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DR. FELICIA
LONDRE IS THE NEXT GESKE LECTURER  Dr. Felicia Londré. © Larry Levenson Photography. Her lecture, entitled "Much Ado About Shakespeare on Midwestern Frontier Stages," will be presented on Monday, February 21 at 7pm in the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery auditorium. Her lecture is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow the lecture in the Great Hall.Dr. Felicia Londré. Cultural historians view the decades between 1880 and 1929 as "the golden age of the American theatre." What made the era so rich was not only the sheer numbers of plays and productions on the legitimate stage, but also the star power that lit up small-town opera houses all across America. While Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" could not be ranked in the "top ten" of 19th century Shakespeare productions, it surfaces often enough in the historical records to be a close contender. It can serve as a focal point for looking at how Shakespeare's work fared in the American theatre outside New York. The bulk of historical research on the 19th century American stage, including Shakespeare production, has been concentrated on the East and West coasts. There are numerous studies of theatre in cities like Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco, as well as some cities in the South, such as New Orleans and Houston, but the Midwest (apart from Chicago and St. Louis) continues to be relatively neglected in the ongoing work of recovering and interpreting our past. This lecture contributes toward redressing the balance by looking at Shakespeare production on Midwestern stages during the golden age of the touring star. Londré is Honorary Co-Founder of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, and dramaturg for Nebraska Shakespeare Festival. She earned her Ph. D. in Speech/Theatre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969. Her M.A. in Romance Languages is from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1964, following a year at the Université de Caen on a Fulbright study grant (1962-63). She completed her B.A. with High Honors at the University of Montana in 1962. In 1959, she graduated from Lincoln High School. During her junior and senior years at Lincoln High, she took advanced French courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her ten published books include The History of North American Theatre: The United States, Canada, and Mexico from Pre-historic Times to the Present (with Daniel J. Watermeier, Continuum, 1998) and The History of World Theater: From the English Restoration to the Present (Continuum, 1991). She has published more than 50 scholarly articles plus many journalistic essays on French, Spanish, and Russian theatre history, international Shakespearean production, and on the plays of Tennessee Williams. The Norman and Jane Geske Lectureship in the History of the Arts was established in 1995 through the generosity of Norman and Jane Geske and features noted scholars in the history of the visual arts, music, theatre, dance, film, or architecture. The lectures are intended to advance the understanding and appreciation of the arts with creative writing and thinking that reflect the importance of historical perspective of the arts. 12/15/04 |
