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Publications
Long Form Improvisation and American Comedy: The Harold. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
"Shakespeare without SHAKESPEARE: The Improvised Shakespeare Company." Americana: The Journal
of American Popular Culture, 11, no. 2 (Fall 2012).
“Performing Fatherhood: A Graduate Student Odyssey.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies,
8, no. 4 (September 2012).
“Jonathan Goes to Washington: The Stage Yankee, George W. Bush & the American Presidency.”
The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 23, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 57-75.
“Call it (Friendo): Flipism & Folklore in No Country for Old Men and The Dark Knight.” Riddle Me This,
Batman!: Essays on the Universe of the Dark Knight. Ed. by Kevin K. Durand and Mary K. Leigh.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishers, 2011.
“Improvisational Comedy.” The Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. Ed. Salvatore Attardo. Sage Publications,
April 2014.
“Fatherhood and Academic Life.” Inside Higher Ed, 7 January 2013.
“Improvisational Theatre.” The Encyclopedia of American Studies. Ed. by Miles Orvell. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Rev. of Acting Presidents: 100 Years of Plays About the Presidency by Bruce Altschuler. NeoAmericanist,
6.1 (Spring/Summer 2012).
Rev. of The Other Blocking: Teaching & Performing Improvisation by Tom Smith; Process: An
Improvisers Journey by Michael Gellman & Mary Scruggs; Theatrical Improvisation: Short Form,
Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv by Jeanne Leep. Theatre Topics, 20.1, (2010): 83-85.
Rev. of Theatrical Improvisation: Short Form, Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv by Jeanne Leep. The
Players Journal, 2.1, (2009).
Performance Rev. of “Co-Ed Prison Sluts.” Theatre Journal, 61.3, (2009): 483-485.
Under Review
“Rules? What Rules? – The Annoyance Theatre.” Chapter in Beyond Steppenwolf: Chicago’s Established
Alternative Theaters. Eds. Jennifer Schlueter and Erica Milkovich. Evanston: Northwestern University
Press.
"Shakespeare without SHAKESPEARE: The Improvised Shakespeare Company." Americana: The Journal
of American Popular Culture, 11, no. 2 (Fall 2012).
“Performing Fatherhood: A Graduate Student Odyssey.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies,
8, no. 4 (September 2012).
“Jonathan Goes to Washington: The Stage Yankee, George W. Bush & the American Presidency.”
The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 23, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 57-75.
“Call it (Friendo): Flipism & Folklore in No Country for Old Men and The Dark Knight.” Riddle Me This,
Batman!: Essays on the Universe of the Dark Knight. Ed. by Kevin K. Durand and Mary K. Leigh.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishers, 2011.
“Improvisational Comedy.” The Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. Ed. Salvatore Attardo. Sage Publications,
April 2014.
“Fatherhood and Academic Life.” Inside Higher Ed, 7 January 2013.
“Improvisational Theatre.” The Encyclopedia of American Studies. Ed. by Miles Orvell. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Rev. of Acting Presidents: 100 Years of Plays About the Presidency by Bruce Altschuler. NeoAmericanist,
6.1 (Spring/Summer 2012).
Rev. of The Other Blocking: Teaching & Performing Improvisation by Tom Smith; Process: An
Improvisers Journey by Michael Gellman & Mary Scruggs; Theatrical Improvisation: Short Form,
Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv by Jeanne Leep. Theatre Topics, 20.1, (2010): 83-85.
Rev. of Theatrical Improvisation: Short Form, Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv by Jeanne Leep. The
Players Journal, 2.1, (2009).
Performance Rev. of “Co-Ed Prison Sluts.” Theatre Journal, 61.3, (2009): 483-485.
Under Review
“Rules? What Rules? – The Annoyance Theatre.” Chapter in Beyond Steppenwolf: Chicago’s Established
Alternative Theaters. Eds. Jennifer Schlueter and Erica Milkovich. Evanston: Northwestern University
Press.
