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Space For Innovative Development
The Open Theater was an experimental theatre group active from 1963 to 1973. Foundation The Open Theater was founded in New York City by a group of former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton, together with director Joseph Chaikin (formerly of The Living Theatre), Peter Feldman, Megan Terry (often left out of the list of the founders of the Open Theatre due to her being a woman and pioneering in feminist drama, but nonetheless a co-founder of the group), and Sam Shepard. Joseph Chaikin had just left the Living Theater, following the arrest of Julian Beck and Judith Malina for tax evasion. He felt that the Living Theater had become less interested in artistic exploration and experimentation, and more interested in political activism and he felt that actors needed specific training to do the sorts of pieces that the Living Theater did. The group's intent was to continue Chilton's exploration of a "post-method", post-absurd acting technique, by way of a collaborative and wide-rang ...
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Experimental Theatre
Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Richard Wagner, Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu Roi, Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular and, in general, the dominant ways of writing and producing plays. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical. Like other forms of the avant-garde, it was created as a response to a perceived general cultural crisis. Despite different political and formal approaches, all avant-garde theatre opposes bourgeois theatre. It tries to introduce a different use of language and the Human body, body to change the mode of perception and to create a new, more active relation with the audience. Relationships to audience Famed experimental theatre director and playwright Peter Brook describes his task as building "… a necessary theatre, one in which ...
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Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rzeszów, in southeastern Poland, in 1933 and studied acting and directing at the Ludwik Solski Academy of Dramatic Arts in Kraków and Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow. He debuted as a director in 1957 in Kraków with Eugène Ionesco's play ''Chairs'' and shortly afterward founded a small laboratory theatre in 1959 in the town of Opole in Poland. During the 1960s, the company began to tour internationally and his work attracted increasing interest. As his work gained wider acclaim and recognition, Grotowski was invited to work in the United States and left Poland in 1982. Although the company he founded in Poland closed a few years later in 1984, he continued to teach and direct productions in Europe and America. However, Grotowski b ...
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Spiderwoman Theater
Spiderwoman Theater is an American, Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. Their mission was to present exceptional theater performance, and to provide theatrical training and education in an urban Indigenous performance practice. Spiderwoman theater was an early feminist theatre group that sprung out of the feminist movement in the 1970s. They questioned gender roles, cultural stereotypes, sexual and economic oppression. It was founded in 1976, the core of the group is formed by sisters Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, and Lisa Mayo. It was the first Native American women's theater troupe and is named after the Spiderwoman deity from Hopi mythology. History Muriel Miguel developed a piece with Lois Weaver based on three stories of the Hopi goddess Spiderwoman teaching people how to weave. Miguel's sisters, Lisa Mayo and Gloria Miguel, joined the group. Spiderwoman Theater was founded in 1976 and the group premiered their fir ...
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Zabriskie Point
Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence. Name The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley. History Millions of years prior to the actual sinking and widening of Death Valley and the existence of Lake Manly (see Geology of the Death Valley area), another lake covered a large portion of Death Valley including the area around Zabriskie Point. This ancient lake began forming approximately nine million years ago. During several million years of the lake's existence, sediments were collecting at the bottom ...
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Mann Act
The White-Slave Traffic Act, also called the Mann Act, is a United States federal law, passed June 25, 1910 (ch. 395, ; ''codified as amended at'' ). It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann of Illinois. In its original form the act made it a felony to engage in interstate or foreign commerce transport of "any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose". Its primary stated intent was to address prostitution, immorality, and human trafficking, particularly where trafficking was for the purposes of prostitution. It was one of several acts of protective legislation aimed at moral reform during the Progressive Era. In practice, its ambiguous language about "immorality" resulted in it being used to criminalize even consensual sexual behavior between adults. It was amended by Congress in 1978 and again in 1986 to limit its application to transport for the purpose of prostitution or other illegal sexual acts. Promotion In the ...
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Zabriskie Point (film)
''Zabriskie Point'' is a 1970 American drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, and Rod Taylor. It was widely noted at the time for its setting in the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the United States. Some of the film's scenes were shot on location at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. The film was an overwhelming commercial failure,Smith, Matt"Zabriskie Point.'''Brattle Theatre Film Notes ''. Retrieved: September 19, 2012. and was panned by most critics upon release. Its critical standing has increased, however, in the decades since. It has to some extent achieved cult film, cult status and is noted for its cinematography, use of music, and direction.Allwood, Emma Hope"Three things you don't know about Zabriskie Point."''Dazed'', July 2015. Retrieved: November 21, 2016. Plot In a room at a university campus in 1970, white and black students argue about an impending student strike. Mark (Mark Frechette) leaves the ...
