Three Giants (of American Playwriting) will be presented Saturday, October 16th from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Via Zoom. There will be one 15 minute break.
Attendees will be emailed materials & a Zoom link upon Registration.
Cost: $10.00 for ACT Members, $15.00 for NonMembers
Click Here To Register
About the Workshop:
Several American playwrights of the twentieth century may deserve to be called great. Such notables as Thornton Wilder, Edward Albee, and Lillian Hellman may come to mind. But if one were forced to choose who would be the top three American playwrights of the past century, a strong case could be made for the subjects of this upcoming ACT workshop: Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller.
Eugene O’Neill
O’Neill was one of the first American playwrights to introduce the concept of realism into his plays. This realism took the form of characters on the fringes of society often depicting their deep-seated fears, and they were expressed in varied American dialects and colloquialisms. O’Neill’s aim was to strip American theatre of false sentimentality and present an honest view of American culture. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1920, 1922, 1928, and 1957, and for literature in 1936.
In the workshop, we will be studying A Long Day’s Journey into Night – the last play O’Neill wrote before he died, and the one generally regarded as his best.
Tennessee Williams
Lauded as one of the greatest American playwrights of the twentieth century, Williams used his own life to influence the content of his plays. Topics included drug abuse, alcoholism, and domestic violence, all of which he experienced during his life. Much of Williams’s acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays, and a large collection of memoirs. Four years before his death, he was inducted in The American Theater Hall of Fame. His plays Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire won Pulitzer Prizes. We will be analyzing “Streetcar” in this workshop.
Arthur Miller
As one of the most prominent playwrights of the twentieth century, Arthur Miller’s work focuses on the balance between the individual and society – how society influences the individual and how the individual influences the world around them. Themes include the American Dream, social responsibility, and human purpose. His most famous works include The Crucible and the Pulitzer Prize winning Death of a Salesman. We will be studying the latter in the workshop.
Useful Source: Gardner, Ashleigh. “13 Classic American Playwrights You Should know,” in Performer Stuff. n.p. August 16, 2016.
About the Moderator:
David Rutter has a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education from Penn State University, and a Master of Arts degree in theatre from San Diego State University. He also taught high school theatre in California and Florida for thirty-seven years before retiring and moving “back home” to central Pennsylvania. David has most recently appeared onstage with Altoona Community Theatre in “Big River” and “Romeo & Juliet”.