Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description
MORE LIFE: Queer Performance and the AIDS Epidemic
Instructor(s): John Michael DiResta, Theater
An examination of theater, performance art, and protest during the AIDS epidemic, and the intersections between them.
The AIDS epidemic decimated the ranks of US-American theater makers in the 1980s and 1990s; major commercial and avant-garde artists perished before their 45th birthdays, including Tony-winning director Michael Bennett, performance artist David Wojnarowicz, multi-disciplinary maker Reza Abdoh, and rock star Freddy Mercury. From the onset of the disease to the development of life saving drugs in the mid 90s, queer theater artists responded to the crisis with a canon of work that echoes into the 21st century. This course examines selections from that canon and their reverberations in contemporary art-making.
Course Offered: