DTSA

THE GREEN ROOM

A newsletter for the community of
 the Ph.D. Program in Theatre
 at The CUNY Graduate Center

Published twice yearly by the 
Doctoral Theatre Students Association (DTSA)

Upcoming DTSA Events

End of the Year Party:  Thursday, May 14 at 6:30 pm (Theatre Department, Green Room)

Faculty News

Marvin Carlson writes: During the intersession I was a visiting professor at the University of Warwick, where I gave a series of lectures on Space in the theatre and a special lecture on modern Arabic theatre.  In March I attended with other Cornelliam member of the faculty (Judy Milhous and David Savran) a special symposium on Celebrity at Cornell honoring the 20^th anniversary of the new theatre building there.  At the close of the symposium the establishment of an annual prize in my name for a distinguished graduate student paper was announced. I contributed a chapter on 19^th century theatre in Germany to the Cambridge History of German Theatre which appeared this spring, as did a special issue of the journal Ecumenica devoted to theatre and Islam, which I co-edited with Hazem Azmy.  I also contributed to the roundtable on plagiarism which appeared in the April issue of TDR. I will be leaving in a few days for my usual spring trip to Berlin to attend the annual Theatertreffen there, beginning a summer of travel.  In June I will deliver a keynote address on intercultural and immigrant theatre in Vienna.  In July I will present a paper and head the Arabic theatre working group at the FIRT conference in Lisbon and in August will give another keynote, this one on Shakespeare and the media at the Shakespeare Festival in Gdansk, Poland.  This is the same weekend as ATHE, but I plan to get back for the last day of ATHE, where I am scheduled to appear on a panel.

Dan Gerould writes: The Segal Center has had a busy spring program schedule. I’ve been particularly involved in planning several of the events. The first was our celebration of the Polish-American actress Helena Modjeska (who played opposite Edwin Booth in Macbeth and Othello), on the one hundredth anniversary of her death April 8. I moderated the discussion between Professor Beth Holmgren of Duke University and Professor Andrzej Zurowski from Poland. I also worked on the Earth Week Celebration on April 23, which featured an evening program, Towards Sustainable Green Theatre in New York, and an afternoon symposium organized by three Ph.D. Candidates, Jessica Brater, Hillary Miller, and Marina Volok (who had taken an ecocriticism independent study course with me last semester). Una Chaudhuri gave the keynote address, “Animals, Environments, Performance;”  Jessica and Hillary read papers, and Marina moderated. I’ve also taken part in some of the major events of the Year of Grotowski, moderating on April 17 “Grotowski in Communist Poland” at John Jay–more is to come. At the same time I’ve been a co-editor of a forthcoming anthology of new Czech plays, which will be launched on June 15.

Jean Graham-Jones writes: It’s been a busy spring.  My translation of Ricardo Monti’s latest play, Apocalipsis mañana (Apocalypse Tomorrow), was published-together with an introduction to Monti and his play-in the online Mercurian: A Theatrical Translation Review.  I’m currently preparing a translation of Tercer cuerpo (Third Wing), a new play by Claudio Tolcachir.  You’ll be able to catch Timbre 4′s original and highly acclaimed production at this summer’s TeatroStageFest here in NYC.  I also have an article on Argentinean troupe La Pista 4 soon to appear in Latin American Theatre Review.  Earlier this spring I had the pleasure of serving as the Theatre History Symposium respondent at the annual meeting of the Mid-America Theatre Conference, and I also participated in a one-day conference on Colombian performance troupe Mapa Teatro during their residency with Yale University’s World Performance Project.  In early May I travel to San Diego, where I’ll join a symposium of scholars and artists celebrating the retirement of UCSD’s Professor Jorge Huerta.

In March, Judy Milhous introduced Marvin Carlson at a conference held at Cornell University to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of their performing arts center.  A new prize for the best graduate student paper in the theatre program there has been named for Marvin, who got his PhD from Cornell and taught there for twenty years.   In May Judy will give a paper, “Picturing Dance in Eighteenth-Century England,” at the Dance Symposium, Dance and the Image, to be held at New College, Oxford.   She is looking forward to gardening in State College, Pennsylvania, again this summer and is hoping some of last year’s plantings will have survived the winter.

