Category Archives: 2016 Conferences

Exhibit on Susan Glaspell and the Provincetown Players at the Humanities Library, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, “Susan Glaspell, pionera del teatro experimental.”

On the occasion of the centenary of her key work, Trifles, in 2016, this exhibition, curated by Noelia Hernando-Real, celebrates the figure of Susan Glaspell (1876-1948), “a little known jewel of American literature”. Winner of a Pulitzer Theater Award, author of fifteen plays, eleven novels, a biography, more than fifty stories, a children’s book, reporter and actress as well as dramatist and fiction writer, Susan Glaspell was a pioneer of experimental theater in the United States. Together with her husband, George Cram (Jig) Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the small amateur theater company that changed the direction of the performing arts in the United States towards the avant-garde.

The first part of the exhibition provides visitors with an overview of the articles Glaspell wrote for the Des Moines Daily News about the murder of John Hossack and the trial of his wife, a crime that inspired Trifles. The showcases of this exhibit invite visitors to glimpse the life and works of Susan Glaspell, to understand the emergence of the Provincetown Players within the social, political and cultural movements of New York in the first decades of the twentieth century, as well as enjoy the exciting history of the Provincetown Players. To view the exhibit online, go to Links page for URL.

“Trifles at 100” at the Metropolitan Playhouse and Modern Drama Seminars, 2016

(l. to r.) J. Ellen Gainor, Barbara Ozieblo, Noelia Hernando-Real, Cheryl Black, Emeline Jouve and Sharon Friedman answer audience questions at the Metropolitan “Trifles at 100” concert reading.

A professional concert reading of Trifles was presented on October 4, 2016, at the Metropolitan Playhouse, 220 East 4th St., New York City, organized by AD Alex Roe and ISGS members Sharon Friedman and J. Ellen Gainor, to celebrate the centennial of Trifles.  ISGS members participated in a post-reading discussion at this moving tribute to Glaspell’s most iconic play.

On October 16, 2016, a Modern Drama Seminar on Susan Glaspell and the Provincetown Players was held at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid with keynote speakers Basia Ozieblo, Emeline Jouve and Linda Ben-Zvi. The Seminar included an exhibit at the Humanities Library: “Susan Glaspell, pionera del teatro experimental.” Another special Seminar was held in Toulouse, France on invisible violence in Trifles with keynote by guest of honor Noelia Hernando-Real. The Seminar was organized by Emeline Jouve & Céline Nogueira at Toulouse University (France).