Unit 3 THE542 Theatre History Exam (Chap. 14-15)

Adrienne Kennedy

African American playwright known for "Funnyhouse of a Negro" (1964).

Alan Schneider

American director who based productions on absurdist plays of Beckett, Albee, and Pinter.

Al-Kasaba Theatre

Palestinian theatre based in West Bank with frequent performances in London.

Amiri Baraka

African American playwright associated with Beat poets, known for works like "Dutchman."

Angry Young Playwrights

1950s British dramatists focusing on class structure post-war, including John Osborne and Edward Bond.

Anna Deavere Smith

African American performance artist known for portraying real people through interviews and racial representation.

Anne Bogart

Female director known for development of Viewpoints, a movement-based approach that blends different acting techniques.

Founded the Saratoga International Theatre Institute with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki

Antonin Artaud

French playwright known for Theatre of Cruelty, emphasizing rigour and cosmic cruelty in performance.

Arena Stage

Theatre with audience surrounding the stage, creating intimacy and unique entrances/exits.

Ariane Mnouchkine

French director known for blending eastern and western traditions in Theatre du Soleil.

Arthur Miller

American playwright focusing on individual responsibility in society, famous for "Death of A Salesman."

Athol Fugard

South African (white) playwright who attacked apartheid, (in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race. 

August Wilson

Playwright exploring African American experience in the 20th century, known for plays like "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."

Augusto Boal

Brazilian playwright and theorist known for developing Theatre of the Oppressed and Forum Theatre.

Beijing Opera

Traditional Chinese opera form that became repopularized after Mao's death.

Black Arts Movement

Emphasized black arts for black audiences and social change, led by figures like Amiri Baraka.

Bob Fosse

American actor and choreographer known for book musicals and unified productions.

Book Musicals

A production combining story, music, lyrics, and dance so that the production combines tone, mood, and intention in a unified whole.

Caryl Churchill

English playwright known for formal doubling of characters, cross gender casting, anachronism etc. to address issues of social identities (gender, race, etc.)

Associated with English Stage Company and Joint Stock Company

Charles Ludlam

Founder of Ridiculous Theatrical Company, known for camp and breaking audience expectations.

Chicano Theatre

Addresses issues faced by Hispanic Americans, popularized by El Teatro Campesino.

Concept Musicals

Musical theatre emphasizing style, theme, and metaphors over traditional plot lines.

Dario Fo

Italian comic political playwright, Nobel Prize winner, known for works like "Accidental Death of an Anarchist."

Documentary drama

Drama that developed in 1960s Germany in based on historical documents, modified for documentary effect.

Peter Weiss and Emily Mann often participated in this type of drama.

Ed Bullins

Playwright that experimented with Black Ritual and published the journal Black Theatre

Edward Albee

Absurdist playwright who founded a theatre to encourage the production of new plays.

Absurdist plays: The American Dream, The Zoo Story

Edward Bond

Playwright associated with Angry young playwrights 

Plays: Look Back in Anger and Saved 

Lorraine Hansberry

Female African American playwright known for A Raisin in the Sun

Mabou Mines 

Founded by Lee Breuer (1937-2021); Known for productions of Beckett and Strong visual style: use cartoons and pop culture as inspiration

Ellen Stewart

Founder of Café La Mama 

Environmental Theatre 

Coined by Richard Schender putting emphasis on using entire theatre as performance space. Play with, and destroy, space between performer and audience 

Eugene Ionesco

Romanian Absurdist playwright

Existentialism  

Existence is inherently meaningless; human beings are responsible for their own meanin

Free Southern Theatre 

Founded in 1963, based in New Orleans, toured rural Louisiana 

George C. Wolfe

Became director of Public Theatre in 1993 and directed Angels in America, among other plays 

Happenings

Short-lived movement, influential, staged but not controlled, fragmented performance, audience participation. Kantor’s popular Cuttlefish was best known of thses

Harold Pinter

Multimedia Theatre

Emphasizes multiple artists from different fields, incorporates various art forms, focuses on multimedia work.

Poor Theatre

Concept by Grotowski, strips down inessential elements, extensive actor training, non-verbal performance emphasis.

Julie Taymor

director, designer who Uses puppets and masks in many of her productions: The Tempest, Gozzi’s The Green Bird, etc

Josef Svoboda

Czech designer who trained as artist and carpenter and Experimented with new materials and techniques: projections mixed with live performers (laterna magika), platforms, plastics

Joseph Papp

Founded Public Theatre in 1967 and started NY Shakespeare Festival in 1954. Also successful producer: Hair, A Chorus Line, David Rabe’s plays

Less successful at Lincoln Center

Kathikali 

Indian dance drama presented in torch light featuring clashes of good and evil. 

Lanterna Magika

Design technique by Josef Svoboda, uses projections, multimedia, dynamic settings to reflect text changes.

