trial that thus followed. This article discusses the closing of theatres due to the motion picture business as well.
Arrested-
Alton Fitzgerald White
as Coalhouse Walker Jr.
Ragtime
Sun. July 18th, 1999
"A day after Alton Fitzgerald White was arrested, strip-searched and then released when the police acknowledged they had erred, the actor, who plays a leading role in the Broadway musical ''Ragtime,'' said it seemed as if life had imitated art."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E3DD103FF93BA25754C0A96F958260&sec=&spon
This article covers the racial profiling of a man playing Coalhouse Walker Jr. in a production of Ragtime. The irony in this is Ragtime is a play about racial profiling in the turn of the century. There are many quotes from Mr. White directly.
NEA4-
Karren Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller
"They filed suit, alleging, among other things, that a provision of the NEA's governing statute identifying the standard for approval of funding applications violated the Fifth and First Amendments because it was impermissibly vague and imposed content-based restrictions on protected speech."
http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F3/100/671/475772/
This is a complete case study of the suite file by Karren Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller. It stated that the NEA was violating the first and fifth amendment rights of the four. It was basically an attack on the censorship of material.
Highschool Theatre
Rent
Rowlett High School
Dallas, TX
""If everyone on Earth were homosexual, there would be no more life. Just death," April Huddleston, a resident of Rowlett, said at the meeting."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/rockwallrowlett/stories/DN-rent_06met.ART.State.Edition1.4a779e4.html
This article covers the controversy over the production of the popular 90's broadway hit Rent. In this article we can conclude that there was a very negative reaction from the public when it was announced. Many were worried about the content matter in reference to the age group.
Pleasure Man
March 1930
"A hung jury caused the judge to dismiss obscenity charges against Mae West's Pleasure Man."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/bway101/5.html
This article covers a few different theatres that were closed during the depression period. This article also covers the closing of Mae West's Pleasure Man and the trial that thus followed. This article discusses the closing of theatres due to the motion picture business as well.
Arrested-
Alton Fitzgerald White
as Coalhouse Walker Jr.
Ragtime
Sun. July 18th, 1999
"A day after Alton Fitzgerald White was arrested, strip-searched and then released when the police acknowledged they had erred, the actor, who plays a leading role in the Broadway musical ''Ragtime,'' said it seemed as if life had imitated art."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E3DD103FF93BA25754C0A96F958260&sec=&spon
This article covers the racial profiling of a man playing Coalhouse Walker Jr. in a production of Ragtime. The irony in this is Ragtime is a play about racial profiling in the turn of the century. There are many quotes from Mr. White directly.
NEA4-
Karren Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller
"They filed suit, alleging, among other things, that a provision of the NEA's governing statute identifying the standard for approval of funding applications violated the Fifth and First Amendments because it was impermissibly vague and imposed content-based restrictions on protected speech."
http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F3/100/671/475772/
This is a complete case study of the suite file by Karren Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller. It stated that the NEA was violating the first and fifth amendment rights of the four. It was basically an attack on the censorship of material.
Highschool Theatre
Rent
Rowlett High School
Dallas, TX
""If everyone on Earth were homosexual, there would be no more life. Just death," April Huddleston, a resident of Rowlett, said at the meeting."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/rockwallrowlett/stories/DN-rent_06met.ART.State.Edition1.4a779e4.html
This article covers the controversy over the production of the popular 90's broadway hit Rent. In this article we can conclude that there was a very negative reaction from the public when it was announced. Many were worried about the content matter in reference to the age group.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Project 3: Too Hot to Handle Part 1
NYC Today- "Adults Only" showing of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
10/02/2005
New York, NY
This hillarious hit comedy apparently has a darker, if not more adult themed, side that the cast and director wanted us to see. On the night of October 2nd 2005, such a production was held on Broadway. In this article we get a direct quote from Jay Reiss who played vice principle Douglas Panch in which he tells us that he had come up with a bit of raunchy material in rehearsals and that we might get to see some of it in this particular production. The article also gives us a summary of the plot as well as a list of featured cast members. No specific time is given other than Sunday evening.
