5/10
EXCERPT FROM: A note to the community about plans for Warren Wilson Theatre:
. . . I will begin assembling a group to start preliminary work on a production to be performed at the end of the fall semester (people can certainly participate in both projects). This project does not yet have a final name, but it will involve an investigation into the history of the concept of race in America. I'm particularly interested in looking at the ways we perform our racial identities (for me, that means my white identity) and how these identities came to be. That's a huge topic, so I plan to focus the production around an incident that took place in London in 1710, when a group of four "Indian Kings" (actually, sachems from the Iroquois Confederation in North America) made a sensational visit to London, during which the were presented at the court of Queen Anne and visited several theatrical productions. A number of plays were presented at the time of their visit; they certainly attended Davenant's popular adaption of Macbeth, as well as a puppet show. A play they may have seen, which is most significant for our purposes, was a theatrical adaption of Aphra Behn's novella, Oroonoko, or: The Royal Slave, her story of an African prince captured and transported to to the English colony of Surinam with his wife, Imoinda (who is black in the original story and white in Thomas Southerne's stage adaption, interestingly enough). Other plays they may have seen include John Dryden's heroic tragedy, The Indian Emperour, or: The Conquest of Mexico, and Behn's comedy The Widdow Ranter, which is set in Jamestown in the Virginia colony. It's the intersection of the English, African, and American Indian races at a particular point in our early history, represented by the characters in these plays as well as the audiences attending them, that I think is significant and interesting to explore. At this point, I don't know the shape or style of the production we will create, though I'm hoping it will involve video and a good deal of music. Carol Howard, Chair of the English Department, is serving as dramaturg for the project, and with her help I expect to have a working script in the fall which will serve as a framework. I invite students and community members of all races to join me in this project.
EXCERPT FROM: A note to the community about plans for Warren Wilson Theatre:
. . . I will begin assembling a group to start preliminary work on a production to be performed at the end of the fall semester (people can certainly participate in both projects). This project does not yet have a final name, but it will involve an investigation into the history of the concept of race in America. I'm particularly interested in looking at the ways we perform our racial identities (for me, that means my white identity) and how these identities came to be. That's a huge topic, so I plan to focus the production around an incident that took place in London in 1710, when a group of four "Indian Kings" (actually, sachems from the Iroquois Confederation in North America) made a sensational visit to London, during which the were presented at the court of Queen Anne and visited several theatrical productions. A number of plays were presented at the time of their visit; they certainly attended Davenant's popular adaption of Macbeth, as well as a puppet show. A play they may have seen, which is most significant for our purposes, was a theatrical adaption of Aphra Behn's novella, Oroonoko, or: The Royal Slave, her story of an African prince captured and transported to to the English colony of Surinam with his wife, Imoinda (who is black in the original story and white in Thomas Southerne's stage adaption, interestingly enough). Other plays they may have seen include John Dryden's heroic tragedy, The Indian Emperour, or: The Conquest of Mexico, and Behn's comedy The Widdow Ranter, which is set in Jamestown in the Virginia colony. It's the intersection of the English, African, and American Indian races at a particular point in our early history, represented by the characters in these plays as well as the audiences attending them, that I think is significant and interesting to explore. At this point, I don't know the shape or style of the production we will create, though I'm hoping it will involve video and a good deal of music. Carol Howard, Chair of the English Department, is serving as dramaturg for the project, and with her help I expect to have a working script in the fall which will serve as a framework. I invite students and community members of all races to join me in this project.
posted by Graham at 2:18 AM
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