Philip C. Kolin

One of the most important plays of the twentieth century, A Streetcar Named Desire revolutionised the modern stage. This book offers the first continuous history of the play in production from 1947 to 1998 with an emphasis on the collaborative achievement of Tennessee Williams, Elia Kazan, and Jo Mielziner in the Broadway premiere. From there chapters survey major national premieres by the world’s leading directors including those by Seki Sano (Mexico), Luchino Visconti (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), Jean Cocteau (France ) and Laurence Olivier (England). Philip Kolin also evaluates key English-language revivals and assesses how the script evolved and adapted to cultural changes. Interpretations by Black and gay theatre companies also receive analyses and transformations into other media, such as ballet, film, television, and opera (premiered in 1998) form an important part of the overall study.

One of the most important plays of the twentieth century, A Streetcar Named Desire revolutionised the modern stage. This book offers the first continuous history of the play in production from 1947 to 1998 with an emphasis on the collaborative achievement of Tennessee Williams, Elia Kazan, and Jo Mielziner in the Broadway premiere. From there chapters survey major national premieres by the world’s leading directors including those by Seki Sano (Mexico), Luchino Visconti (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), Jean Cocteau (France ) and Laurence Olivier (England). Philip Kolin also evaluates key English-language revivals and assesses how the script evolved and adapted to cultural changes. Interpretations by Black and gay theatre companies also receive analyses and transformations into other media, such as ballet, film, television, and opera (premiered in 1998) form an important part of the overall study.

The poems in Americorona track the history of COVID-19 in the US from late 2019 to early 2021--how the pandemic affects America medically, economically, spiritually, and psychologically. There are three types of poems in seven sections in Americorona. Leading each section are poems about other historical pandemics (cholera, Black Death, polio, Irish Potato Famine, Pharaoh's plagues, etc.) that foreshadow or parallel the tragic events ushered in by COVID-19. The majority of poems, however, are about COVID-19 tragedies--how the pandemic started, how it impacts children and minorities, how it resulted in hunger and increased discrimination, how it brings out naysayers, how the medical community is dealing with the pandemic. Interspersed among COVID-19 and historical poems are experimental ones on such topics as the "memory of breathing" or the "exhaustion of monotony" during the pandemic.

The poems in Americorona track the history of COVID-19 in the US from late 2019 to early 2021--how the pandemic affects America medically, economically, spiritually, and psychologically. There are three types of poems in seven sections in Americorona. Leading each section are poems about other historical pandemics (cholera, Black Death, polio, Irish Potato Famine, Pharaoh's plagues, etc.) that foreshadow or parallel the tragic events ushered in by COVID-19. The majority of poems, however, are about COVID-19 tragedies--how the pandemic started, how it impacts children and minorities, how it resulted in hunger and increased discrimination, how it brings out naysayers, how the medical community is dealing with the pandemic. Interspersed among COVID-19 and historical poems are experimental ones on such topics as the "memory of breathing" or the "exhaustion of monotony" during the pandemic.

First published in 1991, this book is the first annotated bibliography of feminist Shakespeare criticism from 1975 to 1988 — a period that saw a remarkable amount of ground-breaking work. While the primary focus is on feminist studies of Shakespeare, it also includes wide-ranging works on language, desire, role-playing, theatre conventions, marriage, and Elizabethan and Jacobean culture — shedding light on Shakespeare’s views on and representation of women, sex and gender. Accompanying the 439 entries are extensive, informative annotations that strive to maintain the original author’s perspective, supplying a careful and thorough account of the main points of an article.

