Study Guide - Summary Drama of Diversity PDF

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Theater 107 Final Study Guide I.

Week 1 A. Lecture 1: What is Diversity? Why Theater? 1. Theater a) some people are sitting in the dark, watching people on the stage in the light → arguable that not all theater are on stage, and not all audiences are in the dark. Sometimes audiences are participants. b) A place is “where we show ourselves to ourselves” c) Theater is for someone d) Debatable if theater exists if there is someone not to witness it. e) Genres → live performances, movies, TV, internet 2. Drama a) Used to refer to scripts, text intended for performance b) Drama is intended to be acted out by bodies c) Fundamental question: Who counts as ourselves? 3. Diversity a) Oxford Definition: The condition or quality of being diverse, different, or varied. Different. Unlikeness. (1) Key points: (a) there's nothing definitely diverse about one person. There needs to be more than one of something to be considered diverse. (b) Nothing in that definition that describes people (c) Can't be diverse by yourself, there needs to be something you can compare yourself to. Being varied depends on context. b) American Diversity: fundamental value of the United States. (1) History of America is based on immigration, ehtnic and cultural diversity (a) Motto: E. Pluribus Unum (latin) → Out of many, one. = unifying many different people into one whole. (i) First adopted by Continetal Congress in 1776 (ii) Original design: 13 original colonies → united, in addition 6 pictures illustrated countries (England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Germany, and France) signified “from which these states have been peoples” (iii) Notion that diverse groups of people would come together to create one unified nation (iv) However, only some of people were considered were counted as the “many” (a) Natives before colonists were not counted. (b) African Slaves were not counted (arrived 150 years before this specific colonists) (c) Spanish nd Portugues were not counted (b) American Diversity is complicated process, fraught idea. Inclusion considered difficult to define.

Theater 107 Final Study Guide 4. Questions to ask ourselves: a) Unity and/or community? b) Who is ourselves and in what context can we make claims about ourselves? c) What do watch for as an audience member? d) What affects you long term? e) How does different varieties of performance affect you different? f) Live vs pre-recorded? g) How do you think the images and things you have consumer over the course of your life affect you? h) Which stories have you experienced when your young stick with you in a different as opposed to ones you see in current times? i) How performance affect us? (1) Role Models → imagining ourselves in the shoes of the person in performance (2) Entertainment (3) Learning and Instructions → classic definition of the point of theater (4) Performance is a fundamental way in which societies coalesce their ideas about themselves. Individuals confirm, coalesce and challenge their own ideas of identity through performance. 5. Minority a) In the US, women have higher population than men. However, women are considered the minority. b) In hollywood, (Geena Davis Institute of Women in Media) discovered in large scale, quantitative study, as of 2010 men outnumbered women 5 to 1 behind the camera. Only 7% of film directors are women. In front of the camera, it looks better. Of the top 200 grossing films of 2014 and 2015, only 17% of the films had a female lead. Male characters had twice as much screen time and lines as female characters. Female led films average 16% better profit. → Women are the minority in the context of filmmaking and hollywood c) American Context of “minority”→ different ethnic and racial groups of people (1) Approximately 323 million people in US (2) Last census (a) 61% → white (b) 13.3% → black or African-American (c) 1.2% → American Indian or Alaska Native (d) 5.6% → Asian (e) 0.2% → Native Hawaiian or Pacfic Islander (f) 17.6% → Latino or hispanic (i) Latino could be paired with other categories (g) 2.6% → two or more categories d) Since the 1960s, members of these different ehtnic groups have increasingly looked to representation as a key part of definition and visibility as a part of their legitimacy in this larger nation (1) Feminism -1st, 2nd, and 3rd

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Immigration Labor movements Civil Rights Movements Amerinca Indian Movements Gay Liberation - Stone Wall Movements Newer movements (a) Occupy Wall Street (b) #BLM (c) Women's march (d) Trans-visibility movements e) What role does theater and drama have in the quest for recognition and visibility in these identities? 6. How to define fractured way of ourselves? a) Thinking of how we show ourselves to others (1) How do groups that have been recognized to insiders and outsiders? (2) Recognition, empathy, celebrating difference, persuasion, political groups, aesthetics (3) What unites → minatorian perspective → a relationship to a smaller group to a larger group (4) Minority contingent on context, not objective (5) Exception to every claim but doesn’t mean its real in its consequences Reading: “From Singapore, To Cambridge, to Duke University” by Michelle K. Lecture 2: Discomfort and Diversity 1. Ground Rules a) Get ready to be uncomfortable sometimes, and work on ways to be okay with that b) Engage with respect and care for your fellow participants c) Refrain from making direct comments about each other. Never assume anything about others d) Assume good intentions e) Don’t intentionally try to hurt someone f) Engage honestly with the topics at hand. 2. Racism is less than individual bigotry, more about overarching social dynamics that have changed or stayed the same over time 3. How does racism manifest in society? 4. Discomfort talking injustice can create more injustice 5. “Snowflakes” → never want to be challenged, “safe spaces” a) Safe space is not comfortable b) Brave space address misconceptions of safe space 6. Majority of students and americans never talk about race and avoid it due to saying the wrong thing 7. What are certain terms are changing? Black vs African-American? Reading: The Whiteness Project Reading: Under Our Skin Lecture 3: Hamiliton and the Costs of Diversity 1. What is Hamiliton?

Theater 107 Final Study Guide a) It's a Broadway musical that contains a hip-hop aesthetic with a multiaration cast that tells the story of the founding fathers. 2. Why do people like it so much across the political spectrum? a) Only thing Obama and Cheney agree on b) Conservatives: race doesn’t matter, look at these POC actors playing white men c) Liberals: wow there are so many POC actors this means inclusion 3. What's the work that the musical is doing politically and how so? a) Nationalism and the nation (1) Imaginatory community, not a real natural substance or place. Something that a lot of people across time and space find in common and that there's something uniting them, together creating nation through shared mass media. Nation demands that we identify with it and defend it. At the expense of unity, it covers up other forms of identity such as race, socioeconomic status and gender. Covers up differences in the name of unity. b) Neoliberalism (1) Works closely with the idea of nationalism. In context of the US government, we support the government's endeavors and military strategies in the name of freedom and democracy via opening free markets and greater competition over limited resources. Particular stage of late capitalism. (a) David Harvey → 1970s to present → free trade, lower taxes on the rich, smaller safety net, transnational corporations, nations and governments are facilitating freer flow of capital and people to aid those corporations (b) Wendy Brown → not just set of policies, but the way we govern ourselves, certain calculations to move yourself forward in an individual way. Schools and libraries should be run like businesses (i) Human capital → we relentlessly try to maximize ourselves through resumes, and extracurricular to move us forward (c) Lisa Lo → human capital can be referred to slavery through the African Diaspaora and the dispossesion of Native Americans c) Racial diversity (1) This is when where we welcome a limited assortment of people with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds into an existing white center. (2) Small amount of difference mantinas the white center and the structure of the syllabus and the history of american theater. supperoffical . does not challenge. d) Seeming apolitical (1) “It's a way of pulling you into the story and allowing you to leave with whatever cultural baggage you have about the founding fathers at the door” - Miranda

Theater 107 Final Study Guide (a) What is cultural baggage? Isn’t it depossesions, genocide, slavery? (2) Making musical appeal to a lot more people than you are not reminded of the hard truth (3) “Portraying American then with American now” → Trying to make america look like what it looks like now 4. Background a) Based on a biography written by Historian, Bon Chernow (1) Talks about Alexander Hamilton, US founding father, that was born from in Carribean (2) Moves to colonies and is an aid to Washington, works his way up through tenacity and skill but also has a lot of connection with right, he becomes the first secretary of the treasury but dies in a duel with Aaron Burr (3) Largely celebratory, not very critical of Hamilton b) Lin Manuel Miranda read biography and thought this was a great musical to construct musical. He was asked to come to White House by Obama to perform, he then tested our material from Hamilton, mixtape. People enjoyed it and Miranda continued to develop it. c) 2015 formally premiered at the Public Theater, but then went to Broadway for commercial run. (1) Public Theater → off-broadway house in NYC, founded by Joseph Pub. Legacy connected to ground breaking political musicals. d) Lin Manuel Miranda (1) Background (a) Products of immigrants, mother is clinical psychologist father is political consultant that works with NYC mayor, Ed Koch. (b) Went to elite schools (2) Work (a) In the Heights (2008) → Washington Heights community, primarily Dominican but mix of latino communities. About relationships between younger and older generations, different immigrants, their struggles and stories. Uses different music and dance to tell story (b) Bring it On → why do we right it off? Misogyny? (i) Privileged white school vs black school, includes trans character (c) Moana (2015) (3) He thinks about Hamilton as a most biographical work but less about similar life stories , but more about what he thinks about the United States 5. Key concepts a) Feminist killjoy (1) love/hate relationship, critiques things everybody loves b) Multiracial casting

