SPRING 2010 PROSPECTUS OF THEATER COURSES
Tragedy’s Women as Subjects and Objects of the Gaze
The Theater Department is co-sponsoring a lecture on Monday, October 26, at 5:30 p.m. to be delivered by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature, Hamilton College.
Film theory and in particular the feminist thinking behind John Berger’s Ways of Seeing and Laura Mulvey’s work have highlighted the ways in which male power is invested in the gaze; Mulvey argued that in mainstream cinema woman is disempowered as the object of the gaze. In ancient ideology, proper women were not to be the object of the gaze.
Dr. Rabinowitz will give an overview of the role of women in tragedy, asking whether possessing the gaze is necessarily empowering for women, and whether being the object of the gaze is necessarily disempowering. The talk will “look” at such characters as Medea, Clytemnestra, and Hecuba as aggressive women who own the gaze, as well as Iphigenia (Oresteia, Iphigenia at Aulis), Polyxena (Hecuba), and Antigone as sacrificial maidens.
Light refreshments will be served - Murray-Aikins Dining Hall, Second Floor
A COLLABORATION WORKSHOP For PLAYWRIGHTS & DIRECTORS
September 25th & 26th, 2009
Wendy McClellan has spent the last ten years working as a director and staff member in the American regional theatre, with a majority of her career spent in the development of new American plays. As a director, she has worked with a range of writers from Tony-nominated playwrights to emerging artists. She has held staff positions at Great Lakes Theatre Festival, Mark Taper Forum, A.S.K. Theater Projects and Actors Theatre of Louisville. While living in Los Angeles, she was also the Artistic Director of Oasis Theatre Company, the first company to bring Anne Bogart and the SITI Company to LA. She is currently a freelance director based in New York City. Her directing credits include: At Actors: world premieres of NEON MIRAGE (2006 Humana Festival, New York International Fringe Festival), UNCLE SAM'S SATIRIC SPECTACULAR (2005 Humana Festival, New York International Fringe Festival), GOODY FUCKING TWO SHOES (2005 Humana Festival), FAST AND LOSE (2004 Humana Festival), TREPIDATION NATION (2003 Humana Festival), as well as A CHRISTMAS CAROL, UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL, THE CAUCASIAN CHAULK CIRCLE, BALM IN GILEAD and MAD FOREST. Los Angeles credits include world premieres of Gregory Gunter's ANTIGONE. TERTIARY. SEXXX. (2001 LA Weekly Award Nominee Best Comedy Direction); Leon Martell and Penka Kouneva's STELL: JOHN HENRY & THE SHAKER (2002 Ovation Award Nominee Best New Musical); Jennifer Maisel's IMPENETRABLE; and Antonio Sacre's UP TO THE SKY (also PS 122, New York). She recently directed the world premiere of Laurie Brooks' BRAVE NO WORLD at The Kennedy Center. She and long-time collaborator Jennifer Maisel were awarded the New York Coalition for Women in the Arts and Media's Collaboration Award 2006 for their upcoming production of the play BIRDS. Ms. McClellan is a graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts and a member of SSDC. She currently teaches at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Liz Duffy Adams has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award, the Frederick Loewe Award in Music-Theatre, and a Playground commission from Children’s Theater Company, Minneapolis. Plays include NEON MIRAGE (anthology play, Humana Festival 2006; published by Playscripts, Inc.); DOG ACT (co-production, Shotgun Players and Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco; winner of the Will Glickman Award for Best New Play; Humana Festival Finalist; published in Theatre Bay Area magazine); WET, OR ISABELLA THE PIRATE QUEEN ENTERS THE HORSE LATITUDES (Humana Festival Finalist, SPF workshop; produced by Moxie Theater, San Diego); ONE BIG LIE (co-produced by Crowded Fire and Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco); THE RECKLESS RUTHLESS BRUTAL CHARGE OF IT, OR THE TRAIN PLAY (produced by Clubbed Thumb in NYC and Crowded Fire in San Francisco); A WRINKLE IN TIME (Syracuse Stage); and the short plays APHRA DOES ANTWERP and THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (The Women's Project, New Georges). Publications include POODLE WITH GUITAR AND DARK GLASSES in Applause Books’ "Best American Short Plays 2000-2001," numerous monologues and short plays in anthologies from Heinemann and Smith & Kraus, and several plays published by Playscripts, Inc. Adams has been in residence at Djerassi Artists Residency Program, and Millay Colony For the Arts, and is a graduate of NYU’s Experimental Theater Wing and Yale School of Drama. She lives in New York City.
FREE-HOUR THEATER PROGRAM
As announced at our opening meeting, we are starting a new program.
Every Friday afternoon from 3:30pm to 5:00pm (immediately following our Company Meeting), Studio B will be available for presentations, readings, explorations, etc. This could be a short piece (old or new) that has been rehearsed, the reading of an old or new play, the sharing of work being developed in classes, etc.
This work should not involve any departmental technical support.
Anyone interested in presenting something should schedule one of the Friday time slots with Kathy Mendenhall in the Theater Office. Scheduling will be handled on a first come, first served basis.
The student who schedules the room is fully responsible for seeing that the studio is cleared out and clean at the end of the presentation.