A List
4/25/05

STAGE DOOR CANTEEN TOPIC FOR SLU PISKOR LECTURER NOURYEH

CANTON – St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of Speech and 
Theatre Andrea J. Nouryeh has been named the Frank P. Piskor Faculty 
Lecturer for 2006. Next spring, Nouryeh will deliver a lecture on 
campus on the topic "An Experiment in Equality: The Stage Door 
Canteen."
	Begun by the American Theatre Wing in 1942, the Stage Door 
Canteen existed through 1946 and was located in the basement of the 
44th Street Theater. Stage designers created the interior décor while 
local merchants, caterers, restauranteurs provided food and beverage. 
As many as 1,700 volunteers from the entertainment industry gave of 
their time as performers and service staff to keep this combination 
night club/soup kitchen open, even during black-outs and curfews. 
As many as 3,000 to 4,000 servicemen from all of the Allied countries 
came to the canteen to sing, dance, eat and drink before being deployed.
	Nouryeh states, "This was an international, interracial and 
intercultural experiment staffed and run under the auspices of an 
organization founded by theatre women in an effort to support the war 
effort. Patriotism and solidarity, behind the fight for human rights, 
fueled this endeavor and made it a success, despite the fact that it 
never had much financial backing and no one ever got paid. The canteen 
became part of the United States Armed Forces' reversal of its 
segregationist policies. Creating opportunities for servicemen from 
various ethnic and racial backgrounds to socialize not only boosted 
morale but actually enabled them to go beyond learned suspicions and 
automatic prejudices."
	Much of what is known about the canteen comes from works of fiction 
and a fictional film. Nouryeh plans to conduct research at the Lincoln 
Center Library for the Performing Arts, which houses the American Theatre 
Wing papers, and Yale University's Beinecke Library, which houses the 
complete collection of the Canteen's newsletter.
	A St. Lawrence faculty member since 1991, Nouryeh is a graduate of 
the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a master's degree in English 
from Columbia University and Ph.D. from New York University's Tisch School 
of the Arts. She is co-author of the book Drama and Performance: An 
Anthology, as well as many articles on theatre history.
	The Piskor Faculty Lectureship was established in 1979 to encourage 
original and continued research among St. Lawrence faculty members, to 
recognize and honor distinguished scholarship and to afford the opportunity 
for faculty to share their learning with the academic community.

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