Theater 107 Final Study Guide (1) Status quo of casting → 80% of roles go to white actors. In 2017, white Americans only make up ⅔ of the nation. Only 4% of the roles are going to latino. Asian-Amerincans 2% of the roles. (2) As an actor of color, 9 out of 10 times I will be cast in a role that reflects my own ethnicity. 1 out of 10 times I will be cast a non-specific role. (3) How do we analyze multiracial casting (a) multiracial conscious casting → a POC actor playing a POC character (b) Whiten casting → a POC actor playing a white character (c) Post racial casting → a POC actor playing a white character with other POC actors that are playing roles that reflect their race (i) Does race matter? No (a) This becomes a strategy to neutralize and obscure the vast inequalities of the status quo in the United States c) Bootstrap narrative (1) Persistent trope of the plucky individual succeeding and thriving by dint of sheer hard work, luck, and determination (2) False definition of “Equal opportunity” (3) Physically impossible to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps (4) Connection to Hamiliton (a) Lynn Cheney “a play about human beings that achieved greatly” (b) Judith Rodin - Resilience Dividend “features an immigrant that was impoverished initially, shows through perseverance and grit what he could achieve” (5) People at the bottom deserve to be at the bottom because they didn’t “work hard” nor did not take advantage d) Miranda rejects Hamilton’s “partisan” (1) Everything is political because everything exists in a power structure in which resources are distributed unevenly. (2) Celebrates humanism 6. What's missing? a) Miranda decided to tell one story without another b) Slavery (1) Blamed on Thomas Jefferson (Sally Hemmings) and John Lawerence dying (2) What if John Lawerence had not died? (a) Truly beliefs in the single great man narrative where one single individual can change a systematic power structures. (3) The British freed the slaves that decided to fight for the British side. Hamilton came to the US on a slave ship → doesn’t match Hamilton’s “abolitionists” c) Native Americans

Theater 107 Final Study Guide

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(1) “Fight for your land back” G. Reading: “Diversity is a Euphemism” by Noah Berlastksy, LA Times H. Reading: “Identity” and “Race” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies Week 2 A. Lecture 4: Native American Theater 1. Defining and Terminology of Native Americans a) Colonization has tangled these terms b) American Indian then Native American then it becomes more specific c) Human beings 2. Manhatta a) Dutch settlers → Manhattan vs Lenape People b) Happens 150 years before the formation of the United States c) Second half of the play → 2008 3. Boston Tea Party a) First coachella 4. Need to define native identity to define American identity 5. Edwin Forest a) The best tragedy in five acts where the hero should be a aboriginal of this country (1) Winner was John Augustus Stone - Metamora, The last of The Wampanoag (1829) (a) Metamora meets puritans and at first they get along and then as the colonists begin to escalate their violence and get more greedy, then a war starts. Under threat of immediate threat, he kills his wife and children along with himself. b) Both celebrate native people but also paints them as doomed c) Made Forest’s career 6. President Jackson - Indian Removal Act a) All of east native tribes were forcibly removed to Oklahoma (Indian Territory) during the coldest winter b) Five Civilized Tribes - they must prove to the white people that they can be civilized people. They have to have a written language, land, slaves, educational system etc (1) Cherokee (2) Chicksaw (3) Choctaw (4) Creek (5) Seminole c) Then gold was found in Georgia and then Jackson initiated the Indian Removal Act. Cherokee attorney went before the supreme court however Jackson used executive power to push the Indian Removal Act d) Called the trail of tears because it caused so much pain for the white people 7. American Indian Theater Movement 1982 a) “If you don't do it, the white people will do it for. Thats what ive found. They will tell your story for you, they will tell you who you are and what you are, if you let them.”