Hair
Opened April 29th, 1968
Opened April 29th, 1968
Closed July 1st, 1972
Biltmore Theatre
This is the Internet Broadway Database's entry for the original broadway production of Hair. This article gives us an opening date, closing date, location, total number of performances and a complete cast and crew list. This does not give us a plot synopsis or a description of the nude scene that makes this peice fall into the naked broadway category.
Gay BroadwayNaked Boys Singing
This article is about the controversy over the casting of the risque play Naked Boys Singing. This article tells us facts such as the local news paper placing it in the B columns and referring to it as a male revue. We also get some dialogue from a phone conversation between the casting director and the news paper editor.
Racist Theatre-
Showboat
1927
This article tells us about the different problems that arose from Showboat's start in 1927 to present day. The article discusses the use of non-socially acceptable language as well risque subject matter. This article also approaches the idea of Showboat being the first integrated musical.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Project 2: Angels in America Part I: Millenium Approaches
Option 2: Stages and Development
pre Broadway-
Sunday View; Two 'Angels,' Two Journeys, In London and New York
Vincent Canby, Jan 30th, 1994
Non-New York Production-
Theatre Review (Boston): Angels in America
Greg Hard, Boston, Massachussets 2008
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/02/01/154041.php
"Tony Kushner's Angels in America is a seven-hour play in two parts, and this is the first staging of the Pulitzer Prize-winning work in over a decade, aside from the 2003 HBO miniseries."
Mr. Hard has presented us with a peice giving an overview of plot, acting, and scenery. Though brief, his review does give us the knowledge that this is the first time this show has been performed on stage in almost a decade. His review also informs us on directions to the performance as well as contact information.
College Production-
Southern Florida- Angels in America: The Millenium Approaches
John Lariviere, 1997-2009
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sfla/sfla136.html
pre Broadway-
Sunday View; Two 'Angels,' Two Journeys, In London and New York
Vincent Canby, Jan 30th, 1994
"Declan Donnellan's stunning production, designed by Nick Ormerod, might fit in the pocket of George C. Wolfe's more visually complicated staging of "Angels in America," now at the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway. The local version is not really that much smaller than the New York production, and it certainly isn't shorter -- both run approximately seven hours. In most ways, though, it has a spare, intimate manner that, coupled with the tightly choreographed staging, makes it seem to fly like the wind."
The author gives us an approximate running time in relation to the New York show. We know from the article that this showed in the smallest of three spaces at the Royal National Theatre. He also gives us a few upcoming performances to look into in both New York and London.
Original Broadway Production-Angels in America- Walter Kerr- Theatre Reviews
Gerald Weales, 1993 Commonweal Foundation
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_n13_v120/ai_14059934
"Kushner is clearly political in the large sense of the word-- concerned with society and its endemic chaos--but he is also a fantasist (the subtitle of Angels is A Gay Fantasia on National Themes), a believer in theater as magic (he adapted Corneille's The Illusion)."
We know from this article that the show was not just revered in the US for it's opening. The author gives us a breakdown of the plot. The author uses his last paragraph to propose questions.
Non-New York Production-
Theatre Review (Boston): Angels in America
Greg Hard, Boston, Massachussets 2008
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/02/01/154041.php
"Tony Kushner's Angels in America is a seven-hour play in two parts, and this is the first staging of the Pulitzer Prize-winning work in over a decade, aside from the 2003 HBO miniseries."
Mr. Hard has presented us with a peice giving an overview of plot, acting, and scenery. Though brief, his review does give us the knowledge that this is the first time this show has been performed on stage in almost a decade. His review also informs us on directions to the performance as well as contact information.
College Production-
Southern Florida- Angels in America: The Millenium Approaches
John Lariviere, 1997-2009
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sfla/sfla136.html
"David Sirois plays Roy M. Cohn with eerie accuracy. Tyrone Davis is believably savvy as Belize. Johnny Mineo is good as the conflicted Louis. Katie Middleton is heartfelt as the emotionally fragile Harper, and James Allerdyce turns in a solid performance as her closeted husband Joseph."
