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SMART PEOPLE
TEACHER INFO PACKET 2016-17 SEASON
g o r d o n ed el s t e i n artistic director
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JOSHUA BORENST EIN managing director
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SMART PEOPLE BY LYDIA R. DIAMOND DIRECTED BY DESDEMONA CHIANG March 15 – April 9, 2017 on stage II
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Teacher Information Packet Compiled and Written by: madelyn ardito Director of Education eliza orleans Education Programs Manager barbara hentschel Resident Teaching Artist AYLA DAVIDSON, TRENEÉ McGEE Resident Teaching Artists JARED MICHAUD Dwight Hall Urban Fellow christine scarfuto Literary Manager & Dramaturg TEACHER INFORMATION PACKET LAYOUT BY CLAIRE ZOGHB
L O N G W H A R F T H E AT R E G R A T E F U L LY A C K N O W L E D G E S THE GENEROSITY OF OUR E D U C AT I O N S U P P O R T E R S ELIZABETH CARSE FOUNDATION Frederick A. Deluca Foundation THE GEORGE A. & GRACE L. LONG FOUNDATION Seedlings Foundation SEYMOUR L. LUSTMAN MEMORIAL FUND THEATRE FORWARD wells fargo foundation The Werth Family Foundation FOUNDING SUPPORTER OF LONG WHARF THEATRE’S VIDEO STUDY GUIDE AND SUPPORTER OF THE EDUCATORS’ LABORATORY
GORDON EDELSTEIN Artistic Director
JOSHUA BORENSTEIN MANAGING Director
PRESENTS
SMART PEOPLE lydia r. diamond Directed by desdemona chIAng by
Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design Production Stage Manager Casting By
Patrick Lynch° Mary Readinger Stephen Strawbridge° Greg McGuire Kathy Snyder* CaLLERI CASTING
CAST I N A L P HABET I CA L O R D E R
Ginny Yang Valerie Johnston Jackson Moore Brian White
Ka-Ling Cheung* Tiffany Nichole Greene* Sullivan Jones* Peter O’Connor*
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States ° Member of United Scenic Artists, USA-829 of the IATSE This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League Of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
contents
ABOUT THE PLAY 8 Synopsis
8 Setting
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Characters
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About Lydia R. Diamond
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What Does it Take to Be Smart?
THE WORLD OF THE PLAY 18
Glossary
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What Does Modern Prejudice Look Like?
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The Implicit Association Test
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The Obama Presidency
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS
Look for this symbol to find discussion and writing prompts, discussion questions and classroom activities!
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Representation of Black Actresses in Hollywood
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The Clark Study
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Write a Review!
35 Additional Resources for Teachers and Students
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Sources
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For the First-Time Theatergoer
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Moments & Minutes Information
ABOUT THE
PLAY
SYNOPSIS In the months leading up to Barack Obama’s first election as President, four intellectuals—a White professor (Brian), an African-American actress (Valerie), a Chinese-Japanese American psychologist (Ginny), and an AfricanAmerican doctor (Jackson)—find themselves entangled in a complex web of social and sexual politics. Brian, who is studying the human brain’s response to racial differences, finds himself confronted by his own prejudices when he begins a relationship with Ginny. Ginny tries to enlist Jackson’s help in a study she’s conducting involving young Asian women. Jackson pursues a relationship with Valerie but questions whether or not her lifestyle empowers young black people. Valerie, who is struggling to maintain her acting career, winds up working for Brian to make some extra money. In this tangled web, everyone wants to be successful, to find love, and to feel as if they’ve made a positive impact on the world. But what influence does race have on that quest? Set in Cambridge, Massachusetts on and around the Harvard University Campus, Smart People is about what happens when our assumptions turn out to be completely, utterly wrong.
SETTING This play takes place over the course of two years, 2007 – 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this time, two major events occur: November 4, 2008 – Barack Obama becomes America’s first Black President Elect. January 20, 2009 – Barack Obama’s Inauguration
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characters
JACKSON MOORE (SULLIVAN JONES)
GINNY YANG (KA-LING CHEUNG)
28 years old. African American. Currently attending Harvard Med School. Surgical Intern on rotation.
34 – 40 years old. ChineseJapanese American. No accent. Only speaks English. Respected, tenured professor of Psychology at Harvard. Studies race and identity among Asian American women.
BRIAN WHITE (PETER O’CONNOR)
VALERIE JOHNSTON (TIFFANY NICHOLE GREENE)
36 – 42 years old. White. Tenured professor at Harvard. Neuropsychiatrist. Studies patterns of racial identity and perceptions.
24 years old. African American. Recently gradated A.R.T. Acting MFA.
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ABOUT LYDIA R. DIAMOND
Lydia R. Diamond
The following excerpts are from an interview with Lydia R. Diamond written by Victoria Myers of The Interval. The original piece was published on February 16, 2016. http://theintervalny.com/interviews/2016/02/an-interview-with-lydia-r-diamond/
I read that Smart People started when you read an article about science and how we perceive race. I was curious about how that fit into your creative process for this play? Was it a jumping
off point, or was it a moment of, “Oh, maybe that’s how these ideas in my head fit together”? I would say the latter. Not so much that I wanted to write about this particular study, but that I
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ABOUT THE PLAY
was so affected when I read Susan Fiske’s article called Dehumanizing the Lowest of the Low. I was so affected by that work that was being done, since at that point I didn’t know about brain imaging and neuroscience and race, and of course it seemed like the perfect marriage. The level of resonance that the article had with me is what inspired the play. Then, to the degree that I wanted to write specifically about race, I then started looking at the other disciplines in the sciences, and there were all of these silos of this work being done and it made me think. It’s interesting that scientists exist in their little silos and I know there are think tanks and things like that where people are brought together, but I think not so much around race since it’s such a powder-keg.
people in their little worlds like the silos I was talking about.
