LSP 200 PERFORMING MOSAIC: JEWISH CULTURE’S IMPACTS ON AMERICAN
THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE: OTHERNESS AND SURVIVAL
Professor David Y. Chack; The Theatre School dchack@depaul.edu 502.387.6789
Jewish culture and performance-makers contributed to the creation of theatre and performance in the
United States as an ethnic people with a culture that was always seen as “outsider” and often racialized
over its thousands of years of existence. Yet, the waves of immigrants of Jews who came to this country –
the largest at the turn of the 20th Century fleeing systemic prejudices, pogroms (mass violence), exiles
and hatreds – they brought diverse heritages, stories, languages, music, comedy, tragedies, and communal
structures that were vital for their survival and that reflected their ongoing survival in the face of suffering
and persecution. The determined nature of these artistic contributions from Jewish playwrights,
performers, composers and lyricists, acting teachers, and producers has contributed immensely in shaping
American theatre and performance.
We will ask these investigative questions :
1. What is the purpose of cultural and identity expressions and their theatre/performance manifestations?
2. How are race, power and resistance “performed” as an inherent part of, in relationship to, and in allyship with Jewish culture?
3. How have Jews been racialized over the centuries?
4. What themes emerge from the intersections of Jews with the multiplicity of American culture?
5. What is the particularity of Jewish memory and identity?
6. What is Jewish culture and what are its particular aesthetic/artistic aspects?
7. How does ongoing ‘othering’ of Jews over the centuries, that in its worst forms lead to anti-semitism, contribute to the cultural forms of resistance and survival?
