In 1939, Alvin Johnson, the first president of The New School, invited the prominent political theater maker and theorist Erwin Piscator to start the Dramatic Workshop in the building that now houses the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. In 1933, Johnson had founded The University in Exile as an intellectual home for scholars fleeing Nazism in Europe. The history of classes setting theater in conversation with contemporary society goes even further back, to the first decade after its founding in 1919. This panel explores how the radical ethos that marked the early years of The New School has shaped the role of theater and performance at Lang throughout the past century to the present.

Established in the historical window between the rise of Fascism in Europe and the Second Red Scare in the United States, the Dramatic Workshop brought together Piscator’s foundational experience in epic theater with the political effervescence of the post-Depression New York theater scene. As such, the Workshop can be thought of as a theatrical strand within a larger trend that effectively moved the center of the intellectual, artistic, and political discussions of the time from the European capitals to New York City. The Second Red Scare gradually strangled the political effervescence of US education and cultural production, yet the legacy of this original gesture can be traced in many strands throughout the past century, such as in alum Judith Malina’s subversive work with the Living Theater, in the radical Black performance of Sekou Sundiata, in the political plays produced by Lang Theater faculty and students in the 21st Century, among so many other places.

Carried out in the same theater that showcased the productions of the Dramatic Workshop in the 1940s, the talks in this panel explore the many ways in which the legacy of contemporary political theater has been carried out, expanded, and challenged over the decades. Most importantly, we ask how this legacy shapes the teaching and research we carry out in this same building—under a distinct yet eerily similar set of challenges—today.

Schedule:

100 Years of Contemporary Theater at The New School
Exhibit of historical material from the archives and recent performances with students.

The Politics of Contemporary Theater at The New School: From The 1920s to The Present
Marcos Davi Silva Steuernagel, Assistant Professor of Theater at Lang

Augusto Boal and the Theater of the Oppressed: The New School Connection
Geo Britto, Founder of the School of Popular Theater, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Renegades: Women & Theater at The New School
Cecilia Rubino, Associate Professor of Theater at Lang

Piscator’s Aesthetic Legacy: Radical Theater Practice in New York City
Drew Lichtenberg, author of The Piscatorbühne Century: Politics and Aesthetics in the Modern Theater After 1927

Vitality of Documentary Theater: Erwin Piscator, Ernst Toller, and Judith Malina
Zishan Ugurlu, Professor of Theater at Lang

Black lineage and legacy at LANG; A Reflection

kA’RAMUU kUSH, Associate Professor, Anti-Racist Education Co-Chair, and Industry Liaison for the BFA in Acting, Film, and Media at Pace University

*Reception to follow

This event is part of Lang at 40 special programing in commemoration of its 40th Anniversary and in celebration of liberal arts at The New School.