How did you come up with the structure of the play? There are a lot of solo moments and twoperson scenes with shifting permutations. Did you find that happening organically or was it more purposeful?
I read that you started working on the play in 2007 (the year the play takes place) and then it had a production at the Huntington in 2014. When you’re working on a play that’s about a very contemporary subject, and one where the dialogue has really continually shifted between 2007, 2014, and 2016, does that affect your process of working on the play? Do you have to put blinders on and keep it in its original state, or do you let it evolve?
How much thought did you give to the gender, race, and occupation of each character (i.e. making it a black, male doctor rather than a black, female doctor)? I didn’t handpick their professions to work into what I wanted the play to be. That came rather organically. I did know that I wanted a protagonist who was a neuroscientist who was doing this work—an extrapolation of all of these sciences I’d read about—and I knew I wanted him to be white, and I knew I wanted him to be a bit of a tragic hero. But beyond that, the others just organically materialized.
It was absolutely organic. Almost always when I write, the characters and the story dictate the structure, and I don’t know what it will be until the play tells me what it will be. But I look at it now and it makes all the sense in the world because the whole conversation about race is so disjointed and disconnected, and it’s so hard for us to hold on to it, so it makes sense that a play about something that’s so slippery wouldn’t be in a well-made play structure. It comes as this burst of insights and anecdotal experiences—not always about race since we don’t walk through the world being and doing race—but that’s kind of the way it came to me. And it culminates in a trying-to-pull-it-all-together scene at the end of the play when we’ve already established these
When I first started, the campaigning [for President] had just started, and when Obama won it changed how I would talk about race and, for a while, it leveled me. It really asked that I step it up in a really profound way. The conversation, for me, felt more urgent but had to be more sophisticated than it ever had been. And then, after a point, I realized that I would have to shut this down because you can’t keep up with history. So I did put an, “Okay, this is where we are, we’re going to end at the election.”
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LYDIA R. DIAMOND
continued
she would go in and watercolor Dr. Seuss books so they would have brown people in them sometimes. Because the world assaults our young people with images of people who don’t look like them, she wanted me not to be. So there was so much Ezra Jack Keats and fairytales. My world was full of these diverse stories, so it’s interesting that a Walt Disney story came to my mind, and then I feel like I have to explain that. I read a lot as a child. I was an only child with a single mom. So I skip forward to all of the stories of my youth that I’d sit in trees and read, like Little House on the Prairie and Watership Down and the JRR Tolkien books.
What do you see as the themes in your work? How do you feel they’ve changed or shifted over the years? I’ve always very organically been drawn to conversations around race and class. They fascinate me because we’re so ill equipped to talk about them. But I would never, until this play, call it a political imperative. It’s just, that’s where I live. When I first started writing, I came at it through a sense of urgency and sometimes presumption—I knew what was wrong with our society, and I knew the answers, and I had a commitment to putting these things on stage so I could change the world. Then I got older and life happened to me in very specific and sometimes not good ways, and then I had a child and a husband who was not well sometimes. I was humbled by life in a way that made me have a lot less of that sense of knowing everything. For a while, I was shaken by that—and that happened actually through the writing of this play—but I figured out [how] to embrace it, and there was something compelling and deeper about saying, “I don’t know,” and writing either towards the answer or writing more towards embracing the question. I think that’s fruitful.
What’s something you think people can do to improve gender equality in theatre? Produce plays by women. It’s the same thing with diversity of color and aesthetic. Just produce some plays that don’t look like the plays you’ve been producing forever and don’t presume it’s some old, white audience seeing them, and the audience will diversify and the conversation will elevate. I’ve been having the same conversation about race in theatre for the past twenty years. When I was an undergraduate in college there weren’t mainstage plays about black people, there weren’t black people in the department, and a few years ago my college produced a play of mine and people flew in from out of town because this was a moment where black people were finally going to be on the mainstage. And that’s shameful. And that’s not limited to just my institution. I taught at Boston University, and they’re doing a play of mine at Emerson, and they’re doing a play of mine at a university in California, and over and over again it’s kids in these departments that aren’t getting the opportunity to be on stage, and specifically not
What is the first piece of storytelling that had a major impact on you? My brain just went to, weirdly, Sleeping Beauty. It must have been this book of Walt Disney fairy tales and there was this image of the prince with the sword and the queen has turned herself into the dragon and has flames. It would scare the bejesus out of me and I’d be like, “Not that page!” I don’t know why I landed on that because my mom railed against me having images that were only white as a child. To the degree that
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ABOUT THE PLAY
in racially specific roles, which is a hole in their education. I could rail against that forever, and it’s the same thing: “Oh, we don’t know how to change that.” Well, you do the play. “Oh, there aren’t enough kids in the department.” So you admit more kids. “Oh, we don’t have the money to admit more people of color.” So you get more
money. On and on and on. We’re theatre: we know how to put angels on stage, we know how to make people look like they’re levitating, we can lose electricity five minutes before a show and figure out how to put on a play, but we can’t figure out how to diversify theatre in America? That’s ridiculous.
A production of Smart People at Second Stage Theatre in New York City, 2015.
