Tag Archives: theatre

Summer Update

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Sharyn

We are at the tail end of July, and as usual, I haven’t completed nearly enough work over the summer break. The fact that I and so many other academics constantly worry about their productivity over what is ostensibly vacation … Continue reading →

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What Does Conservative Theatre Look Like?

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Sharyn

I am teaching an upper level elective, American Drama, this semester. My students are about to embark on their final projects, which are “play recovery” projects. The students had to find a lesser-known play they thought could be placed into … Continue reading →

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Angels in America at the Actors Theatre

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Sharyn

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to see Part 2, “Perestroika,” of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. As I have mentioned several times in this blog, I teach Angels regularly as part of my 20th century … Continue reading →

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Prison & Performance

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Sharyn

Welcome to the start of the brand new 2017-18 academic year! I am feeling sightly off-kilter still, since the ECLIPSE took up quite a bit of the first day of our semester, but I was happy our students got a … Continue reading →

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Mime Field

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Sharyn

      The internet anger machine has finally discovered the San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT), a political theatre group that has been active since 1959. Over the July 1 weekend, the Troupe premiered their new play, Walls, about an unlikely … Continue reading →

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Fences…Meh?

Posted on April 10, 2017 by Sharyn

This is going to sound awfully petty, or snobbish, but I finally got around to watching Fences, the filmed adaptation of the August Wilson play from 2016. Directed by and starring Denzel Washington, it essentially adapts the 2010 Broadway revival in … Continue reading →

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Drama is Always Relevant

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Sharyn

I’m teaching a new-to-me play in my Introduction to Drama course this semester: Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. I feel quite ignorant for not having read any of his work before, but I am an Americanist, … Continue reading →

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Book Orders, How Do They Work?

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Sharyn

It’s that time of the semester–time to submit my textbook orders for the impossibly far-seeming Fall semester 2017. The pressure to get them in on time is pretty strong, since each department gets a stipend from the book store that … Continue reading →

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Trumptuffe

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Sharyn

I was teaching the 17th century French play Tartuffe, by Molière, last week to students in my introduction to drama class. We got into a really interesting discussion about hypocrisy and why phony human beings irritate us so much. Why is … Continue reading →

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It’s not “Street Theatre” if you freak out the oppressed

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Sharyn

As a scholar of political theatre, I would love nothing more than to see a resurgence of activist drama, agitprop theatre, and street theatre in these times. Because proposals floated by the Trump administration have not been reassuring to artists, scholars, or … Continue reading →

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