Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States

by Jan Cohen-Cruz

An eclectic mix of art, theatre, dance, politics, experimentation, and ritual, community-based performance has become an increasingly popular art movement in the United States. Forged by the collaborative efforts of professional artists and local residents, this unique field brings performance together with a range of political, cultural, and social projects, such as community-organizing, cultural self-representation, and education. Local Acts presents a long-overdue survey of community-based performance from its early roots, through its flourishing during the politically-turbulent 1960s, to present-day popular culture. Drawing on nine case studies, including groups such as the African American Junebug Productions, the Appalachian Roadside Theater, and the Puerto Rican Teatro Pregones, Jan Cohen-Cruz provides detailed descriptions of performances and processes, first-person stories, and analysis. She shows how the ritual side of these endeavors reinforces a sense of community identification while the aesthetic side enables local residents to transgress cultural norms, to question group habits, and to incorporate a level of craft that makes the work accessible to individuals beyond any one community. The book concludes by exploring how community-based performance transcends even national boundaries, connecting the local United States with international theater and cultural movements.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813535506
• ISBN13: 9780813535500
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Theater Across the Hudson, Even Beyond New Jersey

In spite of what the New York crowd would have you believe, local theater is alive and well. Across the Hudson, even beyond New Jersey there is a culture that is alive. In many cases this culture is reflected in a theater that is far removed from Broadway, and ignored by the Broadway play wrights. Ms. Cohen-Cruz (although a New Yorker) has looked outside the New York boundries and studied both the history and the current state of local theater. She has looked at the South and at the larger regional theaters around the country and described the vitality that exists there. This book is really good in its analysis of local theater. I think, however, she needs to do one more book. I live in the far west, and there is theater here as well. Many smaller communities have amateur productions that relate to the unique culture they have. Salt Lake City, for instance, has two. One, put on by the Mormon Church tells the story of the development of their religion and it's life in the Salt Lake valley. The other is a secular production that is rewritten each year to poke fun at the foibles of the church and local government. Here, further west than that I'm off this weekend to see a local play called Cathouse Afternoon. It does not reflect church values.