Next week (Feb 14-18) I’ll be attending the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF Region VII) Conference, to be held in Arcata, CA at Humboldt State University. I’ll attend workshops on dramaturgy and theater design/production. I’m excited, and feel lucky to go. I’ll write updates of the workshops I’ve attended after the conference.
Stay tuned!
Official conference twitter channel: @HSURegion7ACTF
My dramaturgical project at Chabot College’s Department of Theater Arts is keeping me quite busy. Since the beginning of the project, I’ve observed auditions, met the company, attended a few rehearsals, begun research, and am putting together a “look book” for the use of the director, cast and crew. What a wonderful opportunity to bring together my love of theater and literature with my professional ambitions as a researcher/librarian. Further, I get to put it all together in a blog format, for which I’m creating a taxonomy that keeps it organized and easily searchable in ways that relate specifically to the production of the play, and hopefully make it more useful and accessible as a company resource.
One of my goals with this project is to bring the information I find to the students involved in the production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath where they play out their virtual lives and in formats they will use online. Most communication outside of the rehearsal process is via Facebook. In addition to posting information on the Grapes of Wrath blog, information goes up on Twitter (#ChabotTheater) and of course, on the company Facebook group page. YouTube and other video sources have also proved valuable.
Fortunately, many wonderful images are available from the Library of Congress, as part of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) images found in the American Memory Collection: America from the Great Depression to WWII: Black and White Photographs from the FSA-OWI 1935-1945. This is an excellent resource that is primarily in the public domain because most of the images are government documents photographed by government employees. And of course, so many of the images from this collection have become iconic, such as the image below by Dorothea Lange.
"Destitute peapickers in California; a 32 year old mother of seven children. February 1936." (retouched version)
John Steinbeck receives the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The 1962 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm – Media Player at Nobelprize.org
The 1962 Nobel Prizes were delivered on 10 December 1962, in a glittering ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall, to four British scientists, an American professor and an American novelist. The 80-year old Swedish King Gustaf VI Adolf presented each recipient with a Nobel Medal and Diploma: for Chemistry to Max F. Perutz and John C. Kendrew; for Physiology or Medicine to Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins; and for Literature to John Steinbeck.
No sound, 1 minute.
I am beginning my research as dramaturge for the Spring 2011 production of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath by Frank Galati. Directed by Dov Hassan for the Chabot College Department of Theater Arts.
More updates to come!
Happy New Year readers! I am now officially an MLIS or Master of Library and Information Science. Woot! My degree was awarded on December 22, 2010 by San Jose State University. Yay, me. This next year will bring a job search and other projects. For January, I will begin as dramaturg for the Chabot College Theater Department’s spring production of The Grapes of Wrath. Additionally, I will work on a statement to submit to the U.S. Copyright Office regarding the possibility of bringing pre-1972 sound recordings under federal protection. This will tie in to work performed Summer 2010 as part of my internship at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, and my research proposal developed Fall 2010, while finishing my MLIS. So my new year is off to a jump start. I hope you will join me along the way, as I blog about my professional life adventures.
Stephanie Roach is LIS Lady, the Library and Information Science Lady
LIS Lady 