Milestones | King Orel Denton and others
Long time ATCA member Robert L. King, contributing editor in drama criticism to The North American Review since 1993, and professor of English at Elms College, Massachusetts, saw publication of The Ethos of Drama: Rhetorical Theory and Dramatic Worth (Catholic University Press) in May 2010. The book uses rhetorical theory to evaluate moral values in plays from Shakespeare’s time to the present. Dr. King examines other theories of drama to show that they ignore or minimize the argument from moral worth (Ethos). Among the plays Dr. King evaluates are works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, David Mamet and Tom Stoppard.
Gwen Orel, encyclopedist
ATCA member and webmistress Gwen Orel contributed a lengthy entry onRegional Theaters to the new Broadway: An Encyclopedia of Theater and American Culture, ed. Thomas A. Greenfield (Greenwood, 2009). She sketches the evolution of the Little Theater Movement and its rise into the modern Regional/Resident Theater movement and takes a look into her crystal ball identifying a trend of increased flow from regional theaters to Broadway after a century of a flow the other direction. She points out that nearly one third of the 2008 Tony Award nominations went toproductions that originated in not-for-profit companies. The two-volume set is published by Greenwood Press.
Martin Denton’s anthology of plays from off-off-Broadway, Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium, which has been out of print since 2004, has just been re-issued as an e-book, available for Kindle. It features the seven plays that were in the original print edition, along with bonus material never before available. There’s more info at the publisher’s website or click here for a fuller description, including links to Denton’s podcast interviews with playwrights on nytheatrecast.com.
Denton has also just edited Plays and Playwrights 2010, the 11th in an annual series of anthologies of new plays by never-before-published playwrights (New York Theatre Experience, Inc., publisher). All 10 plays premiered off-off-Broadway, Sept. 2008-Sept. 2009: The Invitation by Brian Parks; Flip Side by Ellen Maddow; Any Day Now by Nat Cassidy; The Spin Cycle by Jerrod Bogard; Suspicious Package: Rx by Gyda Arber & Aaron Baker; Our Country by Tony Asaro & Dan Collins; Maddy: A Modern Day Medea by Will Le Vasseur; Al’s Business Cards by Josh Koenigsberg; The Songs of Robert by John Crutchfield; and MilkMilkLemonade by Joshua Conkel. For more info, visit http://www.nytesmallpress.com.
March marks the publication of a volume edited by Barry Gaines, ATCA Treasurer and Excom member, and Margaret Maurer of Colgate University: Three Shrew Plays: The Taming of a Shrew; Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew; and Fletcher’s The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing).
The Best Plays Theater Yearbook 2007-08, the 89th edition of this essential record of the American theater, was
released in Nov. 2009. Edited by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins and featuring essays by ATCA members David Cote, Christine Dolen, Chris Jones, Christopher Rawson and Charles Wright, among others, this is Jeffrey’s eighth as editor of the series. Read more on the Best Plays website.
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