Breaching the Fourth Wall

Zotero is an online tool which can be used to store bibliographical information about resources found online.  Any researcher’s dream, Zotero can store notes and export bibliographies in any number of formats.  Using Zotero, I created an annotated bibliography on theatrical resources.  One of the entries can be found below:

Wronski, Todd. “Theater in American Higher Education: Respected Discipline or Academic “Poor Cousin”?.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 24.3 (1990): 107-115.

This article examines the place of undergraduate theatre programs and whether or not they are at an equal footing as other academic departments or if they are, as is often complained by theatre academics, the “misunderstood artist” given inferior treatment by university administrations.  Todd Wronski examines the history of theatre as an academic discipline and notes the important distinction between the study of theatre literature and the study of theatre production, which is much newer to the academic scene.  Despite the attitudes of theatre academics that they are treated differently than their cohorts in different disciplines, Wrinski also notes that they achieved equal footing in the 1950s, and that theatre department’s tendency to isolate themselves from “campus politics” is why they feel distanced from institutions.  Theatre administrators and professors must more actively engage in universities as a whole if they are to feel as though they are at equal footing as their associates in other disciplines.