Ms. Magazine recently interviewed Dr. Christine Mallinson, and her long-time collaborator, Dr. Charity Hudley, about linguistic agency, empowering forms of classroom communication, gender pronouns and more.
Check our the interview here.
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It’s always incredibly refreshing to sit down to a play written by a woman, about women. The most-produced living playwright in the United States this season, Lauren Gunderson, has created a witty ode to female strength and agency with her new play, “The Revolutionists,” currently running with a cast of four Resident Company actors at the Everyman Theatre.
Set in 1793 in the midst of the French Revolution, Olympe De Gouges, a feminist playwright played by Megan Anderson, is visited by Marianne Angelle, a spy (Dawn Ursula) working for freedom for those living in the Caribbean; Charlotte Corday, the assassin (Emily Kester) of journalist Jean-Paul Marat; and Marie Antoinette (Beth Hylton), the recently dethroned queen of France at the time.
These women mingle in and out of De Gouges’s life, asking her to remember them and memorialize them even as she is trying to write her own story and stake her own claim as an independent woman of the Revolution. She begins the play suffering from writer’s block and uses Marianne Angelle, Charlotte Corday, and Marie Antoinette as inspiration for her work.
If you can get past the overused “writer’s block” trope, “The Revolutionists” is striking both in its social commentary and comedy. It makes use of recurring jokes, almost reducing its characters to parody before dragging them up from one-dimension and helping them find their own voice, typically written by De Gouges herself.
Kester plays a passionate Corday and delivers some of the funniest lines of the night—her standout being that killing a journalist makes her an editor—and Hylton creates a deeply human Antoinette as she interacts with Ursula’s Angelle. Her death scene—each woman’s story, except Angelle’s, ends with the guillotine—is one of the most poignant and beautiful parts of the play, the French flag unfurling behind her as her wig is taken off.
David Burdick, once again, does an incredibly job with costume design. Each woman has a distinct style that so closely matches her personality: Corday wears blue Dr. Martens and a ripped up plaid dress, giving her a distinctly “edgy” assassin vibe, and De Gouges finds herself outfitted in a pantsuit and ascot that both foreshadows her final scene and exudes literary style.
Daniel Ettinger has created a beautiful set, and while he has done an incredible job with projections, the guillotine in particular feels lost in the aesthetic of the show, but C. Andrew Mayer, sound designer, and Elizabeth Harper, lighting designer, manage to pull it all back together.
It wouldn’t be a play with Marie Antoinette without at least one wig, and Anne Nesmith has done a spectacular job with Antoinette’s wigs and the others in the show.
If “The Revolutionists” feels a bit preachy sometimes, it’s likely because 1793 was an era where feminist statements needed to be said aloud for the first time, and as the actors discover this voice so innate to the twentieth century, they manage to make it fresh and new and not overly sermonizing.
“The Revolutionists” is running through January 7 at the Everyman Theatre. Along with standard student ticket pricing, Everyman is offering a “Girls’ Night Out Package” featuring four tickets to see “The Revolutionists,” plus a bottle of wine and some macarons.
]]>“Alice in Wonderland” purists may be surprised by Center Stage’s production of “Lookingglass Alice,” a retelling of Lewis Carroll’s popular children’s novels, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” The play loosely follows the plot of these novels, choosing instead to focus on the characters Alice meets on her way across the chessboard to become a queen.
The central point throughout the show is precisely that: Alice, played here by Markita Prescott, wants to become a queen. At eleven-and-a-half years old, she is determined to make her way across the chessboard to be crowned Queen Alice, for reasons implied – it is hinted that she wants to feel comfortable in her own skin as a black woman – but otherwise unmentioned.
In this coming-of-age, musical production, Alice knows Lewis Carroll, or Charles Dodgson (Christopher Ramirez), as he is introduced, intimately and, for some reason, isn’t totally surprised when he appears in her mirror to whisk her away to Wonderland. Along the way she meets the Red Queen, played by a vocally stunning Patrice Covington, who evokes strong Nicki Minaj vibes, the Cheshire Cat, played by the dynamic David Darrow, and the White Rabbit, played by an energetic Garrett Turner.
There is some double-casting in the show, leaving room for quick changes that will beg the question: How did they do that? David Darrow is especially radiant. He plays at least three different string instruments throughout the production and embodies each of his four characters completely and uniquely – not to mention the incredible control he has over his body as the Cheshire Cat.
Each actor is tellingly accomplished both on and off the stage, and they play off each other very well, which only leaves one wondering why certain parts of the show fell flat. None of the design aspects felt as if they fit together under a common theme; the show felt disjointed, only to be put back together as the actors demonstrated their belief in the production.
Though most production aspects fell flat, Lindsay Jones, who created original music for the show, shined. His music provided a refreshing take on the tale and shaped Alice’s world for the audience, giving us a look inside Alice’s mind and allowing us to see her connect with those helping her across the chessboard.
The message of self-acceptance and love permeated throughout the show, and by the time Alice arrived at the final square, she didn’t need a crown – though a crown was provided – to know, in her heart, that she was a queen. Though the script doesn’t stick precisely to the source material, the heart of the story is the same, and one that audiences, particularly younger audiences, will certainly enjoy.
“Lookingglass Alice” will run at Center Stage until December 31. It is a family-friendly show, and tickets are sold online between $25 and $74.
