Addresses issues of power and diversity, and describes how the production team for Houston's play about Amerasian experience wrestled with the problem of "what is represented and who is authorized to represent it." Explains the reasons for the close attention to detail, and cites examples in which authenticity had to be sacrificed for…

Argues that the further theatre studies moves away from its roots in the art and the business, the less valuable it is as an academic subject. Proposes that it is precisely in the historic tension between theatre departments and universities that theatre departments can best clarify their existence and goals. (PM)

Addresses the following censorship issues: (1) whether a group has the right to impose its world view on another group; (2) whether artistic visions which attack any group's values should be permitted; and (3) the limits of artistic freedom and who defines those limits. Cites examples from various plays through the years. (PA)

Analyzes the issue of censorship in relation to how it has influenced anti-apartheid South African playwright/director Mbongeni Ngema's theatrical style and the evolution of his style from the socio-political context in which he works. Illuminates the playwright's strategies for overcoming censorship. Discusses his most well-known work,…

Argues for the participation of theater programs in the development of a gay and lesbian curriculum. Predicts that gay and lesbian studies will soon take its place alongside existing cross-disciplinary programs in women's, African American, Native American, and other area studies. Presents examples of how to introduce gay studies into theater…

Notes that in the popular imagination, theatre is still linked integrally and stereotypically with homosexuality. Discusses various critical debates of the 1960s about the linguistic and conceptual divorce of theatre and theatricality from performance and performativity. Concludes that if Theatre Studies has an enemy at all, it is in its own…

Contends that community-based theatre (CBT) can productively redefine the parameters of what "political performance" can mean. Draws on the work of community-based performance artist Tim Miller and on the author's experience as a dramaturg to suggest that artists and scholars must develop a revised idea of what constitutes activist democratic…

Notes that in rehearsals and performances, a jumble of silences are encountered. Discusses silence in the following situations: as frustration; as imposition; as invisibility; as power; as pleasure; as safety; as humility; as necessity; and as potential. Contends that when dramaturgs enter into conversation and break silence, they must carefully…

Discusses the experiences of a professional and academic dramaturg as she learns how to respond to non-realist plays. Proposes that non-realism is not simply the absence of realism but is a form in itself. Presents a vocabulary for non-realist texts. Notes that to create this vocabulary the features of its style should be defined. Discusses the…

Records discussion of an arts advocacy roundtable began at the August 2000 meeting of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and continued online. Explains how theatre departments have found themselves defending their very existence in the past decade. Includes discussions of the meaning of arts advocacy; how to incorporate arts advocacy…

States that undergraduate theater students typically approach their required courses in theater history with apprehension. Argues that, with the introduction of new methodologies in theater history, it is time to inspect the place of the survey course in the curriculum and to review the particular demands placed upon the teacher of theater…

Contends that parody is the direct result of an attempt to make room for oneself within an airtight, closed, or exclusive social, cultural, or theatrical construct. Provides examples from the author's work, such as an all-women production of "Hamlet" as well as a parody of "The Glass Menagerie." (PM)

States that performance activity is itself an experiential learning method which can contribute to other disciplines. Argues that "creative drama for social change" may not be a contradiction in terms. Chronicles the process through which the author and her coleader expanded a leadership "practicum" into an experiment by…

Outlines the author's research and interest in the life and sexuality of Clyde Fitch, a successful yet historically obscure American playwright and sometime lover of Oscar Wilde. Explains that Fitch whets the author's hunger for more knowledge because of what he revealed about the reigning feminine ideal that he helped codify and that the author…

Describes the development of an introductory theater course which encourages students to fashion well-informed views of plays. Notes that the skills fostered in this course could start students on the road to becoming active, critically informed practitioners in whatever role they chose to take on in production. Explains that the course…