Dr.Beth Cherne

Dr. Beth Cherne directed theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota for ten years before returning to graduate school at the University of Minnesota for a Ph.D. She continues to direct and teach while developing her monograph on radical amateur theatre in the U.S. During the 1930s. Her interest in directing is developing distinctly American theatre, using contemporary techniques, such as Anne Bogart's Viewpoints, collaborative development and postmodern ideas of staging. She strives to produce every play, whether classic or contemporary, as if it were written for today, for her Midwestern American audience. Dr. Cherne is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, a four year undergraduate institution. Her teaching specialties are Theatre History, World Theatre and Directing.

Lecture

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse chose Charles Mee's play, "bobrauschenbergamerica" for its 2006-2007. It will play April 20 through April 30, 2007. This play is based upon the art of Robert Rauschenberg, one of the most innovative and ground breaking of American artists. He is famed for his 'combines," works in which he 'combined' two and three dimensional objects in a wide range of artworks. The play is based upon his work in that it is a collage of American life during the time of Rauschenberg's early innovations: the 1950s through the 1970s. The play is a series of scenes that juxtapose typical "American" events and obsessions or preoccupations. Although it was written in the 1990s, it feels very avant garde to a typical American audience, and to the students in our Mid-Western univeristy. Therefore, Dr. Cherne, along with a colleague, Professor Walter Elder, created a class, called a Performance Studio, in which to develop this work collaboratively with the students. The work takes technique from Anne Bogart's Viewpoints work, and from Elder's work with Black River Theatre, a collaborative performance group that devises its own pieces collaboratively. This presentation will outline the goals, techniques, problems, and outcomes of this work.

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