Troubling Traditions: Canonicity, Theatre, and Performance in the US

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction: Troubling Traditions
	We See You, White Eurocentric Canon
	Holy Canons
	Why this Book Now?
	Mapping the Conversation
	Costs, Remixes, Approaches, and Departures
	We Believe In You, Future of US Theatre
		Toward a Future
	Works Cited
Part I: Costs of Canonicity
1. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
	Disciplining
	The Important and The Persuasive
	Final Thoughts: Undead White Men
	Works Cited
2. The Shakespeare Problem: A Conversation
	How do you Identify in the World, and What is your Relationship to the Work of William Shakespeare?
	How do you see Shakespeare's Work Operating Systemically up until this Point within Society?
	What do you think the Role of Shakespeare should be Within Theatre Training and the Field in General?
	How would you Train Theatre Makers? What do you see as Most Important to that Training?
	If it is to be Taught, How Would you Teach Shakespeare?
	Works Cited
3. "Go back to India if you hate my people so much": Consequences of Troubling the "Canon" in American Academia
	Scene 1
	Scene 2
	Scene 3
	Scene 4
	Notes
	Works Cited
4. Despite the Flames: A Conversation
	Methodology, or Why We Could Not Help but Make Such a Mess of a Straightforward Question About the US Theatrical Canon
	Where We are from and Why it Matters (or, Why We All Ended Up Talking About Land, Place, and Space to Talk About Theatre)
	On Why Home is a Four-Letter Word:
	Why Race Matters, Why Class Matters, but Mostly Why Race and Class Matter
	On Why We Hate Capitalism (and Why We Hate NAFTA Specifically)
	Aesthetics, or Reading Things We Were not Supposed to Know About
	The Canon, or Why When We Try to Talk About Aesthetics We Talk About Politics and Vice-Versa
	We See You White American Theatre, or How to Self-Deport from the Regional Theatre
	Where We Find Our Homes Now, or Some Kind of Happy Ending
	A Coda, from Virginia Grise's Your Healing is Killing Me ()
	Works Cited
5. The Black Gaze/A Different Account
	I The Black Gaze
	II A Different Account
	Works Cited
6. Amidst the Rubble of the Ivory Tower
	Notes
	Works Cited
Part II: Remixing Traditions
7. Shaking up the Canon with Cornerstone and OSF
	A. Navigating Canonical Rules with Hamlet and Oklahoma!
		Variations on a Sanskrit Classic
	B. Variations on Canonical Hauntings: Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella: A polyvocal fugue in three columns
	C. Can(n)ons
	Notes
	Works Cited
8. "Yo, Let's Steal Their Canons!": Arab and Arab American Canonical Multiplicities
	Introduction
	Identity
	Geography and Periodization
	Authorship
	Critical Intervention
	Function
	Conclusion
	Works Cited
9. Your Heritage is Safe Here: Defining Three Indigenous Theatrical Canons
	A Brief History of the Canon, Punctuated by Eurocentrism and Calcification:
	The Three Canons of Native Performance
	Works Cited
	Appendix
10. "Frenemies" of the Canon: Our Two Decades of Studying and Teaching Disability in Drama and Performance
	Works Cited
11. The Uses of Awe
	Works Cited
Part III: Fluid Approaches
12. Toward and Away: The Dramatic Tension of a Queer & Trans Canon
	Finding the queer in the traditional canon
	Queer Canonizing Projects
	Canonizing a Queer Body (of) Work
	Works Cited
13. Dancing With/Out the Canon
	Introduction
	Dance Studies, the Body, and the Academy
	My Body, My Canon?
	Revising for Representation: Historiography and Hierarchies
	Conclusion/Moving Forward
	Note
	Works Cited
14. What Do We Do with the Musical Theatre Canon?
	Asking the Question
	Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Canon (With apologies to Wallace Stevens and a nod to the Cole Porter list song)
	Preserving and Challenging the Traditional Musical Theatre Canon
	In, But Not Of
	The Musical Theatre Canon and the Women It Overlooked
	Canonical Show Tune Conventions
	Drowning Narcissus
	Refusing the Musical Theatre Canon: Burn the House Down
	Expanding the Canon
	Works Cited
15. Canons in Motion: Japanese Performance, Theatre History, and the Currents of Knowledge
	Our Canon(s)
	Problems with Canon(s)
	Teaching within and across canons
	Productive Intersections
	Canons in Motion
	Works Cited
16. The Kids' Table: Cross-institutional Treatment of the Canon and the Un-canonizable Nature of New Work
	Welcome
	Meet your Players
	Part I: Speed Dating, or, An Informal Interview
	Part II: Commodification and the Canon
	Conclusion
	Works Cited
Part IV: Departures and Re-visions
17. Rethinking the Canon through the Digital
	The Problem: Canons Are (Bad) Samples
	Solution #1: Quantitative Analysis
	Solution #2: Digitized Texts
	Solution #3: Digitized Performances
	Open Syllabus
	What's Next
	Notes
	Works Cited
18. Antigone is Dead, Long Live Antigones!: Adaptation, Difference, and Instability at the Heart of the Traditional Western Canon
	Notes
	Works Cited
19. Redirecting Canonicity: PhD Exams and Actor Training
	On PhD Training
	On Actor Training
	Transcending the Canon in PhD and Actor Training: A Path Forward
	Note
	Works Cited
20. We Aren't Here to Teach What We Already Know
	Mechanical Canon
	Concrete Work on Mechanical Problems
	The Too-Big Canon
	Works Cited
21. How Do We Do the Queer Canon?
	Introduction
	We Transgress Disciplinary Boundaries
	We Practice Critical Generosity
	We Turn to the Audience
	We Look to Queer Spaces
	We Say Why It Matters
	We Acknowledge the Past While We Teach the Present
	We Value Queer Mentorship
	Works Cited
Index