AHCT Newsletter

September 2002

 

 

 

Dear AHCT Colleague:

 

            End-of-summer’s greetings from AHCT.   This issue of the newsletter includes reports on the March 2002 conference, the annual meeting of the AHCT board of directors, and other activities of the association.  Entries on the AHCT web page, on next-year’s annual conference in March 2003, and on the Teatro Cervantes of Alcalá de Henares will be of particular interest.

 

Dues Reminder: The AHCT budget depends almost entirely on members' dues, which support the annual conference, the video library, the Comedia Bulletin Board, the AHCT web site, the biannual newsletter, the Everett Hesse Endowment, and other services.  If you have been a member of AHCT during the past two years, by now you should have received a hard copy of the Newsletter via US mail.  Please check the mailing label for your current dues status and use the enclosed form to renew your membership.   If you have not been a member of AHCT, or if you have let your membership expire,  please consider joining.  Dues information appears at the end of the newsletter.

 

AHCT Spanish Golden Age Theater Symposium, El Paso, TX, March 7-9, 2002. 

This year’s conference involved some 17 sessions with over 40 scholarly presentations on an array of topics related to the Spanish comedia.  Plenary speakers, Juan Sanz Ballesteros and Miguel Angel Coso Marín, professional scenographers from Alcalá de Henares and Madrid gave two presentations, one on their own set designs for Spanish classical plays and the other on their discovery of the Teatro Cervantes of Alcalá and its restoration.  Some eighty persons attended the conference.  A follow-up report on the Teatro Cervantes appears later in the newsletter.  As in all past years, the AHCT symposium coincided with the Siglo de Oro Drama Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial.  Festival highlights included performance of Alarcón’s The Proof of the Promise by Dakin Matthews’s Antaeus company, and productions of Lazarillo by Teatro Gayumba of the Dominican Republic, and El Caballero de Olmedo by the Escuela Nacional de Arte Teatral of Mexico City.  AHCT’s Sharon Voros, Professor of Spanish and French at the US Naval Academy, and Eduardo Pérez-Rasilla, Professor of the Real Escuela de Arte Dramático and the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, served as Round Table discussants.  A special session of the 2003 symposium will be devoted to performances of the 2002 Chamizal Festival. Details appear in the call for papers later in the newsletter.

 

 

Notes from the Board of Directors Meeting, March 6, and the General Meeting, March 9, 2002:

 

Elections:   The current officers were selected to serve again during the coming year: Don Dietz, President; Anita Stoll, First Vice-President; Susan Paun de García, Second Vice-President; Bob Johnston, Secretary; Sharon Voros, Treasurer.  Bob Johnston was reelected to the board.

 

Recognition for Service:  The board expressed their appreciation to Denise DiPuccio for her generous and effective service on the AHCT board and as Conference Program Chair the over past several years.  She has stepped down from both roles this year.

 

Treasurer’s Report:  AHCT opened the year (on 2/28,01) with $14,486 in liquid funds, and closed the year (on 3/6/02) with a balance of $9,583.  In addition, the Everett W. Hess Fund held the sum of $29,100, as of December 31, 2001. Major sources of income during the year were dues ($2,435), Videotape rental ($1,615), interest from the Hesse Fund ($1,438), and a grant from the Spanish Ministry ($2,000).  Major expenditures included honoraria for plenary speakers for the 2002 conference ($2,000), wages for the student assistant for the videotape library ($1,062), and an addition to the Hesse Fund ($1,110).  As of 3/5/02, AHCT assets totaled $38,683.21.

 

The Production in Translation Committee announced their new web page designed for persons interested in Spanish Classical theater in English translation.  The site includes information on translations of plays, bibliographies in English, details about specific performances, and links to other resources useful to directors and actors in the US.  Committee chair Susan Paun de García appealed to members to help provide information for the site and also to contribute brief synopses of plays crafted for directors and actors.  For more information, contact her at: Garcia@denison.edu; and see the web site: (http://www.denison.edu/modlangs.comedia/index.html). 

 

Work continues on the Preservation of the AHCT Videotape Collection.   Some 40 videotapes of Chamizal performances have now been digitized and are available for members’ use in CD format.   Digitized versions appear along with the VHS recordings in the video library catalog on the AHCT home page (www.comedias.org).  The letter “d” indicates CD format.  AHCT again thanks Washington & Lee University for providing a lab facility, technical expertise, and labor for this project.  Committee chair Gwyn Campbell asks members to let her know of additional productions they would like to have available in CD format, so they can be given priority (at Campbell@wlu.edu).  Please note that to request AHCT video materials for loan, contact Mr. Sergio Martínez, at <semartin@email.arizona.edu>.

