Black Theater, City Life

Black Theater, City Life PDF Author: Macelle Mahala
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810145162
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Macelle Mahala’s rich study of contemporary African American theater institutions reveals how they reflect and shape the histories and cultural realities of their cities. Arguing that the community in which a play is staged is as important to the work’s meaning as the script or set, Mahala focuses on four cities’ “arts ecologies” to shed new light on the unique relationship between performance and place: Cleveland, home to the oldest continuously operating Black theater in the country; Pittsburgh, birthplace of the legendary playwright August Wilson; San Francisco, a metropolis currently experiencing displacement of its Black population; and Atlanta, a city with forty years of progressive Black leadership and reverse migration. Black Theater, City Life looks at Karamu House Theatre, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh Playwrights’ Theatre Company, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the African American Shakespeare Company, the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company to demonstrate how each organization articulates the cultural specificities, sociopolitical realities, and histories of African Americans. These companies have faced challenges that mirror the larger racial and economic disparities in arts funding and social practice in America, while their achievements exemplify such institutions’ vital role in enacting an artistic practice that reflects the cultural backgrounds of their local communities. Timely, significant, and deeply researched, this book spotlights the artistic and civic import of Black theaters in American cities.

Black Theater, City Life

Black Theater, City Life PDF Author: Macelle Mahala
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810145162
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
Macelle Mahala’s rich study of contemporary African American theater institutions reveals how they reflect and shape the histories and cultural realities of their cities. Arguing that the community in which a play is staged is as important to the work’s meaning as the script or set, Mahala focuses on four cities’ “arts ecologies” to shed new light on the unique relationship between performance and place: Cleveland, home to the oldest continuously operating Black theater in the country; Pittsburgh, birthplace of the legendary playwright August Wilson; San Francisco, a metropolis currently experiencing displacement of its Black population; and Atlanta, a city with forty years of progressive Black leadership and reverse migration. Black Theater, City Life looks at Karamu House Theatre, the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh Playwrights’ Theatre Company, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, the African American Shakespeare Company, the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company to demonstrate how each organization articulates the cultural specificities, sociopolitical realities, and histories of African Americans. These companies have faced challenges that mirror the larger racial and economic disparities in arts funding and social practice in America, while their achievements exemplify such institutions’ vital role in enacting an artistic practice that reflects the cultural backgrounds of their local communities. Timely, significant, and deeply researched, this book spotlights the artistic and civic import of Black theaters in American cities.

Theater of a City

Theater of a City PDF Author: Jean E. Howard
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812202309
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Arguing that the commercial stage depended on the unprecedented demographic growth and commercial vibrancy of London to fuel its own development, Jean E. Howard posits a particular synergy between the early modern stage and the city in which it flourished. In London comedy, place functions as the material arena in which social relations are regulated, urban problems negotiated, and city space rendered socially intelligible. Rather than simply describing London, the stage participated in interpreting it and giving it social meaning. Each chapter of this book focuses on a particular place within the city—the Royal Exchange, the Counters, London's whorehouses, and its academies of manners—and examines the theater's role in creating distinctive narratives about each. In these stories, specific locations are transformed into venues defined by particular kinds of interactions, whether between citizen and alien, debtor and creditor, prostitute and client, or dancing master and country gentleman. Collectively, they suggest how city space could be used and by whom, and they make place the arena for addressing pressing urban problems: demographic change and the influx of foreigners and strangers into the city; new ways of making money and losing it; changing gender roles within the metropolis; and the rise of a distinctive "town culture" in the West End. Drawing on a wide range of familiar and little-studied plays from four decades of a defining era of theater history, Theater of a City shows how the stage imaginatively shaped and responded to the changing face of early modern London.

