Segal Center to Celebrate Hillary Miller's 'DROP DEAD' with THEATRE & PERFORMANCE IN THE 1970S Event

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, located at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, celebrates the publication of Hillary Miller's Drop Dead: Performance in Crisis, 1970s New York (Northwestern University Press), the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the Graduate Center (CUNY) will host "Theatre & Performance in the 1970s" on Oct. 31, 2016, at the Segal Theatre, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.

The 6:30pm event will feature a panel of playwrights, directors, and historians discussing the theatre artists and institutions of the 1970s, and its legacies. Participants include historian Julia Foulkes (New School), playwright and novelist Jessica Hagedorn, director Muriel Miguel (Spiderwoman Theatre), historian Cindy Rosenthal (Hofstra University), and playwright Richard Wesley.

Beginning at 11:00am, an all-day screening, "Shorts from the Feminist Seventies" will showcase a selection of 16mm feminist documentary shorts made by women on topics ranging from marriage, sex, and reproductive health to labor, identity, and memory-all borrowed from the New York Public Library's Reserve Film and Video Collection. Q&A sessions throughout the day will include filmmakers Mirra Bank, Abigail Child, Amalie Rothschild, ClauDia Weill, and archivist Elena Rossi-Snook from the New York Public Library's Reserve Film and Video Collection.

"Women's documentary filmmaking of the 1970s gave voice to the complex concerns of feminist activism, including gender, class, race, religion, sexuality and ethnicity," said film scholar and curator Shilyh Warren.

"This day-long screening offers an unprecedented opportunity to see the films in their original 16mm format and speak directly with the influential pioneers of women's documentary filmmaking."

Of 1970s theater, Miller, a Brooklyn native and professor at California State University-Northridge, said, "Theater in New York was on the cusp of major change, coming as it did on the heels of the 1960s. New arguments developed regarding expanding the access to theater and the function of theater in the city's communities. The financial crisis impeded that progress."

Drop Dead combines theatre history with a detailed analysis of productions of the time, incorporating Broadway (TKTS), BAM, La Mama E.T.C., and The Public Theater, and highlights the important role of MESTC founder and mentor Martin E. Segal in shaping the City's cultural policy for decades to come.

"The rhetoric of crisis required artists to make the argument for why theater was so important to the city and its identity as a cultural center for not just the nation, but the world," Miller said. "The question then became, who fit into this new frame of viewing the arts?"

For the full schedule and more, visit thesegalcenter.org/event/theatre-performance-in-1970s-nyc-hillary-millers-drop-dead.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC) is a non-profit center for theatre, dance, and film affiliated with CUNY's Ph.D. Program in Theatre. The Center's primary focus is to bridge the gap between the academic and professional performing arts communities by providing an open environment for the development of educational, community-driven, and professional projects in the performing arts.

The Graduate Center, CUNY, of which the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center is an integral part, is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York (CUNY). An internationally recognized center for advanced studies and a national model for public doctoral education, the school offers more than thirty doctoral programs, as well as a number of master's programs. Many of its faculty members are among the world's leading scholars in their respective fields, and its alumni hold major positions in industry and government, as well as in academia. The Graduate Center is also home to twenty-eight interdisciplinary research centers and institutes focused on areas of compelling social, civic, cultural, and scientific concerns. Located in a landmark Fifth Avenue building, The Graduate Center has become a vital part of New York City's intellectual and cultural life with its extensive array of public lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and theatrical events. Go to www.gc.cuny.edu.