 

The Visual Studies Committee (Don Larson, Chair) reports that videotaped interviews with Francisco Ruiz Ramón and J. M. Ruano de la Haza are forthcoming.  The Committee also has taped plenary and round table conference sessions with good result, including David Pasto’s and Dennis Raftner’s plenary sessions last year.   These are available on loan also from the AHCT video library.

 

Student Scholarships: Graduate student Ivan Fernández Peláez from Vanderbilt University won this year’s competition for the Everett Hesse graduate student travel scholarship.  The award provides travel support for a graduate student to attend the AHCT symposium.  Selection is competitive and based on research papers submitted for the conference.

 

Video Library:  Requests for videotape loans continue at a steady rate.  Amy Williamsen reported that University of Arizona graduate student Sergio Martínez would replace Manuel Gómez as the library’s graduate assistant.  Orders for tapes should be sent to Sergio, at <semartin@email.arizona.edu>, with a “cc” to Amy.  Evaluation forms to rate the quality and usefulness of tapes will accompany orders, and as borrowers return them information will be made available to members.   Please note that the AHCT video library is unable to process payment of rental fees electronically; payment should be by check.

 

Grant Proposals submitted by AHCT this year have resulted in an award of $2,000 from the Spanish Ministry’s Committee for Cultural Cooperation in support of the Antaeus Company’s production of The Proof of the Promise at the 2002 Chamizal Festival.  Committee chair Catherine Larson noted that AHCT has enjoyed a good relationship with the Spanish Ministry and very good success with grant proposals.  Please remember that submissions in the name of AHCT should be routed through this committee. 

 

AHCT Web Page and Comedia Bulletin Board: After many years of service, AHCT founding member Vern Williamsen has stepped down from the roles of AHCT webmaster and manager of the Comedia Bulletin Board. At their March 6, meeting, on behalf of all AHCT members, the board of directors voted unanimously their heartfelt appreciation and thanks for Vern’s contributions to the association and to comedia studies. 

 

AHCT board member Matthew Stroud has agreed to assume responsibility for the web page and the bulletin board.  This has entailed moving the site of operation from University of Arizona to Trinity University and has resulted in some adjustments in the operation of both the web page and the list serve. Some minor changes in appearance accompany the shift to a “distributed architecture” for the home page, but all of the site’s different sections and information should be easily accessible.  In addition, text files in the comedia collection are now all available in PDF format, which allows for more universal access with the Adobe Acrobat reader (there is also a link on the text list page for those who need to get the reader).  For the time being, original versions in their various formats remain on the server and appear in the list of texts at: http://www.trinity.edu/org/comedia/textlist.html.   Barring objections, Matt will eventually limit the text files to HTML and PDF formats.  Members willing to help customize texts in the collection with line and verse numbers and those seeking more information may contact him at: mstroud@trinity.edu.

 

The Comedia Bulletin Board now operates as a “moderated list,” which allows screening for “spam” and other inappropriate mail.   Recipients of the old list have been added to the new one, if you are currently receiving bulletin board messages, you are already subscribed.   To unsubscribe follow the directions at: http://www.comedias.org/list.html, or write to Matt at: mstroud@trinity.edu.  

 

Please note these new electronic addresses:

·         The URL for the AHCT web page is now: http://www.comedias.org/.

·         Messages for the Comedia Bulletin Board should be sent to: comedia@trinity.edu.

 

 

Revisions to AHCT By-Laws:  At the March 6, meeting the board also considered recommendations for revisions to the AHCT By-Laws from an ad hoc committee chaired by board member Gwyn Campbell.   The by-laws were written in 1984 and had been revised only once, in 1986.  The board approved changes of wording throughout the document in favor of gender-neutral language and to achieve better conformity between stated policies and procedures and actual practice as it has emerged over time.  At its annual meeting in March 2003, the board will consider additional revisions related to the nomination and election of officers and board members.

 

 

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AHCT Spanish Golden Age Theater Symposium, March 2003:  Next year’s AHCT Spanish Golden Age Theater Symposium will take place March 6-8, 2003, in El Paso, Texas.   As in past years the Symposium will coincide with the Golden Age Spanish Theater Festival sponsored by the US Park Service at the Chamizal National Memorial.  As they become available, details of the Festival program will appear on the Comedia Bulletin Board, in the December newsletter, and on the AHCT web page.

