Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US

Description

Troubling Traditions takes up a 21st century, field-specific conversation between scholars, educators, and artists from varying generational, geographical, and identity positions that speak to the wide array of debates around dramatic canons. Unlike Literature and other fields in the humanities, Theatre and Performance Studies has not yet fully grappled with the problems of its canon. Troubling Traditions stages that conversation in relation to the canon in the United States. It investigates the possibilities for multiplying canons, methodologies for challenging canon formation, and the role of adaptation and practice in rethinking the field’s relation to established texts. The conversations put forward by this book on the canon grapple with the field’s fundamental values, and ask how to expand the voices, forms, and bodies that constitute this discipline. This is a vital text for anyone considering the role, construction, and impact of dramatic canons in the US and beyond. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction: Troubling Traditions We See You, White Eurocentric Canon Holy Canons Why this Book Now? Mapping the Conversation Costs, Remixes, Approaches, and Departures We Believe In You, Future of US Theatre Toward a Future Works Cited Part I: Costs of Canonicity 1. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies Disciplining The Important and The Persuasive Final Thoughts: Undead White Men Works Cited 2. The Shakespeare Problem: A Conversation How do you Identify in the World, and What is your Relationship to the Work of William Shakespeare? How do you see Shakespeare's Work Operating Systemically up until this Point within Society? What do you think the Role of Shakespeare should be Within Theatre Training and the Field in General? How would you Train Theatre Makers? What do you see as Most Important to that Training? If it is to be Taught, How Would you Teach Shakespeare? Works Cited 3. "Go back to India if you hate my people so much": Consequences of Troubling the "Canon" in American Academia Scene 1 Scene 2 Scene 3 Scene 4 Notes Works Cited 4. Despite the Flames: A Conversation Methodology, or Why We Could Not Help but Make Such a Mess of a Straightforward Question About the US Theatrical Canon Where We are from and Why it Matters (or, Why We All Ended Up Talking About Land, Place, and Space to Talk About Theatre) On Why Home is a Four-Letter Word: Why Race Matters, Why Class Matters, but Mostly Why Race and Class Matter On Why We Hate Capitalism (and Why We Hate NAFTA Specifically) Aesthetics, or Reading Things We Were not Supposed to Know About The Canon, or Why When We Try to Talk About Aesthetics We Talk About Politics and Vice-Versa We See You White American Theatre, or How to Self-Deport from the Regional Theatre Where We Find Our Homes Now, or Some Kind of Happy Ending A Coda, from Virginia Grise's Your Healing is Killing Me () Works Cited 5. The Black Gaze/A Different Account I The Black Gaze II A Different Account Works Cited 6. Amidst the Rubble of the Ivory Tower Notes Works Cited Part II: Remixing Traditions 7. Shaking up the Canon with Cornerstone and OSF A. Navigating Canonical Rules with Hamlet and Oklahoma! Variations on a Sanskrit Classic B. Variations on Canonical Hauntings: Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella: A polyvocal fugue in three columns C. Can(n)ons Notes Works Cited 8. "Yo, Let's Steal Their Canons!": Arab and Arab American Canonical Multiplicities Introduction Identity Geography and Periodization Authorship Critical Intervention Function Conclusion Works Cited 9. Your Heritage is Safe Here: Defining Three Indigenous Theatrical Canons A Brief History of the Canon, Punctuated by Eurocentrism and Calcification: The Three Canons of Native Performance Works Cited Appendix 10. "Frenemies" of the Canon: Our Two Decades of Studying and Teaching Disability in Drama and Performance Works Cited 11. The Uses of Awe Works Cited Part III: Fluid Approaches 12. Toward and Away: The Dramatic Tension of a Queer & Trans Canon Finding the queer in the traditional canon Queer Canonizing Projects Canonizing a Queer Body (of) Work Works Cited 13. Dancing With/Out the Canon Introduction Dance Studies, the Body, and the Academy My Body, My Canon? Revising for Representation: Historiography and Hierarchies Conclusion/Moving Forward Note Works Cited 14. What Do We Do with the Musical Theatre Canon? Asking the Question Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Canon (With apologies to Wallace Stevens and a nod to the Cole Porter list song) Preserving and Challenging the Traditional Musical Theatre Canon In, But Not Of The Musical Theatre Canon and the Women It Overlooked Canonical Show Tune Conventions Drowning Narcissus Refusing the Musical Theatre Canon: Burn the House Down Expanding the Canon Works Cited 15. Canons in Motion: Japanese Performance, Theatre History, and the Currents of Knowledge Our Canon(s) Problems with Canon(s) Teaching within and across canons Productive Intersections Canons in Motion Works Cited 16. The Kids' Table: Cross-institutional Treatment of the Canon and the Un-canonizable Nature of New Work Welcome Meet your Players Part I: Speed Dating, or, An Informal Interview Part II: Commodification and the Canon Conclusion Works Cited Part IV: Departures and Re-visions 17. Rethinking the Canon through the Digital The Problem: Canons Are (Bad) Samples Solution #1: Quantitative Analysis Solution #2: Digitized Texts Solution #3: Digitized Performances Open Syllabus What's Next Notes Works Cited 18. Antigone is Dead, Long Live Antigones!: Adaptation, Difference, and Instability at the Heart of the Traditional Western Canon Notes Works Cited 19. Redirecting Canonicity: PhD Exams and Actor Training On PhD Training On Actor Training Transcending the Canon in PhD and Actor Training: A Path Forward Note Works Cited 20. We Aren't Here to Teach What We Already Know Mechanical Canon Concrete Work on Mechanical Problems The Too-Big Canon Works Cited 21. How Do We Do the Queer Canon? Introduction We Transgress Disciplinary Boundaries We Practice Critical Generosity We Turn to the Audience We Look to Queer Spaces We Say Why It Matters We Acknowledge the Past While We Teach the Present We Value Queer Mentorship Works Cited Index