Mr. Lariviere tries to grab our attention with letting us know that the school is celebrating it's 20th anniversary. He also divides his article in half, the first half covers a synopsis of the play and the second half covers the actual personalized performance and information regarding it. The cast list shows us that this show did have some double casting.
The HBO Miniseries-
Angels in America Wins 11 Emmy Awards
Dan Bacalzo, Sept. 20, 2004
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm?int_news_id=5136
"This makes a grand total of 11 Emmys for the show -- more than any other miniseries, including Roots, which received nine Emmys in 1977."
The focus of this article is the amount of awards the miniseries won at the Emmys. We know from this article that Angels in America won more awards than any miniseries before it. We get other performances that the cast is known for mentioned in the article.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Northern Arizona University
2008-2009 Catalogue
The Fantastics
by Tom Jones aned Harvey Schmidt
"This romantic charmer is still the longest-running musical in the world. Filled with breathtaking poetry, it is pure and simple and transcends all cultural barriers."
http://www.artsopolis.com/event/detail/35971
"This slower, mellower, gentler world where young people had time to dream but also had a way of life to which they could return is at the heart of The Fantasticks' enduring charm. In a delightful twist on an even longer-lasting tale, Romeo and Juliet, bookwriter and lyricist Jones created a spoof (two fathers who invent Montague-Capulet style feud as a ruse to get their children, Matt and Luisa, married) that lent itself perfectly to a spectrum of story telling techniques -- verse with heavy doses of rhyme and nature metaphors (again inspired by Shakespeare), the presentational style in which a narrator moves the story forward, the commedia del arte platform and its play-within-a- play actors."
http://www.curtainup.com/fantasticks.html
Twelfth Night
by William Shakespeare
"Like his early comedies, The Comedy of Errors or The Taming of the Shrew for instance, Twelfth Night is essentially a celebration of romantic love and can be viewed as a traditional romantic comedy. The play has many of the elements common to Elizabethan romantic comedy, including the devices of mistaken identity, separated twins, and gender-crossing disguise, and its plot revolves around overcoming obstacles to "true" love."
http://www.enotes.com/twelfth/
"Twelfth Night is a comedic classic by William Shakespeare that centers upon the misadventures of the Countess Olivia who is in love with Cesario, the servant of Orsino, the Duke of Illyria. This Elizabethan soap opera is further complicated by the fact that Duke Orsino is in love with Olivia, and Cesario is really a woman named Viola, who disguised herself as a man after being shipwrecked on the shore of Illyria."
http://www.largeprintreviews.com/12night.html
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
"The Importance of Being Earnest is a tour de force of comedy, misidentifications, and farce. Algernon and Jack are friends, and each has invented an imaginary person as an excuse of getting out of engagements. Jack's person is Ernest, a brother with a wild past. The two conspire to woo the ladies that they love, and through a series of happenstances, must gently deceive to get want they want. The end result is a play of uncomperable quality, chock full of witticisms that are highly quotable out of context. In fact, I dare suggest the entire play is quotable, such its brilliance. "
http://www.amazon.com/Importance-Being-Earnest-Oscar-Wilde/dp/158049580X
"Set in England during the late Victorian era, the play's humour derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. It is replete with witty dialogue and satirizes some of the foibles and hypocrisy of late Victorian society. It has proved Wilde's most enduringly popular play."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
The Little Dog Laughed
Douglas Carter Beane
"The play pulls no punches and hits the hypocrisy of Hollywood square on the head."
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/12/02/103902.php
"The Little Dog Takes Its Laughs to BroadwayThe Broadway opening of this Off-Broadway hit of last season is perched in time roughly halfway between the official confirmation that Neil Patrick Harris is gay (one of show business's worst kept secrets) and the impending wedding of Tom Cruise (surely its most enduring source of sexual orientation gossip). What we don't see, of course, is the relentless "handling" that goes on behind the scenes of these "stories," to keep our inexplicable curiosity at bay."
