The Trial of the Catonville Nine: 2009 Brisbane Festival Teacher Resource
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This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Gattenhof, Sandra, Hewitt, Rebecca,& Brown, Brent (2009) The trial of the Catonville Nine : 2009 Brisbane Festival teacher resource. Brisbane Festival. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/27263/ c Copyright Sandra Gattenhof, Rebecca Hewitt and Brent Brown This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. http:// www.brisbanefestival.com.au/ Teachers-Resources/ 0,15,346,015. aspx TEACHER RESOURCE MATERIALS FOR The Trial of the Catonsville Nine 24 – 27 September 2009 Teacher Resource Material Writers: Dr Sandra Gattenhof, Rebecca Hewitt and Brent Brown Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty (Drama) with thanks to Holly Reif from Brisbane Festival. Copyright – © 2009 Sandra Gattenhof, Rebecca Hewitt and Brent Brown. Brisbane Festival is entitled to use the work for the purpose for which it was commissioned. Any other reproduction must seek the permission of the copyright holders. Contact [email protected] Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials 2 The Trial of the Catonsville Nine CONTENTS Teacher Resource Materials – How to use this Guide 4 Production Information 5 Synopsis 5 Content Suitability 6 Orientating Activities 7 Enhancing Activities 11 Synthesising Activities 14 Sample Assessment Tasks 14 Performance Analysis 16 Writing a Review Pt. 1 17 Writing a Review Pt. 2 18 Resources to Assist in Understanding 19 Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials 3 The Trial of the Catonsville Nine TEACHER RESOURCE MATERIALS - HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE Teacher Resource Materials are a guide designed to enhance students’ knowledge about, and responses to, performance experiences. It provides information about the performance, student activities, advice about audience roles and responsibilities, and resources for further investigation by students and teachers. Teacher Resource Materials gives you, the educator, the ability to prepare your students for the process of reading and interpreting a performance whether that is through performance themes, form and style, or design elements. Experience and research indicate that students’ understanding of, and responses to, performance are enhanced through sound educational experiences. This material will help you lead students to discover information, to explore processes, and to respond in critical and creative ways. Because teachers are accountable for how students use time during the school day, time at performances, like time in the classroom, must be justified for educational value. Teacher Resource Materials ensures that learning outcomes for performances are both appropriate and clear. As an educator, you may like to make use of all the activities in this guide to prepare your students to view and unpack the performance. However, Brisbane Festival also understands that your visit to a performance is not a one off event, but forms part of a larger unit of classroom work – an investigation into contemporary theatre, the use of the elements of drama within a theatrical performance, or enabling students to analyze a performance work using the structures of theatre criticism. Therefore you may not wish to use all the suggested activities, but ‘pick and mix’ what is appropriate for your classroom work and your students. Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials 4 The Trial of the Catonsville Nine The Trial of the Catonsville Nine by Daniel Berrigan Venue: Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse Directed by Jon Kellam Written by Daniel Berrigan “Part of This” Written and Performed by Cameron Dye CAST Daniel Berrigan: Andrew E. Wheeler Phillip Berrigan: Scott Harris Thomas Lewis: Chris Schultz David Darst: Colin Golden George Mische: Corey G. Lovett Marjorie Melville: Patti Tippo Thomas Melville: George Ketsios Mary Moylan: Paige Lindsey White John Hogan: Ethan Kogan Judge: Adele Robbins Movement Direction: Melina Bielefelt & Jon Kellam Suzuki & Movement Training: Melina Bielefelt Scenic Design: Sybil Wickersheimer Lighting Design: Jacqueline Reid Costume Design: Susan Dalian Original Music and Sound Design: Dave Robbins Original Artwork: Okan Arabacioglu Stage Manager: Jacqueline Reid Assistant Stage Manager: Joel Kimmel Technical Coordinator: Mia Torres Associate Director: Melina Bielefelt Synopsis This acclaimed script written by poet priest Daniel Berrigan brings to life the dramatic 1968 trial of two Catholic priests and seven fellow Catholic activists who committed an act of civil disobedience, burning hundreds of draft files they had seized with homemade napalm, to protest the War in Vietnam. The subsequent trial and publicity galvanized the anti-war movement. While condemned as criminals in a court of law, they were hailed as patriots in the streets. Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials 5 The Trial of the Catonsville Nine CONTENT SUITABILITY for [NAME OF SHOW] Year Levels 10, 11 and 12 Language Mild level coarse language Sexual References Medium level sexual references Setting 1968 North America CURRICULUM APPLICATIONS Drama Political Theatre Documentary Drama English Privileged voice/Reader (audience) positioning Discourses of War, Law and Religion Studies of Society and Environment Modern History Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials 6 The Trial of the Catonsville Nine ORIENTATING ACTIVITIES About the Playwright – Father Daniel Berrigan In May of 1968, nine devout Catholic priests and lay followers marched into the Selective Services building in Catonsville, Baltimore, and seized 378 Vietnam War 1-A draft papers. In the car-park outside, they then proceeded to set fire to these drafts with homemade napalm, reciting the Lord’s Prayer as the flames gathered momentum and the police arrived to arrest the group. General public sentiment towards the Vietnam War had started to turn negative by the time of the Catonsville protest, and other political and civil rights movements had come to the fore in America; a month before the burning of the draft papers, Martin Luther King Jr had been assassinated, and protests against the use of nuclear arms was beginning to grow louder. However, to most in middle-America, the Vietnam War was still generally supported. Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest and anti-war political protester, scripted Trial of the Catonsville Nine in 1971, three years after his initial arrest for his involvement in the Catonsville protest. Although he’d been able to evade imprisonment shortly after he was given a three year sentence (earning himself a place on the FBI’s “Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitive” list), he was eventually caught, though released shortly thereafter. Berrigan’s brother, Phillip was also involved and arrested for his participation in the Catonsville protest. The play was produced as a feature film in 1972, and was performed for the first time theatrically in 2009 in Los Angeles. Since the trial of the Catonsville Nine, Father Berrigan has served additional jail time for damaging nuclear warheads and destroying documents with human and animal blood at a General Electric nuclear missile facility. At the age of 88, he still works as a teacher and poet-in-residence at Fordham University in New York. He still actively organises and participates in anti-war, anti-racism and anti-abortion demonstrations and protests. Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials 7 The Trial of the Catonsville Nine Performance Review In order to engage students with the potential themes and performative aspects within The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, have students read the following review from the production’s opening season. Performance Review of The Trial of the Catonsville Nine from the Los Angeles Journal 16 February 2009 by Ed Rampell The mood was set opening night when octogenarian author/activist Gore Vidal rolled up in his wheelchair to Tim Robbins at The Actors’ Gang’s theatre lobby, extending his hand to the troupe’s Artistic Director, intoning the word: “Solidarity.” Inside, in front of the stage, flanked by Robbins and Managing Director Elizabeth Doran, Vidal and another wheelchair warrior, Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, spoke out against today’s wars before the curtain rose for the evening’s play. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine is a dramatization of one of the most celebrated acts of resistance against the Vietnam War, which Vidal had been a vocal opponent of. Six years ago this February, at a Sunset Blvd. rally Vidal also spoke out against the then-impending invasion of Iraq as part of the largest mass demonstrations in human history. Robbins,