Christin Essin | Vanderbilt University (original) (raw)
Uploads
Books by Christin Essin
Theatre Design & Technology, 2022
Working Backstage illuminates the work of New York City’s theater technicians, shining a light on... more Working Backstage illuminates the work of New York City’s theater technicians, shining a light on the essential contributions of unionized stagehands, carpenters, electricians, sound engineers, properties artisans, wardrobe crews, makeup artists, and child guardians. Too-often dismissed or misunderstood as mere functionaries, these technicians are deeply engaged in creative problem-solving and perform collaborative, intricate choreographed work that parallels the performances of actors, singers, and dancers onstage. Although their contributions have fueled the Broadway machine, their contributions have been left out of most theater histories.
Theater historian Christin Essin offers clear and evocative descriptions of this invaluable labor, based on her archival research and interviews with more than 100 backstage technicians, members of the New York locals of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. A former theater technician herself, Essin provides readers with an insider’s view of the Broadway stage, from the suspended lighting bridge of electricians operating followspots for A Chorus Line; the automation deck where carpenters move the massive scenic towers for Newsies; the makeup process in the dressing room for The Lion King; the offstage wings of Matilda the Musical, where guardians guide child actors to entrances and exits. Working Backstage makes an significant contribution to theater studies and also to labor studies, exploring the politics of the unions that serve backstage professionals, protecting their rights and insuring safe working conditions. Illuminating the history of this typically hidden workforce, the book provides uncommon insights into the business of Broadway and its backstage working relationships among cast and crew members.
By casting designers as authors, cultural critics, activists, entrepreneurs, and global cartograp... more By casting designers as authors, cultural critics, activists, entrepreneurs, and global cartographers, Essin tells a story about scenic images on the page, stage, and beyond that helped American audiences see the everyday landscapes and exotic destinations from a modern perspective.
Journal articles by Christin Essin
Shakespeare Bulletin, 2020
This essay documents the experiences of union stagehands in New York who worked on Broadway produ... more This essay documents the experiences of union stagehands in New York who worked on Broadway productions of A Chorus Line (1975, 2006), positioning their backstage labor as a choreographic mirror to the onstage labor of performers. Through a historiographic reconstruction of stagehands’ live production labor, particularly that of electricians, the essay argues for a reconsideration of the iconic musical’s materialist critique, including its scrutiny of the commercial theatre industry’s impersonal supply-and-demand hiring practices and the loss of individual identity that accompanies the practice of professional skills in unison. Through a combination of oral histories, archival research, and secondary sources, the reconstruction focuses on the intricate, rehearsed movements of followspot operators illuminating and isolating dancers as they reveal their interior lives. It then juxtaposes the spot ops’ physically demanding labor with the more visually engaged, technologically advanced skills of the head electrician, who operated Tharon Musser’s innovative, Tony Award–winning lighting design from Broadway’s first computer-controlled light board. As a materialist production history, the essay aligns A Chorus Line’s stagehands with the musical’s fictional (and actual) dancers, using the production’s materialist critique as an impetus to recuperate the regularly unseen and often undervalued labor of individuals whose physical, mental, and intuitive skills fuel the Broadway machine.
Book chapters by Christin Essin
The Great North American Stage Directors, Vol I, 2021
The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, 2019
A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age, 2017
Published essays by Christin Essin
Theatre Design and Technology, 2021
Book reviews by Christin Essin
Modern Drama
This book presents a history of theatre experimentation at labour colleges in the United States. ... more This book presents a history of theatre experimentation at labour colleges in the United States. It traces the evolution of theatre pedagogy from progressive ideal to political activism and addresses intersections between the labour movement and the performing arts.
Performance reviews by Christin Essin
Theatre Journal, 2016
ries, often used verbatim. My One Demand’s use of the performers’ own words; the promise of audie... more ries, often used verbatim. My One Demand’s use of the performers’ own words; the promise of audience interactivity; its real-time filming and open, uncontrolled “set” (perhaps better described as a “route”); its risky, single-shot setup, which seemingly invited unplanned elements to intervene—all combined to serve Blast Theory’s ongoing interest in exploring the permeability between a performance and the world in which it takes place. As a work seeking to explore that permeability specifically through interactivity, the piece’s dynamic relationship with Toronto itself—gorgeously captured during its presunset golden hour—seemed in the end even more integral to the piece than its relatively straightforward solicitation of personal responses from local and geographically distant audience members. On the night I attended, those responses seemed to be integrated into the piece only through direct quotation in designated spots in the script, when the narrator read off some of the submitted answers. Interestingly, as she did so, her microphone repeatedly picked up the sound of paper pages turning; this momentary reminder of an analog technology emphasized the relative simplicity and linearity of this interaction, in contrast to the digital sophistication making it possible.