Shakespeare Without SHAKESPEARE: The Improvised Shakespeare Company
Shakespeare and popular culture have a long and complicated relationship. Shakespeare is no longer isolated in academies and on the ‘proper stage.’ He’s appearing more and more, and in more and more diverse ways. We see him on stage, on film, and in advertisements. His name is evoked in politics, romance and novels (and romance novels). Shakespeare tourism, folklore and mythology have become a part of our cultural and national identities. Quite simply, Shakespeare’s relationship to popular culture matters. One of the more interesting contemporary Shakespop examples is the Chicago group The Improvised Shakespeare Company (ISC). The players take an audience suggestion for a play title that has yet to be written, and then create a fully improvised two-act play in Shakespearean verse, incorporating the language, style and themes from the Bard’s collected works. Douglas Lanier argues that our ideas and notions about Shakespeare are constantly being shaped and reformed through popular appropriations. As Lanier argues, Shakespeare in pop culture is “an important means by which notions about Shakespeare’s cultural significance [can be] created, extended, debated, revised, and renewed, not only parodied or critiqued.” As a result many contemporary appropriations struggle to both lay claim to and contest Shakespeare’s authority. Contemporary uses of Shakespeare, according to Diana Henderson, not only “remake him in our own image…but they also teach us to see that image and the past anew." Like many other appropriations, collaborations and adaptations, The ISC reveals current attitudes toward and the relationship between popular culture and Shakespeare.
Jonathan Goes to Washington: The Stage Yankee, George W. Bush, and the American Presidency
The American presidency has a long relationship with the stage. Presidents have been appearing in plays for centuries as representations of what we want (or don’t) in our leaders. Likewise presidents have looked to the stage for guidance. Before the position technically even existed the founders were turning to drama. The ideas of “self-sacrifice, republican virtue, and an almost boundless devotion to the principle of liberty” found in the titular character in Joseph Addison’s Cato (1713) had a tremendous impact on George Washington and the formulation of the office. While the influence of Cato and other theatrical events has been documented, one area that has been overlooked in the creation and evolution of the presidency is the stage Yankee. First introduced in Royall Tyler’s The Contrast in 1787, the stage Yankee enthralled early 19th century audiences by providing a rallying point for a national identity. The simple hard working stock character, often referred to as Jonathan, may be lacking on intellect but is full of honor, gumption and patriotism – a true man of the people. It should come as no surprise then that this folksy model has been appropriated by politicians and used as a means to increase popular appeal for centuries.
Call It (Friendo): Flipism & Folklore in No Country for Old Men and The Dark Knight
Heads or tails. That’s all it takes. Some call it in the air and let it hit the ground. Others call it before the toss, catch the coin in one hand and slap it on the back of the other. Whatever the method, flipping a coin has a long tradition in Western culture. From Caesar’s “head” settling disputes, Donald Duck’s adventures with Flipism, the modern day use of a coin toss in sports, to the naming of Portland, OR, flipping a coin has been an influential part of Western and Anglo-American folklore for centuries. A seemingly simple game of chance has been a popular gambling and children's game, a mode of divination, a way to settle disputes, used to argue for the power of reason and prove the prudence of a legal system based on a jury of one’s peers. Like many aspects of folklore, coin tossing has made its way into film. Two of the most critically acclaimed films of 2007 and 2008 prominently feature coin tosses. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the cold blooded villain of the Coen Brothers Academy Award winning No Country for Old Men, and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the white knight district attorney in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, both use coin tosses throughout their respective films. The use of Flipism by Chigurh and Dent seemingly suggests a world ordered by fate, destiny and the cosmos. It is my contention however, that Flipism is used by the filmmakers to argue for the supremacy of free will in a chaotic world. Rather than leaving things to chance as tossing a coin seemingly suggests, both characters are fully aware of the choices they are making throughout, and the use of coin tosses is a calculated psychological tool implemented by two highly intelligent characters - not as a means to make decisions.
Available in Riddle Me This, Batman! Essays on the Universe of the Dark Knight.
Order your copy here!
Available in Riddle Me This, Batman! Essays on the Universe of the Dark Knight.
Order your copy here!
Rules? What Rules? - The Annoyance Theatre
With the establishment of the Harold in the 1980s by Del Close and Charna Halpern at iO, improvisation finally had a firm structure that allowed for fairly reliable end product. iO became the home of the Harold, and became the place to study and perform improvisation. They established an improv form, with teachers and rules and structures and a book – they even had a guru…so naturally it didn’t take long for a group to come along to break the rules. Founded in 1987 as Metraform and renamed the Annoyance in 1990, the company quickly established itself as the leading alternative improvisational theatre in Chicago. After students trained at iO and Second City to learn the rules of improv, they came to the Annoyance to learn how to break those rules. The Annoyance provided an alternative for improvisers with an invitation consisting of totally uncensored stage time. Driven by the idea of unrestricted improvisation based in play, they developed an irreverent performance philosophy, which author Rob Kozlowski notes in The Art of Chicago Improv, can be summed up in two words: fuck it.