 

Call for Papers:  AHCT encourages studies on all aspects of performance of Siglo de Oro dramatic texts, though proposals on other topics related to Spanish Golden Age theater are welcome.  Papers should be 20 minutes in length, in Spanish or in English.  Please indicate a preferred day for your presentation.  College and university faculty should send paper titles with 1-page abstracts and/or proposals for special sessions to:  Prof. Donald R. Larson, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Cunz Hall 266, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1229.   Tel.: (614) 292-2414.  FAX: (614) 292 7726.  E-mail: larson.3@osu.edu.   Submissions may be sent by regular mail, by FAX, or as an e-mail attachment in Word.  FAX transmissions should include a cover sheet addressed to Prof. Larson.   The deadline for the submission of abstracts is December 1, 2002. 

 

Please note:  Professor Angel Sánchez is organizing a special session on performances at the 2002 Siglo de Oro Chamizal Festival.  If you are interested in participating, please contact Professor Sánchez at Arizona State University: tel. (408) 965-4576, e-mail: angel.sanchez@asu.edu.

 

Graduate students are encouraged to submit completed papers.  Send two copies of your complete ten-page paper to:  Professor Christopher Weimer, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078.  Professor Weimer’s e-mail, CBWeimer@aol.com, should be used to request guidelines and ask questions only.  Please do not send submissions electronically.  Graduate students whose papers are accepted will be considered for the AHCT Everett W. Hesse Travel Support Grant. The deadline for the submission of completed papers is December 1, 2002.

 

Hotel Reservations:  The AHCT Spanish Golden Age Theater Symposium will take place at the Hilton Camino Real Hotel (formerly Camino Real Hotel) in El Paso, Texas.  Sessions begin Thursday morning, March 6, 2003, and end Saturday afternoon, March 8, 2003.  Again, please indicate a preferred day for your presentation.  Hotel reservations may be made by phone at 1-800-769-4300 or 1-915-534-3099, Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm (MST).  The deadline for the conference room rate is February 3, 2003.  Participants must mention the AHCT Conference (Association for Hispanic Classical Theater) and request the group rate of $79 for a single or double or $94 for a triple (plus tax).  

 

Conference Registration:  You must be a member of AHCT to register for the conference.  If you are not currently a member, please send membership dues of $20 along with your conference registration fee.   To register for the conference, send you name, affiliation, address, telephone, and e-mail address, with a check for $90 (faculty) or $30 (students) to:  Professor Anita K. Stoll, First Vice-President, AHCT, 2081 Lamberton Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.  (E-mail: astoll@fire.scifac.csuohio.edu).   Please send registration and membership dues by February 8, 2003; there will be a late fee of an additional $10 for registration after that date.   Checks should be payable to AHCT.   Please send separate checks for dues and registration, and please indicate at the bottom left-hand corner of your check whether the payment is for dues or conference registration.  Registration includes conference attendance, the AHCT Annual Banquet in the Dome Room in the Hilton Camino Real, transportation to and from the Chamizal National Memorial each evening for the Siglo de Oro Spanish Drama Festival, coffee and refreshments during the conference, and refreshments in the Hospitality Room after the theater performances.

 

Call for Volunteers: 

1.  The AHCT provides transportation to the performances at the Chamizal’s Siglo de Oro Festival for conference participants.  Volunteers are needed to drive vans from the hotel to the Chamizal National Memorial every evening, beginning Wednesday, March 5, 2003. This year we plan to waive the registration fee for van drivers.  Please contact the AHCT Conference Director, Sharon D. Voros (below) if you are interested.

2.  The El Paso Times publishes reviews of Chamizal Festival performances.  The staff of the Chamizal has asked for volunteers to write reviews.  Writers need to bring a laptop computer to submit reviews by publication deadlines.   Please contact Sharon D. Voros for further information.

 

Conference Up-Dates:  Please check the AHCT website at www.comedias.org for conference updates.  The conference program will be posted on http://www.denison.edu/~garcia/2003proghtml.   For additional questions about the conference, please contact the AHCT Conference Director, Professor Sharon D. Voros, Language Studies Department, 589 McNair Road, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD 21402-5030, Office: (410) 293 6459.  Office e-mail: voros@usna.edu, Home:  (301) 868 2269.  Home e-mail: sharondvoros@comcast.net.

 

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Additional Notes:

 

The Antaeus Company Performs Alarcón In Phoenix. AHCT Gives Workshop: On April12-14, Dakin Matthews brought his professionally acclaimed The Antaeus Company from North Hollywood, CA to perform Ruiz de Alarcón’sThe Proof of the Promise at the Playhouse on the Park in downtown Phoenix, AZ.  The three performances were presented in conjunction with a joint meeting of the Renaissance Society of America and the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS).  AHCT received grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and American Family Life Insurance Company.  Receipts from ticket sales and concessions covered the remaining costs.