Living Theatre

Founded by Malina and Beck, avant-garde dramas, influenced by Artaud, emphasized immediacy and communality.

Neil Simon

American playwright, screenwriter, television writer, and librettist who focused on the everyday lives and domestic problems of ordinary middle-class people, which examine his characters’ marital and other dilemmas and, for comic effect, play up the incongruity of their situations.

Chicano Theatre

Overtly political, influenced by commedia, focuses on Latino causes, audience participation expected.

Off-Off-Broadway

Center for experimentation, new talent introduction, environmental theatre, response to Broadway commercialism.

Karen Finley

Known for the controversial performance "We Keep Our Victims Ready" that sparked NEA issues.

Performance Art

Contemporary art form addressing political and social issues through live presentations. Breaks down performance barriers, influenced by avant-garde forms, focuses on ritual elements, interdisciplinary work.

Open Theatre

Founded by 1963 by Joseph Chikin after leaving the Living Theatre Group. Experimented with improvisation, restructuring of text, environmental staging, and acting based on externals

Paula Vogel

Known for dramas that focus on dysfunctional families, domestic violence, and gender issues

Performance Group

Founded by Richard Schechner in 1968, known for environmental stagings which reworked relationship between audience and performers

Richard Foreman

Founded Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 1968 . Work is often metatheatrical and reflexive .

Peter Brook

Renowned director of Shakespeare and contemporary plays, influenced by Artaud and Grotowski.

Peter Hall

Eclectic who worked on Pinter and Beckett early in his career. Later career built on tours of Shakespeare and other plays 

Peter Handke

German dramatists who created surreal plays that focus on difficulties of communication: Offending the Audience, Kaspar, Ride Across Lake Constance 

Peter Stein

Western European director (German) who worked with postmodern politicized work including Brecht’s The Mother and Ibsen’s Peer Gynt

Peter Weiss

Documentary drama playwright 

Plays: The Investigation (1965) 

Poor Theatre

Term coined by Jerzy Grotowski to describe his idea of theatre stripped to it’s barest essentials. Grotowski demand that lavish sets, light, and costumes associated with theatre reflect only base materialistic values and must be eliminated.

Postmodernist Style

Challenges objective truth and traditional art definitions, emphasizing a distrust of narratives and rationality.

Realism in Postwar American Drama

Selective or symbolic representation of reality in plays by Miller and Williams.

Regional Theatre

Post-WWII movement broadening the professional theatre base in the US with venues like Alley Theatre and Guthrie Theatre.

Roger Blin

French Absurdist director known for stagings of Beckett

Sam Shepherd

Uses images of American West, pop culture, gangster mythology; storytelling figures prominently (hints of Pinter)

Began off-off Broadway with experimental work

Icarus’ Mother, The Rock Garden, La Turista

Later, The Tooth of Crime (a rock musical)

Samuel Beckett

Leading Absurdist playwright known for works like "Waiting for Godot" and "Endgame."

Stephen Sondheim

Influential composer and lyricist known for complex music and satirical subject matter in musicals.

Split Britches

satirizes canonical literature (Belle Reprieve)

Theatre de Complicité 

An alternative company that integrates that recieved global recognition for work that is integrating text, music, image, and action to create surprising, disruptive theatre. Founded in 1983 by Simon McBurnie (b.1957)

Theatre of Cruelty

Antonin Arturd’s visionary concept of theatre based on magic and ritual which liberated deep, violent, erotic impulses. Arturd wanted to reveal the cruelty he saw as existing beneath all human actions 

Theatre of the Absurd

Coined by Martin Esslin to describe plays that suggested that the world is essentially meaningless and used a form that gave audience direct apprehension of the theme of meaninglessness

In these plays, human endeavor, language, culture, etc. is presented as meaningless; Plotless or circular structure, incomprehensible dialogue

Applied to a wide variety of playwrights: Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Durrenmatt, Adamov, Pinter, Albee, etc.

Theatre of the Oppressed

Methodology developed by Augusto Boal to address social and political issues through interactive performances.

Wooster Group

Alternative theatre company known for deconstructions of classical texts and innovative use of collage and video.

Invisible Theatre

Performances in public spaces where actors interact with unaware audiences, aiming to provoke thought and discussion about social issues by blurring the line between reality and performance.

Legislative Theatre

Engaging communities in theatrical exercises to identify problems and propose legislative solutions, promoting dialogue and civic engagement.

Wendy Wasserstein

Significant Off-Broadway dramatist known for "The Heidi Chronicles" (1988).

Wole Soyinka

Influential African playwright writing in English, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1986.

Guerilla Theater

Political theatre unit founded by Wole Soyinka at the University of Ife.

Zoot Suit

Political musical about the Zoot Suit riots in LA in 1943, focusing on Chicano identity in the US.

Episodic Structure

Theatrical format with disconnected scenes, influenced by Brecht, used in "Zoot Suit" to blend history and mythology.