Teaching Through Performance: American Radical History

Description

There are many important events in American History that never make it into our history textbooks or are only mentioned in passing, thus remaining hidden from students in many high-school history classes. In this program, we will study these hidden histories, create performances of theater and music about them, and, if possible, perform them for local high-school history classes as an alternative method of teaching about historical events.

Each quarter will be divided into three parts. First, we will research hidden histories, such as Margaret Sanger and the legalization of birth control; Jane Addams and the Women's Peace movement; William Z. Foster and the American Communist Party; the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the Chicago Seven; the 1919 general strike in Seattle; FDR's "Economic Bill of Rights"; and American involvement in overthrowing the democratically elected Chilean government. Second, we will compose scripts and music for short performances about these histories. Finally, we will rehearse and perform these events. If possible, we will perform in high schools in the local area.

Each quarter, students will be expected to write a short paper about their historical research, write the scripts and music and help present the performances. Alongside the historical work of American political and social history, we will be reading plays and viewing operas from the 19th and 20th centuries that address and depict social problems. Some of the writers and composers we will examine include Bertolt Brecht, Bernard Shaw, Frank Wedekind, Alban Berg, Giuseppi Verdi, Ludwig van Beethoven, and W. A. Mozart. Each quarter will have its own cycle of research, composition and performance. New students can join the program in winter
quarter on a space-available basis.