 

On the Thursday preceding the weekend performances, theater faculty and students from the Valley of the Sun’s universities, junior colleges and selected high schools received invitations to a Seminar/Workshop on Performing Classical Drama in English on the Contemporary American Stage sponsored by AHCT.  Director Anne McNaughton and players from The Antaeus Company presented dramatized readings comparing scenes from Shakespeare and the comedias.  Dr. Susan Paun de García also prepared and presented a power point presentation on the opportunities and resources AHCT makes available to directors and producers interested in performing Golden Age plays.  Anyone who wishes to organize similar activities in their locale should contact Susan Paun de Garcia (from Don Dietz, AHCT President).

 

Tirso’s Don Juan on Stage at ASU:  Professor Oscar Giner will direct his English translation of Tirso’s‚ El Burlador de Sevilla on the main stage of the Galvin Theater at Arizona State University.  Dr. Giner has worked in Puerto Rico with Dean Zayas and in New York Washington with the El Repertorio Español and Teatro Gala.  Performances will be Nov.15-24 (from Don Dietz, AHCT President).

 

Video Recording on the Chamizal Siglo de Oro Theater Festival.  With AHCT support, two senior students at the University of Rhode Island, Titus DosRemedios and Peter Ricci, have produced and directed a twenty-three minute video on the history of the Chamizal Golden Age Festival titled, “Vamos al Siglo de Oro.” AHCT member David Gitlitz provided consulting advice.  Members wishing to view the video may find it listed in the Visual Studies section of AHCT’s video collection (from Don Dietz, AHCT President).

 

Journal on Comedia Performance:  AHCT board member, Barbara Mujica, of Georgetown University, announces plans to initiate a journal titled, Comedia Performance.  In addition to scholarly articles on topics related to the performance of Spanish Classical theater from the seventeenth century to the present, the journal will include interviews with directors and theater reviews, in an annual, bound paper publication.  Direct inquiries and submissions to: Professor Barbara Mujica, Editor, Comedia Performance, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Box 571039, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C. 20057-1039.   Submissions may be sent on disk via US mail, or as e-mail attachments to: mujicab@gusun.georgetown.edu.

 

La dama duende at BYU:  In April, after extensive research and with the guidance of AHCT faculty member Dale Pratt, students at Brigham Young University performed Calderón’s, La dama duende.  AHCT board member Amy Williamsen reports a splendid performance that truly captured the spirit of the corral theater.

 

Performance in Translation Out-Reach:  In July, board member David Pasto represented AHCT at the annual conference of the Association for Theater in Higher Education in San Diego.  Funding approved by the AHCT board in March covered the expense of an advertisement in the conference program and a booth in the exhibition hall.  David distributed AHCT brochures to interested persons and explained the association’s services.  Contacts included theater academics, the director of a professional theater group from Los Angeles, and the dramaturge from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

 

 

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The Teatro Cervantes de Alcalá de Henares:  AHCT members who attended the March conference will recall Juan Sanz and Miguel Angel Coso’s plenary session, the second half of which dealt with their discovery of the Teatro Cervantes in Alcalá and their work for the rehabilitation of the building as a viable theatrical space.  You may also recall that their efforts on this project had been frustrated during the past three years by a combination of personalities and politics in the municipal government of Alcalá.  The history of the Teatro Cervantes and of Sanz and Coso’s work for its restoration is too lengthy to summarize here.  References appear below for members who would like more detail on both of these topics.  I can, however, offer an up-date on the restoration project and Sanz and Coso’s involvement.  In July and August I visited Alcalá and the Teatro Cervantes, and I spoke with Sanz and Coso at some length.  The following summarizes what I learned.

 

Three years after being pushed to the sidelines by local politics, Sanz and Coso have now been asked to return to the Teatro Cervantes project.  The Consejería de las Artes of the Comunidad de Madrid has assumed authority and provided funds, and the Ayuntamiento of Alcalá will now participate in a collaborative role.  After discussion with the Comunidad, Sanz and Coso began work in May 2002 to finalize the rehabilitation of the theater.   By November of 2002, they will complete work necessary to open the building to the public as a historical and cultural monument.  Among other things, they hope to recover as much as possible the spatial atmosphere and the “encanto” of the original theater.   This will involve reversing some modifications carried out under the aegis of the Ayuntamiento during the past three years.   In their workshop I saw turned banisters, stanchions, and flooring for the balcony of the corral stage, along with other fixtures, including hand-built templates to reproduce the ornate, oil lamps which lined the theater during the nineteenth century.  Their plan also involves generation of a thirty-minute live performance, to be repeated at regular intervals for visitors, explaining the history of the Teatro Cervantes and the production of theater there over the past four centuries.