http://www.curtainup.com/littledoglaughed.html
The Bald Soprano and The Lesson
by Eugene Ionesco
"Eugène Ionesco intended The Lesson as a brutal criticism on Nazi fascism invading the peaceful hearts and minds of the people in his homeland, Romania. We twist the text to show how the world goes wrong today: A sense of tradition, honour, and respect is being replaced by capitalist greed and consumer righteousness… An elegantly subtle touch to a brutal script."
http://www.reviewsgate.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3591
Drama in 11 scenes by Eugene Ionesco, who called it an "antiplay." It was first produced in 1950 and published in 1954 as La Cantatrice chauve; the title is also translated The Bald Prima Donna. The play, an important example of the Theater of the Absurd, consists mainly of a series of meaningless conversations between two couples that eventually deteriorate into babbling.
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Plays-Soprano-Lesson-Submission/dp/0802130798
University of Missouri at Kansas City
2008-2009 Season
The Heidi Chronicles
by Wendy Wasserstein
"Wasserstein has made the cultural territory of the American experience since the 1960s her own. She is its most articulate theatrical chronicler. This collection of her recent work, Uncommon Women and Others, Isn't It Romantic, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, traces that experience through three decades of changing styles, mores, life objectives, and intellectual challenges. She examines her characters and their times with great good humor, complexity, depth of feeling, and a firm refusal to accept trite and easy images. She writes the truth about people and their lives without blinking. She teaches us all what it was like to live through a period of great turmoil and confusion."
http://www.amazon.com/Heidi-Chronicles-Uncommon-Others-Romantic/dp/0679734996
"In a series of interrelated scenes, The Heidi Chronicles traces the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, who comes to learn that liberation can be achieved only if one is true to oneself. Wendy Wasserstein's play was the winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play."
http://www.goldstar.com/events/washington-dc/the-heidi-chronicles-1.html
Tartuffe
by Moliere
"Molière’s comedy is founded on the gloss of human appearances, on the slippery gaps between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. In his own time, his relentless satirical attacks on the hypocrisies and vulgarities of the elite made his plays immensely popular, and also caused them to be banned for offending against religion."
http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2008/02/review-tartuffe.html
Orgon has welcomed the scoundrel into his home and then encouraged him in his subversion of his family and its values. For Orgon, Tartuffe can do no wrong, and all proof of his misconduct is considered blasphemy, until the husband is faced foursquare with the truth and his own imminent cuckoldry. As Mr. Bamman plays him, Orgon is not simply an old fool but the sincerest of acolytes totally overcome by guru worship.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9E0CE5D9103FF935A25753C1A964958260
Five by Tenn
by Tennessee Williams
"SpeakEasy’s FIVE BY TENN showcases five (six, really) of Tennessee Williams’ little-known one-act plays, some never published nor performed in his lifetime, arranged and directed by Scott Edmiston as a biography of the poet-playwright from youth to old age, focusing on Mr. Williams’s Chekhovian side rather than the hothouse world that “Tennessee Williams” evokes."
http://www.theatermirror.com/CR5x10speakeasy.htm
Not all of Tennessee Williams’s unpublished or forgotten playlets deserve staging. Five by Tenn comprises four of the former and one of the latter. The melodramatic opener, Summer at the Lake (1937), about an exasperating mother and miserable son, and the maudlin closer, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow (1970), could well be jettisoned.
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7069998630795694134&postID=3624841421885571190
Our Town
by Thorton Wilder
Our Town is all about life and people living in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. Throughout the three-part play, we learn details about the town, the families and individuals who live there, love and marriage, and life and death.
http://www.viloria.com/viloria/angel/20010307-ourtown.html
"Wilder wasn't bashful about revealing his own high opinion of ''Our Town.'' Late in Act I, the play's narrator, the ubiquitous Stage Manager, tells the audience that he will leave the script in the cornerstone of a new bank, so that people ''a thousand years from now'' can see ''the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying."
http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=940DE5DF1138F936A35751C1A96E948260
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
"In perhaps Dickens's greatest novel, an orphan named Pip grows up in harsh conditions, does a good turn for an escaped convict (as much out of fear as charity), then finds himself steadily climbing the socioeconomic ladder -- enjoying "great expectations" -- with the help of an unknown benefactor."