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CONSOLE-ING PASSIONS
International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism
July 11-13, 2018
Bournemouth University,
Faculty of Media and Communication,
Poole, UK
Bournemouth University is now accepting proposals for Console-ing Passions 2018.
Deadline for submissions: 23.59 (Greenwich mean time) 15 January 2018.
Please use the submission template found on the Bournemouth University Console-ing Passions web site: click on the "Download the Proposal Template” link (see Proposal Guidelines below).
Submissions should be sent to: CP2018@bournemouth.ac.uk
The history of Console-ing Passions
Console-ing Passions was founded in 1989 by a group of feminist media scholars and artists looking to create a space to present work and foster scholarship on issues of television, culture and identity, with an emphasis on gender and sexuality. Over the years since the first conference took place at the University of Iowa in 1992, Console-ing Passions has expanded to become not only the most important conference for scholars studying gender in television but also one of the top conferences for scholars of media generally. Console-ing Passions has only ever taken place twice before in the UK, in 2001 (University of Bristol) and 2013 (De Montfort University).
The focus of this conference
Console-ing Passions at Bournemouth University welcomes a wide range of proposals for individual papers, pre-constituted panels and pre-constituted workshops that consider television, video, audio or new media alongside gender, sexuality, race and/or other intersectional components of identity. Proposals for the presentation of video, audio, or new media creative works are also invited.
Whilst the conference organisers invite a broad and diverse range of proposals, as global trends reveal the rise of populism, nationalism and resistance to migration, special preference will be given to panels, workshops and creative works that focus on these themes.
As part of this, the conference plenary sessions will focus on intersections of feminism and migration, including confirmed presentations from:
· Floya Anthias: Professor of Sociology and Social Justice (Emeritus) at Roehampton University, London, UK, whose recent work includes Paradoxes of Integration: Female Migrants in Europe (2013).
· Kerstin Stutterheim: Professor of Media & Cultural Studies at Bournemouth University, who will present a self-reflexive documentary focusing on the migrant’s concept of home.
· Representatives from the International Queer & Migrant Film Festival in Amsterdam will address the event, offering insight into their diverse social and cultural work.
The 2018 conference at Bournemouth University within the Faculty of Media and Communication offers a democratic arena for diverse voices, framing aspects of media production and performativity as much as academic enquiry. Console-ing Passions is also accepting undergraduate proposals, so please encourage interested undergraduates to apply.
The conference organizers hope to make final decisions on submissions by mid-February, 2018.
Conference organisers: Christopher Pullen & Peri Bradley, Bournemouth University, Faculty of Media and Communication, Poole, Dorset, UK.
Email: CP2018@bournemouth.ac.uk
Proposal Guidelines
Proposers or attendees may submit one paper or creative project and one CP workshop.
Individual Papers: Individuals submitting a paper proposal should provide an abstract of 250 words, a short bio and contact information. Co-authored papers are acceptable.
Panels: Panel coordinators should submit a 250-word rationale for the pre-constituted panel as a whole. Coordinators should also submit a 250-word abstract, a short bio and contact information for each panel participant. Panels should include 3-4 papers. Co-authored papers are acceptable. Panels that include a diversity of panelist affiliations and experience levels are strongly encouraged.
CP Workshops: We invite proposals for a limited number of pre-constituted workshop round-tables that focus either on scholarly topics in the field or matters of professional interest. We are especially interested in round-tables that are likely to engage wide participation by conference attendees and which reflect our field’s diversity of cultural identities, institutions, methodologies and professional rank or employment status. Proposals should be submitted by an organiser, who will propose a subject area for discussion (250-word abstract) including responses (of 150 words) from 5-7 respondents. Proposals should also include a brief bio and contact information for the organiser and each participant.
Creative Works: We invite proposals for video, audio, or new media screenings or exhibits. Each proposal should consist of a 250-word abstract (including details of the length and format of the work), a short bio of the producer/director and contact information. If the work is viewable online, please submit a URL.
Registration Fees
In line with the long-standing political ethos of Console-ing Passions, Bournemouth University aims to keep registration costs as low as possible, including the provision of low-cost university lodgings (subject to availability) in order to encourage a diverse and stimulating conference, where a range of voices are heard.
Full details will be available soon after conference proposals have been accepted.
Conference Committee
Peri Bradley - Senior Academic in Media Theory
Fiona Cownie – Senior Principal Academic
Laura Crossley - Lecturer (Academic) in Film
Evi Karathanasopoulou – Lecturer in Audio Production
Christopher Pullen - Principal Academic in Media Theory
Christa van Raalte – Head of Department
Alexander Sergeant - Lecturer in Film and Media Theory
Kristin Skoog - Senior Lecturer in Media History
Kerstin Stutterheim – Professor of Media and Cultural Studies
Bronwen Thomas - Director of the Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community
Shelley Thompson - Senior Lecturer in Corporate & Marketing Communications
Candida Yates – Professor of Culture and Communication
Dr. Chris Pullen – Principal Academic in Media Theory, and Unit leader of Dissertations and Media Theory Perspectives
The Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University, UK.
http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/cpullen
Proposals now accepted for Console-ing Passions – Feminist Media Studies Conference at Bournemouth University 11-13 July 2018
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