 

Between January and May 2003, they will oversee the final phase of the project.  In addition to the installation of heat and air conditioning, this will involve preparing an archeological display from their original excavation of the building.  It will include such items as coins, ceramics, jewelry, and structural remnants of the various phases of the theater.

 

The original vision for the Teatro Cervantes, formulated with the collaboration of comedia scholar John Varey and others, involved the creation of a cultural center with multiple functions.  It would serve as a working theater and also as a museum to preserve and display the various periods of the theater’s life.   In addition, it would accommodate workshops, conferences, and other activities on a scale appropriate to its significance as a world-class cultural monument.   It remains to be seen whether or not the future of the Teatro Cervantes will fulfill this potential.  Steps underway this year to complete the rehabilitation of the building seem to offer promise.  This past summer it served as the venue for a handful of productions in a local theater festival sponsored by the Comunidad de Madrid and the Ayuntamiento de Alcalá.  On the other hand, until now it has seemed that theater scholars from abroad have displayed the greatest appreciation for its value and significance.   In addition, with municipal elections slated for May 2003, the political pendulum may well reverse the progress recently made.  There remains as well the preparation of a full inventory and analysis of the original excavation of the building.  Sanz and Coso are the persons who could do this, though the project would require substantial grant support.

Initial contact between AHCT and the Teatro Cervantes took place in 1996 when a group of members visited the theater after the association’s conference in Almagro.   At that time, some members also wrote letters to the municipal government of Alcalá in support of Sanz and Coso’s role in the restoration project.  The plenary session in March renewed this contact and hopefully opens the way to continuing collaboration between AHCT and Sanz and Coso and the Teatro Cervantes. 

 

Details about the discovery and the history of the Teatro Cervantes appear in: Miguel Angel Coso Marín, Mercedes Higuera Sánchez-Pardo y Juan Sanz Ballesteros, El Teatro Cervantes de Alcalá de Henares: 1602-1866. Estudio y documentos.  London: Tamesis, 1989.  An account of Sanz and Coso’s experiences with the restoration project appears in: David Castillejo, Dos diálogos: El individuo y la sociedad, Las estructuras de la vida. Castalia, Madrid, 1999, pp. xlvii-lvi & illustrations following.  (I will be happy to provide copies to members who have difficulty locating this.)   Sanz and Coso have also offered to correspond by e-mail with members who would like additional information: escenografia@infonegocio.com.

 

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Contributions to AHCT:  Donations to the AHCT Everett Hesse Endowment and the Millennium Fund have now reached nearly $2,000.   To contribute, simply send a check to:  AHCT, P.O. Box 28226 Tempe, AZ 85282.  Your support is deeply appreciated.

 

 

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AHCT Dues Information:  The mailing label on the newsletter will verify your dues status.  The date by your name shows the end of the period for which membership has been paid (e.g., 3/01 = dues paid through March 2001).  To keep your membership current and to help us keep our records accurate, please send dues and report corrections or changes in your address and affiliation to Anita Stoll (address below). To simplify payment, please feel free to pay for more than one year ahead.

Dues Categories: A) Individual Membership @ $20 annually [$5 to be applied to the Everett W. Hesse Memorial Endowment]; B) Individual Membership (Retired Members/Students) @ $10 annually; C) Patron Membership @ $25 annually with the privilege of requesting the loan of one video from our archives without charge; D) Sponsor Membership  @ $50 annually with the privilege of requesting the loan of two videos from our archives without charge and the invitation to attend and participate in the annual meeting of the Board; E) Institutional Membership @ $50 annually with the privileges of D above; and F) Sustaining Membership @ 500.00, payable one time only, with the privileges of requesting the loan of two videos from our archives annually without charge and the invitation to attend and participate in the annual meeting of the board.

Please send dues to: Prof. Anita Stoll, Second Vice-President AHCT, 2081 Lamberton Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118 (<astoll@fire.scifac.csuohio.edu>).  (Checks to: Association for Hispanic Classical Theater).

 

 

 

With best wishes for the coming academic year, and

 

Un cordial saludo,

 

 

 

Bob Johnston

AHCT Recording Secretary

Department of Modern Languages

Box 6004

Northern Arizona University

Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6004

e-mail: <robert.johnston@nau.edu>