The Black Hills Passion Play The Black Hills Passion Play of Spearfish, South Dakota, started in Germany and worked its way to America. It toured all over the country and was viewed by millions of people until it ended in 2008. It was started by Josef Meier, and continued by his daughter, Johanna Meier. Spearfish became its home when the stage for the play was built. The Black Hills Passion Play became an important tradition in Spearfish that shaped the history of South Dakota and influenced the entire country. The Passion Play originated in Luenen, Germany. Josef Meier wanted to introduce it to the people of America, who didn’t have Passion Plays. He took some actors and actresses with him when he went to America. He traveled around, performing …show more content…
She played baby Jesus in the play when she was five weeks old. She grew up playing multiple roles over time in the play. Her mother, Clare, played Mother Mary, until Johanna eventually took over the role. Johanna married her husband, Guido Della Vecchia, and he was welcomed into the family as well as a performer in the play. When Josef and Clare retired in 1991, Guido and Johanna took over management, playing the roles of Jesus and Mary. The show continued under them until 2008. The final show of the Passion Play was on August 31, 2008, in the theatre built in Spearfish. Johanna spoke of how saddened she would be, but how she and her husband would like their free time.“‘As for Guido and me, hopefully we will have a little break now,’ she said of her future plans”(Passion Play 70-Year Run Comes to an End, 2008). The show was said to be a bittersweet ending. People were saddened that such a vital piece of South Dakota’s history was ending, but as the saying goes, the show must go on. The theatre for the Passion Play has remained empty since the last show in 2008. A couple was looking into buying the theatre from Johanna and …show more content…
“The Black Hills Passion Play.” Rapid City Journal Media Group, Rapid City Journal, 12 Mar. 2013, rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/communities/newell/the-black-hills-passion-play/article_abb18da3-9b34-53c6-87c5-a570a002405c.html. Garrigan, Mary. “Passion Play's 70-Year Run to Come to an End.” Rapid City Journal, 27 Aug. 2008, rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/passion-play-s--year-year-run-to-come-to-an/article_4d334b7e-3dec-5d7a-abc5-1b06cb043485.html. Meier, Johanna. The Black Hills Passion Play. Arcadia Publishing,
High school sports can have a tremendous effect on not only those who participate but the members of the community in which they participate. These effects can be positive, but they can also be negative. In the book Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger shows that they are often negative in communities where high school sports “keep the town alive” due to the social pressure. In this way, Friday Night Lights gives insight into the effects of high school football being the backbone of a community, revealing that the fate of the individual football players are inadvertently determined by the actions of the townspeople.
...ers football team. Completes “A Dream Unfolds”, commission for National Basketball Association commemorating their 50th anniversary. Private commissions (5). Receives Treasure of Los Angeles award, Central City Associatio
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights brings to mind the cold, autumn nights of 1988 where a town, just like any other rural town in America, was brought together in such a raw and emotional way. From the rise and fall of Boobie Miles to the push for the playoffs, it is clear that 1988 Odessa was swept up in the glory of football to replace the grandeur of the 1950s, which seemed to deteriorate throughout that hectic decade. While a modern reader may view Bissinger’s masterpiece as a tale from a dated and faraway place, several factors have kept it in the public’s eye. What is it about Friday Night Lights that still resonates today? The answer can still be found in the same rural towns of America. Though it may seem incredible, Texas is still football crazy, and it may be fairly concluded that emotions have only slightly receded from the obsession they once held towards high school football. People’s inability to analyze themselves, the impact a community can have on younger generations, and the way priorities can easily be warped all struck me as subjects that have stayed true in Texas culture over the past 26 years. I will be discussing these topics throughout this dissection of Friday Night Lights.
Blackrock was first performed in 1995. The play explores the causes of violence by individuals as well as ideas surrounding mateship and gender. The representations of mateship, masculinity and violence portray Australian culture in Blackrock as dangerous, homophobic and one that is accustomed to gender inequality. Dramatic conventions are employed by Nicholas Enright to challenge the reader or viewer’s view towards mateship, reinforce the idea of masculinity and challenge the idea that Australian culture is safe.