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Orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party consisting of at least five members where guests freely engage in open and unrestrained sexual activity or group sex. Swingers' parties do not always conform to this designation, because at many swinger parties the sexual partners may all know each other or at least have some commonality among economic class, educational attainment or other shared attributes. Some swingers contend that an orgy, as opposed to a sex party, requires some anonymity of sexual partners in complete sexual abandon. Other kinds of "sex party" may fare less well with this labeling. Participation in an "orgy" is a common sexual fantasy, and group sex targeting such consumers is a subgenre in pornographic films. The term is also used metaphorically in expressions, such as an "orgy of colour" or an "orgy of destruction" to indicate excess, overabundance. The term " orgiastic" does not generally connote group sex and is closer to the classical roots and this meta ...
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America Hurrah
''America Hurrah'' is a satirical play by Jean-Claude van Itallie, which premiered at the Pocket Theatre in New York City on November 7, 1966. Directed by Jacques Levy and Joseph Chaikin, the play was an early expression of the burgeoning 1960s counterculture, expressing discontent with American consumerism and involvement in the Vietnam War. ''America Hurrah'' consists of three one-act plays: "Interview"; "TV"; and "Motel". Production history New York City Two of the one-acts were first presented at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1964 and 1965. ''Interview'' was directed by Peter Feldman, and ''Motel'' was directed by Michael Kahn. ''Interview'' had begun as an exercise at Chaikin's Open Theater. When the trilogy premiered in 1966, ''Interview'' was directed by Chaikin, and ''TV'' and ''Motel'' were directed by Levy. Stephanie Sills produced the trilogy, and incidental music was composed by Marianne de Pury and Fred Cantor. Ken Glickfeld was the stage manager, technical ...
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Jean-Claude Van Itallie
Jean-Claude van Itallie (May 25, 1936 – September 9, 2021) was a Belgian-born American playwright, performer, and theatre workshop teacher. He is best known for his 1966 anti-Vietnam War play ''America Hurrah;'' ''The Serpent'', an ensemble play he wrote with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre; his theatrical adaptation of the ''Tibetan Book of the Dead''; and his translations of Anton Chekhov's plays. Early life and education Van Itallie was born in Brussels, Belgium on May 25, 1936, to Hugo Ferdinand van Itallie (an investment banker) and Marthe Mathilde Caroline Levy van Itallie. His family was Jewish. In 1940, when the Nazis invaded Brussels, he fled with his family to France, where they received visas to Portugal from the Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes. They stayed in Estoril, at the Pensão Royal, between 8 July and 28 September 1940. On the same day, they boarded the ''S.S. Hakozaki Maru'' headed for New York City, arriving on 10 October. Van Itallie grew up ...
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Marianne De Pury
Marianne de Pury (born 3 April 1935) is a Swiss theatre artist and composer born in St. Gallen, Switzerland. She is best known as the musical composer of two 1966 anti-war plays, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Jean-Claude van Itallie's social satire ''America Hurrah'' and Megan Terry's rock musical ''Viet Rock''. De Pury studied piano and composition at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève. She enjoyed the performing arts from a young age and, as a teen, she made frequent trips to Paris to see theatre. Later she moved to New York City, where she studied as an apprentice under the Open Theatre's director Joseph Chaikin. There she forged connections with artists active in New York's avant-garde theatre scene as well as the Black Panther Party. In 1965 she began a collaborative project with playwright and director Megan Terry who was working on a devised performance piece for the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club protesting the Vietnam War. Their ensemble improvisations at the Open Th ...
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Viet Rock
''Viet Rock'' is a rock musical by Megan Terry that served as inspiration to the musical ''Hair''. A violent denunciation of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, the play was described by its author as a "folk war movie" comprising scenes of disillusionment and protest to the American military presence in Southeast Asia. ''Viet Rock'' is widely considered to be the first rock musical written and performed in the United States, as well as the first protest play about Vietnam. Its premiere also marks the first major theatre production in the United States in which actors left the stage to interact directly with the audience. The play was initially developed in 1965 and 1966 during collaborative workshops at New York City's The Open Theater under the leadership of Joseph Chaikin and Peter Feldman. The company performed improvisations based on accounts of the Vietnam War, and Terry wrote and directed a full-length show based on these improvisations. The music was composed by M ...
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Viola Spolin
Viola Spolin (November 7, 1906 — November 22, 1994) was an American theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book ''Improvisation for the Theater'', which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writ ...
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