trojan-incident

Notes on the Trojan Incident

For Friday, December 3 and Monday, December 6

toc (NOTE: If you have been linked to here from the discussion questions page, you are in the right place. Edit this page itself (in other words, don't click the discussion button above.))

Edit this page to add in any scrap of information you can find about the 1938 Federal Theatre Project's adaptation of Euripides's //The Trojan Women//, which they titled //The Trojan Incident//. This could include details of cast and crew, information on performance dates, primary materials related to the production, bibliographic information for performance reviews or relevant scholarship, or anything else you can come up with.

I'll get you started below with some treasure hunt questions, but to make this work it will help to pick up the trail where others leave off.

Here are some small details i found of the performance, as well as a poster of the play: --Joel Plakut [JERVING'S NOTE: Follow this link, and incorporate some of the details into the categories below]


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=CAST AND CREW= Q: Who wrote the script adaptation of the //Trojan Incident//?

I also found the cast and crew on the IBDB, also lots of images of the poster- you can buy it on Amazon and Ebay. --Ellis

Cast

 * Cassandra: Helen Tamiris
 * Hecuba: Isabel Bonner
 * Thersites: Michael Cisney
 * Agamemnon: Frank Curran
 * Helen: Evelyn Swenson Eden
 * Attendant: Willie Kaufman
 * Menelaus: Joseph Kramm
 * Astyanax: Peggy Romano
 * Odysseus: Marcel Roussenu
 * Talthybius: Colfax Sanderson
 * First Soldier: Edward Segal
 * Andromache: Jane Taylor

Production Staff
--Kim LeRoy
 * Scenic Designer: Howard Bay
 * Staging Directors: Harold Bolton, Helen Tamiris

Helen Tamiris
Helen Tamiris, who also played Cassandra, did the choreography. Tamiris helped to form the Federal Dance Project, and was one of the founders of American Modern Dance movement. I found an article on Helen Tamiris and the Federal Dance Theater Project which discusses the Trojan Incident and has pictures taken during her time there, but not of this production (see the first link below). --Ellis

Here are a few links to pages discussing Helen Tamiris' contributions to modern dance and her involvement with the "controversial" //Trojan Incident//: --Ryan Gaulke


 * [|Essay] by Elizabeth Cooper in the //Dance Research Journal// (1997)
 * [|Brief entry] by Linda Sears in the //Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre//
 * [|Finding Aid] to the Helen Tamiris Collection at the The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division (contains 222 folders with 1000+ items!)

Here is an article centered around Helen Tamiris, the stage director/actor of //Trojan Incident//. The article is a brief bibliography of Tamiris, and gives valuable background information on here which helps us get a sense of how influential she actually was in the theater world. --Greg Meyer


 * [|Entry] by Pauline Tish on Helen Tamiris for the //Jewish Women's Archive//. [JERVING'S NOTE: Tish was one of the dancer's with Tamiris's company, and in fact herself was in the chorus for //The Trojan Incident//.]



Howard Bay
Howard Bay, who did the set and costume design for this play, was also the set and lighting designer for //Power// in 1937. He and Tamiris would often work together on Broadway shows in the years after WWII, most notably, perhaps, for the musical //Annie Get Your Gun// (1946). --Ryan Jerving



Here are some awards that Howard Bay acheived in several productions. As well as a little bit of background information with the FTP.

Bay designed sets for the Federal Theatre Project in New York City, for four operas for the National Orchestral Association, performed at Carnegie Hall, 1939-40 and for the operas //Capriccio// and //Natalya Petrovna// for the New York City Opera, 1965.