"In this anthology of poems, 80 gifted contributors from Baltimore to Bucharest reacquaint us with the luminous, numinous moon-and what a delightful meeting it is As I sit listening to Holst's The Planets, feasting my eyes on this printed panorama of moonstruck mindscapes, the irony of this strange Black Moon month when our astral partner hides from our view is impressed upon me as I write, and I am reminded how much I miss her. Sue Walker and Philip Kolin have skillfully brought this collection together, giving readers welcome respite from the burdens of the earthly mundane. Whether profoundly thoughtful or playfully humorous, each poem lodges itself cozily within the reader. No one should deny themselves the pleasures of this lunar mosaic." -Michael A. Flannery "Let me tell the honest-to-moon truth. This collection makes me feel kin to everybody-Stuart, Maria, William, Lou Ella, Robert, Karen, Joseph, Marley, Peter, Linda-and on: everyone inside and outside its radius. After all, haven't we all shared the moon? Hasn't it accompanied us all, through everything? My own favorite has been the gibbous moon, the curve of its back resembling an ape; a shape I can feel not-too-distantly related to-way out there. This is a collection that brings us all closer together-a magical anthology." -Sena Jeter Naslund "This anthology is a striking poetic counterpart of the moon's nocturnal magic. Projecting upward their questioning, their awe, fantasy, and visions, word-magicians display here their sleight-of-hand with the light and shadow of substance and form. Although free association is often the poetic engine and form varies-from prose poems and free verse to villanelles, even a pantoum-these poems, like the orb they celebrate, also honor cosmic order and the need for order in the restless human mind." -Catharine Savage Brosman "The Night's Magician is a fascinating collection of poems that sparkle with imagination and shared love for the orb we all know and love. These poets raise the bar as they focus on the moon with a shared reverence and awe. They make our hearts beat faster and truer with the beams of their poetry. Sue Walker and Philip Kolin have crafted a truly beautiful anthology in which poem after poem folds itself around the ever familiar, intimate presence of the moon." -William Ferris "This brilliant collection is a demonstration of the universality of the poet's gaze at the moon. Along with the human heart, the moon is perhaps the most suited for consideration by the poet-a pool and a mirror, our closest yet unreachable neighbor. Sharing their visions with us the poets in The Night's Magician demonstrate the universality of the moon, our shared neighbor and mirror to us all." -Carlos Dews "If you are old enough to remember 1953, Dean Martin crooning When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore, you will fall in love all over again when your eyes feast on poems in The Night's Magician. Some poems explore the moon's relation to earth and create hymns to our life on this planet. Other lush poems look closely at the natural world and the moon's physical cycles to see how they each reflect an individual life. Several poets depict its gravitational pull that produces ocean tide, body tide and the slight lengthening of the day. Others delve into the moon's mysterious indifference, what it coolly withholds, a puzzle that can't be solved, that prompts dogs to bay their hearts out. All in all, The Night's Magician provides a torch that the heart can follow through the darkness." -Vivian Shipley

In the twenty years that preceded the publication of this book in 1988, David Rabe was in the vanguard of playwrights who shaped American theatre. As the first full-length work on Rabe, this book laid the groundwork for later critical and biographical studies. The first part consists of an essay that covers three sections: a short biography, a summary and evaluation of his formative journalism for the New Haven Register, and a detailed and cohesive stage history of his work. The second part presents the most comprehensive and authoritative primary bibliography of Rabe to date, with the third section containing a secondary bibliography — including a section on biographical studies.

First published in 1991, this book is the first annotated bibliography of feminist Shakespeare criticism from 1975 to 1988 — a period that saw a remarkable amount of ground-breaking work. While the primary focus is on feminist studies of Shakespeare, it also includes wide-ranging works on language, desire, role-playing, theatre conventions, marriage, and Elizabethan and Jacobean culture — shedding light on Shakespeare’s views on and representation of women, sex and gender. Accompanying the 439 entries are extensive, informative annotations that strive to maintain the original author’s perspective, supplying a careful and thorough account of the main points of an article.