http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/Info_1937.asp
"A boy called Pip, who has a chance encounter with an escaped convict, is given into service of the ancient Miss Havisham, and comes into some great expectations which change his life for ever."
http://www.clareswindlehurst.com/bookreviews/2008/09/30/book-review-great-expectations-by-charles-dickens/
2008-2009 Catalogue
The Fantastics
by Tom Jones aned Harvey Schmidt
"This romantic charmer is still the longest-running musical in the world. Filled with breathtaking poetry, it is pure and simple and transcends all cultural barriers."
http://www.artsopolis.com/event/detail/35971
"This slower, mellower, gentler world where young people had time to dream but also had a way of life to which they could return is at the heart of The Fantasticks' enduring charm. In a delightful twist on an even longer-lasting tale, Romeo and Juliet, bookwriter and lyricist Jones created a spoof (two fathers who invent Montague-Capulet style feud as a ruse to get their children, Matt and Luisa, married) that lent itself perfectly to a spectrum of story telling techniques -- verse with heavy doses of rhyme and nature metaphors (again inspired by Shakespeare), the presentational style in which a narrator moves the story forward, the commedia del arte platform and its play-within-a- play actors."
http://www.curtainup.com/fantasticks.html
Twelfth Night
by William Shakespeare
"Like his early comedies, The Comedy of Errors or The Taming of the Shrew for instance, Twelfth Night is essentially a celebration of romantic love and can be viewed as a traditional romantic comedy. The play has many of the elements common to Elizabethan romantic comedy, including the devices of mistaken identity, separated twins, and gender-crossing disguise, and its plot revolves around overcoming obstacles to "true" love."
http://www.enotes.com/twelfth/
"Twelfth Night is a comedic classic by William Shakespeare that centers upon the misadventures of the Countess Olivia who is in love with Cesario, the servant of Orsino, the Duke of Illyria. This Elizabethan soap opera is further complicated by the fact that Duke Orsino is in love with Olivia, and Cesario is really a woman named Viola, who disguised herself as a man after being shipwrecked on the shore of Illyria."
http://www.largeprintreviews.com/12night.html
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Oscar Wilde
"The Importance of Being Earnest is a tour de force of comedy, misidentifications, and farce. Algernon and Jack are friends, and each has invented an imaginary person as an excuse of getting out of engagements. Jack's person is Ernest, a brother with a wild past. The two conspire to woo the ladies that they love, and through a series of happenstances, must gently deceive to get want they want. The end result is a play of uncomperable quality, chock full of witticisms that are highly quotable out of context. In fact, I dare suggest the entire play is quotable, such its brilliance. "
http://www.amazon.com/Importance-Being-Earnest-Oscar-Wilde/dp/158049580X
"Set in England during the late Victorian era, the play's humour derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. It is replete with witty dialogue and satirizes some of the foibles and hypocrisy of late Victorian society. It has proved Wilde's most enduringly popular play."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest
The Little Dog Laughed
Douglas Carter Beane
"The play pulls no punches and hits the hypocrisy of Hollywood square on the head."
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/12/02/103902.php
"The Little Dog Takes Its Laughs to BroadwayThe Broadway opening of this Off-Broadway hit of last season is perched in time roughly halfway between the official confirmation that Neil Patrick Harris is gay (one of show business's worst kept secrets) and the impending wedding of Tom Cruise (surely its most enduring source of sexual orientation gossip). What we don't see, of course, is the relentless "handling" that goes on behind the scenes of these "stories," to keep our inexplicable curiosity at bay."
http://www.curtainup.com/littledoglaughed.html
The Bald Soprano and The Lesson
by Eugene Ionesco
"Eugène Ionesco intended The Lesson as a brutal criticism on Nazi fascism invading the peaceful hearts and minds of the people in his homeland, Romania. We twist the text to show how the world goes wrong today: A sense of tradition, honour, and respect is being replaced by capitalist greed and consumer righteousness… An elegantly subtle touch to a brutal script."
http://www.reviewsgate.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3591
Drama in 11 scenes by Eugene Ionesco, who called it an "antiplay." It was first produced in 1950 and published in 1954 as La Cantatrice chauve; the title is also translated The Bald Prima Donna. The play, an important example of the Theater of the Absurd, consists mainly of a series of meaningless conversations between two couples that eventually deteriorate into babbling.