 * [|Wikipedia article] on Howard Bay

Bay's awards and nominations


 * Tony Award Best Scenic Design - //Cry for Us All// (nominee) (1970)
 * Tony Award Best Costume Design - //Man of La Mancha// (nominee) (1966)
 * Tony Award Best Scenic Design - //Man of La Mancha// (winner) (1966)
 * Tony Award Best Scenic Design (Play) - //Toys in the Attic// (winner) (1960)

=PERFORMANCES=

Theater
Here is some basic information about Saint James Theater in New York. Saint James is where the play was originally performed on April 21, 1938. --Greg Meyer


 * http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/venue.php?t=stjames

Just some history on the St. James Theatre, along with more noteable productions! (Currently, //American Idiot// is playing there) --Emily Foster
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Here's a good picture of the St. James Theatre in New York, where the play was originally performed in 1938.



Compare this to the Theatre of Dionysus from the time of Euripides through Aristotle, part of the Acropolis complex in Athens.



Here is a picture of the seating chart. The St. James Theatre was built in 1927 and seats approximately 1710 people. --Kim Poremba



Below is the St. James Theatre interior in 1948. This is a fascinating picture: watching actors audition (for what play, I don't know, since this would be 2 years after Annie Get Your Gun -- maybe for cast replacements?) are Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote //Oklahoma!//), Irving Berlin in the middle (wrote the music and lyrics for //Annie Get Your Gun//), and, behind them, Helen Tamiris, who choreographed //Annie Get Your Gun// as well as, of course, //The Trojan Incident// 10 years previous in the same theater. --Ryan Jerving



Surroundings

 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Theatre_of_Dionysus-Athens.jpg/512px-Theatre_of_Dionysus-Athens.jpg width="436" height="324"]] || [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/St_James_Theatre_NYC_2007.jpg/512px-St_James_Theatre_NYC_2007.jpg width="360" height="289"]] ||
 * Theatre of Dionysus, Athens || St. James Theatre, New York ||

Seating plan

 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Theatre_dionysos.gif width="400" height="418"]] || [[image:st_james_place.gif width="278" height="355"]] ||
 * Theatre of Dionysus, Athens || St. James Theatre, New York ||

Interior

 * [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Theatre_of_Dionysus_03.JPG/512px-Theatre_of_Dionysus_03.JPG width="460" height="345"]] || [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Rodgers_and_Hammerstein_and_Berlin_and_Tamiris_NYWTS.jpg/512px-Rodgers_and_Hammerstein_and_Berlin_and_Tamiris_NYWTS.jpg width="435" height="336"]] ||
 * Theatre of Dionysus, Athens || St. James Theatre, New York ||

Compared to Macbeth
I also have come across some interesting photographs of how much the play "Macbeth" attracted people in Harlem! --Sara Emanuele


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 * [] This last link shows the cast on stage. Their costumes are detailed especially the soldiers that are on stage.

=PRIMARY MATERIALS=

Can you find a contemporary photograph of the //The Trojan Incident// (or any of its featured performers)?

Costumes


I found some pictures of the costume design as well as a poster for the play --Sean M.

I found a (possible?) picture of the costume design as well. Also, the costume designer was Howard Bay. --Jon


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Poster



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Script
I think I found the script --MM


 * The Trojan Incident Script

Testimony
Here is another thing I found that i believe is a press release for the Trojan Incident --Joel Plakut


 * http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/VoicesBeforeCongress.htm

JERVING'S NOTE: This is FTP head Hallie Flanagan's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), for which the FTP was an early target. Thanks to Joel for finding this. Some way down, //The Trojan Incident//, along with //Macbeth//, are given as examples of how the FTP performed classics as well as new plays (she also mentions //Big White Fog// and the Living Newspapers further down):

> Classical plays, in forms interesting to a modern audience: We have no interest in any classic done as a superstitious rite, but we have every interest in giving our public, particularly youth, the chance to see great plays of the past done with fire and imagination. //The Negro Macbeth//, Marlowe's //Dr. Faustus//, the current //Coriolanus//, and the coming production of //Trojan Incident//, a play based on Homer and Euripedes, are examples. The California International Cycle produces every month a play which has made dramatic history in some past period, and so far has included plays by Strindberg, Giacosa, Pirandello, Hauptmann, Capek, Ibsen, and Chekov. The Nation-wide cycle of George Bernard Shaw and the Nation-wide cycle of Eugene O'Neill are examples of modern plays which have attained in the lifetime of their authors a place in a classical repertory.

