Writing the Drama of Documentary Performance
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 30th, 2010
“I’m fine I’m fine I’m…I’m dead” Led by a woman called Mullaya, the Islamic call to prayer is heard five times a day: at dawn, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset, and dusk. At dawn when the first call to prayer begins from the mosque, the Mullaya comes into the sights of all prayers. Mullaya: “Early in the [...]
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 30th, 2010
Space Travel In theatre, many worlds are created through the production of plays that come to life on stage. As audience members, I like to think of us as astronauts who conduct galactic travels between these worlds of plays. My latest trip was to the world of “No Child…” by Nilaja Sun, a planet where [...]
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 29th, 2010
The Never-Ending Forest You and six other people are walking down an old country road. You do not know each other, and you come from different places, but your stories are the same. Without warning, the road disappears beneath your feet, and you tumble down, down, down. You do not know why you fell, or [...]
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 29th, 2010
Gaza: A Land Torn “…She wanted me exactly how I turned out- scattered and deviant and too loud” (Corrie 6). Rachel is somewhat of an average character with an extraordinary imagination and a hope for a better world where hunger is eradicated by the year 2000 (Corrie 52). My Name is Rachel Corrie takes place [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 28th, 2010
In last week’s New York Times‘ ArtsBeat blog, actor/playwright Daniel Beaty provided a guest post about the solo performer/writer of documentary plays. Beaty is the author of Through the Night (YouTube clip of his performance here) in which he plays a multitude of characters (like some of the artists/writers on your documentary play list: Heather [...]
Posted in NEWS of interest on Sep 28th, 2010
The Teatro Latina/o Series presents Octavio Solis A Reading of Santos & Santos by Octavio Solis Directed by Joseph Megel Monday, October 18, 2010 at 7 PM Gerrard Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill “A Writer’s Life” A public lecture by playwright Octavio Solis Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 6 PM University Room, Hyde Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill Octavio [...]
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 22nd, 2010
Brittain, Victoria and Slovo, Gillian. Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom. London: Oberon Books, 2004. The events of Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom are based on the interviews of various alleged-Taliban members who are put “beyond the rule of law, beyond the protection of any courts, and at the mercy of the victors” and [...]
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 22nd, 2010
Kaufman, Moisés and The Members of the Tectonic Theater Project. The Laramie Project. New York: Vintage, 2001. The play opens in November 1998, as the Tectonic Theater Project commences a journey. The destination: Laramie, Wyoming, a town plagued by the violent and malicious kidnap and murder of openly gay citizen Matthew Shepard that occurred two [...]
Posted in Duke Blog on Sep 22nd, 2010
Kaufman, Moises and The Members of the Tectonic Theater Project. The Laramie Project. New York: Vintage, 2001. The documentary play The Laramie Project follows the journey of eight Tectonic Theater Project actors into the small town of Laramie, Wyoming, to explore the circumstances of Matthew Shepard’s murder. In 1998, Shepard, a twenty-one-year-old gay student from [...]
Posted in UNC Blog on Sep 21st, 2010
Through my research, I discovered that Franklin Street was the sight of more town history than I previously realized. Initially, I learned about the street’s original construction and some of its original buildings. While Franklin Street’s early history is interesting, I began to doubt that my initial research would have any bearing on our final [...]