Category: Writing Samples
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Review: Disney’s “Frozen”
[Originally published on Coming to the Edge.] I rang in the New Year by going to see Frozen with my big sister the glaciologist, who is obviously the optimal person to bring along to a movie that’s about a) ice and b) sisters. Really, though, if you’re going to see Frozen, I highly recommend bringing a glaciologist if you…
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not a pretty girl, pt. 1
[Originally posted on Coming to the Edge. This series of posts has been viewed over 2000 times since its publication in Oct. 2013, and was picked up for classroom use by several teachers, including a professor at Duke University.]
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Review: Book-It Rep.’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Uncensored”
I should say at the outset that I’m simultaneously a biased and an unbiased reviewer for this show. Biased because my roommate was the dramaturg for the production; unbiased because, well . . . When the house lights came up for intermission, I leaned over to tell Alex how much I was enjoying it and…
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“One Flea Spare” Program Note
THE FLEA. by John Donne (c. 1635) MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is ; It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of…
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Bad Hamlet (excerpt)
Bad Hamlet Dr. Tennant: Now it should probably be noted that Ophelia’s onstage for the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Prof. McCoy: Which makes it not a soliloquy if he’s talking to her. Or if he’s performing for Claudius and Polonius’ benefit. Dr. Tennant: He’s really quite the manipulator. You know, it makes…
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Review: Athens’ National Theatre’s “Titus Andronicus”
Titus Andronicus at Athens’ National Theatre People unused to Shakespeare sometimes complain that his plays are so hard to understand, he might as well have been writing in a different language. With practice, Shakespeare becomes easier to follow, but the National Theatre of Athens’ production of Titus Andronicus would have stretched even the best-read Shakespearean…
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“Odin’s Horse” program note
[From the 2009 Pittsburgh Eco-Drama Festival, sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon University Center for the Arts in Society and the School of Drama.] NOTES ON THE PLAY Odin’s Horse was the winner of the 2004 Ecodrama Playwright’s Festival in Oregon, one of the first festivals of its kind in the United States. Set in the…
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“She’s Making Movies” (excerpt)
[Excerpt from “‘She’s Making Movies’: The Blair Witch Project and Mulvey’s Theory of the Gaze,” written as the culmination of my critical writing studies at Carnegie Mellon.] Mulvey’s three gazes and The Blair Witch Project Mulvey’s theory of the three gazes relies on traditional cinematography, because her analysis of film’s scopophilic pleasures is predicated on…
Anthea Carns 