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WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SMART? There are multiple kinds of intelligence. In 1983, a scientist name Howard Gardner claimed that people can be “smart” in a combination of nine different ways. What were formerly seen as skills (i.e. “a good listener,” someone with “a green thumb”) were now understood to be different forms of intelligence. Gardner’s nine intelligences are as follows: • • • • • • • • •
Naturalist (nature smart) Musical (sound smart) Logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart) Existential (life smart) Interpersonal (people smart) Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart) Linguistic (word smart) Intra-personal (self smart) Spatial (picture smart)
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ABOUT THE PLAY
How Much Schooling? In Smart People, Brian White is a Neuro-psychiatrist.
Neuropsychiatry - psychiatry relating mental or emotional disturbance to disordered brain function. To become a neuropsychologist: o Earn a bachelor degree in psychology, pre-med, biology, or neuroscience (4 years) o Earn a master’s degree in psychology (2 years) o Earn a PhD or PsyD in psychology (2 years) In Smart People, Ginny Yang is a professor of psychology.
Psychologist – the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context. To become a psychologist: o Earn a bachelor’s degree (4-5 years) o Earn a master’s degree (2-3 years) o Earn a doctorate (4-7 years) – either a Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) or Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD) In Smart People, Jackson Moore is in medical school as a Surgical Intern and is working towards becoming a general surgeon.
General surgery - a surgical specialty that focuses on abdominal contents including esophagus, stomach, small bowel, colon, liver, pancreas, gallbladder and bile ducts, and often the thyroid gland (depending on local reference patterns). To become a general surgeon: o Earn a bachelor’s degree from medical school (4-years) o Earn a master’s degree from medical school (2-3 years) o Complete a general surgery residency (5-years) o Take, and pass, exam to become board certified In Smart People, Valerie Johnston is an actress and has recently graduated from A.R.T. with an MFA in Acting. The A.R.T. – (American Repertory Theater)/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University The acting program is an intensive combination of classroom exploration and practical production experience. Students follow a two-year acting sequence carefully designed to help them incrementally increase their knowledge of and facility with text analysis, character development, spontaneity and impulse, period and aesthetic style, and overall expressiveness.
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WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SMART?
continued
In the Classroom Discussion: Looking at Howard Gardner’s chart of multiple intelligences, which kind(s) of intelligence do you think you have? Is this similar or different to the intelligences of your friends or family members? Going Further: Looking at Gardner’s chart and the career descriptions of the four characters in Smart People, what kinds of intelligences do you think each one of them possesses?
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THE
world of T H E
PLAY
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glossary A.R.T. (American Repertory Theatre) – a graduate theater training program at the awardwinning American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This program includes a semester in residence at the Moscow Art Theater School in Russia.
Black Card – an imaginary card that all black people are born with and that mixed people have to earn that is constantly under threat of being revoked if said black person does not act black enough or in proper black ways. Based on stereotypes.
Barack Hussein Obama II – an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is the first African American to have served as president, as well as the first born outside the contiguous United States. He previously served in the U.S. Senate representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008, and in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 to 2004. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, two years after the territory was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. He grew up mostly in Hawaii, but also spent one year of his childhood in Washington State and four years in Indonesia. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, he became a civil rights attorney and professor, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Obama represented the 13th District for three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Obama received national attention in 2004, with his unexpected March primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address, and his landslide November election to the Senate. In 2008, Obama was nominated for president, a year after his campaign began, and after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. He became president-elect after defeating Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Charles Robert Darwin – (1809 – 1882) an English biologist, naturalist and geologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Clark Study – “The doll test:” A social experiment performed in the 1940s by black psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, which was crucial in revealing the negative impact of racial stereotypes and which became on the of the touchstones of the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s. In the experiment, young black children were given both white and black dolls and then asked which dolls were ‘nice,’ ‘mean,’
Clark Study
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THE WORLD OF THE PLAY
‘good,’ or ‘bad.’ Overwhelmingly, the children assigned positive values to the white dolls and negative values to the black ones. Results from Clark’s experiments were important testimony in the Brown v. Board Supreme Court case in 1954, which ruled against segregation in schools.
endowment is $1.15 billion, which is 8,114% more than the average for all Boarding Schools.
Data Collective – the result of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established systematic fashion, which then enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes.
Galileo Galilei – (1564 – 1642) an Italian polymath: astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, he played a major role in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. He has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of scientific method”, and the “father of science.”
Fundamental friend-foe judgment – the capacity to make quick judgments concerning another person’s threat level and/or compatibility.
Exeter Academy – a coeducational independent school for boarding and day students between the 9th and 12th grade. It is located in Exeter, New Hampshire, and is one of the oldest secondary schools in the United States. It is particularly noted for its innovation and application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking questions and creating discussions. Phillips Exeter Academy has a total tuition of $36,110 for day students and $46,900 for boarding students, which is roughly the average for all Secondary Boarding Schools. 45% percent of students are on financial aid, which is 10% higher than the average for all Secondary Boarding Schools. The school’s total
Genius Grant [MacArthur Grant] – The MacArthur Grant is a five-year fellowship awarded to U.S. citizens working in any field who have shown “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for selfdirection.” It is known colloquially as the ‘Genius Grant’ for the high standards of its selection committee, and for the lack of obvious technical specifications for those who are considered.
Exeter Academy
Genius Grant
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GLOSSARY
continued
Harvard University Education(1954). The Clarks’ work contributed to the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in which it determined that de jure racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional.
Harvard University – a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, established in 1636, whose history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Established originally by the Massachusetts legislature and soon thereafter named for John Harvard (its first benefactor), Harvard is the United States’ oldest institution of higher learning.
