[On April 6th,
1947, the first Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre—or the Tony Awards for short—were
given in New York City. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of texts
and moments in American theater, leading up to this crowd-sourced post drawn
from the responses and ideas of fellow AmericanDramaStudiers. Add yours in
comments, please!]
First, here’s
Emily Lauer’s great Guest
Post on Hamilton! For this post,
Emily Tweets, “It feels like I’ve been writing frequently about theater lately!
Here’s a link to a
particularly American theater story I wrote about Fun Home for @womenoncomics.”
Responding to Monday’s
post on Trifles, Irene
Martyniuk writes, “I actually begin every semester of Modern
Drama out of chronological order with Glaspell’s Trifles. It is so smart on so many levels and offers much to
consider—not only in content, but also in understanding how plays work. Trifles is brilliant at helping students
understand staging, costumes, and different acting interpretations. And,
it emphasizes how sometimes really important things aren’t there—you don’t have
to cast Minnie Foster and Mr. Wright, but they are central characters.”
Kelly Stowell writes, “The first thing I thought of was Minstrel
shows, which are often called ‘the roots of
black theatre.’ Oddly enough, they were first written by whites, and performed
by actors in blackface for white audiences. Then there's the whole Harlem
Renaissance that started around 1920, which was
a wonderful period of artistic and social expansion for Blacks. I have to run
off and collect set pieces, and don't have time to expand on this...but the
Minstrel show aspect is interesting and kind of typical of white folks...and
the Harlem Renaissance is fascinating.”
Matt Ramsden
highlights, “Always Suzan-Lori Parks.
She approaches theatre as an ‘incubator for history’ which allows her to
reimagine the past as she sees fit. Great plays to check out are Topdog/Underdog,
Father
Comes Home from The Wars and In
The Blood.”
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other dramatic works or moments you’d highlight?
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