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Plays-Soprano-Lesson-Submission/dp/0802130798
University of Missouri at Kansas City
2008-2009 Season
The Heidi Chronicles
by Wendy Wasserstein
"Wasserstein has made the cultural territory of the American experience since the 1960s her own. She is its most articulate theatrical chronicler. This collection of her recent work, Uncommon Women and Others, Isn't It Romantic, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, traces that experience through three decades of changing styles, mores, life objectives, and intellectual challenges. She examines her characters and their times with great good humor, complexity, depth of feeling, and a firm refusal to accept trite and easy images. She writes the truth about people and their lives without blinking. She teaches us all what it was like to live through a period of great turmoil and confusion."
http://www.amazon.com/Heidi-Chronicles-Uncommon-Others-Romantic/dp/0679734996
"In a series of interrelated scenes, The Heidi Chronicles traces the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, who comes to learn that liberation can be achieved only if one is true to oneself. Wendy Wasserstein's play was the winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play."
http://www.goldstar.com/events/washington-dc/the-heidi-chronicles-1.html
Tartuffe
by Moliere
"Molière’s comedy is founded on the gloss of human appearances, on the slippery gaps between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. In his own time, his relentless satirical attacks on the hypocrisies and vulgarities of the elite made his plays immensely popular, and also caused them to be banned for offending against religion."
http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2008/02/review-tartuffe.html
Orgon has welcomed the scoundrel into his home and then encouraged him in his subversion of his family and its values. For Orgon, Tartuffe can do no wrong, and all proof of his misconduct is considered blasphemy, until the husband is faced foursquare with the truth and his own imminent cuckoldry. As Mr. Bamman plays him, Orgon is not simply an old fool but the sincerest of acolytes totally overcome by guru worship.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9E0CE5D9103FF935A25753C1A964958260
Five by Tenn
by Tennessee Williams
"SpeakEasy’s FIVE BY TENN showcases five (six, really) of Tennessee Williams’ little-known one-act plays, some never published nor performed in his lifetime, arranged and directed by Scott Edmiston as a biography of the poet-playwright from youth to old age, focusing on Mr. Williams’s Chekhovian side rather than the hothouse world that “Tennessee Williams” evokes."
http://www.theatermirror.com/CR5x10speakeasy.htm
Not all of Tennessee Williams’s unpublished or forgotten playlets deserve staging. Five by Tenn comprises four of the former and one of the latter. The melodramatic opener, Summer at the Lake (1937), about an exasperating mother and miserable son, and the maudlin closer, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow (1970), could well be jettisoned.
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7069998630795694134&postID=3624841421885571190
Our Town
by Thorton Wilder
Our Town is all about life and people living in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. Throughout the three-part play, we learn details about the town, the families and individuals who live there, love and marriage, and life and death.
http://www.viloria.com/viloria/angel/20010307-ourtown.html
"Wilder wasn't bashful about revealing his own high opinion of ''Our Town.'' Late in Act I, the play's narrator, the ubiquitous Stage Manager, tells the audience that he will leave the script in the cornerstone of a new bank, so that people ''a thousand years from now'' can see ''the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying."
http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=940DE5DF1138F936A35751C1A96E948260
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
"In perhaps Dickens's greatest novel, an orphan named Pip grows up in harsh conditions, does a good turn for an escaped convict (as much out of fear as charity), then finds himself steadily climbing the socioeconomic ladder -- enjoying "great expectations" -- with the help of an unknown benefactor."
http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/Info_1937.asp
"A boy called Pip, who has a chance encounter with an escaped convict, is given into service of the ancient Miss Havisham, and comes into some great expectations which change his life for ever."
http://www.clareswindlehurst.com/bookreviews/2008/09/30/book-review-great-expectations-by-charles-dickens/
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