Kevin Bacon Game – based on the Six Degrees of Separation Theory. This is the theory that any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain
Kevin Bacon
Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark – African-American psychologists who conducted important research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU).[2] Kenneth Clark also was an educator and professor at City College of New York, and first black president of the American Psychological Association. They were known for their 1940s experiments using dolls to study children’s attitudes about race. The Clarks testified as expert witnesses in Briggs v. Elliott (1952), one of five cases combined into Brown v. Board of
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THE WORLD OF THE PLAY
of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries. The “Kevin Bacon Game” is based on this theory and invites players to connect Kevin Bacon to any other actor based on appearances in film. Over two decades after the game was created by three Albright College students in 1994, it remains popular.
Joseph Mengele
That’s because nearly everyone who has ever appeared in an English-language movie has some link to Bacon. You can even find silent movie stars who have a “Bacon number” of 2 or 3. Joseph Mengele – (1911-1979) was a Nazi scientist infamous for performing inhumane and often fatal experiments on prisoners, focusing especially on children pulled from concentration camps such as Auschwitz. His work (frequently featuring twins, to take advantage of what he called ‘a natural control group’) had the aim of proving natural Aryan supremacy, and has been decried as some of the worst perversions of human rights in scientific history. Mengele fled to South America following the Nazi defeat, and was never caught or tried.
of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell’s works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series.
Neuropsychology – the study of the relationship between behavior, emotion, and cognition on the one hand, and brain function on the other.
Orientalism – is an academic term, used in art history, literary studies, geography, and cultural studies, which is and describes a critical approach to representations of the Orient; of the Eastern cultures of the Middle East, North Africa, South West Asia, and South East Asia. The term Orientalism has come to acquire negative connotations in some quarters and is interpreted to refer to the study of the East by Westerners shaped by the attitudes of the era of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. When used in this sense, it often implies prejudiced, outsider-caricatured interpretations of Eastern cultures and peoples.
Nicolaus Copernicus – (1473 – 1543) a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe, likely independently of Aristarchus of Samos, who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier. Norman Perceval Rockwell – (1894 – 1978) a 20th-century American author, painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection
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GLOSSARY
continued
Supplicate – to ask or beg for something humbly and earnestly; often, to get on one’s knees to beg.
Portia – a character in the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. She is Brutus’s wife; the daughter of a noble Roman who took sides against Caesar. Portia, accustomed to being Brutus’s confidante, is upset to find him so reluctant to speak his mind when she finds him troubled. Brutus later hears that Portia has killed herself out of grief that Antony and Octavius have become so powerful.
Untenable – not able to be maintained or defended against attack or objection: this argument is clearly untenable.
Racial Parameters – a parameter is a measurable factor forming one of a set that defines a system or sets the conditions of its operation. “Broadening your racial parameters” would thus mean including more races in your definition of a system. Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur – American actresses and comedians best known for their roles as Blanche (McClanahan) and Dorothy (Arthur) on The Golden Girls. Late in life, McClanahan (19342010) was a well-known animal welfare advocate and political activist, while Arthur (1922-2009) dedicated time to causes such as LGBT and elder rights, as well as having spent her life in vocal support of women’s rights. Both women publicly supported Barack Obama in the run-up to his first election.
Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur
In the Classroom Discussion: As you can see from the glossary, Smart People is littered with all kinds of cultural references. What does this say about the play? Do you have any predictions about what you’re going to see?
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WHAT DOES MODERN PREJUDICE LOOK LIKE? think about prejudice on its head. Traditionally, Banaji says, psychologists in her field have looked for overt “acts of commission — what do I do? Do I go across town to burn down the church of somebody who’s not from my denomination? That, I can recognize as prejudice.” Yet, far from springing from animosity and hatred, Banaji and Greenwald argue, prejudice may often stem from unintentional biases.
By Shankar Vedantam // April 22, 2013 Heard on All Things Considered Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji was once approached by a reporter for an interview. When Banaji heard the name of the magazine the reporter was writing for, she declined the interview: She didn’t think much of the magazine and believed it portrayed research in psychology inaccurately.
Take Banaji’s own behavior toward the reporter with a Yale connection. She would not have changed her mind for another reporter without the personal connection. In that sense, her decision was a form of prejudice, even though it didn’t feel that way.
But then the reporter said something that made her reconsider, Banaji recalled: “She said, ‘You know, I used to be a student at Yale when you were there, and even though I didn’t take a course with you, I do remember hearing about your work.’ “
Now, most people might argue such favoritism is harmless, but Banaji and Greenwald think it might actually explain a lot about the modern United States, where vanishingly few people say they hold explicit prejudice toward others but wide disparities remain along class, race and gender lines.
The next words out of Banaji’s mouth: “OK, come on over; I’ll talk to you.” After she changed her mind, Banaji got to thinking. Why had she changed her mind? She still didn›t think much of the magazine in which the article would appear. The answer: The reporter had found a way to make a personal connection. For most people, this would have been so obvious and self-explanatory it would have required no further thought. Of course, we might think. Of course we’d help someone with whom we have a personal connection. For Banaji, however, it was the start of a psychological exploration into the nature and consequences of favoritism — why we give some people the kind of extra-special treatment we don’t give others. In a new book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, Banaji and her co-author, Anthony Greenwald, a social psychologist at the University of Washington, turn the conventional way people
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PREJUDICE
continued
We feel like good parents when we arrange a class trip for our daughter’s class to our place of work. We feel like generous people when we give our neighbors extra tickets to a sports game or a show.
The two psychologists have revolutionized the scientific study of prejudice in recent decades, and their Implicit Association Test — which measures the speed of people›s hidden associations — has been applied to the practice of medicine, law and other fields. Few would doubt its impact, including critics. (I’ve written about Banaji and Greenwald›s work before, in this article and in my 2010 book, The Hidden Brain.)
