BOOKS:

Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements
Routledge Press, 2005.

Across the globe, in liberal democracies where the right to vote is framed as both civil right and civic duty, disillusioned creative activists run for public office on sarcastic, ironic and iconoclastic platforms. "Electoral Guerilla Theatre" explores the recent phenomenon of the satirical election campaign. Drawing on extensive archival and ethnographic research, Larry Bogad examines satirical campaigns around the world, placing his analysis in national, cultural, political and legal contexts. "Electoral Guerrilla Theatre" will offer an entertaining, enlightening and informative read for those working across a variety of disciplines, including performance studies, social science, cultural studies and politics. (click here to see if your library has EGT)

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS:

“Carnivals Against Capital: Radical Clowning and the Global Justice Movement,”
essay in the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies-sponsored collection “The Arts and Cultural Politics of Carnival.”
(Under review by Duke U. Press)

The idea of Bakhtinian “Carnival,” a topsy-turvy, egalitarian moment where the masses enact a fleeting utopia and/or let off some steam, has been discussed in academia ad nauseum.  How is this idea relevant to the new social movements, and how have those movements adapted it to their own ideologies?

***

“Tactical Carnival:  Social Movements, Public Space and Dialogical Performance,” in A Boal Companion
eds. Jan Cohen-Cruz and Mady Schutzman.  London: Routledge Press, 2006:  46-58.

Why demonstrate?  What is the different between occupying space and opening space in social movement mass demonstrations?  What role can creative performance, irony, satire, and carnival play in rejuvenating and galvanizing social movements?

***

“A Place for Protest: The Billionaires for Bush Interrupt the Hegemonologue,”
in Performance and Place,
eds. Hill, Leslie and Helen Paris. 
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006:  170-179.

An account of the creative protests against the Republican National Convention in New York City in 2004.  This piece focuses on the increasingly threatened right to peaceable assembly, and by groups like Billionaires for Bush to get around those restrictions and denials with tactical performance.

***

“The Revolt of the Senses: Hallucination, Revelation and Resistance in Antonio Buero-Vallejo’s The Foundation,”
in Images of Mental Illness through Text and Performance, ed. Sarah Randolph. 
Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 2005:  63-71.

Antonio Buero-Vallejo was the Vaclav Havel of Fascist Spain, a powerful dissident playwright and a great dramatic innovator.  This piece discusses his “immersion effect” with which he embedded the audience in the delusions and subjectivities of his protagonists.

ARTICLES:

* "The Colbert Rapport"
in The Nation, November 7, 2007 (web only)

A consideration of Stephen Colbert's attempt at a run for the Democratic Primary in South Carolina.

* "Satire, surveillance, and the state: a classified primer,"
in Research in Drama Education: special issue on Drama for Citizenship and Human Rights Vol. 12, No. 3, November 2007, pp. 383-392

This piece discusses my one-person show, Eradi-Redaction, a cheerfully creepy tour through the wonderful world of FBI surveillance documents.

* "Radical Simulacrum, Regulation By Prank: The Oil EnforcementAgency,"
in Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 17(2), 2007, p261

* “Upstaging the Establishment,”
in UC Davis Alumni Magazine, Spring 2007 issue.

A brief overview of trends and challenges in tactical performance.

* “Monumental Dialectics: Staging the Haymarket Square Confrontation,”
in Fifth Estate 372 (Spring 2006): 9-11, 16.

In 1998, I wrote HAYMARKET, the first full-length drama about the Haymarket Square Confrontation of 1886-7.  3 1/2 years later, I worked with Tavia LaFollette to stage a street puppet show in Chicago to commemorate that tale of terror, racism, and class struggle.  This piece examines the importance of monuments in the telling and retelling of this story.

* "Billionaires For Bush:A Postmortemist Accounting"
in Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 15(1), 2005, p164

* “Breath in Dark Times: The Kowalchuk/Walker Project, Ten Brecht Poems,”
in Communications From the International Brecht Society, (Vol. 33, Summer 2004): 11-13.

This piece discusses an excellent performance adaptation of Brecht’s poems.

* “The Clown Army Crosses the Thames,”
in The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest on-line, August 2004.

An account of the first action of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, from when we first created it in London in 2003 to welcome George W. Bush to his official visit to the Queen.  Bonus content: one of my more nauseating political cartoons, spliced and interweaved with the text.

* “Facial Insufficiency: Political Street Performance In New York City and the Selective Enforcement of the 1845 Mask Law,”
in TDR:  The Drama Review, 47: 4 (Winter 2003): 75-84.

When the Giuliani Administration dusts off a law from 1845 to start arresting creative activists for wearing masks in their street theatre, the resultant legal struggle raises larger questions about the right to peacable assembly and the increasing privatization and regulation of public space. 

* “Radical Ridicule: Political Satire post-9/11,”
in Radical Society:  Review of Culture and Politics. New York: The Center for Social Research and Education, London: Routledge, 29: 3 (October 2002):  10-12.

Reactions to 9/11, and musings on the role of satire in the post-9/11 environment.

* “Electoral Guerrilla Theatre in Australia:  Pauline Pantsdown vs. Pauline Hanson,”
in TDR:  The Drama Review, 45: 2 (Summer 2001): 70-93.

A performance artist uses drag, camp, and digital composition to bring down a racist parliamentarian in Australia.

* “Religious Practice in Activist Performance with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless,”
in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Religion Focus Group’s Journal, Summer 1999: 23-29.

I worked for about a year and a half on a political performance piece with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless’ Women’s Empowerment Project, and this was my first attempt to process that work.