Michael Mark Chemers – författare

The long-awaited follow-up to Garland-Thomson's field-defining book Freakery, Freak Inheritance illuminates the convergence of the freak show era with the eugenics era, explicating the cultural work of the freak show as a compelling range of performances of cultural and social Others that emerge as eugenic targets from the late 19th century into the 20th century and beyond. This book explores the wildly popular performances that told compelling stories about categories of people that scientific and social-scientific discourses increasingly described - and sometimes still describe - as biologically inferior. Although much work has emerged recently about the history of eugenics, this collection highlights the specific ways that modes of exaggerated commercial popular performances create a public conversation that mirrors pathological narratives of human difference that are now firmly established as the categories of normal and abnormal, healthy and diseased, beneficial and harmful. This connection between narratives of freakery and normalcy gesture towards a fuller understanding of how eugenic thinking has re-emerged strongly as a force in medical science and cultural thinking aimed at producing the supposed “best” and “most useful” kinds of people.

The long-awaited follow-up to Garland-Thomson's field-defining book Freakery, Freak Inheritance illuminates the convergence of the freak show era with the eugenics era, explicating the cultural work of the freak show as a compelling range of performances of cultural and social Others that emerge as eugenic targets from the late 19th century into the 20th century and beyond. This book explores the wildly popular performances that told compelling stories about categories of people that scientific and social-scientific discourses increasingly described - and sometimes still describe - as biologically inferior. Although much work has emerged recently about the history of eugenics, this collection highlights the specific ways that modes of exaggerated commercial popular performances create a public conversation that mirrors pathological narratives of human difference that are now firmly established as the categories of normal and abnormal, healthy and diseased, beneficial and harmful. This connection between narratives of freakery and normalcy gesture towards a fuller understanding of how eugenic thinking has re-emerged strongly as a force in medical science and cultural thinking aimed at producing the supposed “best” and “most useful” kinds of people.

Working theatrically with technologySystemic Dramaturgy offers an invigorating, practical look at the daunting cultural problems of the digital age as they relate to performance. Authors Michael Mark Chemers and Mike Sell reject the incompatibility of theatre with robots, digital media, and videogames. Instead, they argue that problems with technology are really problems of art: How can we tell this story and move this audience with these tools? And when we have different tools, should that change the stories we tell?This volume attunes readers to “systemic dramaturgy”—the recursive elements of signification, innovation, and history that underlie all performance—arguing that theatre must be understood as a system of systems, a concatenation of people, places, things, politics, feelings, and interpretations, ideally working together to entertain and edify an audience. The authors discuss in-depth the application of time-tested dramaturgical skills to extra-theatrical endeavors, including multi-platform performance, installations, and videogames. And they identify the unique interventions that dramaturgs can and must make into these art forms.More than any other book that has been published in the field, Systemic Dramaturgy places historical dramaturgy in conversation with technologies as old as the deux ex machina and as new as artificial intelligence. A spirited and playful blend, the volume collates histories, transcripts, and case studies and applies the concepts of systemic dramaturgy to works both old and avant-garde. Between chapters, Chemers and Sell include conversations with some of the most forward-thinking, innovative, and creative people working in live media as they share their diverse approaches to the challenges of making performances, games, and digital media that move both heart and mind. This volume is nothing less than a guide for thinking about the future evolution of performance.

A new edition of the celebrated introduction to dramaturgy training and practiceSince its release in 2010, Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy has become the international standard for dramaturgy training and practice. The first textbook introduced students to the “ghost light” model of dramaturgy—a creatively engaged, artistically vibrant approach that draws on extensive knowledge of theatre history, practice, and theory—and this second edition brings the conversation up to the present.Over three parts, author and theory creator Michael Mark Chemers helps students explore the world of the dramaturg. Part 1 describes what dramaturgs do, presents a detailed history of dramaturgy, and summarizes many of the critical theories needed to analyze and understand dramatic texts. Part 2 teaches students to read, write, and analyze scripts through a twelve-step program with suggestions about how to approach various genres and play structures. The final part delves into the relationships dramaturgs forge and offers useful advice about collaborating with other artists. It also includes ideas for audience outreach initiatives such as marketing and publicity plans, educational programs, program notes and lobby displays, and more.Perfectly suited for the undergraduate theatre classroom, this holistic guide includes chapter exercises for students to practice the skills as they learn. The new edition also incorporates recent theory and new resources on multimedia performance and dramaturgy in the digital age. As the field of dramaturgy continues to shift and change, this new edition of Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy prepares theatre students and practitioners to create powerful, relevant performances of all types.