In each case, however, Banaji, Greenwald and DiTomaso might argue, we strengthen existing patterns of advantage and disadvantage because our friends, neighbors and children’s classmates are overwhelmingly likely to share our own racial, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. When we help someone from one of
“I think that kind of act of helping towards people with whom we have some shared group
Discrimination today is less about treating people from other groups badly, DiTomaso writes, and more about giving preferential treatment to people who are part of our “in-groups.” identity is really the modern way in which discrimination likely happens,” Banaji says.
these in-groups, we don’t stop to ask: Whom are we not helping? Banaji tells a story in the book about a friend, Carla Kaplan, now a professor at Northeastern University. At the time, both Banaji and Kaplan were faculty members at Yale. Banaji says that Kaplan had a passion — quilting. “You would often see her, sitting in the back of a lecture, quilting away, while she listened to a talk,” Banaji says.
In many ways, the psychologists’ work mirrors the conclusion of another recent book: In The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality without Racism, sociologist Nancy DiTomaso asks how it is that few people report feeling racial prejudice, while the United States still has enormous disparities. Discrimination today is less about treating people from other groups badly, DiTomaso writes, and more about giving preferential treatment to people who are part of our “in-groups.”
In the book, Banaji writes that Kaplan once had a terrible kitchen accident.” She was washing a big crystal bowl in her kitchen,” Banaji says. “It slipped and it cut her hand quite severely.” The gash went from Kaplan’s palm to her wrist. She raced over to Yale-New Haven Hospital. Pretty much the first thing she told the ER doctor was that she was a quilter. She was worried about her hand. The doctor reassured her and
The insidious thing about favoritism is that it doesn’t feel icky in any way, Banaji says. We feel like a great friend when we give a buddy a foot in the door to a job interview at our workplace.
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THE WORLD OF THE PLAY
same way as he was compelled by a two-word phrase, ‘Yale professor.’ “ Kaplan told Banaji that she was able to go back to quilting, but that she still occasionally feels a twinge in the hand. And it made her wonder what might have happened if she hadn’t received the best treatment. Greenwald and Banaji are not suggesting that people stop helping their friends, relatives and neighbors. Rather, they suggest that we direct some effort to people we may not naturally think to help.
started to stitch her up. He was doing a perfectly competent job, she says. But at this moment someone spotted Kaplan. It was a student, who was a volunteer at the hospital. “The student saw her, recognized her, and said, ‘Professor Kaplan, what are you doing here?’ “ Banaji says. The ER doctor froze. He looked at Kaplan. He asked the bleeding young woman if she was a Yale faculty member. Kaplan told him she was. Everything changed in an instant. The hospital tracked down the best-known hand specialist in New England. They brought in a whole team of doctors. They operated for hours and tried to save practically every last nerve.
After reading the story about Kaplan, for example, one relative of Greenwald’s decided to do something about it. Every year, she used to donate a certain amount of money to her alma mater. After reading Kaplan’s story, Banaji says, the woman decided to keep giving money to her alma mater, but to split the donation in half. She now gives half to her alma mater and half to the United Negro College Fund.
Banaji says she and Kaplan asked themselves later why the doctor had not called in the specialist right away. “Somehow,” Banaji says, “it must be that the doctor was not moved, did not feel compelled by the quilter story in the
In the Classroom Discussion: In Smart People, Ginny, a psychologist, tells her patient, “It sounds like you just want respect. And what would that look like? What would make you feel seen?” Do you feel seen by your parents, teachers, friends, and/or community? What does it feel like to be recognized and appreciated?
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THE IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST
T
he implicit-association test (IAT) is a measure within social psychology designed to detect the strength of a person›s automatic association between mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory. Automatic associations are a prime example of how recent psychological methods can be used to assess the attitudes that people possess but are either unwilling or unable to express. It is a measure of the individual’s unconscious association with a target stimulus. The IAT was introduced in the scientific literature in 1998 by Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz. The IAT is now widely used in social psychology research and is used to some extent in clinical, cognitive, and developmental psychology research. Although some controversy still exists regarding the IAT and what it measures, much research into its validity and psychometric properties has been conducted since its introduction into the literature. How the Web Version Of the Implicit Association Test Works By linking together words and images, the race bias test measures what associations come most easily to mind. People who take the Web version are asked to classify a series of faces into two categories, black American and white American. They are then asked to mentally associate the white and black faces with words such as “joy” and “failure.” Under time pressure, many Americans find it easier to group words such as “failure” with black faces, and words such as “joy” with white faces. The test “measures the thumbprint of the culture on our minds,” says Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji. You can take the test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
In the Classroom Activity: Follow this link to take the web version of the Implicit Association Test. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html Discussion: What did you learn about yourself by taking this test? Were you surprised by the results? Going Further: Do you think this test should be a tool used in schools? If so, how? Why or why not?
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THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY My President Was Black and ‘The Filter ... Is Powerful’: Obama on Race, Media, and What It Took to Win
Asian—how does that fit? And through action, through work, I suddenly see myself as part of the bigger process for, yes, delivering justice for the [African American community] and specifically the South Side community, the lowincome people—justice on behalf of the African American community. But also thereby promoting my ideas of justice and equality and empathy that my mother taught me were universal. So I’m in a position to understand those essential parts of me not as separate and apart from any particular community but connected to every community. And I can fit the African American struggle for freedom and justice in the context of the universal aspiration for freedom and justice.”
