NEWSLETTER FALL 2004
Returning from Lost Hills
By Paula Donnelly
Returning from Lost Hills, Cornerstone Theater Company's first Institute summer residency program has been a great success. Eighteen students joined Cornerstone's staff and residents of Lost Hills, CA, to produce Waking Up In Lost Hills A Central California Rip Van Winkle.
The students were eighteen wonderful
individuals of diverse ages and backgrounds. Students ranged in age from 21
59 and came from Brooklyn, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Arizona, Virginia,
and the Los Angeles area. Some are undergraduate or graduate students in theater
programs. There was a social worker, a filmmaker, a few educators and professional
theater artists. They are at different points in their career paths but all
came to Cornerstone Institute with eager and open minds and hearts and a sense
of adventure.
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Uppity Gets "as American as Apple Pie"
by Joan Lipkin
Almost 400 people packed the new Contemporary Art
Museum in St Louis the weekend of May 22nd & 23rd to see St. Louis's first
theater production featuring original work by GLBT youth and PFLAG parents.
As American as Apple Pie was co-directed and produced by Joan Lipkin, artistic
director of That Uppity Theatre Company, in collaboration with PFLAG and Growing
American Youth, a support group for teens.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Sheila Kerrigan just started a new job at Duke: coordinator of education and community programs. She is the liaison between campus arts events and the community, eventually working towards getting Duke artists and arts students working in community settings long-term.
Sheila is the author of The Performer's Guide to the Collaborative Process, (Heinemann, 2001). Karen Currie reviewed the book in the latest Teaching Artist Journal [2 (3), 201-208]. Below are a couple of things she wrote:
"While the examples are based in the development of
a performance piece, the
information really applies to any working group of people. I couldn't help
but reflect on problems that I have experienced in work and personal
situations that could have been prevented had the group started off with
some of the described guidelines. Creating an environment where people are
not afraid to try anything at all and are not afraid to fail--especially in
a situation asking people to bring their personal stories to the table--is
essential to creating a successful group...."
"Kerrigan's ideas, culled from interviews and her own
experiences, create a
useful and effective guide to both the development of an idea and the
collaborative process."
Sheila can be reached at: kerrigan@mindspring.com and information about The Performer's Guide to the Collaborative Process can be found at: www.collaborativecreativity.com
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"Play and Violence" class in NYC starting
January 21, 2005
A class on "Play and Violence" will meet once a month on Fridays 7-9pm, starting January 21, 2005, at the Institute for the Arts in Psychotherapy, New York City. Contact Fred Landers, (718) 832-8094, Landers123@aol.com, for information or to register. Registration deadline is January 14, 2005.
In this class, we will consider whether certain forms of play offer a means of preventing violent behavior. Through lecture and discussion we will look at how repetition and difference, the making of and launching from territories, and the thinking of time show up in play and violence. Through participation in a play practice at each class meeting, we will explore the qualities of play for ourselves.
Fred Landers, MA, RDT is a drama therapist and theater activist who has applied the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson to understanding the potential of play to decrease violence. He is a member of the Institute for Developmental Transformations and a PhD candidate in clinical psychology through the Union Institute and University. His articles, “Dismantling Violent Forms of Masculinity Through Developmental Transformations” and “Ethical Implications of Deleuze’s Ontology of Immanence for Drama Therapy Practice,” will be available at the first meeting of the class.
Magical Realism and Theatre of the Oppressed
in Taiwan:
Rectifying Unbalanced Realities with Chung Chiao’s Assignment Theatre
By Ronald E. Smith
How can one dismantle the oppressor’s house without using the tools of the oppressor? Assignment Theatre, a “people’s theatre” company from Taipei, Taiwan is currently wrestling with this conundrum. The group attempts to synthesize the literary style of magical realism with theories and practices of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed to act as a social corrective against injustice.
Who Wants to Marry My President?: Hyperreality
and George W. Bush
By Robin Stone
Television is a central component of the lives of most Americans. We Americans experience much of the world through these boxes; we have constant access to drama, news, sports, advertisements, pornography, politics, and so on. Television has become the ubiquitous medium of expression for official institutions, the forum for a dramatically presented political process through which information is shaped and beliefs are organized. James Combs asserts that "major dramas of society occur in the context of institutional settings and roles. . . . Most of us believe that the institutions are the legitimate theatre, the appropriate play for our society."