Theodore Shank
Biographic Data
| ID | 459023 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Theodore Shank |
| GIVEN NAMES | Theodore |
| FAMILY NAME | Shank |
| SIGNATURE | SHANK T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Beyond the Boundaries: American Alternative Theatre
Contemporary British Theatre
Cowboy Lips
Urban Man on Exhibit in the London Zoo
Roger Rees: The Painter as Actor
London International Festival of Theatre
Paintings You Can See into: Hesitate and Demonstrate (England)
American Playwrights: A Critical Survey
Environmental Theatre
Shortly before sunset spectators on an isolated Pacific beach near San Francisco saw on a distant cliff a giant figure in the form of a young woman standing motionless facing the ocean. After a time she stretched out her arms as if trying to reach something that was beyond the horizon. A squad of military men on a concrete bunker chanted English words in the style of Indonesian music. The words began to appear on white placards placed in long row…
American Alternative Theater
American Alternative Theatre
"Renaissance Radar" by Soon 3
"Nightfire's "Femme Fatale: The Invention of Personality
California Cool: Soon 3/Hellmuth-Reynolds/Snake Theater
Mitchell's Death: Linda Montano's Autobiographical Performance
Since 1973 the California artist Linda Montano has used her own life—past and present—as material for her performances. After her estranged husband died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in August 1977, her work focused on reactions to his death. Some of her earlier performances consisted of her usual activities being observed by others, in 1973, when she lived in San Francisco, she sent announcements to her friends saying that she would stay hom…
Atelier Théâtre et Musique: Structuring Everyday Gestures and Sounds
The French theatre group ATEM (Atelier Théâtre et Musique) was formed by composer Georges Aperghis in the fall of 1975 to begin explorations that would lead to a series of productions in which commonplace gestures and sounds are scored according to musical principles. The group has developed what Aperghis calls a “grammar” consisting of “systems” that provide a means of structuring fragments of everyday life, setting them off in such a way that t…
Political Theatre in England
Squat Theatre
The Actual As Bizarre: Assaulting the Sensibilities of the Audience
Some bizarre elements used in recent English performances are so startling or threatening or shocking to audience sensibilities that the dramatic illusion is broken. The spectator becomes aware of himself as being in the same time and space as the element rather than relating to it as if it were only fictional. In such instances the viewer responds as he would to other real-world events. Traditionally, a theatre performance consists of an illusio…
Squat Theatre's Andy Warhol's Last Love
Andy Warhol's Last Love, the first play made by Squat Theatre in the U.S.A., opened in their New York storefront theatre and home on West 23rd Street on June 2, 1978. Pig, Child, Fire! (T75), their previous production seen in New York, had been created largely in Holland, although one scene was originally done in their apartment in Budapest after they had been banned from performing in the theatre there. The new work of the group reflects their e…
Squat's Pig, Child, Fire
The expatriate Hungarian theatre company known as Squat has quite literally attempted to make their life their art. Because the two are seen as identical, art is not an activity that can be given up. They are totally committed. They did give up their theatre when authorities in Budapest prohibited their performances, and after performing in their apartment and other illegal places for four years and giving up their passports, they permanently gav…
The Welfare State Theatre
The itinerant “fringe” or “experimental” theatre groups supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain can be divided into those concerned solely with esthetic expression and those that aim at social efficacy. The latter can be further divided into those with “political” intentions and those with “social” objectives. There are revolutionary socialist theatre groups, often comprised of Marxists, who play almost exclusively for trade union members …
The Pip Simmons Group: Commemorating the Nazi Concentration Camps
In July, 1975, the Pip Simmons Theatre Group performed for the first time in London since disbanding in April, 1973. As with previous works by this group, some critics and spectators were offended. The last two plays Simmons had created in England were Do It!, based on Jerry Rubin's book, and The George Jackson Black and White Minstrel Show, staged shortly after Jackson had been killed and played by white performers in blackface. By affecting a f…
Political Theatre as Popular Entertainment: The San Francisco Mime Troupe
In the exuberance of revolutionary zeal, it is natural that certain political theatre groups should turn to forms of entertainment associated with fun, with the common man, with people in general regardless of social, economic, or educational status, in contrast with the traditional aristocratic forms that have “artistic” pretensions and tend to be more contemplative than energetic. It is also predictable that such groups should shun ballet, oper…
A Return to Mayan and Aztec Roots: At the Chicano and Latin American Festival
For two weeks in late June and early July, 1974, Chicano and Latin-American theatre groups held a festival in Mexico City and at the Pyramids of Teotihuacan and Tajfn. It was unique as international festivals go, for unlike the festivals at Avignon, Nancy, Spoleto, Dubrovnik, Edinburgh, and Sao Paulo, the gathering in Mexico was not sponsored by an agency of the establishment as a tourist attraction. Instead, it was sponsored by two alternative t…
London International Festival of Theatre
Atelier Théâtre et Musique: Structuring Everyday Gestures and Sounds
The French theatre group ATEM (Atelier Théâtre et Musique) was formed by composer Georges Aperghis in the fall of 1975 to begin explorations that would lead to a series of productions in which commonplace gestures and sounds are scored according to musical principles. The group has developed what Aperghis calls a “grammar” consisting of “systems” that provide a means of structuring fragments of everyday life, setting them off in such a way that t…
The Theatre of the Cultural Revolution
Collective Creation
