#digiturgy

[public-digiturgy]

Sea Wall/A Life

Alex mentions his father was in the British Infantry from 1968-1984 stationed in Northern Ireland.

The Troubles, starting in 1969 and ending in 1998 are a horrific and bloody part of Northern Ireland’s history. The movement was started by a three day riot in 1969 called “Battle of Bogside” protesting discrimination against Catholics. After horrific events like “Bloody Sunday”, the fighting finally stopped in ‘98 with 3,600 dead and thousands more injured. 

[shakespearenews]

Marinda Anderson and Christopher Ryan Grant in the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”Credit: Richard Termine. 

“This works best, of course, with the scenes involving the staging of the play within the play by the inept amateur thespians known as the “rude mechanicals” — here including a barista, a bike courier and a hawker in a TodayTix vest. Christopher Ryan Grant appropriately chews the scenery and spits out the splinters as Bottom, a blustering contractor who can’t even pronounce the name of the character he’s meant to play.” 

[publictheater]

byte-sized digital content used to further explore the themes and ideas present in The Public's plays

Have you explored Digiturgy yet? It’s our online resource for exploration and examination, a place to dive deeper into the plays on our stages. 

Curious about the music in Illyria? We’ve got that. Want to know more about the prison-industrial complex after seeing Oedipus el Rey? Got it! Love Cheryl Strayed and want to see more Dear Sugar before you see Tiny Beautiful Things? Yup, got that too.

We’ll be reblogging some Digiturgy here over the next few weeks - but click through to explore the entire season. We hope you find it as interesting as we do!

[public-digiturgy]

For Colored Girls

These images are from a 2014 New York Public Library exhibition entitled: “i found god in myself: The 40th Anniversary of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls”

“Turning to the choreopoem not simply as an engaging work of text or drama but as a well of social, political and deeply personal issues affecting the lives of women of color, the exhibition [featured] 20 specially commissioned pieces in honor of each individual poem, additional non-commissioned artworks on display at satellite locations that address the work’s themes and archival material donated by Shange.“

 -NY Public Library

[public-digiturgy]

Joni Mitchell-Urge for Going

This is an earlier version of Joni's hit, Urge for Going, sung in a live performance on Oscar Brand's Canadian TV show, Let's Sing Out.

The Vagrant Trilogy

The title of the third part of The Vagrant Trilogy was in part inspired by Joni Mitchell’s “Urge For Going”. In it, Mitchell sings about change, displacement, and ambition, all of which are central themes of Mansour’s trilogy.

“I'll ply the fire with kindling now I'll pull the blankets up to my chin I'll lock the vagrant winter out and I'll bolt my wanderings in I'd like to call back summertime Have her stay for just another month or so

But she's got the urge for going So I guess she'll have to go She gets the urge for going When the meadow grass is turning brown All her empire's falling down”

- Joni Mitchell

[public-digiturgy]

The Vagrant Trilogy

Barghouti, a celebrated Palestinian poet, won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for this account of his return to Ramallah in 1996 after a 30-year absence.

Mona Mansour, writer of The Vagrant Trilogy, writes that the book is “a beautiful evocation of, when he’s crossing the bridge, all these feelings that come back to him. I read it because I was trying to research what it is like to be Palestinian, post-1948, pre-1967″

[public-digiturgy]

Ntozake Shange, Who Wrote ‘For Colored Girls,’ Is Dead at 70

Ms. Shange’s play featured seven black female characters named for the colors of the rainbow and inspired generations of playwrights.

For Colored Girls 

Ntozake Shange, author of For Colored Girls, passed away in October of 2018. This New York Times obituary celebrates her life, her work, and her legacy. The play first premiered Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1976.

[public-digiturgy]

13 Artists On: Immigration

Art doesn’t just reflect the world — it engages with it, so T asked contemporary artists to make works responding to the subject.

Mojada

The challenges that Medea and her family face as undocumented immigrants in Mojada, are widespread in today’s immigrant community. In this article, 13 Artists share their work in response to the subject of immigration.

One of the artists, Patrick Martinez, writes that, “Empathy is necessary when dealing with issues surrounding immigration and the unfortunate types of circumstances that can force family members to leave their homeland. Immigration controversies often prevent us, as a nation, from examining uncomfortable social and cultural truths. Rather than using immigrants as scapegoats for issues related to crime or unemployment, we must call for social reform. “