City of Light and Dark:
The Romantic Theatre in Paris
3:00 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 12, 2006
Balcony Lounge, Taylor Performing Arts Center
Admission: free

French Romantic drama juxtaposed strong contrasts: light and dark, heroic and comedic, and, in the words of Victor Hugo, “grotesque and sublime.” During the 1830s, the city of Paris itself embraced opposing tendencies. The theatre of the Romantic period encompassed popular pantomimes and melodramas on the Boulevard of Crime as well as high-flown poetic dramas in the subsidized theatres. Colorful personalities like Alexandre Dumas père and George Sand are part of this overview of a vibrant era.

Dr. Felicia Hardison Londré is Curators’ Professor of Theatre at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, honorary co-founder of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, and dramaturg for the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival and Kansas City Actors Theatre. She specializes in French, Russian, and American theatre history and dramatic literature and Shakespeare production history. She has published 11 books and had lecture tours in France and Hungary. In 2001 she received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Outstanding Teacher Award. She was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 1999.