{"product_id":"9780809324972","title":"Staging America: Cornerstone and Community-Based Theater","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis captivating study\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003emaps a history and theory of community-based theater in the United States through the Cornerstone Theater Company. Detailing how the performance-making process contributes to an ongoing negotiation of American identity, Sonja Kuftinec investigates community-based theater to trace the historical affiliations of the form and critically examines how community-based theater both enables community and challenges the very notion of “community” as a stable site.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe process of making and unmaking community is vividly illuminated in the work of the Cornerstone Theater Company, a Los Angeles-based ensemble founded in 1986. From 1986 to 1991, Cornerstone toured nationwide, working mainly with rural towns to create adaptations of classical texts. A Wild West musical \u003ci\u003eHamlet\u003c\/i\u003e was performed with residents of Marmarth, North Dakota (population 190), and \u003ci\u003eThe House on Walker River\u003c\/i\u003e, an adaptation of the \u003ci\u003eOresteia\u003c\/i\u003e trilogy, was developed with a Native American reservation in Nevada. Since 1991, Cornerstone has performed with urban communities, developing original shows and adaptations of Western and non-Western texts incorporating local histories and community players. These performances rearticulate distinctions among various urban group and between amateur and professional theater.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile Cornerstone’s contemporary work can be contextualized within a historical tradition of grassroots performance, it also complicates this tradition, suggesting that identity may be more dynamic than rooted. By using Cornerstone as a case study, Kuftinec’s analysis of community-based theater’s impact upon rural, urban, and professional sites across the United States proposes that “community” and “America” are vital terms of negotiation rather than fixed entities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Southern Illinois University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47030959374576,"sku":"9780809324972","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780809324972_p0.jpg?v=1763740686","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780809324972","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}