A Nuyorican Absurdist: Pedro Pietri and His Plays of Happy Subversion

Jerzy Grotowski once wrote of the visionary Antonin Artaud, “He wasn’t entirely himself;” the same might be said of the late poet Pedro Pietri—who wasn’t entirely himself since he began writing plays. Pietri’s plays, having been produced in New York since the late sixties, are an example of the wave of Nuyorican theatre in the US prominent at that time— characterized by experimentation in form and the merging of social issues within that form. While others have explored Pietri’s work in tandem with his poetry, the phenomenological approach taken in this essay focuses on his plays and brackets off other concerns, getting at the “thingness” and texture of Pietri’s bizarre farcical dramaturgy, particularly within the context of how it compares to European absurdist technique

A look at computer classes offered at selected South Jersey public libraries

No abstract available

Mi Corazón Español Vive Ahora En Grecia: Creating Plays on the Spanish Roots of the Sephardic Communities of Thessaloniki and Veroia

In my 2022-23 Fulbright Award to Spain and Greece, I took on the daunting task of writing six plays, titled Mi Corazón Español Vive Ahora En Grecia: Six Plays of Sephardic Greece, about the Spanish roots of the Jewish communities of Thessaloniki and Veria, of which I am a descendent (my father’s mother, my Nona, Mary Massarano Crespin was from Thessaloniki, and my Nono, Isaac Morris Crespin was from Veroia). This project was built upon a previous 2018 Fulbright project titled Madre de Israel: Three Plays of Jewish Salonika. In this essay, I will document and analyze my dramatic adaptation process for both Fulbright Projects, creating living histories for the stage to memorialize a Sephardic Jewish world nearly destroyed by the Holocaust. Working through a process which included teaching, oral narrative, traditional scholarship, and the creative research of exploring the geography, family histories, and cultural experiences of Ladino/Spanish music, poetry, and storytelling, I have written a total of 10 new plays, all using a non-linear technique of dreamwork for dramatic writing. The challenges tied to this ongoing project include the absence of collective memory, the destruction of entire communities, and the controversial curation of places of Jewish memory

Creating a new style: Examining culture through theatre design [abstract]

Abstract only availableFor most audiences worldwide, there is not much available in terms of Japanese American theatre. As a half-Japanese Theatre student, I wished to create a play that would help others become aware of Japanese American issues. Although most people know about the Japanese internment camps during World War II, not many are aware of the hardships faced by the Japanese sugar cane plantation workers in Hawaii during the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth century. In my studies of Ancient Greek drama as a Classical Humanities major, and have found that the themes behind the play "Antigone" by Sophocles relates to this overlooked moment in history. I decided to integrate this history with the play and rewrote it as a new script entitled "Stained Skin." Given that I am emphasizing in Design/Tech in Theatre, I also designed the scenery and costumes, with the intention of the production being performed at the MU Corner Playhouse. After researching the different aspects of this subject, my project was proposed to the Department of Theatre and will be further developed in the future.MU Undergraduate Research Scholars Progra

The Maelstrom: A play against genocide [abstract]

Abstract only availableThe Darfur Conflict has been addressed at length, but the majority of the public seems to be unaware the significance these acts of inhumanity have on a global psyche. The time for reflection and action is now, while the crisis is ongoing in order to alleviate the situation. Picking up the pieces from the fallout of human life is too little and too late. The United Nations has estimated that nearly 500,000 persons in the Darfur region of Sudan have been left dead from genocidal acts. 2.5 million people have been displaced, yet the majority of the American public doesn't know the extent of the current-day tragedy. At the least, this project, “The Maelstrom: A Play Against Genocide” will help students at the University of Missouri-Columbia understand the sheer inhumanity of such conflicts. It is similarly vital that our nation's public understand the acute implications violent action has on the lives and psychologies of individuals. A play is unique in the sense that it makes any issue represented, real and present. Theatrical productions force an audience to be involved with the situations on stage, because the events (as fictitious or true as they may be) are happening to real people. “The Maelstrom: A Play Against Genocide” will make the conflict in Darfur present and visceral, so that a modern-day audience will gain understanding of the complex emotions behind such an event and the impact it has on a political, cultural, and personal scale. This play serves to connect the audience with the immediacy of this horrific conflict, and hopefully move them to action. It seeks to translate to the public a slice of this genocide in an accessible form, so that everyday people will be moved by compassion, and seek to eliminate prejudicial hate on a local and global stage.MU Undergraduate Research Scholars Progra

Colloidal Polymers with Controlled Sequence and Branching Constructed from Magnetic Field Assembled Nanoparticles

The assembly of nanoparticles into polymer-like architectures is challenging and usually requires highly defined colloidal building blocks. Here, we show that the broad size-distribution of a simple dispersion of magnetic nanocolloids can be exploited to obtain various polymer-like architectures. The particles are assembled under an external magnetic field and permanently linked by thermal sintering. The remarkable variety of polymer–analogue architectures that arises from this simple process ranges from statistical and block copolymer-like sequencing to branched chains and networks. This library of architectures can be realized by controlling the sequencing of the particles and the junction points via a size-dependent self-assembly of the single building blocks