Former English Department Head's Play to Premiere at UW |
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Jan. 23, 2006 -- "UnAmerican Activities," a play by Keith Hull, retired professor and former head of the University of Wyoming Department of English, will premiere Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27 and 28, at 7:30 p.m. in the UW Fine Arts Center Crane Studio.
The play, a benefit for the UW Playwrights, is sponsored by the Associated Students of the Performing Arts (ASOPA). Tickets can be purchased at the door for $5.
"UnAmerican Activities" is based on the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC), created in the 1930s to monitor subversive political groups. Threatened by the rise of the Soviet Union and totalitarian communism in Asia, the HUAC after World War II turned its attention to investigating the dangers presented by the American Communist Party.
"Perhaps the most sensational area of investigation was the entertainment industry," says Hull.
The play combines historical figures and events with fictional characters and storylines to demonstrate the many different ways actors, directors and writers reacted to the committee, and the agonizing choices witnesses had to make between betraying others or destroying their own lives.
"UnAmerican Activities" uses actual HUAC transcripts to trace its investigation of suspected communists and communist sympathizers in the motion picture industry.
"Ultimately, ‘UnAmerican Activities' is a stylization of events, aimed at revealing the condensed, tangled, yet representative truth about a shameful episode in American history," says Hull.
Posted on Monday, January 23, 2006
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