Ten Plays That Changed America

Reflecting on her tenure as the head of America’s mighty but short-lived Federal Theatre Project (1935-1939), theater visionary Hallie Flanagan told the U.S. Congress: “The entire history of Federal Theatre points to one dynamic fact, profoundly significant for the future of the stage: that the theater, often regarded even by members of its own profession as dead or dying, still has tremendous power to stir up life and infuse it with fire.”

This course – designed for newcomers and theater afficionados alike – considers ten of America’s greatest plays since Flanagan’s era, all of which have sought to “stir up life and infuse it with fire:” to inspire, to agitate, and to light the way forward.

We’ll cover works that tackle many aspects of American national life and identity: the marketplace and its impact on the family (Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman), racial inequity (Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun), U.S. immigration (Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics), sexual expression and repression, both personal and political (Tony Kushner’s Angels in America), the grip of America’s founding mythologies (Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog and Branden Jacobs-Jenkin’s Appropriate), the grandeur and blind spots of Second Wave feminism (Bess Wohl’s Liberation), Muslim and Asian American experiences (Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced and David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face), and theater’s unique promise in negotiating civic unrest (Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror).

Together, these plays and their characters have profoundly shaped American audiences’ understanding of what this country is and what it might become. On America’s semi-quincentennial, come learn what they still have to teach us today.

Thu, 6/4-8/20         | 12:00 - 1:30 PM ET     |12 Sessions