By Ta-Nehisi Coates The following are excerpts from two articles published in The Atlantic by writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. After college, Obama found a home, as well as a sense of himself, working on the South Side of Chicago as a community organizer. “When I started doing that work, my story merges with a larger story. That happens naturally for a John Lewis,” he told me, referring to the civilrights hero and Democratic congressman. “That happens more naturally for you [Ta-Nehisi Coates]. It was less obvious to me. How do I pull all these different strains together: Kenya and Hawaii and Kansas, and white and black and
Obama’s early positive interactions with his white family members gave him a fundamentally different outlook toward the wider world than most blacks of the 1960s had. Obama told me he rarely had “the working assumption of
Obama and Coates
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OBAMA PRESIDENCY
continued
diminished. For eight long years, the badgeholders watched him. They saw footage of the president throwing bounce passes and shooting jumpers. They saw him enter a locker room, give a businesslike handshake to a white staffer, and then greet Kevin Durant with something more soulful. They saw his wife dancing with Jimmy Fallon and posing, resplendent, on the covers of magazines that had, only a decade earlier, been almost exclusively, if unofficially, reserved for ladies imbued with the great power of the badge.
discrimination, the working assumption that white people would not treat me right or give me an opportunity or judge me [other than] on the basis of merit.” He continued, “The kind of working assumption” that white people would discriminate against him or treat him poorly “is less embedded in my psyche than it is, say, with Michelle.” Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing “mere” about symbols.
The following is an excerpt from a series of interviews published in the Atlantic Magazine between author Ta-Nehisi Coates and Barack Obama.
Much as the unbroken ranks of 43 white male presidents communicated that the highest office of government in the country—indeed, the most powerful political offices in the world—was offlimits to black individuals, the election of Barack Obama communicated that the prohibition had been lifted. It communicated much more. Before Obama triumphed in 2008, the mostfamous depictions of black success tended to be entertainers or athletes. But Obama had shown that it was “possible to be smart and cool at the same damn time,” as Jesse Williams put it at the BET party. Moreover, he had not embarrassed his people with a string of scandals. Against the specter of black pathology, against the narrow images of welfare moms and deadbeat dads, his time in the White House had been an eightyear showcase of a healthy and successful black family spanning three generations, with two dogs to boot. In short, he became a symbol of black people’s every day, extraordinary Americanness.
Coates: I think for those of us—and I certainly threw myself in this camp…[prior to your election], the idea of a black president was a joke, in every black stand-up comic routine everywhere— Obama: Right. A friend of mine gave me Head of State—remember [Chris Rock] and Bernie Mac?—when we were still running. Said, “Man, you got to see Head of State.” [Laughter] Coates: Yeah, this was like a laugh-fest. But I think one of the things that did distinguish you was the ability to see it and to have the vision that, yes, this could happen, and then to have it again. I’m speaking specifically in terms of race … There were those of us who said, “It’s no way.” And to see it the first and second time must have really reaffirmed a lot of what you thought.
Whiteness in America is a different symbol—a badge of advantage. In a country of professed meritocratic competition, this badge has long ensured an unerring privilege, represented in a 220-year monopoly on the highest office in the land. For some not-insubstantial sector of the country, the elevation of Barack Obama communicated that the power of the badge had
Obama: As I said, the second time, people had seen me work. They had seen me have victories, they had seen me have defeats, they had seen me make mistakes, they had seen me at some high moments but also some low moments. So they knew me, at that point, in the round. I wasn’t just a projection of whatever they hoped for. You
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THE WORLD OF THE PLAY
two wars, and how do we clean up after an administration to reinvigorate things like the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. People had seen all that, and then had to make a judgment: Do we want to continue on this course, and do we continue to have faith in this person? And so it is true that, for me at least, in some ways the first race was lightning in a bottle. I saw it, I envisioned the possibility of it, but everything converged in a way that you couldn’t duplicate. The second race as a consequence felt more solid, because it was harder. And you know we didn’t have tailwinds, we had a lot more headwinds.
know, we always cautioned each other, in the ’08 race, that people were projecting so much onto my campaign—you know, that this would solve every racial problem, or that this indicated that we were beyond race, or that we were going to magically usher in a new era of progressive politics, and that we had vanquished all the backward-looking politics of the past. And for us to then be able to grind it out, to figure out how do we get out of this Great Recession, and what’s the process where we can finally get health care done even if it’s not pretty, and how do we deal with winding down
In the Classroom Discussion: The Obama Presidency is significant for many different people for many different reasons. What do you associate with the presidency? Do you remember where you were when he was first elected?
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REPRESENTATION OF BLACK ACTRESSES IN HOLLYWOOD Zoe Kravitz On Her Struggle As A Black Actress: ‘I Have To Fight For Roles That Aren’t Stereotypical’ https://hellobeautiful.com/2860639/zoe-kravitz-divergent-batman-black-actress/
“They told me that I couldn’t get an audition for a small role they were casting because they weren’t ‘going urban.’ It was like, ‘What does that have to do with anything,’” she said. “I have to play the role like, ‘Yo, what’s up, Batman? What’s going on wit chu?’” In spite of her personal challenges, Zoe remains optimistic that the tide is turning for women of color in Hollywood. “I love the fact that there’s such an open dialogue right now about women in Hollywood and black women and black men in Hollywood and everything in between. Now it’s about us bringing the change” she said.
Zoe Kravitz
While having Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz as parents may have opened a lot of doors for Zoe Kravitz, according to her, the struggle is real for her to be taken seriously as an actress.
“We started the dialogue but I don’t expect any man to write a script that speaks for me. I don’t expect any man to write a script for me. I think we need to do that. If we want to be represented properly in Hollywood, let’s represent ourselves properly in Hollywood.”