=SECONDARY MATERIALS=

What, if anything, has been published on the Federal Dance Theatre (part of the FTP) in scholarly research journals in the last 15 years?

Contemporary Reviews

 * [|Brooks Atkinson], reviewing the knobby knees and Brooklyn accents of the FTP's //Trojan Incident// production for the //New York Times// in April 1938.

Journal Articles
An article in //Dance Research Journal, vol 29// in 1997 was written about Helen Tamiris and her devotion to the Federal Dance Theatre project and the commentary this had on politics... --Ellis


 * [|Elizabeth Cooper], "Tamiris and the Federal Dance Theatre 1936-1939: Socially Relevant Dance Amidst the Policies and Politics of the New Deal Era," in the //Dance Research Journal// 29 (1997)

Books
I found a review on a book that was written about the Federal Theater Project http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-118742375.html --Joel Plakut

I found a book that was written by Ellen Graff in 1997. It talks about dance in politics during the time that the "Trojan Incident" was performed and all parties involved in it. I thought that it was kind of interesting. --Jordan
 * [|Ellen Graff], //Stepping Left: Dance and Politics in New York City, 1928-1942//

JERVING'S NOTE: Here's an interesting photo from that book, showing Helen Tamiris at an event designed to call attention to budget cuts to the Federal Theatre Project



I also found another book commenting on how controversial the dances were. I thought it was interesting as well. --Jordan
 * [|Brief entry on Helen Tamiris], by Linda Sears in the //Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre//

I found a book about the Federal Theatre Project. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vK0mvU8vRxUC&oi=fnd&pg=PP16&dq=Federal+Dance+Theatre+Project&ots=G_VCbFDn7o&sig=SFiLESjO9HnwgiI-9SXgRc2fn2s#v=onepage&q=Federal%20Dance%20Theatre%20Project&f=false - Maggie S.

Conference Papers
Presentation by Robert Davis --D.Gauthier


 * [|Robert Davis], 'Staging protest: the Federal Theatre Project's //Trojan Incident//'

Larger Context
Here I have found an article from the New York Times discussing the contemporary productions of ancient drama --Yisha Chen


 * [|Margo Jefferson], "Renewing Their Vision by Mining Ancient Worlds," NY Times.com, Arts & Design, CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK, Published: November 6, 2004

JERVING'S NOTE: Here's a paragraph from that story about the way //The Trojan Women// has been variously adapted in various anti-war contexts in the 20th-century -- I'm not sure the reading of the FTP's 1938 //Trojan Incident// is as certain as they imply; but see what you think.

> World War I was the turning point for theater: the emotional and political resonance of the plays won out over the thrill of masks and scanty costumes. The path for the rest of the 20th century was set. A 1917 production of "The Trojan Women" by Euripides made the play an antiwar classic. The Federal Theater Project turned it into "The Trojan Incident" in 1938; the captured women were European refugees. An all-male cast performed it during the Vietnam War. Just last year the Classical Theater of Harlem blended the original text with the documentary testimony of women who survived massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda.

A new book by Larry Stempel just came out on the overall development of the Broadway musical, which could be useful for many projects in the class, but even for //The Trojan Incident//, given the careers that designer Howard Bay and choreographer Helen Tamiris had after the FTP. (I haven't yet checked to see if our library has it.) Indeed, the review of Stempel's book in this past Sunday's //New York Times Book Review// features a photograph (included above on this page) from Bay and Tamiris's work on //Annie Get Your Gun// (1946). --Ryan Jerving


 * Larry Stempel, //A History of the Broadway Musical Theater// (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010)

Here is a site with a few links on costume design for the Federal Theater Project's rendering of the play as well as the original script that was used for the play.

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-Conor McInerny

I found a link to the Trojan Incident play script [] -Rene Abarca