Theatre Design & Technology, 2022
Working Backstage illuminates the work of New York City’s theater technicians, shining a light on... more Working Backstage illuminates the work of New York City’s theater technicians, shining a light on the essential contributions of unionized stagehands, carpenters, electricians, sound engineers, properties artisans, wardrobe crews, makeup artists, and child guardians. Too-often dismissed or misunderstood as mere functionaries, these technicians are deeply engaged in creative problem-solving and perform collaborative, intricate choreographed work that parallels the performances of actors, singers, and dancers onstage. Although their contributions have fueled the Broadway machine, their contributions have been left out of most theater histories.
Theater historian Christin Essin offers clear and evocative descriptions of this invaluable labor, based on her archival research and interviews with more than 100 backstage technicians, members of the New York locals of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. A former theater technician herself, Essin provides readers with an insider’s view of the Broadway stage, from the suspended lighting bridge of electricians operating followspots for A Chorus Line; the automation deck where carpenters move the massive scenic towers for Newsies; the makeup process in the dressing room for The Lion King; the offstage wings of Matilda the Musical, where guardians guide child actors to entrances and exits. Working Backstage makes an significant contribution to theater studies and also to labor studies, exploring the politics of the unions that serve backstage professionals, protecting their rights and insuring safe working conditions. Illuminating the history of this typically hidden workforce, the book provides uncommon insights into the business of Broadway and its backstage working relationships among cast and crew members.
By casting designers as authors, cultural critics, activists, entrepreneurs, and global cartograp... more By casting designers as authors, cultural critics, activists, entrepreneurs, and global cartographers, Essin tells a story about scenic images on the page, stage, and beyond that helped American audiences see the everyday landscapes and exotic destinations from a modern perspective.
Shakespeare Bulletin, 2020
This essay documents the experiences of union stagehands in New York who worked on Broadway produ... more This essay documents the experiences of union stagehands in New York who worked on Broadway productions of A Chorus Line (1975, 2006), positioning their backstage labor as a choreographic mirror to the onstage labor of performers. Through a historiographic reconstruction of stagehands’ live production labor, particularly that of electricians, the essay argues for a reconsideration of the iconic musical’s materialist critique, including its scrutiny of the commercial theatre industry’s impersonal supply-and-demand hiring practices and the loss of individual identity that accompanies the practice of professional skills in unison. Through a combination of oral histories, archival research, and secondary sources, the reconstruction focuses on the intricate, rehearsed movements of followspot operators illuminating and isolating dancers as they reveal their interior lives. It then juxtaposes the spot ops’ physically demanding labor with the more visually engaged, technologically advanced skills of the head electrician, who operated Tharon Musser’s innovative, Tony Award–winning lighting design from Broadway’s first computer-controlled light board. As a materialist production history, the essay aligns A Chorus Line’s stagehands with the musical’s fictional (and actual) dancers, using the production’s materialist critique as an impetus to recuperate the regularly unseen and often undervalued labor of individuals whose physical, mental, and intuitive skills fuel the Broadway machine.
The Great North American Stage Directors, Vol I, 2021
The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, 2019
A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age, 2017
Theatre Design and Technology, 2021
Modern Drama
This book presents a history of theatre experimentation at labour colleges in the United States. ... more This book presents a history of theatre experimentation at labour colleges in the United States. It traces the evolution of theatre pedagogy from progressive ideal to political activism and addresses intersections between the labour movement and the performing arts.
Theatre Journal, 2016
ries, often used verbatim. My One Demand’s use of the performers’ own words; the promise of audie... more ries, often used verbatim. My One Demand’s use of the performers’ own words; the promise of audience interactivity; its real-time filming and open, uncontrolled “set” (perhaps better described as a “route”); its risky, single-shot setup, which seemingly invited unplanned elements to intervene—all combined to serve Blast Theory’s ongoing interest in exploring the permeability between a performance and the world in which it takes place. As a work seeking to explore that permeability specifically through interactivity, the piece’s dynamic relationship with Toronto itself—gorgeously captured during its presunset golden hour—seemed in the end even more integral to the piece than its relatively straightforward solicitation of personal responses from local and geographically distant audience members. On the night I attended, those responses seemed to be integrated into the piece only through direct quotation in designated spots in the script, when the narrator read off some of the submitted answers. Interestingly, as she did so, her microphone repeatedly picked up the sound of paper pages turning; this momentary reminder of an analog technology emphasized the relative simplicity and linearity of this interaction, in contrast to the digital sophistication making it possible.