During an interview with the Associated Press, Zoe shared that she’s had to “fight” for casting directors to give her the opportunity to audition for roles that aren’t stereotypical black characters.
In the Classroom
“I would get auditions and it would be like ‘they want you to play the best friend.’ And it’s like ‘why can’t I audition for the lead?’ Then it’ll be like ‘OK now you’re the quirky black girl,’ or ‘now you’re a hippie.’ I can play all kinds of people. I don’t have to play myself” she said.
Discussion: Have you ever been made to feel like your goals were out of reach because of your race or gender? Or another factor? Going Further: How do you think that can we as a society can work to remedy instances of injustice?
Despite the 28-year-old’s status as one of Hollywood’s “it” girls with her roles in Dope, Mad Max: Fury Road and the Divergent franchise, Zoe was passed up for an opportunity to audition for Christopher Nolan’s Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.
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the clar k study or “ the doll test ” B ackground The 1940s began the decade of World War II, which America entered after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The country was climbing back from the Great Depression and segregation, racism, and prejudices were still prevalent throughout the nation, including in education. However, momentum was gaining to fight for civil rights in what would lead to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Drs. Clark used four dolls, identical except for color, to test children’s racial perceptions. Their subjects, children between the ages of three to seven, were asked to identify both the race of the dolls and which color doll they prefer. The children were asked the following questions, in this order: “ Show me the doll that you like best or that you’d like to play with,”
One couple, the married African-American psychologist team, Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark, conducted a series of experiments in the 1940’s to “study the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children.”
“Show me the doll that is the ‘nice’ doll,” “Show me the doll that looks ‘bad’,” “Give me the doll that looks like a white child,”
Kenneth and Mamie Clark
“Give me the doll that looks like a colored child,” “Give me the doll that looks like a Negro child,” “Give me the doll that looks like you.” You can watch a video clip of this study here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk
OBJECTIVE In a 1985 PBS interview for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954-1965), Dr. Kenneth Clark was asked to “describe what the dolls test was. What was it designed to show?” His response emphasizes that the study focused on the children and how societal prejudices directly affect how children see themselves in comparison to others. Interviewer: Could you just describe what the dolls test was. What was it designed to show?
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supplemental materials
Dr. Kenneth Clark: The dolls test was an attempt on the part of my wife and me to try to understand how children, black children, saw themselves—whether they viewed themselves as equal to others. In fact, what we were trying to do is to see how children develop a sense of their own being, their own person… the development of the sense of self, self esteem in children… We did it to communicate to our colleagues in psychology the influence of race and color and status on the self-esteem of children.
conclusions The Doll Study results supported the Clarks’ hypothesis that a child’s self-esteem is indeed influenced by their how their race and skin color is perceived in society. A majority of the children preferred the white doll and assigned positive characteristics to it. The Clarks concluded that “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” created a feeling of inferiority among AfricanAmerican children and damaged their selfesteem.
Thurgood Marshall
The results of the test were so persuasive, that they were used by the NAACP in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954: Dr. Clark’s testing in Clarendon County was used by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in its challenge to the constitutionality of the separate-but-equal doctrine because it showed actual damage to children who were segregated and a violation of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. (New York Times, 2005)
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WRITE A REVIEW!
T
here is a lot of truth in the old saying that “Everyone’s a critic.” But to write a review, it takes more than a strong opinion – it takes an open mind, a way with words, and a sense of honesty, intelligence, and balance. A critic’s primary goal is not merely to pass judgment, or to explain what a work fo art means, but to note how a production works and why it was successful. With that in mind, writing a review is very different from typical journalism or essay writing, and reviewing theatre in particular is distinct from any other kind of art form. To create your own review, there are a few steps you should take for a successful approach. The first step is to watch the show in an open, active frame of mind. Remember that professional critics are journalists first, and that comes with great responsibility to put aside their own unique tastes to see through to the heart o the work, rather than getting hung up on personal preference. How does the play function? Who would enjoy this play, and why? At the same time, it’s important for the critic to experience the play as any other audience member would, by being receptive emotionally as well as intellectually. Theatre is rooted in the exchange of emotions, not only onstage, but between the performers and the audience. Along with an open mind, your gut reaction is your most important critical tool. Don’t eliminate your impulses – take stock of yourself honestly after a performance to see how your feelings were inspired. The foundation of a review follows a basic formula:
3. The body of the review provides evidence to illustrate your claims as they unfold. Keep in mind your particular audience of readers. Are you writing for frequent theatergoers, a particular age group, or the general public? You should shape your language to help your readers follow you, but you don’t need to pander to their tastes. Don’t overlook one essential component – the basic information about the show. Names for the play, its major artists, and the theatre are standard. As the review progresses, be sure to include the names of the actors as you mention each character for the first time – give credit where credit is due! A very short summary of the play may help to clarify your review, but don’t reveal any big surprises! Use the playbill as your primary source for names, spelling, and other information. It’s important to be honest, but it’s equally important to avoid being nasty. It can sometimes feel gratifying to put down a production, but it is possible to give negative feedback without being aggressive. Keeping an open mind will help you be specific in addressing shortcomings and how they affected their final product, rather than disparaging their efforts. A review is a lasting record of your theatrical experience, one that expresses a unique perspective from the audience. The best reviews focus on the work of art itself, and the result is the greatest benefit for audiences and artists alike.
1. The “lead” or opening statements. Here, readers should get the gist of where the rest of the review will go. At the same time, it’s important for the writer to “hook” readers into the following discourse, which begins with: 2. The “thesis” introduces the main idea of the review, which acts as a through-line or “spine” For the entire piece. It should be outlined early and briefly, and everything else that follows should illustrate your idea. If you liked (or disliked) the show, this should provide the reason why.
