Performance studies creator is A.D. White Prof-at-Large

By Franklin Crawford

Richard Schechner, founder of the performance studies department at New York University, will conduct theater classes and performances on and off the Cornell campus during his visit as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large, March 28 through April 1. He also will participate in several events that are free and open to the public, including:

• introductory comments at a Cornell Cinema screening of "Dionysus in '69," a film directed by Brian de Palma, Tuesday, March 28, 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre;
• a brown-bag lunch discussion, "East Is East/West Is West: What Happens When the Twain Meet," with members of the South Asia Program, Wednesday, March 29, 12:15-1:30 p.m., 153 Uris Hall;
• open classroom and scene work with Cornell theater students, Thursday, March 30, 2:55-4:40 p.m., in the Black Box Theatre, Center for the Theatre Arts; and
• a plenary lecture for "Remembering the Future in (Research About) Ramlila of Ramnagar," Saturday, April 1, 2 p.m., in Room SB10 of the Center for Theatre Arts.

Schechner, a Cornell alumnus of the Class of 1956, has been a pivotal force in promoting and undertaking international projects in performance history and theory, theatrical production and development of the influential interdisciplinary field of performance studies.

"Few theater people have had quite as much impact in both the academy and in the world of theater production," said Rebecca Schneider, Cornell assistant professor of theater, film and dance. "Schechner has a place in every theater history textbook for his ground-breaking work in environmental theater in the 1960s and 1970s and for his vision in helping to found the discipline of performance studies."

Schechner also served as editor of The Drama Review, fostering the critical writing of younger colleagues and providing a venue for the thoughtful discussion and analysis of experimental work in performance. His own articles and books, Performance Theory, Environmental Theater and Between Theater and Anthropology, have been taught in classrooms around the world. At NYU, Schechner has reshaped the spectrum of theater studies to include anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, folklorists, popular culture specialists, theater and dance scholars, literary critics and art historians.

Schechner has been a National Endowment for the Humanities senior research fellow, a Smithsonian Institution research fellow, a Fulbright senior research fellow and a Guggenheim fellow, among other honors.