David Savran writes: Along with Judy Milhous and Marvin Carlson, I went up to Cornell University in late March for a conference sponsored by the Theatre Department for Cornell alumni and graduate students entitled Causes Célèbres.  About a dozen alumni returned for the event and Marvin presented the first Marvin Carlson Award for the best graduate student essay.  I was one of two keynote speakers and my talk, about American musical theatre, was entitled “The Curse of Celebrity.”  My new book, Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class is now available on Amazon and elsewhere:

http://www.amazon.com/Highbrow-Lowdown-Theater-Making-Middle/dp/0472116924/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240745653&sr=1-1

This summer I am going to Minneapolis for a long weekend to cover the Tony Kushner festival at the Guthrie Theater for American Theatre magazine and to begin a new book project on the sociology of theatre.

Professor Emerita Gloria Waldman will be singing on Saturday night May 30 (the weekend AFTER Memorial Day…) at 6:30 in The Christopher Cabaret at The Broadway Comedy Club, 318 W. 53 St. betw 8-9 ave. Tickets $18 in advance, $20 at the door, $15 food /drink minimum (Call her for tx  646-591-6901).

She has also organized panels on Latino & Latin American Theatre for both AATHE and ASTR (happily in her second patria Puerto Rico…) where the dynamic, almost PhD, duo of Jason & Kim Ramirez will be participating.

She performed Broadway tunes, including “Show Off” from The Drowsy Chaperone, this past March in Florida in 5 sold out performances, 3000 seats, and is presently booking gigs for the Gloria Waldman Swing Combo for next year. This is what “retirement” looks like folks.

Professor Emerita Pamela Sheingorn is finding that retirement is another word for keeping very busy!  In May she will deliver a paper “Embodied Meaning in Images of the Married Life of Mary and Joseph,” at a symposium on Medieval Marriage at Birkbeck College in London, and in September she will speak at a colloquium on “Emerging Disciplines” at Rice University. Her essay, “Subjection and Reception in Claude of France’s Book of First Prayers,” just appeared in The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness.

The Doctors Are In!

Dissertations completed since November 2008

Jason Ramirez, PhD

Carmen Rivera:  
Theatre of Latinidad

May 2009

Gloria Waldman, Chair (Emerita), David Savran, Juan Flores (The Graduate Center, CUNY)

Michael Aman, PhD

“Race and Realism in Edward Harrigan’s Mulligan Guard Series”

May 2009

David Savran (Chair), Daniel Gerould, John Graziano

Amy Hughes, PhD

“Sensation, Spectacle, and Reform in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Theatre”

May 2009

Marvin Carlson (Chair), Judith Milhous, Daniel Gerould, and Heather Nathans (University of Maryland)

Jenna Soleo-Shanks, PhD

“Performing the ‘Ben Comune’:  The Political Functions of Performance in the Republic of Siena (1260-1555)”

May 2009

Pamela Sheingorn (Chair), Marvin Carlson, Judith Milhous, James Saslow, and Ronald Herzman (Geneseo College, SUNY)

Dalia Basiouny, PhD

“The Powerful Voice of Women Dramatists in the Arab American Theatre Movement”

May 2009

Marvin Carlson (Chair), Jane Bowers (John Jay College, CUNY), Pamela Sheingorn, and Alisa Solomon (Columbia University)

Visiting Scholars & Alumni

Jane House (Ph.D., 1988) was promoted to the position of Director of Publications in the Office of Public Affairs and Publications at the Graduate Center; and she is now managing editor of 365 Fifth, the Graduate Center newsletter. She was invited to join the board of the Pirandello Society of America and on May 13, 2009, produced an event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the founding of PSA by the Italian actress Marta Abba, for whom Pirandello wrote many of his later plays. Doctoral candidate in theatre Janice Capuana served as co-director of the celebration. Cosponsors were the Center for the Study of Women and Society, Jane House Productions, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, and the Italian specialization section of the Ph.D. Program in Comparative Literature

Visiting Scholar Sophie Proust writes: I am an Assistant Professor in Theatre Studies (Lille, France), and I have been an assistant director for years in France, Quebec, and Italy for Matthias Langhoff, Yves Beaunesne, and Denis Marleau. I also served an internship as observer of the theatrical creative process for one of Robert Wilson’s productions. My main field of research is the theatrical creative process and, more particularly, directing actors. I wrote a book in French on the subject, based on my Ph.D., with a preface by Patrice Pavis. It’s entitled La direction d’acteurs dans la mise en scène théâtrale contemporaine [Directing Actors in Contemporary Drama] (L’Entretemps, 2006). In order to advance my research, I have had the great honour and pleasure of being a Visiting Scholar, invited by Marvin Carlson, at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center last year from less than two months and this year for four months from March 9^th until July 9^th 2009. My aim is to attend rehearsals and interview some New York directors (Big Art Group, Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service…). I will present the results of my research in a paper at the annual conference of IFTR: the International Federation for Theatre Research for which I am from now on the General Francophone Secretary. The conference will take place at the University of Lisbon (Portugal) in July 2009.

Apart from my publications in French, you can finally read me in English with my study entitled “Written Documents of the Assistant Director: A Record of Remaking” (Cambridge University Press, Theatre Research International, 2008, volume 33, issue 03, p. 289-306. Some other recent work include organizing a big conference in January in Paris on the problematic of Mise en scène and copyright, which constitutes a main part of my research on the creative process. (http://ceac.recherche.univ-lille3.fr/index.php?page=journees-d-etudes-et-colloques).

Student News

Jessica Brater was pleased to collaborate with Hillary Miller and Marina Volok in curating “Greening the Dialogue: Eco-Criticism and Practice in Theatre, Performance, and Film” as part of the Segal Center’s Earth Day celebration.  For the conference she presented on a project she is developing with her theatre company, Polybe + Seats, called A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things.  Polybe also presented a work-in-progress showing of this project at Mabou Mines in March and Jessica was delighted to have a number of GC colleagues there in the audience.

Kevin Byrne (Level III) is currently working on finishing another chapter of his dissertation, which is on minstrel and blackface performance in the US.  Ask him about it at your peril.  He is also editing Western European Stages with the help of Sascha and Drew, and writing a review of the recent National Theatre of the United States of America show for the performance website Hotreview.org.

Emily Clark cannot believe that her first year at the GC is coming to an end!  After reading more than she ever imagined she is finally ready to… read some more!  This year has been great and she looks forward to more courses and more involvement with her love, musical theatre.

Boris Daussà-Pastor passed his first exam in January and is now working on the book list of his second exam fields: South Asia, the hispanophone Caribbean, and postnational theories and theories of deterritorialization. He had an exciting time this year serving at the DTSA and DSC, and is happy to be on board for both of them again next year. This summer Boris will be giving papers at IFTR/FIRT in Lisbon and at CPRACSIS, a smaller conference in Kerala, India, before heading back to the US and getting ready for ATHE conference and AAP pre-conference that will take place in New York in August. Frank Episale and Boris organized a panel for ATHE. At the AAP pre-conference Boris will participate in a roundtable on the teaching of Asian performance traditions in the West.

Robert Davis is traveling to the UK this summer to present a paper “Medea at Midcentury” at a classics symposium that he is co-organizing at Oxford University.  Besides taking the second exam in August, he will finally be allowed to talk in public about pictoral representations of the Astor Place Riots, this time at ATHE.

Jessica Del Vecchio writes: I arrived at the Graduate Center last semester, after receiving my Master’s Degree in the Performance as Public Practice Program at the University of Texas at Austin.  Finally reunited after a two-year hiatus, my country camp band, Ménage à Twang, and I released our self-titled debut album in December (available on Itunes, among other places), and we are spending this semester honing new material at our monthly residency at Pianos on the Lower East Side.  I am excited to present my work on Susie Sokol’s portrayal of Jack Kerouac in Elevator Repair Service’s No Great Society, as part of a panel entitled “Feminism without the ‘Feminisms’: New Performances of Gender in a ‘Post-Feminist’ World” at ATHE this summer.  I also am relieved to report that I passed the French translation exam this spring!

Rick DesRochers will have an article published by the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association’s journal the Mid-Atlantic Almanack, due out Fall 2009, entitled, “Bard Barkers Playing the Fool: Dario Fo, Tom Waits, and Eddie Izzard.”  His daughter, Lucy Frances, will turn one year old on May 17th!

Frank Episale writes: I’ve taken over (again) as Assistant Editor of Cinema Journal, a position I’ll be holding onto for a while. Teaching at Brooklyn College, preparing for the next couple of exams (language, 2nd). I was recently interviewed for an in-progress documentary film about New York’s puppet theatre scene, and was asked to speak on a mini-panel about the “state of theatre criticism today” for a graduate class at Brooklyn College. I worked with Boris to put together a panel for this summer’s ATHE/AATE conference, titled “Rethinking Asian Theatre.”

Gad Guterman is getting ready to write!  His dissertation proposal was just approved and he is eager to transition into this last leg of the journey.

Amy E. Hughes writes: I’m happy to report that I successfully defended my dissertation (“Sensation, Spectacle, and Reform in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Theatre”) on Tues., Apr. 21. Heartfelt thanks to the inspiring members of my committee, Profs. Carlson (chair), Gerould, Milhous, and Heather Nathans (Univ. of MD), and the many doctoral colleagues who shared enthusiasm, support, and good thoughts! In other news, I have been awarded a Jay T. Last Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society, which will allow me to be in residence for one month at the Center for Historic American Visual Culture during 2009-10 and begin developing a book manuscript based on my thesis. In addition, my teaching philosophy statement will be featured in the fourth edition of Peter Seldin’s book The Teaching Portfolio (forthcoming in 2010). Meanwhile, I continue teaching theatre history, theory, and historiography as an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, where I also serve on the executive board for the Roberta S. Matthews Center for Teaching. Looking forward to seeing everyone at ATHE, on our home turf!

Currently in her second year of study at the Graduate Center, Laura Hydak recently made her first foray into playwrighting, collaborating with theatre professors from Baltimore Community College and SUNY Maritime.  Laura continues to be active in the New York dance scene and will choreograph a short work this summer.  She also plans to travel to Santiago del Compostela, Spain this summer, after receiving a partial scholarship from the Spanish government.  Laura’s brief stint as the Assistant Archivist at the Kurt Weill Foundation last spring enriched her a musical palette, formerly dominated mostly by eighteenth and nineteenth century composers.

Sascha Just experiences this spring as rather eventful.  She presented a paper on the similar patterns in Sergei Eisenstein’s theatre productions and Charlie Chaplin’s film work at the Comparative Drama conference in Los Angeles.  Meeting Wole Soyinka and watching/hearing him read from his The Bacchae of Euripides was a highlight of her first visit to L.A.  She is also delighted that the cabaret produced by students from the Theatre Department turns out to be such a successful community event.

Donny Levit is in the midst of finishing up his course requirements this semester; doing so with some relief and a bit of melancholy. He is currently studying with David Savran (finally, after all these years) and is working on the first English translation of Argentinean playwright Griselda Gambaro’s La señora Macbeth under the invaluable guidance of Jean Graham-Jones. He hopes to have a reading of his first draft sometime later this spring. He continues to teach both at City College of New York and Marymount Manhattan College. He completes his term as DTSA President this year, and thanks the board for all of their involvement this year. He greatly looks forward to the 2009-2010 DTSA Board, and helping out with a smooth transition. After many a knee injury, he embarks on his training for the New York City Marathon this fall, which he hasn’t run since 2002. During his free time, he continues to smash his guitar.

Ana Martinez passed her second exam and is working on her dissertation proposal about site-specific and site-related performance in the historical center of Mexico City. She is very excited about her upcoming WES review about Royal de Luxe’s performance The Revolt of the Mannequins, which took place in the windows of KaDeWe, a department store in Berlin.

Thomas Meacham had a truly remarkable time in England this past February.  He not only found a glut of information at Oxford, Cambridge, and Wells Cathedral archives, but also was able to spend a magical day with a woman who wrote her dissertation on Thomas Chaundler sixty years ago.  She is now his favorite pen pal.  Thomas recently received the Schallek Award from the Medieval Academy of America, which will provide him with the means to return to Oxford in August.

