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A List
3/20/06
STAGE DOOR CANTEEN TOPIC OF APRIL 3 PISKOR LECTURE AT SLU
CANTON - St. Lawrence University Associate Professor of Performance and Communication
Arts Andrea J. Nouryeh will deliver the Frank P. Piskor Faculty Lecture for 2006, on
the topic "An Experiment in Equality: The Stage Door Canteen." The lecture is on Monday,
April 3, at 7:30 p.m. in Herring-Cole, and is open to the public, free of charge.
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 decor while local merchants, caterers and 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 conducted 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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For more information: The American Theatre Wing
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