CRISIS (Paperback)

We live in times of crisis. How has the theatre responded? Has the theatre lived up to its essential purpose: to “hold up the mirror” to our turbulent times?

This book looks at the courageous responses from dozens of playwrights over the past hundred years, writing about urgent issues – from World War II to communism, apartheid, the AIDs epidemic, gay hate crime, urban race riots, conflict in the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan, systemic racism, immigrant identity, the refugee crisis, authoritarianism, failing educational systems, environmental peril, and, most recently, the pandemic. These dedicated writers (from four continents) and the theatres who support them have taken huge risks to heighten our awareness to the urgent issues of our times. This book will acknowledge the exciting new dramatic forms they have created, their heroic efforts, and the changes that they have provoked and continue to do so.

CRISIS contains discussion of the following plays:

Disgraced; Grounded; Mother Courage and Her Children; Guantanamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.’; The Niceties; Black Watch; An Ordinary Muslim; A Number; Blue Heart; Cloud Nine; Escaped Alone; Far Away; American Moor;Ain’t No Mo; Fairview; Death of England and Death of England: Delroy; Blood Knot and Other Plays; Three Port Elizabeth Plays; “Master Harold”… and the boys; Eclipsed; Beat the Devil: A Covid Monologue; Stuff Happens; Slave Play; 1984 by George Orwell; An Octoroon; The Laramie Project and The Laramie Project:  Ten Years Later; Mosquitos; The Children; Angels in America; Death of a Salesman; Hamilton: The Revolution; In the Heights; Pipeline; The Jungle; The Guys; The Apple Family: A Pandemic Trilogy; Ruined; Pass Over; Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2, & 3; The America Play and Other Works; Topdog/Underdog; White Noise; Rockets and Blue Lights; The Lehman Trilogy; Notes from the Field; Twilight Los Angeles: 1992 and others.

Dr. Carol Rocamora is a New York-based author and educator with a rich and extensive background in the theatre. She is a respected translator, playwright, biographer, and critic. 

Carol’s play I take your hand in mine… premiered in London in 2001 at London’s Almeida Theatre with Paul Scofield and Irene Worth in the original cast, directed by Jonathan Kent. The play was next seen in Paris in 2003 at the Theatre des Bouffes du Nord directed, by Peter Brook, starring his wife Natasha Parry and Michel Picoli. (It toured for two years before appearing in London’s Barbican Centre in 2005).  Based on the correspondence between Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper, I take your hand in mine…, has been translated and shown in cities around the world, from Mexico City to Shanghai. 

Carol has written two biographies: Anton Chekhov: A Life in Four Acts (published by Smith & Kraus in 2013) and Acts of Courage: Václav Havel’s Life in the Theatre (published by Smith & Kraus Global in 2005). 

She has taught dramatic literature in the Department of Dramatic Writing at the New York University’s Tisch School of Arts since 1993 and received the David Payne Carter Award for Teaching Excellence. In addition to her teaching at NYU, Carol serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School.  She has taught theatre history at Columbia University, and has also lectured on Chekhov at The Yale School of Drama and Oxford University.

Carol has written about theatre for The Nation, The New York Times, The Guardian, and American Theatre magazine. 

She is also the translator of the complete dramatic works of Anton Chekhov, published in several volumes:  Chekhov: Four Plays, Chekhov: The Early Plays, and Chekhov: The Vaudevilles. She has also adapted twenty Chekhov short stories for the stage, published in two volumes called Rubles (all published by Smitth & Kraus).

Before coming to New York, Carol was founder and artistic director of the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays at the Annenberg Center.