The Enchanted Years of the Stage

The Enchanted Years of the Stage PDF Author: Felicia Hardison Londré
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826265855
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
"Drawing on the recollections of renowned theater critic David Austin Latchaw and on newspaper archives of the era, Londre chronicles the "first golden age" of Kansas City theater, from the opening of the Coates Opera House in 1870 through the gradual decline of touring productions after World War I"--Provided by publisher.

Music Hall: How a City Built a Theater and a Theater Shaped a City

Music Hall: How a City Built a Theater and a Theater Shaped a City PDF Author: J. Dennis Robinson
Publisher: Great Life Press
ISBN: 9781938394348
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Portsmouth's historic Music Hall has welcomed the best from Victorian superstars Buffalo Bill, Tom Thumb, and Mark Twain to today's top musicians, comics, authors, and performers. Built in 1878, expanded by Frank Jones in 1901, the theater's spacious stage and phenomenal acoustics have made it one of the finest venues in New England. Within these brick walls generations have seen America evolve from minstrel shows and silent films to jaw-dropping musicals and Hollywood blockbusters, from animal acts to symphony orchestras, and from vaudeville slapstick to provocative Ted talks. Behind the scenes, the Music Hall story is a wild ride from thriving to barely surviving and back. Fully researched, artfully written, and richly illustrated, this volume is a must-read for anyone who cherishes the performing arts.Shuttered and decaying during World War II, New Hampshire's vintage venue went on the auction block in 1945. Recast as the Civic, it served as a movie house for the next four decades. Following two failed revivals in the 1980s, the century-old structure came close to being turned into condominiums. Saved from demolition by a grassroots team of volunteers, the nonprofit Friends of the Music Hall launched an unprecedented $13.5 million capital campaign. Signature programs like the "Telluride by the Sea" film festival and "Writers on a New England Stage" have put New Hampshire's historic theater on the national map. Today the restored Music Hall delivers hundreds of diverse cultural events annually, both in the historic 900-seat hall and in its modern new Loft stage nearby. Digging even deeper, this book traces the development of the performing arts in Portsmouth from the arrival of its first settlers. We glimpse the city's colonial gentry partying at the Assembly House, hear the shrill sounds of early church singers, and wander the "lewd amusements" of a post-Revolutionary seaport. We watch as an acre of forest land is transformed from an almshouse and prison to a church, a temperance hall, a public lyceum and a theater. And we discover how that beloved theater--called "the beating heart of cultural Portsmouth"-has shaped the city that built and preserved it.

Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players

Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players PDF Author: Richard Maxwell
Publisher: Westreich Wagner / Greene Naftali
ISBN: 9780997964707
Category : Experimental theater
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This is the first publication on the plays of New York-based experimental theater director and playwright Richard Maxwell (born 1967) and his company New York City Players. His plays have been commissioned by The Wexner Center, Columbus; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Performance Space 122, The Kitchen and Soho Rep in New York; and The Barbican Centre, London. The book captures the experience of actually watching the plays by way of screen-grabs and captions, and in doing so documents nearly 20 years of work. "The writer and director Richard Maxwell is a stylist of the first order ... When I read or think about a Maxwell text, I don't so much recall any other writer. Rather, I think about visual artists and colors...." --Hilton Als, The New Yorker

Charter and Ordinances of the City of Stockton

Charter and Ordinances of the City of Stockton PDF Author: Stockton (Calif.).
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Municipal charters
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description


A Theater of Our Own

A Theater of Our Own PDF Author: Richard Christiansen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Who produced the first stage adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" in 1902-nearly forty years before the movie classic?

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri PDF Author: Carrie Westlake Whitney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Kansas City (Mo.)
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description


The Chinese Lady

The Chinese Lady PDF Author: Lloyd Suh
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
ISBN: 0822239906
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Afong Moy is fourteen years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, THE CHINESE LADY is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

Rand McNally & Co.'s Handy Guide to New York City, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Other Suburbs Included in the Greater New York

Rand McNally & Co.'s Handy Guide to New York City, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Other Suburbs Included in the Greater New York PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : New York (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description