Plenarvortragende - Institut für Theater

Abstracts
Erika Hughes (Madison, WI)
Erika Hughes is a dissertator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Theater and
Drama, and is currently a Visiting Scholar on a yearlong fellowship at the Universität Bonn. Next year she
will attend the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as a George Mosse Exchange Fellow. She is interested in
twentieth century female German performers, and has published articles on Hanya Holm and Valeska Gert.
In addition, she has delivered conference papers at the Mid-America Theater Conference and the University
of Wisconsin History of Science Colloquim. Currently her research interests focus on the GRIPS Theater
Company of Berlin and the children’s play “Ab heute heißt du Sara”, and exploring its role as a mechanism
for building a “usable” memory in post-War West Berlin. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships,
including a DAAD Intensive Language Course, a Center for German and European Studies Travel Grant, and
a Tisch School of the Arts Scholarship at New York University.
Mediating Authenticity: An Examination of Onstage Realities
The paper examines the children‘s play “I Never Saw Another Butterfl y” by Celeste Raspanti. Based
on the collection of children‘s drawings and poems from the concentration camp Theresienstadt with
the same title, the play tells the story of children using art as a means through which to cope with the
cruelty surrounding them. Drawing and writing become the theatrical actions around which the plot
revolves. The play does not attempt to convey the horrors of the holocaust through a child‘s eyes, but
rather centers around the recording of this experience – an experience which cannot be authentically
recreated onstage – serving to fi ll a void where authenticity cannot function.
Kollegienhaus, Raum D / 13.10. / 10.00 – 10.30 Uhr
60 Theater & Medien