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead Frank Meeink’s raw telling of his descent into America’s Nazi underground and his ultimate triumph over drugs and hatred. Frank’s violent childhood in South Philadelphia primed him to hate, while addiction made him easy prey for a small group of skinhead gang recruiters. By 16 he had become one of the most notorious skinhead gang leaders on the East Coast and by 18 he was doing hard time. Teamed up with African-American players in a prison football league, Frank learned to question his hatred, and after being paroled he defected from the white supremacy movement and began speaking on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League. A story of fighting the demons of hatred and addiction, Frank’s downfall and ultimate redemption has the power to open hearts and change lives. https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Recovering-SkinheadFrank-Meeink/dp/097901882X
Eye of the Storm A wake up call for all ages, this best-selling program teaches about prejudices using a dramatic framework. It provides an examination of the realities of discrimination as experienced by actual students in the classroom of third grade teacher, Jane Elliott, whose demonstration shows how quickly children can succumb to discriminatory behavior. This video chronicles her, now famous, exercise where she divides her class based upon the color of their eyes and bestows upon one group privileges and on the other group impediments. Her work endures to this day and this ABC video, decades later, still has a great deal to teach us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHpWzZh2xA4
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181. The working paper contains a longer list of privileges. This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School
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SOURCES Abagond: 500 Words a day on whatever I want. “The Clark Doll Experiment,” May 29, 2009. Blog. https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-clark-doll-experiment/ http://americanrepertorytheater.org/page/about-the-institute http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11 https://www.capella.edu/online-psychology-degrees/FAQ/how-long-does-it-take-to-become-a-psychologist/ http://careersinpsychology.org/becoming-a-neuropsychologist/ http://cdn1.bostonmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/phillips-exeter-academy.jpg Coates, Ta-Nehisi. The Atlantic. “My President was Black” (January, 2017). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/ Coates, Ta-Nehisi. The Atlantic. “’The Filter ... Is Powerful’: Obama on Race, Media, and What It Took to Win” (December 20, 2016). https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/ta-nehisi-coates-obama-transcript/510965/ http://www.gapmedics.com/blog/2014/07/25/how-to-become-a-general-surgeon/ http://heavy.com/entertainment/2016/08/six-degrees-of-kevin-bacon-i-love-dick-6-game-number-age-movies-tv-showswife/ Interview with Dr. Kenneth Clark, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on November 4, 1985, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=main;view=text;idno=cla0015.0289.020 MSNBC “A Conversation About Race” (April, 2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. “Brown at 60: The Doll Test” http://www.naacpldf.org/brown-at-60-the-doll-test Severo, Richard. The New York Times, “Kenneth Clark Who Fought Segregation Dies” (May 2, 2005). http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/nyregion/kenneth-clark-whofought-segregation-dies.html http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/six-degrees-of-separation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bea_Arthur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_and_Mamie_Clark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Bacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Rockwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_McClanahan
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FOR THE FIRST-TIME THEATREGOER the major consideration to keep in mind is that your actions can be distracting not only to the rest of the audience, but to the actors on stage as well. Behavior that is acceptable in other public settings, like movie theatres, ballgames, or concerts, is out of place when attending the theatre. The following tips should help you get acquainted with some DOs and DON’Ts for first-time theatregoers.
DO arrive early. Make considerations for traffic, parking, waiting in line, having your ticket taken, and finding your seat. If you need to pick up your tickets from the box office, it is a good idea to arrive at least twenty minutes early. Generally, you can take your seat when “the house is open,” about half an hour before the show begins. Late seating is always distracting and usually not allowed until intermission or a transition between scenes, if it is allowed at all. Follow the old actors’ mantra: To be EARLY is to be ON TIME. To be ON TIME is to be LATE. To be LATE is UNFORGIVABLE.
DO turn off your cell phone. Phones and any other noise-making devices should be switched off before you even enter the theatre: you won’t be allowed to use them anyway. Texting during a performance is also rude. The intermission is a good time to use your phone, but remember to turn it off again before the next act begins.
DON’T leave your garbage in the theatre. Food and drinks are usually not permitted in the theatre at all, with the exception of bottled water. If it is allowed, be sure to throw out your trash in a garbage can or recycling bin in the lobby; don’t leave it for the house manager or ushers at the end of a show.
DO watch your step. Aisles can be narrow, so please be considerate when finding your seat. Avoid getting up during the performance whenever possible, since it can be very distracting. You can use the restroom before the show and during intermission. Also, be careful not to cross in front of the stage, as it will break the illusion of the show. Don’t step on or over seats, and never walk on the stage itself.
DON’T talk during the performance. Chatting is extremely rude to the actors and the audience around you. Everyone is trying to pay attention to the play and those nearby will be able to hear, so please be quiet and considerate.
DO get into it! Actors feed off of the audience, just as the audience feeds off of the actors. Don’t be afraid to laugh, clap, or cry if you are so moved. However, there is a line that can be crossed. Please be respectful, and don’t distract from the work of the professionals on stage. After all, people paid good money to watch the show, not you. Just enjoy the experience and let yourself have an honest response.
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& s t n e m monutes mi
SAVE THE DATE!
FRIDAY MAY 19 @ 7PM
A SPOKEN WORD AND VISUAL ARTS FESTIVAL FOR connecticut 3rd YOUTH UAL ANN
WHAT IS IT? An evening of brand new spoken word poems and visual artwork created by students from all over Connecticut!
SUBMIT YOUR WORK! This year’s theme is: what do you wish for? Apply at longwharf.org/moments-minutes-festival 38