Contemporary American Theatre  American Theatre Today  Funding is less available due to conservative politics.  Attacks on subject matter.  Less funding for new works and Non-profit theatres  Competition with Technology  Development of Non-traditional theatre  Avant-garde, experimental or post-modernist theatre  Similar to the art movements  Representational vs. Non-realistic

 The performance is no longer begun with the work of a playwright but may be through improv, found objects, a one-person performance piece, an auteur director’s vision, etc.  To reflect the confused, chaotic, often irrational work in which we live.  Happenings:  Unstructured events that occurred with a minimum of planning and organization  Art should not be restricted to galleries and museums, etc, but should happen anywhere  Multi-media:  A joining of theatre with other arts-dance, film, and TV.  Live performers interact with sequences on film etc.  Incorporate new technology not compete with it.  Performance Art  Environmental theatre  Term was coined in 1960s by Richard Schechner  Developed from the work of Meyerhold and Artaud  Treat the entire space as a performance area, suggesting that any division between performers and viewers is artificial.  Similar to Jerzy Grotowski – Poor theatre  Poor in scenery an special effects  Off-off Broadway theatres -  Café LaMama, The Living Theatre, The Open Theatre  The Performance Group, Mabou Mines, and the Wooster Group  Deal with images, impressions, fragments and segments.  Postmodernism  A.O. Scott – film critic  “a cool, ironic effect: the overt pastiche of work from the past; the insouciant mixture of high and low styles”  Rebel against traditional readings of texts, arguing that theatre productions may have a variety of “authors” including the director and even individual audience members.  Deconstructing classical texts  The Wooster Group – highly theatricalized and physical versions of plays.  Mix abstractions and realism so that their works cannot be easily classified.  The Lion King – Julie Taymor  Traditional American Theatre  Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, and Edward Albee.  Sam Shepard and David Mamet mix traditional theatre with original style.  Blur the lines between realism and abstraction  Horton Foote, John Guare, Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein  Theatre of Diversity  African American Theatre – black theatre  African Grove theatre 1820-1821 closed 1827 after attacks by white audience members  Minstrel shows  1930’s Federal theatre Project  Created a new generation of theatre artists of the 1940’s and 1950’s  Lorraine Hansbury, Langston Hughes, August Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy  1970, the Black Theatre Alliance listed 125 producing groups in the US  Now – Suzan-Lori Parks, Pearl Cleage, and Cheryl West female playwrights. Topdog/underdog – Pulitzer Prize in 2002  Asian American Theatre  1850’s – puppet shows, acrobatic acts, and traditional Chinese Opera.  Mostly relegated to stereotyped characters  1965 East West players in Los Angeles  Employed Asian performers, and produced dramas from the Asian cultural heritage and emphasized new plays written by and for Asian Americans.  1980’s David Henry Hwang – playwright  M. Butterfly  Hispanic Theatre  Sometimes in Spanish sometimes in English  Chicano Theatre  During the Civil rights movement in 1960’s in the West and Southwest  Might be Agitprop pieces “Agitation Propaganda”  “Zoot Suit” – play about racial violence in Los Angeles in 1943  Cuban American  Developed chiefly in Florida  Federal theatre project developed 14 Cuban American productions.  Maria Irena Fornes, Manuel Martin, Mario Pena, Omar Torres, Nilo Cruz and Eduardo Machado

 Puerto Rican or Nuyorican  Mostly in New York  Began to be produced in 1960’s and 1970’s  Miguel Pinero, Yvette Ramirez, Candido, Tirado, Carmen Rivera

 Native American Theatre  Spiritual and Social Traditions that had theatrical elements  Native American Theatre Ensemble  Founded by Hanay Geiogamah – Kiowa Delaware Tribe  Premiere performance at La Mama in NYC 1972  Spiderwoman Theatre both Native American and Feminist theatre  Longest running women’s theatre in North America since 1975 as well as longest running Native American theatre  3 Founding members: Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel  Draw on storytelling and other theatrical traditions to celebrate their identity as American Indian Women and to comment on stereotypes of women in general.

 Native Voices at the Autry  Present Native American Drama at the Illinois State University.  In 2000, invited to bring project to Autry in Los Angeles to be full time producing organization.  Native American theatre is not primarily historical or ceremonial, but incorporate tribal traditions with the problems and aspirations of today’s Native Americans.  William F. Yellow Robe, Jr., Diane Glance, E. Donald Tw o-Rivers, Bruce King.

 Gay/Lesbian Theatre  In the 19th Century, men often appeared in “drag”  1934 Lillian Hellman’s, The Children’s Hour  1968 the Boys in the Band by Matt Crowley  Terrance McNally  Harvey Fierstein Torch Song Trilogy  Emphasis on Gay rights and AIDS crisis  Political Theatre  George Bernard Shaw or Bertolt Brecht  Anti-Vietnam War, AIDs, Gay/Lesbian, Feminist theatre, Anti-Iraq War etc.

 Performance Art  Comes from Avant-garde, DaDa, surrealism - that attacked traditional values and forms  And the Theories of Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski  Early on related to Painting and Dance  1970’s emphasized the body as art – might go through daily routines or self inflict pain in a gallery or theatre setting.  Some focused on site specific or environmental pieces like subway or part  Emphasis was on visual and not story telling  Now performance art is associated with individual artists who present autobiographical material.  Often nudity or other controversial representations of sexuality confront audience.  Anna Deavere Smith won acclaim for pieces dealing with racial unrest. (Rodney King)  Contemporary American theatre takes many forms and appeals to varied audiences.