African Grove Theatre

• Founded by William Alexander Brown
• First African-American troupe founded
• Faced excessive racism
• Had to frequently move location to avoid violence

Antonin Artaud

• French writer, poet, actor, director­
• Rejected Stanislavsky’s ideas
• Created the Theatre of Cruelty
• Sought to agitate the masses

• African-American playwright
• Wrote Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom based on 1920s blues musicians and their struggle to get recorded
• Wrote about the lives of African-Americans in 20^th century America
• Wrote Fences, The Piano Lesson

Bertolt Brecht

• German poet, playwright, director
• Worked in post-WWI censorship­
• Continued Piscator’s Epic Theatre
• Wanted the audience to remain emotionally detached

Bread and Puppet Theatre

• Experimental theatre
• Used giant puppets and actors to denounce the Vietnam war and materialism­
• Inspired by Beckett, Artaud, and Grotowski
• Founded in New York’s Lower East Side

Caryl Churchill

• English dramatist
• First woman to hold the title Resident Dramatist at Royal Court Theatre
• Wrote Cloud Nine and Top Girls
• Wrote about feminism, power abuse, and sexual politics

Dario Fo 

• Italian actor, playwright, political satirist, composer, politician
• Wanted actors and directors to change his plays as needed
• Wrote semi-biographical Accidental Death of an Anarchist
• Won Nobel Prize in 1997

Erwin Piscator

• German Producer and Director
• Invented Epic Theatre
• Wanted to awaken the audience to political theatre
• Pioneered documentary theatre

Expressionism

• Originated in pre-WWI Germany and evolved until post-WWI
• Imposes artist’s internal state on the world
• About cultural transformation
• Direct response to naturalism and optimism

Futurism

• Started in pre-WWI Italy
• Founded by F. T. Marinetti
• Believed in using violence, the concept of ever-present speed, and machination
• Used as a propaganda machine for fascism in Italy

Guerilla Theatre (agit prop) 

• Founded by R. G. Davis
• Grew out of his rediscovery of commedia dell’arte
• Started in 1960s San Francisco
• Intended to be a cultural revolt to confront hypocrisy in American society

Harold Pinter

• British hilarious absurdist playwright
• Wrote The Dumb waiter
• Famous for dialogue
• Plays marked by surreal distortion and impending danger

Jean Genet

•  “If a man creates himself, he is responsible for his creation.”
• Existentialist
• Wrote The Maids
• French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, political activist

Jean-Paul Sartre

• French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, biographer, literary critic
• Wrote No Exit
• Found inauthenticity in character one of the worst things a human can do
• Turned down the Nobel Prize 

Jerzy Grotowski

• Student of Asian philosophy and Chinese opera
• Innovator of experimental theatre
• Saw the artist as a potential minister to the people
• Polish director and theatre practitioner

Jo Mielziner

• Assistant of Robert Edmund Jones
• Worked during the Golden Age of Stage Design
• Focused on paintings and fewer 3-D elements
• Used lighting to change scenes

Judith Malina

• Co-created the Living Theatre
• American theatre practitioner
• Married to Julian Beck
• Inspired by Artaud, Brecht, pacifism, pastiche, and Grotowski

Julian Beck

• Co-created the living Theatre
• American theatre practitioner
• Married to Judith Malina
• Inspired by Artaud, Brecht, pacifism, pastiche, and Grotowski

• English producer, playwright, critic
• Coined the term “Theatre of the Absurd”
• Defined a theatre that attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy
• Wanted theatre to be used to shock the audience

Ming Cho Lee

• Chinese-born American set designer
• Designed sets both On- and Off-Broadway
• One of the foremost American set designers today
• Has won numerous awards for his sets, including a Tony for K2

Peter Weiss

• German theatre practitioner
• Believed in the Theatre of Cruelty
• Wrote The Investigation using the transcripts of the Frankfurt Trials
• Wrote Marat Sade

Robert Wilson (postmodernism) 

• Believed in “deconstructionism” and “post-modernism”
• Used actors as props
• Known for taking something succinct and expanded it
• Tried to find the sparsest way to get a point across

Teatro Campesino

• Primary symbol of Chicano theatrical expression
• Performed for and by the Chicano people, particularly farm workers
• Founded by Luis Valdez
• Influenced by Brecht and commedia dell’arte

Tharon Musser

• 20^th century American lighting designer
• Considered a pioneer in the field of stage lighting
• Has won three Tony Awards for her work in Follies, A ChorusLine, and Dreamgirls
• Has worked on over 150 Broadway plays

Theatre of Cruelty

• Founded by Antonin Artaud
• Aimed to psychologically and emotionally attack the audience.
• Used surprising lighting, sound, staging
• “Agitate the masses, attack the spectator’s sensibilities, purge the people of their destructive tendencies.”

Wole Soyinka

• Nigerian playwright and poet
• The first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
• Gained interest and popularity from London’s Royal Court Theatre
• Activist in Nigerian politics and civil struggles

Zoot Suit

• Play written by Luis Valdez
• Most famous play in the Chicano Movement
• Inspired by the Zoot Suit Riots, which were results of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case
• So-named for the Chicano workers’ clothing