Pioneer Performances

Pioneer Performances PDF Author: Matthew Rebhorn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190218649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
From 1829 to 1881, playgoers throughout the nation applauded frontier dramas that celebrated conventional American values like rugged individualism and the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Yet, as Pioneer Performances shows, a more subversive cultural agenda often worked within the orthodox framework of this popular drama. Drawing on a range of plays and public entertainments, Matthew Rebhorn uncovers the heterodox themes in the nineteenth-century stage, ultimately revealing the frontier as a set of complex performative practices imbued with a sense of trenchant social critique. The dramatis personae of Rebhorn's study includes Buffalo Bill Cody; Gowongo Mohawk, a cross-dressing Native American performer; T.D. Rice, the blackface minstrel who created the role of Jim Crow; Edwin Forrest, the biggest star of the nineteenth-century stage; and Dion Boucicault, an expatriate Irish playwright who penned a sophisticated critique of race relations in the American South. In addition to this colorful cast of characters, works by lesser-known figures like James Kirke Paulding, Augustin Daly, and Joaquin Miller serve to illustrate the complex interpretations of the frontier on the American stage. With each case, Rebhorn demonstrates the multifaceted, politically charged nature of nineteenth-century drama. Closing with a coda that considers latter-day representations of the frontier, such as in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and the staged photo opportunities on George W. Bush's Texas ranch, Rebhorn reveals the lasting impact of the genre and the performative practices it first introduced on the American stage. Drawn from in-depth research in theater history, this study illustrates how the frontier was-and still is-defined in performance.

Pioneer Performances

Pioneer Performances PDF Author: Matthew Rebhorn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190218649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book

Book Description
From 1829 to 1881, playgoers throughout the nation applauded frontier dramas that celebrated conventional American values like rugged individualism and the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Yet, as Pioneer Performances shows, a more subversive cultural agenda often worked within the orthodox framework of this popular drama. Drawing on a range of plays and public entertainments, Matthew Rebhorn uncovers the heterodox themes in the nineteenth-century stage, ultimately revealing the frontier as a set of complex performative practices imbued with a sense of trenchant social critique. The dramatis personae of Rebhorn's study includes Buffalo Bill Cody; Gowongo Mohawk, a cross-dressing Native American performer; T.D. Rice, the blackface minstrel who created the role of Jim Crow; Edwin Forrest, the biggest star of the nineteenth-century stage; and Dion Boucicault, an expatriate Irish playwright who penned a sophisticated critique of race relations in the American South. In addition to this colorful cast of characters, works by lesser-known figures like James Kirke Paulding, Augustin Daly, and Joaquin Miller serve to illustrate the complex interpretations of the frontier on the American stage. With each case, Rebhorn demonstrates the multifaceted, politically charged nature of nineteenth-century drama. Closing with a coda that considers latter-day representations of the frontier, such as in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and the staged photo opportunities on George W. Bush's Texas ranch, Rebhorn reveals the lasting impact of the genre and the performative practices it first introduced on the American stage. Drawn from in-depth research in theater history, this study illustrates how the frontier was-and still is-defined in performance.

Funny Business

Funny Business PDF Author: Marsh Cassady
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Twenty-two one-act plays and sketches demonstrating comedy techniques. Comedy relies upon exaggeration incongruity, automatism, character inconsistency, surprise and derision. Now a book that defines and demonstrates each of these devices with twenty-two short sketches and one-act plays.

Jack and the Giant

Jack and the Giant PDF Author: Vera Morris
Publisher: Pioneer Drama Service, Inc.
ISBN:
Category : Children's plays
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description


The Ultimate Improv Book

The Ultimate Improv Book PDF Author: Edward J. Nevraumont
Publisher: Meriwether Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
A complete improvisation curriculum in twenty-four class-length units. This comprehensive resource who shows the who, what, when, why and how of comedy improvisation. Main topics: What is improv?; Improvisational skills; Structuring; Strategies; How to start your own improvisation team. Includes many games and exercises.

Performance Activism

Performance Activism PDF Author: Dan Friedman
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030805913
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This is the first book length study of performance activism. While Performance Studies recognizes the universality of human performance in daily life, what is specifically under investigation here is performance as an activity intentionally entered into as a means of engaging social issues and conflicts, that is, as an ensemble activity by which we re-construct/transform social reality. Performance Activism: Precursors and Contemporary Pioneers provides a global overview of the growing interface of performance with education, therapy, conflict resolution, civic engagement, community development and social justice activism. It combines an historical study of the processes by which, over the course of the 20th Century, performance has been loosened from the institutional constraints of the theatre with a mosaic-like overview of the diverse work/play of contemporary performance activists around the world. Performance Activism will be of interest to theatre and cultural historians, performance practitioners and researchers, psychologists and sociologists, educators and youth workers, community organizers and political activists.

Theatre Games & Activities

Theatre Games & Activities PDF Author: Lynda A. Topper
Publisher: Meriwether Publishing
ISBN: 9781566081566
Category : Improvisation (Acting)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
How can a teacher without theatrical experience teach a course in theatre arts? How can a teacher inspire self-conscious students to perform before an audience? This book of activities is designed to build confidence in each student with non-threatening evaluations along the way. This drama text begins with basic group games and gradually expands to more challenging exercises. Its emphasis on group and individual activity builds verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Chapters include: 1. The Planning Process, 2. The Challenge of the First Meeting, 3. Getting Acquainted and Acclimated, 4. Non-Verbal Group Activities, 5. Non-Verbal Individual Activities, 6. Verbal Individual Activities, 7. Verbal Pair Activities, 8. Verbal Group Activities, 9. Written Activities, 10. Evaluation, Assessment, Rewards, 11. Grab Bag.

Twinderella

Twinderella PDF Author: Charlie Lovett
Publisher: Pioneer Drama Service, Inc.
ISBN:
Category : Children's plays, American
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description


Pioneer Women

Pioneer Women PDF Author: Joanna L. Stratton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476753598
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
From a rediscovered collection of autobiographical accounts written by hundreds of Kansas pioneer women in the early twentieth century, Joanna Stratton has created a collection hailed by Newsweek as “uncommonly interesting” and “a remarkable distillation of primary sources.” Never before has there been such a detailed record of women’s courage, such a living portrait of the women who civilized the American frontier. Here are their stories: wilderness mothers, schoolmarms, Indian squaws, immigrants, homesteaders, and circuit riders. Their personal recollections of prairie fires, locust plagues, cowboy shootouts, Indian raids, and blizzards on the plains vividly reveal the drama, danger and excitement of the pioneer experience. These were women of relentless determination, whose tenacity helped them to conquer loneliness and privation. Their work was the work of survival, it demanded as much from them as from their men—and at last that partnership has been recognized. “These voices are haunting” (The New York Times Book Review), and they reveal the special heroism and industriousness of pioneer women as never before.

Plays of the Pioneers

Plays of the Pioneers PDF Author: Constance D'Arcy Mackay
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American drama
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description


Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest PDF Author: Arthur W. Bloom
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476677549
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Edwin Forrest was the foremost American actor of the nineteenth century. His advocacy of American, and specifically Jacksonian, themes made him popular in New York's Bowery Theatre. His rivalry with the English tragedian William Charles Macready led to the Astor Place Riot, and his divorce from Catharine Sinclair Forrest was one of the greatest social scandals of the period. This full-length biography examines Forrest's personal life while acknowledging the impossibility of separating it from his public image. Included is a historical chronology of every known performance the actor gave.