Recap of Winter 2021 Courses

A.R. GURNEY’S LITERARY DRAMATURGY  with John Anderson and John Shuman

The late A. R. Gurney (1930-2017) is best known as the author of popular plays such as Love Letters, The Dining Room, and others that explore the decline of the ascendancy of WASP culture. Gurney was also a professor of literature and the humanities, who taught at MIT for several decades. His experiences teaching classic texts are evident in the plays this class will cover: Another Antigone, The Grand Manner, The Golden Age, Later Life, and The Fourth Wall. Each week, the class will read a literary work that inspired Gurney to write a given play, see and hear the Gurney play read by experienced actors, and then discuss the two works. The literary works include Antigone by Sophocles, Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare, “The Aspern Papers” and “The Beast in the Jungle” by Henry James, and Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw. 

Gurney said in an interview that he “lean[ed] on these older stories as a way of trying to sound chords with the audience, build a relationship with an audience, a communality, by telling a story which they already knew but telling it in a new way.” These plays, while standing on their own, become richer and more expansive experiences through familiarity with the source texts. Gurney’s love of theatre is evident in these plays, the first two of which focus on the study and performance of plays and the last two self-consciously play with theatrical conventions by having actors play multiple roles (Later Life) and have the characters confront their own presence on a stage (The Fourth Wall). The course will be team-taught by John Dennis Anderson and John Shuman.


Remembering the Long Point Gallery with Grace Hopkins

The Long Point Gallery was founded in 1977 by thirteen active Cape Cod artists. It quickly became an important gallery that revitalized the historic but static Provincetown art colony. The innovative cooperative was the catalyst for numerous new galleries and workspaces, attracted artists both prominent and promising, drew art dealers and art collectors to the area, and helped to reestablish the outer Cape as a vital hub and heart for New England art. 

Today the relevance and reputation of Provincetown continues to grow. The legendary Hans Hofmann taught in Provincetown for nearly four decades. In 2010, Provincetown was formally recognized as the “nation’s oldest art colony” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. P’town was a cradle and crux for the Abstract Expressionism movement as it outgrew Manhattan and the New York School. Franz Kline and Mark Rothko taught in Provincetown; When Robert Motherwell relocated to the outer Cape, he joined the group that founded the Long Point Gallery.


Sailing into 2021 through "Moby Dick" with Elissa Greenwald

This whale of a book is about the American enterprise: the capacity of individuals for self-invention, the relationship of human beings to nature, the need for community among people of different backgrounds. As these issues take on new urgency in the 21st century, we will look at Melville's 1851 novel as drama, philosophy, and manual for living. For the first class, please read Chapters 1-23, pp 19-123 in the Signet Classics edition (ISBN 978-0-451-53228-2), which I recommend and is available online or through your local bookseller, though any edition will do. Welcome, all “thought-divers!"


Confronting Capitalism, with George Swope

Milton Friedman, the laissez-faire capitalist professor, argued that “Capitalism has been a success story in improving the lives of people. Capitalism has delivered more growth and freedom than any other system.” Yet in the recent 20th annual Edelman Trust Barometer — an annual survey of 34,000 people across 28 countries that measures the public's trust in NGOs, business, government, and media — most people believe that modern day capitalism "does more harm than good in the world.” This divide is certainly reflected in our current political climate.

Capitalism--spanning a spectrum from laissez faire to authoritarian--shapes the market economies of all the wealthiest and fastest-growing nations. But does that mean it is perfect as is, and that we would not all benefit from an honest evaluation and reconstruction of the free market system that has shaped our country’s way of economic growth. The truth is capitalism needs to address its many issues. For instance, in the US, Europe, and Japan, economic growth has slowed down. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few; natural resources are exploited for short-term profit; and good jobs are hard to find.


The Dance Artistry of Busby Berkeley with Marc Strauss

Busby Berkeley (1895 – 1976) was a dancer, singer, and choreographer of elaborate designs for Broadway musicals in the 1920s before moving to greater fame in 1930s Hollywood. He developed unique film techniques such as his parade of faces and kaleidoscope effects by transforming dozens of dancers, mostly female, into fascinating geometric patterns, often shot from a crane high above the sound stage. Beginning in the Great Depression and continuing into the 1960s with numbers as varied as “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” “By a Waterfall,” “The Lullaby of Broadway,” and “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat,” Berkeley brought spectacle and fantasy in film to a whole new level of artistry. 

The Dance Artistry of Busby Berkeley will be taught by Marc Strauss, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Theatre and Dance at Southeast Missouri State University. Marc will introduce and lead discussion on dozens of song and dance videos, both famous and rare, excerpted from Berkeley’s 50+ movie musicals beginning with his first, Whoopee!(1930) through his last, Jumbo (1962). With detailed historical contexts and multiple anecdotes, come relive the Hollywood days of yesteryear through dance and song as set to many Great American Standard tunes by songwriters such as Harry Warren, Al Dubin, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and many others.