Dramaturgy
Theatre Program - Department of Fine & Performing Arts
Loyola University Chicago
Mainstage Dramaturgy: Woolf's Assemblage of Adapted Characters in Orlando
The characters of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando shape a fantastical exploration of a young poet of the same name, Orlando. Drawing on a variety of sources to create these characters, Virginia Woolf took inspiration from both historical figures and her own life. The direct references to significant historical figures—like Queen Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare, or Christopher Marlowe—ground the novel in a specific era, but the historical perspective provided by those “real-life” figures becomes even more complex when Orlando encounters people inspired by Virginia’s real life.
Mainstage Dramaturgy: Climate Refugees are not a Fiction
Many of us tend to forget the human impact that comes with climate change. As seas rise, ice caps melt, fires blaze, and hurricanes whirl, human lives are displaced and endangered. 1.2 billion people could be displaced globally by 2050. These people have been termed climate refugees since 2005; they are defined as people who have been forced to leave their habitat temporarily or permanently because of environmental disruption. This forced movement sometimes happens across borders or within a nation. It is worthwhile to mention that the use of the word “refugee” often has been used violently to connote a person as the “other,” someone who is “not supposed to be” in a particular place. Such terms are barriers to social thriving and economic recovery for many people. In Somewhere, we meet six climate refugees: Cassandra, Alexander, Eph, Corin, Sybil, and Diana. We watch the possible horrific human cost of the climate crisis. Yet this reality is not as ungrounded in the present reality as many of us would like to assume. Families and individuals across the world are actively being displaced as the climate changes.