THAR 281 Lecture 12 Outline of Last Lecture Epic Theatre I II III IV V VI Epic Theatre Erwin Piscator Bertolt Brecht Piscator vs Brecht Shared Beliefs Brechtian techniques Berliner Ensemble Outline of Current Lecture I American Theatre a Show Boat b OKLAHOMA NON Commercial Theatre a Provincetown Playhouse b Eugene O Neil c Robert Edmund Jones WPA Works Progress Administration The Group Theatre African American Theatre a Porgy and Bess American Postwar Playwrights post WWII a Arthur Miller b Tennessee Williams II III IV V VI Test review Thursday American Theatre Commercial Theatre Between ww1 ww2 the most dominant form of theatre in America Theatre were you just do commercials Theatre for a profit example Broadway produce works to make money Non profit theatres theatre itself doesn t make extra money acters are paid designers etc they just break even These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Musicals most popular form of commercial theatre o Most commercially successful o Revenues o Musical comedies o Composers Richard Rodgers George Gershwin Cole Porter Irving Berlin Jerome Kerrn o Example WICKED a musical with a storyline known as a story o At first not all musicals started out this way o The used to have comic sketches with musicals in between and had nothing to do with the scene before or after it Just a bunch of feel good skits and songs o Important after WWI because people needed fun First example of an integrated musical Show Boat Show Boat 1927 Jerome Kern Oscar Hammerstein II First attempt of integrated musical OKLAHOMA Big change over to style seen today 1943 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein Integrated Musical next and most successful attempt Known for its dream scene done through dance o Good example of integration Evolution of musicals NON Commercial Theatre Theatres not for profit 1915 The little Theatre Movement o Similar to independent theatre movement in Europe o Provincetown Playhouse o Washington Square Players Provincetown Playhouse George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspell 1st theatre to produce work of Eugene O Neill and produce the designs of Robert Edmund Jones New American drama Eugene O Neill Playwright America s most important playwright Realism expressionism 1st American dramatist to win a Nobel Prize for Literature Known for making theatre grow up Helped inspire other works he paved the way for Arthur Miller Walker etc He was troubled and his plays portrayed that they helped him work through his issues As a child his mother had a morphine addiction and he was blamed because it happened after he was born Works o The Hairy Ape more surreal piece o The Iceman Cometh o Long Days Journey Into Night most well known Robert Edmund Jones Scenic lighting and Costume Designer o Advocated community of design What was put on stage as a designer should help to tell the story of the play and serves it new stagecraft movement o Selective realism in terms of design you take specific parts of reality and use them to suggest the locale The Dramatic Imagination Father of modern American Scene design The Group Theatre o Stanislavski system of acting o Socially relevant drama wanted to bring about social change o Motivate political and social change o Disbanded 1941 Members Lee Strasberg Cheryl Crawford Stella Adler and Harold Clurman WPA Works Progress Administration o President Franklin D Roosevelt o Depression o Started to create jobs for people o Started federal theatre project Federal Theatre Project o Non commercial theatre o Hallie Flannigan Davis ran by o Aided theatre artists during the depression o Used as an escape Ended support in 1939 Important Contributions o The living newspaper o Current event stories were acted out in front of people Satire got the news out there for those who could or didn t read African American Theatre African American Theatre o 22 different ones created o Produced new works and introduced African American talent to these areas Ethel Waters singer Paul Roberts athlete singer actor Porgy and Bess most well known African American musical premiered 1935 written by 3 white men Important landmark American Postwar Playwrights post WWII Selective Realism heightens certain details of action scenery and dialogue while omitting others Arthur Miller Playwright and essayist Won the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman His plays were about o Effects of society o Failure o Responsibility o Guilt Tennessee Williams Playwright Known for lyrical drama Used selective realism Wrote about o Social outcasts o Outcasts in hostile environments o victims