Rise, Roar, Revolt

I’m so happy to share that my article “Calcutta 1908: Apocalypse Now” has been published in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Democratic Communiqué as the featured critical commentary.

Can theatre and film help spark an armed revolt? I believe they can, and that they did, specifically Indian theatre artists and India’s first silent filmmakers, in the capital of British India in 1908, in response to the Partition of Bengal and the systemic sentencing of children to public floggings.

My article is, in my view, a timely exposé of crimes and human rights abuses committed by the British Empire that have largely gone unreported in the West, but which are increasingly coming to light in the news and in pop culture of late. I’m not condoning or condemning revolutionary violence. We all have our positions on that, usually on a case-by-case basis, and that’s okay. I’m eager to shine a light on this history.

I’m really excited to share this slice of my research as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India. It is, I daresay, in-depth, yet it is only one part of a much larger story I’ve written.

Democratic Communiqué focuses on “cultural artifacts, media and imperialism, media’s relatedness to social movements, and the power of media to convey varying versions of the same event simultaneously.” It’s housed on the ScholarWorks server at Umass Amherst.

You can find it at the link below. I hope you’ll check it out.

Download the full pdf at https://doi.org/10.7275/9w1h-k362 .

Aurora Visible in India

Exciting news in the Times of India about my friends and colleagues at Aurora Film Corporation, India’s oldest continuously running production company. Looking forward to seeing Kalkokkho (House of Time) written and directed by Sarmistha Maiti & Rajdeep Paul.

Adios, Miss Pilgrim

Frederica Sagor Maas, Silent-Era Scriptwriter, Dies at 111. New York Times obituary, 1/14/2012.

Frederica Sagor Maas, Silent-Era Scriptwriter, Dies at 111

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: January 14, 2012, NEW YORK TIMES

“She told of Hollywood moguls chasing naked would-be starlets, the women shrieking with laughter. She recounted how Joan Crawford, new to the movies, relied on her to pick clothes. Almost obsessively, she complained about how many of her story ideas and scripts were stolen and credited to others.

“Frederica Sagor Maas told all — and maybe more — in interviews and in her memoirs, which she published in 1999 at the age of 99. Before dying on Jan. 5 in La Mesa, Calif., at 111, Mrs. Maas was one of the last living links to cinema’s silent era. She wrote dozens of stories, adaptations and scripts, sat with Greta Garbo at the famed long table in MGM’s commissary, and adapted to sound in the movies, and then to color.

“Perhaps most satisfying, Mrs. Maas outlived pretty much anybody who might have disagreed with her version of things. “I can get my payback now,” she said in an” CONT’D AT NYTIMES.COM>>

Theatre History Needs You

Plays & Players turns 100 years old this season. We’ve gotten a matching grant of $10,000 from the Wyncote Foundation. Matching grant means — you got it — we have to match it in order to get it. So we need to come up with $10K in a hurry. Rather than pulling an NPR and demanding “any amount, even as little as $50” during their elitist pledge drives, which makes you want to permanently switch to WYSP for your morning drive, we figure we’ll just ask 1000 people to each give us just 10 bucks, one time. That’s why this campaign is called 10 for 100. That’s not $10 a year for 100 years or anything like that. We just want $10 from you. You can easily and quickly donate your $10 by going to this donation page.

I loved Plays & Players Theatre in Philadelphia from the moment I walked into the 1911 lobby of this former acting school turned theatre back in fall, 2008. My first thought was, nice place but is there a ghost? Actors are highly superstitious people, and any good old theatre has a requisite benevolent ghost on staff. I was delighted to learn that Plays & Players is blessed with not just 1 ghost but 3 ghosts.

I also love history; especially US history and especially film and theatre history, so I was naturally drawn to this historic institution first as a fan, then as a board member and now as one of its 3 current playwrights-in-residence along with Jeremy Gable and Brian Grace-Duff. Plays & Players has an illustrious history, including bringing the first works of Susan Glaspell (Trifles) and one Eugene O’Neill (Before Breakfast) to Philadelphia back in the 19-teens. Bevan & Trzcinski’s Stalag 17, a comic drama set in a German POW camp, premiered here in 1949 before moving to Broadway and then becoming a hit Hollywood film, and then becoming the inspiration for 1960s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (yep). Philly native Kevin Bacon also performed one of his earliest roles on this stage back in the 1970s.

Today another facet of Plays & Players that I love is its commitment to producing 1 world-premiere by a Philadelphia playwright every season along with the classics and modern classics you’d expect. This current season features the hit Pardon My Invasion by local playwright Joy Cutler (it got raves) coupled with upcoming hits by August Wilson (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) and Tom Stoppard (Travesties).

Where was I? Oh right, Plays & Players turns 100 years old this season. We’ve gotten a matching grant of $10,000 from the Wyncote Foundation. Matching grant means — you got it — we have to match it in order to get it. So we need to come up with $10K in a hurry. Rather than pulling an NPR and demanding “any amount, even as little as $50” like they do during their elitist pledge drives, which makes you want to permanently switch to the nearest corporate Top 40 station for your morning drive, we figure we’ll just ask 1000 people to each give us just 10 bucks, one time. That’s why this fundraising campaign is called 10 for 100. That’s not $10 a year for 100 years or anything like that. We just want $10 from you. Right now.

You can easily and quickly donate your $10 by going to this donation page.

Many thanks and Happy Thanksgiving,

Jeffrey Stanley