Jen-Scott Mobley is making slower progress on her dissertation than she’s like, but making progress nonetheless. To that end, she does not have a lot of exciting activity to report, although she had a wonderful time attending the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville in April. This spring she has been busy administrating and adjudicating the Student Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest sponsored by the Women and Theatre Program. And she would like to extend many thanks to Ken Nielsen and Kathleen Potts for their help as readers over the years. She has spent the past two semesters working and learning as a Writing Fellow at Brooklyn College.

Lisa Reinke got accepted into the Emerging Scholars Panel of AAP’s preconference to ATHE.  She is very excited about this, as it includes a cash reward and possible publication. Also, if anyone wants a rabbit, she has extras.

Naomi Stubbs is currently preparing for her second exam, teaching at La Guardia Community College, and continuing to work on the Journal of American Drama and Theatre. She has recently had an article on David Garrick’s Lethe accepted for publication in the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, and a further article concerning the Vauxhalls of America accepted for inclusion in a volume of essays entitled Grounds for Pleasure: Pleasure Gardens in Britain and America, 1660-1880.

Christopher Swift writes: I have just been awarded the 2009 Grace Frank Medieval Academy Dissertation grant, and I am currently writing the second chapter of my dissertation on Alfonso X’s thirteenth century Cantigas de Santa Maria. I am traveling to Seville later this spring to conduct research on the Cantigas, as well as hybrid sacred spaces, processionals, and social rituals.  I chaired an MLA panel this past December on postcolonial medieval theatre and will be presenting a paper on the Cantigas at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in May.  After five years of teaching at BMCC, I am now in my final semester.  Although I will miss mentoring students (and the structure of a full time job), I am very much looking forward to a stronger devotional practice at the GC this coming year

Dan Venning (Level II), in the conclusion of his third year at the Graduate Center, is busy reading for his second examination, finishing his languages, and teaching at Hunter College. He presented two papers at the Mid-America Theatre Conference in Chicago in March, and is finalizing a paper on Shakespeare in the Park which he presented at ASTR in November and has been accepted for publication in Forum for Modern Language Studies. This year, he has also written two book reviews for Theatre Journal and one for Theatre Survey, as well as a theatrical review for TJ. In his spare time, which does not really exist, he also serves as Travel Fellow for International House, leading graduate students on trips across New York. Also at International House, he recently completed the International Leadership Program, a yearlong series of workshops on cross-cultural leadership. He will be looking for a new apartment for August 1.

Melissa WS Wong has been busy trying to grapple with the sociological concepts introduced in Prof David Savran’s class this semester and reviewing more theatre history! I am also still involved in committee work at both PSi and ATHE, and will be attending both conferences come summer. I will be presenting a paper on the protest movement of the Tibetan community in NYC during the 2008 Beijing Olympics at PSi, and chairing two sessions  at ATHE. One a panel on Performance and Human Rights in “Asia”, and the other a round-table re-debating the issue of interculturalism in both Performance Studies and Asian Theatre. Work, Work Work!

Catherine Young is now a Level II student, which she recently found out means having her official file transferred to a different drawer in Lynette’s magical cabinet. –The glamour! Catherine also attended MATC in Chicago where she was part of the Emerging Scholars Panel. She presented a version of a paper she wrote for Judy her very first semester. Thanks, Judy! This summer Catherine is going to learn French and read a lot of books about feminism. On a less optimistic note, her dog’s modeling career is at a standstill.

DTSA Officers, 2008-2009

Donny Levit, President

Boris Daussà Pastor, First Vice President, editor of The Green Room

Bethany Holmstrom, Second Vice President, Booth Award

Marina Volok, Secretary

Joseph Heissan, Treasurer

Margaret Araneo, Curriculum Committee Representative

Linell Ajello, Admissions Committee Representative

Catherine Young, Tea Coordinator

Frank Episale, Representative to the DSC

Comments or questions about this issue of The Green Room?

Contact Boris Daussà Pastor at boris@lacalba.com

11/25/2008