scholarly journals Stage Actors and Modern Acting Methods Move to Hollywood in the 1930s

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Cynthia Baron
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Film Production ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Sound Film ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
Dramatic Arts

In this article, the author considers factors in commercial 1930s American theatre and film which led to the unusual circumstance of many stage-trained actors employing ostensibly theatrical acting methods to respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities of industrial sound film production. The author proposes that with American sound cinema fundamentally changing employment prospects on Broadway and Hollywood production practices, the 1930s represent a unique moment in the history of American performing arts, wherein stage-trained actors in New York and Hollywood developed performances according to principles of modern acting articulated by Stanislavsky, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and the acting manuals written by theatre-trained professionals and used by both stage and screen actors. To illustrate certain aspects of the era’s conception of modern acting, the author analyzes a scene from Captains Courageous (Victor Flemining, 1937) with Spencer Tracy and a scene from The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin, 1931) with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

The Achievements of the Douglass Company in North America: 1758–1774

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Mays
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
North America ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
The West ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Theatre History ◽  
A Company

On Monday, October 16, 1758., Hugh Gaine reported a novelty. “Friday last,” he told his readers in the New-York Mercury, “arrived here from the West Indies, a Company of Comedians; some Part of which were here in the Year 1753.” This brief notice, which went on to assure its readers that the company had “an ample Certificate of their Private as well as publick Qualifications,” marks the beginning of the most significant event in American theatre history: the establishment of the professional theatre on this continent. The achievements of the Company of Comedians during its sixteen-year residence in North America are virtually without parallel in the history of the theatre, and have not received sufficient recognition by historians and scholars.

“I Know I Can’t Wait to See My Name in Lights”

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Jillian Báez
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Cable Television ◽  
Children's Television ◽  
Television Production ◽  
The Past ◽  
Feminist Media Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Intervention

This essay explores the production, content, and reception of Nickelodeon’s sitcom Taina (2000–01). Created by Maria Perez-Brown, a Latina pioneer in cable television, Taina ran for two seasons and foregrounded a Puerto Rican teenage girl at a performing arts high school in New York City. Guided by an intersectional feminist media studies analysis, I argue that Taina presages the rise of girls’ tween and teen shows on cable television and paved the way for contemporary representations of Latina girlhood in mainstream broadcast, cable, and streaming television. Taina is rarely cited in the history of Latina/o television or children’s television. This essay re-centers Taina as a critical intervention into children’s television and as a leading forerunner in Latina television production. I also highlight the labor of fans in shedding light on Taina’s obscured history, creating new ways of engagement with television of the past, and demanding new representations of Latinas.

Notes for a History of the Italian-American Theatre of New York

1973 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
A. Richard Sogliuzzo
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
First Generation ◽  
American Studies ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Italian Americans ◽  
Italian American ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
Immigrant Culture

Today, Italian-Americans are largely integrated into the mainstream of American society. Nearly vanished is the simple, lively immigrant culture of the first generation of Italian-Americans. New York City, the center of that immigrant culture, once had a thriving theatre which served a large segment of the city's Italian-speaking population. Although the Italian-American theatre was a major ethnic theatre, its history remains neglected, and is virtually unknown to historians outside the area of Italian-American studies.

scholarly journals American Christians for and against Parsifal: Debating the Holy Grail Opera in New York

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Hale
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opera House

The appropriateness of Christian themes in the performing arts has often been debated. Defenders have argued that various media, including drama, can serve as instruments of spiritual edification, while critics have contended that such efforts often eventuate in sacrilege and a vulgarising exploitation of the sacred for commercial and entertainment purposes. A heated debate took place in 1903 when Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal, which since its première at Bayreuth in 1882 had been hailed as a magnificent representation of redemption and other themes central to Christianity, was staged at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York – its first performance as an opera outside its original venue. Numerous clergymen and lay people in several denominations sought to have the production banned and cautioned fellow Christians against seeing it. Others, generally of a theologically more liberal bent, defended the work. The heated public controversy is placed into historical context and compared with the history of Parsifal in the United Kingdom, where it was widely appreciated without noteworthy opposition.

Method Acting and the Cold War

2000 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Bruce McConachie
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Method Acting ◽  
Acting Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Group Theatre ◽  
Moscow Art Theatre

Triumphalist accounts of the spread of “the Method” in post-World War II America generally explain its success as the victory of natural truths over benighted illusions about acting. In Method Actors: Three Generations of An American Acting Style, for instance, Steve Vineberg follows his summary of the primary attributes of “method” acting with the comment: “These concerns weren't invented by Stanislavski or his American successors; they emerged naturally out of the two thousand-year history of Western acting.” Hence, the final triumph of “the Method” was natural, even inevitable. Vineberg's statement, however, raises more questions than it answers. Why did it take two thousand years for actors and theorists of acting to get it right? Or, to localize the explanation to the United States, why did more American actors, directors, and playwrights not jump on the Stanislavski bandwagon and reform the American theatre after the appearance of the Moscow Art Theatre in New York in 1923 and the subsequent lectures and classes from Boleslavski and others? The Group Theatre demonstrated the power of Stanislavski-derived acting techniques in the 1930s, but their substantial successes barely dented the conventional wisdom about acting theory and technique in the professional theatre. Yet, in the late 1940s and early fifties, “method” acting, substantially unchanged from its years in the American Laboratory and Group theatres, took Broadway and Hollywood by storm.

Making Movies at Hammer

2016 ◽  
pp. 11-22
Author(s):  
Victoria Grace Walden
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
Production House

This chapter discusses how the production history of Hammer Films is illustrative of the complexities of the British film industry, which has often struggled to compete with Hollywood. Though Hammer had a difficult start, it flourished into an internationally renowned horror brand. However, even the success of Hammer's horrors wore thin eventually. Its demise as a film production house in the 1970s, short-lived shift to television in the 1980s, and rebirth in the 2000s expresses the turbulent nature of British film production. The history of Hammer's production practices also raises interesting questions about what constitutes a 'British film industry', for like many studios its success has relied heavily on American backing and distribution.

scholarly journals ECLAP 2012 Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Digital Libraries ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Media Access ◽  
Technology Innovations ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Access Service ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Information

It has been a long history of Information Technology innovations within the Cultural Heritage areas. The Performing arts has also been enforced with a number of new innovations which unveil a range of synergies and possibilities. Most of the technologies and innovations produced for digital libraries, media entertainment and education can be exploited in the field of performing arts, with adaptation and repurposing. Performing arts offer many interesting challenges and opportunities for research and innovations and exploitation of cutting edge research results from interdisciplinary areas. For these reasons, the ECLAP 2012 can be regarded as a continuation of past conferences such as AXMEDIS and WEDELMUSIC (both pressed by IEEE and FUP). ECLAP is an European Commission project to create a social network and media access service for performing arts institutions in Europe, to create the e-library of performing arts, exploiting innovative solutions coming from the ICT.

The Greenwich Street Theatre 1797–1799

1979 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
James S. Moy
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Theatre ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Street Theatre ◽  
History Of

On 1 September 1797, both the John Street Theatre and the New Theatre, Greenwich-Street advertised Sheridan's The School for Scandal. Although the company at the John Street Theatre subsequently postponed its performance, this confrontation was typical of what G.C.D. Odell referred to as the “Battle Royal of 1797,” New York City's first competitive theatre season. While most scholars of the American theatre are familiar with the history of the John Street Theatre, very little has been written about New York City's first “regular opposition theatre,” the Greenwich Street Theatre. Lack of information combined with scholarly bias has left us with only impressionistic images of this theatre's place in history.

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