Theatre Symposium, Volume 25

Addresses the ways that theatre both shapes cross-cultural dialogue and is itself, in turn, shaped by those forces. Globalization may strike many as a phenomenon of our own historical moment, but it is truly as old as civilization: we need only look to the ancient Silk Road linking the Far East to the Mediterranean in order to find some of the earliest recorded impacts of people and goods crossing borders. Yet, in the current cultural moment, tensions are high due to increased migration, economic unpredictability, complicated acts of local and global terror, and heightened political divisions all over the world. Thus globalization seems new and a threat to our ways of life, to our nations, and to our cultures. In what ways have theatre practitioners, educators, and scholars worked to support cross-cultural dialogue historically? And in what ways might theatre embrace the complexities and contradictions inherent in any meaningful exchange? The essays in Theatre Symposium, Volume 25 reflect on these questions. Featured in Theatre Symposium, Volume 25: ï½Theatre as Cultural Exchange: Stages and Studios of Learningï½ by Anita Gonzalez ï½Certain Kinds of Dances Used among Them: An Initial Inquiry into Colonial Spanish Encounters with the Areytos of the Taíno in Puerto Ricoï½ by E. Bert Wallace ï½Gertrude Hoffmann's Lawful Piracy: â??A Vision of Salome' and the Russian Season as Transatlantic Production Impersonationsï½ by Sunny Stalter-Pace ï½Greasing the Global: Princess Lotus Blossom and the Fabrication of the â??Orient' to Pitch Products in the American Medicine Showï½ by Chase Bringardner ï½Dismembering Tennessee Williams: The Global Context of Lee Breuer's A Streetcar Named Desireï½ by Daniel Ciba ï½Transformative Cross-Cultural Dialogue in Prague: Americans Creating Czech History Playsï½ by Karen Berman ï½Finding Common Ground: Lessac Training across Culturesï½ by Erica Tobolski and Deborah A. Kinghorn