Collecting together Fin del Mundo, Valley of the Heart, and Adíos Mamá Carlota, this book compiles the latest plays of Luis Valdez and explores how they stand to be considered masterpieces by the man who brought the world Zoot Suit and La Bamba.Luis Valdez has been described as the “last of the great American playwrights,” referring to a Golden Age of U.S. playwriting that began with Eugene O’Neill and included Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and August Wilson. Like these other playwrights, Valdez’s impact on theatre needs to be measured on a global scale. The plays are psychologically deep, with powerful political messages woven into sophisticated plots and minutely drawn characters, all done with the characteristic rasquachi theatricality that made Valdez a household name. Fin del Mundo follows the protagonist through a maze-like urban afterlife that is by turns hilarious and deeply moving. In Valley of the Heart we witness a fictionalization of the true history of the relationship of Chicanos to Japanese-Americans during the horrific internments of World War II. Finally, in Adíos Mamá Carlota, we share the final moments of the former Empress of Mexico, teetering on the edge of madness, as she relives her extraordinary life and faces crippling guilt over her actions. Together, these plays represent a crowning achievement in the storied life of Luis Valdez. In this collection, each play is preceded by an introductory chapter by Jorge A. Huerta with analysis of the play.This collection is a vital and indispensable text for practitioners and students, as well as scholars of contemporary theatre, American, and Chicano performance.

Collecting together Fin del Mundo, Valley of the Heart, and Adíos Mamá Carlota, this book compiles the latest plays of Luis Valdez and explores how they stand to be considered masterpieces by the man who brought the world Zoot Suit and La Bamba.Luis Valdez has been described as the “last of the great American playwrights,” referring to a Golden Age of U.S. playwriting that began with Eugene O’Neill and included Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and August Wilson. Like these other playwrights, Valdez’s impact on theatre needs to be measured on a global scale. The plays are psychologically deep, with powerful political messages woven into sophisticated plots and minutely drawn characters, all done with the characteristic rasquachi theatricality that made Valdez a household name. Fin del Mundo follows the protagonist through a maze-like urban afterlife that is by turns hilarious and deeply moving. In Valley of the Heart we witness a fictionalization of the true history of the relationship of Chicanos to Japanese-Americans during the horrific internments of World War II. Finally, in Adíos Mamá Carlota, we share the final moments of the former Empress of Mexico, teetering on the edge of madness, as she relives her extraordinary life and faces crippling guilt over her actions. Together, these plays represent a crowning achievement in the storied life of Luis Valdez. In this collection, each play is preceded by an introductory chapter by Jorge A. Huerta with analysis of the play.This collection is a vital and indispensable text for practitioners and students, as well as scholars of contemporary theatre, American, and Chicano performance.

Staging Monstrous Bodies: Questioning Normative Orders brings together global perspectives from leading and emerging scholars to explore the intersections of monster studies and performances studies.Divided into three parts, the volume explores the connection between monstrosity and performance, such as representations of violence, gender and sexuality contexts, disability studies perspectives, anti-racism and post-colonial issues, and monstrosity as an artistic practice and dramaturgical process, which discursively cross-pollinate the different sections of the book. The first section, The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies, examines queer-feminist performance, bodybuilding as monstrous, monstrosity in costume-making and freak discourse in Latin America. Section two, De-Montage of the Monstrous, moves on to look at the historicization of medieval monsters and staging (in)justice and monstrosity. The third and final part, Monstrous Orders, includes messages on the rise of neo-Nazism in Europe, monstrosity in dance and an analysis of monstrosity in the writings of Diderot. Each section includes a roundtable discussion of what new theses, questions, and intellectual motifs are raised by the corresponding chapters.With its global scope, Staging Monstrous Bodies is an essential book for theater, dance, and performance students at all levels, as well as for scholars in these fields.

Staging Monstrous Bodies: Questioning Normative Orders brings together global perspectives from leading and emerging scholars to explore the intersections of monster studies and performances studies.Divided into three parts, the volume explores the connection between monstrosity and performance, such as representations of violence, gender and sexuality contexts, disability studies perspectives, anti-racism and post-colonial issues, and monstrosity as an artistic practice and dramaturgical process, which discursively cross-pollinate the different sections of the book. The first section, The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies, examines queer-feminist performance, bodybuilding as monstrous, monstrosity in costume-making and freak discourse in Latin America. Section two, De-Montage of the Monstrous, moves on to look at the historicization of medieval monsters and staging (in)justice and monstrosity. The third and final part, Monstrous Orders, includes messages on the rise of neo-Nazism in Europe, monstrosity in dance and an analysis of monstrosity in the writings of Diderot. Each section includes a roundtable discussion of what new theses, questions, and intellectual motifs are raised by the corresponding chapters.With its global scope, Staging Monstrous Bodies is an essential book for theater, dance, and performance students at all levels, as well as for scholars in these fields.

Monstrous Utopias examines how monsters in performance, theatre, media, and literature reflect and subvert societal understandings.This book considers the ethical and hopeful work of monsters and examines ways in which playwrights, theatre and performance artists, film artists, drag artists, dancers, cultural practitioners, and activists have engaged the monster to reflect the ongoing fears (including racist, sexist, homophobic, and others) of our society and how those monsters might offer a radical sense of hope. Providing perspectives by top scholars in the field and curated by Michael Mark Chemers and Analola Santana, two leaders in the field of monster studies, Monstrous Utopias is a global and exploratory collection that offers meaningful insights into the ways in which the figure of the monster can be used to radically envisage utopias and provide moments of hope to audiences.These essays are essential reading for Theatre and Performance students of all levels as well as scholars. It will also be an enlightening text for those interested in monstrosity and Cultural Studies more broadly.