Theater and Social Change

A Special Issue of Theater

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Edited by Alisa Solomon

Duke University Press

Due/Published November 2001, 170 pages, paper

ISBN 0822365030

From the Federal Theater Projects of the Great Depression to the disruptive performances of the 1960s and 1970s, theater has played an important role in American radicalism. This special issue reports on socially conscious, politically active theaters in the United States. Despite the evaporation of Cold War passions and the rise of conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s, such theater work remains a persistent and evolving presence on the political landscape. With the inauguration of George W. Bush, new opportunities have arisen for political performance and for significant new challenges to these artists.

 These essays not only track the historical evolution of political theater but also explores the current state and future prospects of different modes, including agit-prop, demonstrations, solo performance, Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed, and community-based production.

Contributors include: Reverend Billy, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Arlene Goldbard, Sharon Green, Lani Guinier, Holly Hughes, Jonathan Kalb, Tony Kushner, Judith Malina, Robbie McCauley, John O'Neal, Claudia Orenstein, Bill Rauch, Julie Salverson, Anna Deavere Smith, Alisa Solomon, Roberta Uno