influential people in theatre history .... help?

[directorkid]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 10:54am

I need help picking a person in theatre history who has influenced their field or the world for a history paper. The only criteria is that they cannot be European. I have a few ideas but wondering if anyone can help me out?
Thanks!

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 10:57am

Bob Fosse
Jerome Robbins
Leonard Bernstein
Florenz Zigfield
Fanny Brice
Stephen Sondheim
Kander and Ebb
Rogers and Hammerstein


You really couldn't have done this by yourself???

[Pippin]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 11:02am

Jerome kern
Lorenz Hart
Harold Arlen
Gershwin

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 11:05am

Eugene O'Neill. He's the father of American drama and an influence on every playwright that followed him. There really was no American theatre prior to him and he basically took the innovations of Chekhov, Ibsen and Strindberg in Europe and expanded upon them within an American context and created the American theatre. The winner of 4 Pulitzers and the only American playwright to date to receive the Nobel for Literature, no one else is more influential.

In musical theatre, you might consider George M Cohan (actor, writer, singer, dancer, composer, lyricist, impresario) who was the first to create musicals that even vaguely resemble what we now consider musical theatre and Oscar Hammerstein II, who with Showboat and Oklahoma -- two of the most influential landmark musicals in history, if not THE two most influential -- is more responsible than anyone for the creation of the book musical that uses music and dance to advance the plot and inform character. Every composer, lyricist and book writer since owes him a debt.

Updated On: 4/4/06 at 11:05 AM

[directorkid]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 11:16am

sry i truely messed up on typos! i meant that they HAD to be european, not american!

sorry!

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 11:17am

Henrik Ibsen, hands down.

Still say you could've researched this yourself.

[BwayBaby18]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 11:18am

I suppose you could do Weber.

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 11:21am

If you're researching truly influential people in theatre history, you can do a LOT better than Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 12:14pm

non-european.

look up the members of the group theater and pick the one that most resonates with you. or some colorful figure like david merrick, perhaps. thornton wilder is a great subject.
if you want to be a little off center, you might pick someone like kristen linklater who is certainly the most influential teacher of voice in the american theater, whether you like her or not and there's lots of stuff on the web about her.

oh, a EUROPEAN?
how about Richard Wagner. or Lorca. Peter Brook. all quite important and lots of info on them out there.

Updated On: 4/4/06 at 12:14 PM

[GYPSY1527]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 12:25pm

Edward Albee
Cole Porter

[zannadont]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 12:27pm

um...try Thespus! without that man we wouldn't be here!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 12:29pm

Ummmmmm..... how about Shakespeare? He IS theatre and the most influential writer (theatre or non-theatre) in Western civilization in 500 years. No one else is even close.

Beyond Shakespeare there's Sophocles, Euripides, Moliere, Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello, Shaw, Brecht, Beckett et al.

Musical theatre is truly an American artform and few truly important and figures are from Europe. If I HAD choose the most influential European figures, I suppose I'd go with Gilbert & Sullivan. Their operettas are in many ways the progenitors of our musical theatre and had a clear and direct influence on several of our great early musical theatre writers.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 12:35pm

samuel beckett might be fun to do. artaud is a riot. i still think wagner would be a great subject because of how he influenced politics; there's a lot you could do with that.

[OverTheBoone]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 1:57pm

I totally agree with the person who said Shakespeare. He was such a huge infulence in theatre history, and the best person to choose for your report, in my opinion.

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 2:05pm

I believe part of the criteria was that he/she canNOT be European.

This is slightly off-topic but P.T. Barnum definitely had a hand in the emergence of American entertainment/theatre beginning in the late 19th/early 20th century.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 2:19pm

the OP corrected him/her self and said the subject must be a euro.

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 2:23pm

Thanks, missed that. In that case, carry on.