Theater 107 Final Study Guide B. Reading: Manhatta by Mary Kathryn Nagle 1. Mary Kathryn Nagle a) Cherokee b) Attorney 2. Synopsis (I got this from the Internet) a) Manahatta is a play set in two worlds — the modern-day (Oklahoma and Wall Street) and hundreds of years earlier in Manahatta (what is now Manhattan) — about a woman set in two worlds. Jane (Tanis Parenteau) is a contemporary Lenape woman living in Manhattan and returning as often as her success on Wall Street will allow to visit her family in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Parenteau also portrays a character named Le-le-wa’-you in the past Manahatta. Jane’s Wall Street success is juxtaposed to the life of her sister, Debra (Rainbow Dickerson, a welcome addition to the OSF company, who brings such magic to this role that you will hardly believe she is the same woman who portrays Bianca in Othello) , who has stayed at home and is fighting to keep the Lenape language alive. Their mother, Bobbie (Sheila Tousey) knows the language, but refused to speak it for many years, so the daughters aren’t fluent. And, as the story and reality go, the language is at risk of being forgotten. The Lenape people existed peacefully for centuries in the Northeastern United States, including what is now New York City. Europeans did not understand the Lenape, and the Lenape didn’t understand these new people, so the “purchase” of Manhattan was much more like a robbery. Jane comes face to face with these stark realizations while living in New York. She is mostly glued to her office, but manages to learn how Wall Street got its name (the Dutch traders built a wall to keep out the people they stole the land from). Everyone — particularly her boss, Joe (Danforth Comins), and his boss, Dick (Jeffrey King) — keeps telling Jane how amazing it is that she is having such success here: her, a Native American, successful on Wall Street and paving a path for others to follow? The irony, of course, is not lost on the audience that Jane’s path started here and that, in fact, her ancestors literally carved the path (Broadway was the original trail carved through the brush of Mannahatta by her people). This is especially poignant when Jane is experiencing a crisis on Wall Street and her ancestors join her, recalling the real tragedy that occurred here so long ago. (1) Wall street → to keep Indians out (2) Necklace Wampanoag  →  taking necklace back to where it came from (3) Trade C. Lecture 5: Suffragette theater 1. Reading: Votes for Women! By Elizabeth Robbins, originally performed in London in 1907 2. Who is the presumed audience? Written by insiders for outsiders? Agenda? a) Present a series of arguments in favor of women's rights and right to vote in an attempt to persuade its audience of the importance of this goal b) Definitely has political agenda c) Drama + Social issues or question

Theater 107 Final Study Guide (1) This was a trend in plays during this time → Realist, New Woman Plays or Woman Plays (a) A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (b) Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw (c) Ms. Julie by August Strindberg (d) 3. Elizabeth Robins a) Life and career mirror key concerns in the play (1) Born Louisville, Kentucky in 1862 (2) Father was an Insurance salesman b) At 18 moved to NYC and joined a theater company by Edwin Boothe c) 1885 married fellow Actor name George Parks for three years (1) She became really popular, and his career beame stalled (2) George Parks committed suicide by jumping off of bridge in Boston Charles River (3) Suicide Note - “I will not stand in yor light any longer” d) After death of husband, moved to London 1888 (1) Oscar Wilde told her “definitely asserted yourself as an actor of the first order. Your future on our stage is assured.” (2) Discovered modern drama → Henrik Ibsen A Doll’s House (3) Women question → Nora is a happily married woman with children. Over the course of the play, she discovers that the possibilities of her life as a housewife are too narrow. And in order to find herself as a human, she must leave her husband and children. (4) Elizabeth founded a theater company for these specific plays with Mary Anne Lee (a) Became famous for the production of Hedda Gabler (i) A young woman, Hedda Gabler, discovers her intellect is not being used as a housewife. She commits suicide after her scheming in her husbands non-ambitious carrer and their recovering alcoholic friend go completelty arye e) She was very vocal about the fact that she was paying taxes on everything → property, business, bulls but had no right to vote f) Retired from the stage at 40. She went on to write many more play. She turned Votes for Women into a novel “The Convert” g) She went to Alaska to look for favorite brother who disappeared. And searched for him and found him in the city of Nome. She turned these experiences into two more books about Alaska. 4. Comparison between Votes for Women and private theatricals a) Huge boom in late Victorian era, groups of family and friends getting together and putting on plays in their personal houses b) Reading: The New Woman → Anti-suffragette play (1) Wife has become so emancipated that the husband has to do all the cooking and cleaning. Author suggests that women's...