The experiences of a diverse range of progressive theater and performance makers in their own words.
Curated stories from over 75 interviews and informal exchanges offer insight into the field and point out limitations due to discrimination and unequal opportunity for performance artists in the United States over the past 55 years. In this work, performers, often unknown beyond their immediate audience, articulate diverse influences. They also reflect on how artists are educated and supported, what content is deemed valuable and how it is brought to bear, as well as which audiences are welcome and whether cross-community exchange is encouraged. The book’s voices bring the reader from 1965 through the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. They point to more diverse and inclusive practices and give hope for the future of the art.
Author Biography:
Jan Cohen-Cruz (Author)
Jan Cohen-Cruz is a former professor of drama at NYU and founder of the department’s applied theater minor. As a past director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, she co-founded its journal, Public. Her numerous books include Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965–2020, by Those Who Lived It, Local Acts, Engaging Performance, Remapping Performance, and two co-edited texts on Augusto Boal. Cohen-Cruz was director of field research for A Blade of Grass and an ATHE awardee for Leadership in Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement. She currently teaches at Touchstone Theatre/Moravian University.
Rad Pereira (Author)
Rad Pereira is a queer (im)migrant artist and cultural worker building consciousness between healing justice, system change, reindigenization and queer futures based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Rad is co-creator of YOU ARE HERE, which aims to create equitable access to healing through creative expression specifically for and with queer, trans, and two-spirit BIPOC. They are a proud board member of Superhero Clubhouse, making theater to enact environmental justice. Rad’s work has been supported by communities, institutions, and groups all over Turtle Island.
Carlton Turner (Foreword by)
Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, researcher, former executive director of Alternate ROOTS, and founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). Sipp Culture uses food and story to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi, where he lives with his wife, Brandi, and three children.
Jill Dolan (Foreword by)
Jill Dolan is the Annan Professor of English, Professor of Theater, and the Dean of the College at Princeton University. Among other books, she is the author of The Feminist Spectator as Critic, Utopia in Performance, and The Feminist Spectator in Action. Her blog, The Feminist Spectator, won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. She has received numerous teaching awards and the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
