Tag Archives: drama/theater

August Strindberg on Society

Posted on July 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and police.”

August Strindberg

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Three Documents for a Study of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Posted on July 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

I am very quickly headed to retirement. Do you know I’m relieved? As I remove myself and my possessions from my final school, I realized I have some odds and ends in my folder that I developed for classes I co-taught over the past couple of years.

For the past couple of years, in the autumn, the teacher for the Junior English Language Arts class I co-taught started the year with a unit on Arthur Miller’s play on the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible. So, here are a list of questions to drive discussion of the play as well as to arouse ideas for writing essays; this list of sentence stems similarly aims to get students thinking about the play as well as how to write about it. Finally, since The Crucible is an allegory on the McCarthy Era, here is a list of analytical questions to accompany an article on the Red Scare.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Reference, Worksheets

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Word Origins: Diamond

Posted on June 22, 2026 | Leave a comment

“diamond: [ME] The name of the gem derives from a medieval Latin alteration of Latin adamans ADAMANT. Adamant was a legendary rock or mineral of many supposed properties. One of these was hardness, which was a reason why people sometimes identified it with diamond. A diamond is forever was used as an advertising slogan for De Beers Consolidated Mines from the late 1940s onwards, and in 1956 Ian Fleming used Diamonds are Forever as the title of his latest James Bond thriller, but the idea was first expressed by the American writer Anita Loos, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925). ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend‘ was a song written by Leo Robin and Jule Styne for the 1949 stage musical of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

Excerpted from: Creswell, Julia. Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

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Alice Childress

Posted on March 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

“Alice Childress: (1916-1994) U.S. playwright, novelist, and actress. She grew up in Harlem and studied drama with the American Negro Theater, where she wrote, directed, and starred in her first play, Florence (produced 1949). Her other plays, some featuring music, include Trouble in Mind (produced 1955), String (1969), The African Garden (1971), and Gullah (1984). She was also a successful writer of children’s books, including A Hero Ain’t Nothing But a Sandwich (1973).”

­­­­­­­­­Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, New York City, Quotes, Reference

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Orson Welles

Posted on January 23, 2026 | Leave a comment

Orson (George) Welles: (1915-1985) U.S. film director, actor, and producer. Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, he began directing on stage at 16 and made his Broadway debut in 1934. He directed an all-black cast in Macbeth for the Federal Theater Project. In 1937 he and John Houseman formed the Mercury Theater, creating a series of radio dramas and attempting to mount Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock in the face of determined opposition, and winning notoriety with their panic-producing broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938). Welles then moved to Hollywood, where he cowrote, directed, and acted in the classic Citizen Kane (1941), noted for its innovative narrative technique and atmospheric cinematography and considered the most influential movie in film history. His other films include The Magnificent Ambersons (1943), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Othello (1952), The Trial (1963), Touch of Evil (1958) and Chimes at Midnight (1966). His problems with Hollywood studios curtailed future productions, and he moved to Europe. He was also notable as an actor in Jane Eyre (1944), The Third Man (1949), and Compulsion (1959).

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Jose (Benjamin) Quintero

Posted on October 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Jose (Benjamin) Quintero: (1924-1999 U.S. (Panamanian-born) theatrical director. After studying theater at USC, he directed his first play in 1949. He was a founder of the Broadway theater Circle in the Square, where he directed regularly from 1950, establishing the house as a major center for serious theater. His direction of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke (1952) confirmed his reputation and made a star of Geraldine Page. He was best known for his productions of 20th-century plays, especially those of Williams and Eugene O’Neill, including The Iceman Cometh (1956), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1956), and A Moon for the Misbegotten (1973, Tony Award).”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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50 Argonauts

Posted on July 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Jason * Orpheus (the lyre-playing musician) * Mopsus the seer * Heracles and his male love of the moment, the handsome young Hylas (who gets kidnapped by water nymphs) * Pollux the champion boxer who kills the king of the Bebyrycians * Shape-shifting Periclymenus * Fast-footed Euphemus * Winged Calais and Zetes (sons of the North Wind who repel the Harpies) * and 40 more

The Argo, which had a magical keel crafted out of a sacred oak from the oracle of Dodona, was crewed by fifty heroes of ancient Greece—the Argonauts. Jason was the leader of this warrior band (sometimes referred to as the ‘Minyans’) sent on what was presumed to be a suicidal quest by King Pelias, his usurping half-uncle. Their mission was to sail to Colchis (Georgia) and seize possession of the Golden Fleece of a divine ram what hung from a tree in a grove sacred to Ares, god of war, guarded by a sleepless dragon.

Every city in Greece liked to imagine that they contributed a hero to this mythical band, which means that the list has had to grow in number, though if you examine the text of Apollonius of Rhodes, written in third-century Alexandria, it is easy enough to identify all the named Argonauts. Even this cast, however, numbers fifty-five, though by juggling who comes on, as others go off, the good ship Argo, it is just about possible to keep to fifty.

If you add other famous names and such ubiquitous heroes such as Bellerophon, Nestor, Perseus, Atalanta, and Theseus, you can grow the crew to eighty, which has a hidden harmony with the text of Apollonius, who has embedded eighty aitia in his epic. These are short verse sequences which give the mythical origins or such curious things as the sacred water-carrying race held on the island of Aegina or how the island of Thira is linked with Libya. The final text comprise 6,000 lines, which can be recited in one day to reasonably alert ancient theater audience.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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Cultural Literacy: The Mikado

Posted on May 16, 2025 | Leave a comment

Strictly speaking, this Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Mikado has little or nothing to do with Asian Pacific History, either locally or globally. I should have known this, because as a middle school student, I served as an usher for a production of the play by my city’s Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company.

But if we think of this play as an attempt at representation, then there is something juicy to talk about here. I doubt Gilbert and Sullivan are exactly au courant in classrooms these days, so I also doubt that this document has much use or currency. Rather than throw it away, however…. Well, enough said.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Lillian (Mary) Baylis

Posted on March 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Lilian (Mary) Baylis: (1874-1937) British theatrical manager and founder of the Old Vic. She assisted her aunt, Emma Cons, in the operation of the Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern, and on Cons’s death in 1912 she converted the hall into the Old Vic, which became famous for its Shakespearean productions. Between 1914 and 1923 the theater staged all of William Shakespeare’s plays, a feat no other playhouse had attempted. In 1931 she took over the derelict Sadler’s Wells Theatre and made it a center of opera and ballet.”

­­­­­­­Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Ginger Rogers

Posted on March 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

Finally, for today’s document posts, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Ginger Rogers. This is a half-page worksheet with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions on this estimable American thespian and terpsichorean.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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