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Theater 33.3 (2003) viii-1



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Up Front


Clockwise from upper left: designs for Jacques Polieri's Theater of Movement; drawing for Andor Weininger's Spherical Theater. Center: plan for Frederick Kiesler's Endless Theater" width="72" height="96" />
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Clockwise from upper left: designs for Jacques Polieri's Theater of Movement; drawing for Andor Weininger's Spherical Theater. Center: plan for Frederick Kiesler's Endless Theater

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My first "Up Front," written in fall 1992, was about change—at the magazine, in theater, in American society—and full of hope. Twenty years of Republican reaction had just ended, after all. As I edited this issue in spring 2003, my last for Theater, I was still hopeful, though only for the magazine. After I resigned, Tom Sellar was appointed editor; his section on new Polish theater in the following pages shows how fine his work will be. Tom joined our staff as a student in 1994; his talents and underlying faith in the importance of theater were already clear when he helped me edit the utopia double issue in 1995, filled with wild-eyed, necessary ideas coming from every reach of American theater.

Such ideas are needed more than ever. The administration lies to us, the media manipulate us, Americans and Iraqis are dying uselessly every day, our culture is reeling. Why doesn't our theater respond with a roar of debate and a passionate search for new forms to express these new realities? Why is it less gripping than the ten Democratic candidates, for heaven's sake? Or are there unhyped rebel artists we just don't know about? In the spirit of utopian possibility, we have to keep asking and looking for answers.

I'm proud of what Theater has accomplished. First, because of the writers we've attracted, as without them there'd be nothing. The recent issue on children's theater published Obie, Tony, and Pulitzer winners right before they received their awards in 2003; more important, over the years we've printed eye-opening plays and essays by the not-yet-famous young. Also, because we succeeded in opening contentious, productive conversations on politics and aesthetics—most eloquently in Alisa Solomon's issue on theater and social change, but throughout, from Meyerhold to Mac Wellman. Finally, for keeping our eyes open to the world outside this country.

There's not enough room on this page to express my gratitude to everyone who has helped in the last eleven years: the dozens of students who crammed editorial work into their relentless schedules (with particular thanks to Erika Rundle); Victoria Nolan and the Drama School's administrative staff; our publisher, Duke University Press; the contributing editors, who so generously offered their intellectual and artistic resources; all the translators, interviewers, designers, and photographers who gave us beautiful work for a pittance. And, of course, our readers.




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