T’was the eve of Tuesday, January 28, 2014, where at 8pm, I attended the performance, Boeing, Boeing at the Venice Theater Main stage with my younger sister. After reading a quick preview of this play, I decided to see this as one of my required three because I was very intrigued in twisted love stories such as this one.
Douglas, Bob. (2000). Life is a Ball: 50 Years of Nova Scotia Sport. Halifax, NS: Links Publishing.
In "Sonny's Blues" James Baldwin presents an intergenerational portrait of suffering and survival within the sphere of black community and family. The family dynamic in this story strongly impacts how characters respond to their own pain and that of their family members. Examining the central characters, Mama, the older brother, and Sonny, reveals that each assumes or acknowledges another's burden and pain in order to accept his or her own situation within an oppressive society. Through this sharing each character is able to achieve a more profound understanding of his own suffering and attain a sharper, if more precarious, notion of survival.
At first glance, "Sonny's Blues" seems ambiguous about the relationship between music and drugs. After all, the worlds of jazz and drug addiction are historically intertwined; it could be possible that Sonny's passion for jazz is merely an excuse for his lifestyle and addiction, as the narrator believes for a time. Or perhaps the world that Sonny has entered by becoming involved in jazz is the danger- if he had not encountered jazz he wouldn't have encountered drugs either. But the clues given by the portrayals of music and what it does for other figures in the story demonstrate music's beneficial nature; music and drugs are not interdependent for Sonny. By studying the moments of music interwoven throughout the story, it can be determined that the author portrays music as a good thing, the preserver and sustainer of hope and life, and Sonny's only way out of the "deep and funky hole" of his life in Harlem, with its attendant peril of drugs (414).
The short story Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin is written in first person through the narrator. This story focuses on the narrator’s brother sonny and their relationship throughout the years. This story is taken place in Harlem, New York in the 1950s. The narrator is a high school algebra teacher and just discovered his brother in the newspaper. This story includes the traditional elements to every story, which consist of the exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution.
In Odessa, an oil-rich town in West Texas, there is a line that separates the two races of blacks and whites. They called it “the American version of the Berlin Wall – the railroad tracks that inevitably ran through the heart of town” (Bissinger 91). The tracks are the symbol of the barrier, tension, and attitude that stand between the two races. To the Odessan whites, African Americans are often considered extraneous, with few hopes and dreams to follow. It is also a common part of everyday language to blurt out the word “nigger,” without ever categorizing it in a racist context. To escape the predisposed perception, the football stadium, where the night lights shine, is the solitary premises where blacks accepted as an identity, as well as athletes. In the non-fiction book, Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger explores this phenomenon of racial tension and the low expectation that are imposed upon black athletes. Through the use of descriptive imagery, revealing dialogue, and anaphora, Bissinger describes the underlying message of Odessan’s racial division, coupled with the meager education that the general population receives while obsessed with high school football.
Part of the movie focuses on the culture and lifestyle of the Polynesian community within Salt Lake City, Utah. That also means shedding light on the gang-violence and drug abuse that exists in some of the low-income Polynesian communities. Gangs like the Regulators, threaten to derail the four players followed in the film. “This particular gang has had a great impact on the Bloomfield brothers, because their family is famous for holding ties with them” (Berkshire, Film Review: ‘In Football We Trust’). They face the pressure of becoming pulled into the violence and drugs as a means to survive and generate income for their families in lieu of an NFL contract. The importance of this ever-present struggle within the players drives home the importance of performing on the field in order for them to rise above their
The show ends with the cast telling their stories. Their hope for a bright future is evident.
Wilson, Jonathan. "The Glory Game." New Statesman 142.5156 (2013): 25-26. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
The play opened on December 3, 1947 and had instant success. It premiered five years after World War II and it “enfolded all the anxieties of the era in its story of perverse gentility colliding with the earthy truths of the working class.” (Hagopian, 2014) This is also why it went on to be made into a movie in 1951 with the screenplay written by Tennessee Williams and Oscar Saul.