In the twenty years that preceded the publication of this book in 1988, David Rabe was in the vanguard of playwrights who shaped American theatre. As the first full-length work on Rabe, this book laid the groundwork for later critical and biographical studies. The first part consists of an essay that covers three sections: a short biography, a summary and evaluation of his formative journalism for the New Haven Register, and a detailed and cohesive stage history of his work. The second part presents the most comprehensive and authoritative primary bibliography of Rabe to date, with the third section containing a secondary bibliography — including a section on biographical studies.

This is the first collection of critical essays devoted exclusively to Shakespeare's first published work, his long narrative poem Venus and Adonis which established his reputation as the literary darling of London and the heir of Ovid. Particularly important is the book's coverage of the little-known presence of Venus and Adonis on stage.A substantial introduction of 65 pagessurveys the history of criticism about the poem and its significance, and addresses such issues as the burdens of readership and the poem as a staged production. Following are 19 reprinted works from the 18th to late 20th centuries and seven original essays by leading scholars that examine the poem from a variety of theoretical and critical perspectives-Lacanian desire, semiotics and Elizabethan wardship, female readership, mythology, aesthetics and art history. An extensive chronological bibliography of scholarship, editions, and theatrical and literary reviews makes this volume indispensable.

Poetry. In poet Philip C. Kolin's seventh collection of poems, he writes with elegance and grace about the leaps and shifts that mark life... (Mary Swander, Iowa Poet Laureate). As Kolin puts it, each of the poems tells a story about a journey the speaker takes... chronological, familial, romantic, and/or spiritual. This expansive collection of more than 70 poems ranges from religious meditations, to lyrics, elegies, and dramatic monologues, and often employs carefully crafted narratives to symbolize interpersonal tensions. The transformative power of love unites the collection as a whole.

In this critical study of Adrienne Kennedy, Philip C. Kolin explores the interrelationship of life and work of one of the most respected African American playwrights. For more than four decades Kennedy's theater has raised profound issues about race, gender, selfhood, and performativity in American culture - topics that Kolin explores throughout his reading of Kennedy's career. Making her challenging canon more accessible, Kolin offers in-depth analyses of her plays, political scripts, short fiction, and experimental autobiography, as well as examines her neglected novel, Deadly Triplets, and examples of her short fiction. Kolin maintains that Kennedy's plays accentuate the highly experimental theater of Off-Broadway. He traces the fates of Kennedy's young black and mulatta heroines in their quest for identity and self-worth in a white, prejudiced world ashe discusses her radical departure from traditional, sequential plots and consistent characterization and examines her concern with the harrowing territory of the subconscious - a chaotic world of shifting times, locations, and selves. Kolin argues that Kennedy is justly celebrated for representing her protagonists' fragmentary, conflicting psychological states, reflecting a host of white, black, and mulatta vantages, both historical and imagined. Recognizing Kennedy's work departs from that of such African American political activists of the 1960s as Amiri Baraka or Ed Bullins, Kolin demonstrates how her efforts - including Sun and Sleep Deprivation Chamber - challenge colonialist hegemonies of prejudice. He stresses that understanding her plays requires an understanding of her family and ethnic background, her politics, and even her nightmares. Kolin demonstrates that Kennedy's work runs deep with African rituals, Christian symbolism, classical mythology, realities of urban violence, and psychoanalysis, all of which have shaped her visionary and provocative canon.

This is the first collection of critical essays devoted exclusively to Shakespeare's first published work, his long narrative poem Venus and Adonis which established his reputation as the literary darling of London and the heir of Ovid. Particularly important is the book's coverage of the little-known presence of Venus and Adonis on stage.A substantial introduction of 65 pagessurveys the history of criticism about the poem and its significance, and addresses such issues as the burdens of readership and the poem as a staged production. Following are 19 reprinted works from the 18th to late 20th centuries and seven original essays by leading scholars that examine the poem from a variety of theoretical and critical perspectives-Lacanian desire, semiotics and Elizabethan wardship, female readership, mythology, aesthetics and art history. An extensive chronological bibliography of scholarship, editions, and theatrical and literary reviews makes this volume indispensable.