The group, rather than the individual, is the typical focus of the alternative society, and this is reflected in the structure of the new theatre organizations, their manner of working, and their theatre pieces. The collective creation of theatre pieces has become the method of conceiving and developing works in the alternative theatre. Society has become increasingly specialized and competitive. This is reflected in an established theatre based …
Christopher Columbus at the Dubrovnik Festival
Among the productions at the 1973 Dubrovnik Festival, the one which elicited the greatest interest from the tourists, including vacationing governmental leaders, was actually an implicit deprecation of the exploitation of and by tourists. The performances of Christopher Columbus were presented this past summer on board an oversized replica of the Santa Maria, as it sailed with crew and audience out of the Dubrovnik harbor, continued through the n…
Political Theatre as Popular Entertainment: The San Francisco Mime Troupe
In the exuberance of revolutionary zeal, it is natural that certain political theatre groups should turn to forms of entertainment associated with fun, with the common man, with people in general regardless of social, economic, or educational status, in contrast with the traditional aristocratic forms that have “artistic” pretensions and tend to be more contemplative than energetic. It is also predictable that such groups should shun ballet, oper…
A Return to Mayan and Aztec Roots: At the Chicano and Latin American Festival
For two weeks in late June and early July, 1974, Chicano and Latin-American theatre groups held a festival in Mexico City and at the Pyramids of Teotihuacan and Tajfn. It was unique as international festivals go, for unlike the festivals at Avignon, Nancy, Spoleto, Dubrovnik, Edinburgh, and Sao Paulo, the gathering in Mexico was not sponsored by an agency of the establishment as a tourist attraction. Instead, it was sponsored by two alternative t…
The Pip Simmons Group: Commemorating the Nazi Concentration Camps
In July, 1975, the Pip Simmons Theatre Group performed for the first time in London since disbanding in April, 1973. As with previous works by this group, some critics and spectators were offended. The last two plays Simmons had created in England were Do It!, based on Jerry Rubin's book, and The George Jackson Black and White Minstrel Show, staged shortly after Jackson had been killed and played by white performers in blackface. By affecting a f…
Squat's Pig, Child, Fire
The expatriate Hungarian theatre company known as Squat has quite literally attempted to make their life their art. Because the two are seen as identical, art is not an activity that can be given up. They are totally committed. They did give up their theatre when authorities in Budapest prohibited their performances, and after performing in their apartment and other illegal places for four years and giving up their passports, they permanently gav…
The Welfare State Theatre
The itinerant “fringe” or “experimental” theatre groups supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain can be divided into those concerned solely with esthetic expression and those that aim at social efficacy. The latter can be further divided into those with “political” intentions and those with “social” objectives. There are revolutionary socialist theatre groups, often comprised of Marxists, who play almost exclusively for trade union members …
Political Theatre in England
Squat Theatre
The Actual As Bizarre: Assaulting the Sensibilities of the Audience
Some bizarre elements used in recent English performances are so startling or threatening or shocking to audience sensibilities that the dramatic illusion is broken. The spectator becomes aware of himself as being in the same time and space as the element rather than relating to it as if it were only fictional. In such instances the viewer responds as he would to other real-world events. Traditionally, a theatre performance consists of an illusio…
Squat Theatre's Andy Warhol's Last Love
Andy Warhol's Last Love, the first play made by Squat Theatre in the U.S.A., opened in their New York storefront theatre and home on West 23rd Street on June 2, 1978. Pig, Child, Fire! (T75), their previous production seen in New York, had been created largely in Holland, although one scene was originally done in their apartment in Budapest after they had been banned from performing in the theatre there. The new work of the group reflects their e…
Mitchell's Death: Linda Montano's Autobiographical Performance
Since 1973 the California artist Linda Montano has used her own life—past and present—as material for her performances. After her estranged husband died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in August 1977, her work focused on reactions to his death. Some of her earlier performances consisted of her usual activities being observed by others, in 1973, when she lived in San Francisco, she sent announcements to her friends saying that she would stay hom…
Atelier Théâtre et Musique: Structuring Everyday Gestures and Sounds
The French theatre group ATEM (Atelier Théâtre et Musique) was formed by composer Georges Aperghis in the fall of 1975 to begin explorations that would lead to a series of productions in which commonplace gestures and sounds are scored according to musical principles. The group has developed what Aperghis calls a “grammar” consisting of “systems” that provide a means of structuring fragments of everyday life, setting them off in such a way that t…
California Cool: Soon 3/Hellmuth-Reynolds/Snake Theater
"Renaissance Radar" by Soon 3
"Nightfire's "Femme Fatale: The Invention of Personality
Environmental Theatre
Shortly before sunset spectators on an isolated Pacific beach near San Francisco saw on a distant cliff a giant figure in the form of a young woman standing motionless facing the ocean. After a time she stretched out her arms as if trying to reach something that was beyond the horizon. A squad of military men on a concrete bunker chanted English words in the style of Indonesian music. The words began to appear on white placards placed in long row…
American Alternative Theater
American Alternative Theatre
London International Festival of Theatre
Paintings You Can See into: Hesitate and Demonstrate (England)
American Playwrights: A Critical Survey
Urban Man on Exhibit in the London Zoo
Roger Rees: The Painter as Actor
Art (24 works) · Theatre and Performance Studies (15 works) · Visual arts (14 works) · History (13 works) · Art history (10 works) · History (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Archaeology (6 works)