Who’s Afraid to Write about Class? A Playwrights’ Conversation

• Friday, September 20
• 4:00 PM
• Yale Cabaret
• 217 Park Street
• MAP
• FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

In a recent conversation on Australian radio, Patricia Cornelius and Young Jean Lee discussed how they approach writing about class in their work. Marc Robinson engages these two master playwrights on the challenges of bringing “difficult subjects” like class, race, and gender to audiences.

Marc Robinson is Professor of English, American Studies, and Theater and Performance Studies at Yale University and Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at the Yale School of Drama. His books include The American Play: 1787-2000 (Yale Univ. Press, 2009) and The Other American Drama (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994). In addition, he is the editor of three books: The Myopia and Other Plays by David Greenspan (Critical Performances series, Univ. of Michigan Press, 2012), The Theater of Maria Irene Fornes (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1999), and Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile (Faber and Faber, 1994). A regular contributor to the TLS, he has been awarded the 2009 George Jean Nathan Award and the 2010 George Freedley Special Jury Prize (both for The American Play), the 2012 Lambda Literary Award in Drama (for The Myopia and Other Plays by David Greenspan), and the 2004 Betty Jean Jones Award for Outstanding Teaching of American Drama. He is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.