Leonard Pronko
Encyclopedia
Leonard C. Pronko is Professor of Theatre and expert on kabuki
at Pomona College
in Claremont, California
. Since 1965, he has directed some twenty kabuki productions in English at the college and elsewhere. In 1970, he was the first non-Japanese to study at the Kabuki Training Program at the National Theatre of Japan
. He has studied kabuki dance with a number of eminent dance teachers both in the U.S. and in Japan. In 1972, Pronko received a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
for his kabuki productions. In 1986, Pronko received the Order of the Sacred Treasure
, Third Degree, from the government of Japan
in recognition of his achievements in introducing kabuki to the West
. In 1997 he received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education.
Pronko has written a number of books on western and eastern theatre, including The World of Jean Anouilh, Avant-garde, Theatre East and West and Guide to Japanese Drama. He has translated the plays of Alfonso Sastre
, and published monographs on a number of French playwrights. For 27 years, Pronko was Professor of Romance Languages at Pomona College and taught French language and literature and occasionally Spanish and Italian language. He continues to direct plays, including many western classics from Marlowe and Racine to Ibsen and Pirandello.
and his Ph.D. from Tulane University
, all in French and Spanish language and literature. His first teaching position was at Lake Erie College
in Painesville, Ohio
. Since 1957 he has taught at Pomona College
, where he began as an instructor in French, occasionally teaching Spanish and Italian. His interest in theatre manifested itself in numerous courses on French theatre, plays he directed and drama courses he taught from time to time in the Theatre Department. After his first sabbatical, largely spent in Asia, and subsequent study of kabuki at the National Theatre of Japan
, he directed many kabuki productions in English. In 1984, Pronko became chair of the Theatre Department, which he served in that capacity for seven years, and he has remained there, teaching courses in dramatic literature, in kabuki performance, and directing plays, including some eighteen kabuki productions, and twenty-four classic western plays from Shakespeare and Schiller
to Anouilh
and Dürrenmatt
. His courses have included surveys of drama, courses in kabuki, in Japanese Theatre, in Asian Theatre and Dance, on Seventeenth Century Drama, Modern European Drama, and an Ibsen
seminar. He has offered a number of independent study courses, chiefly on contemporary theatre or on the avant-garde.
Pronko's first article was on the poetic theatre of Lebanese, Georges Schehadé
, which led him to an interest in the most recent playwrights writing in French. When, during his frequent visits to Mexico (three months each summer for nine years), he witnessed plays by Eugène Ionesco
and Jean Tardieu
in the early fifties, he determined to study the new playwrights, and he published his second book (the first having been The World of Jean Anouilh, 1961, University of California Press), Avant-Garde, the Experimental Theatre in France, in 1962 (U.C. Press), one of two early books in English on that important movement. These were followed by short studies of Ionesco and an anthology of French plays. Pronko's sabbatical to Japan and points west of there in 1963-64 brought about a change in his research as he began to study Asian theatres and their impact in the West, resulting in Theatre East and West, 1967, U. of California Press, and Guide to Japanese Drama, 1973, 1984, as well as a number of published translations of kabuki plays to add to his list of translations of several articles by Ionesco and seven or eight plays by Alfonso Sastre
. Later books studied the French writers of farce, Georges Feydeau
(1975) and Eugène Labiche (1982). He also co-edited Shakespeare East and West, and authored some fifty articles on French theatre, Japanese theatre, and comparative drama.
Pronko has lectured widely, chiefly on kabuki, and presented hundreds of lecture-demonstrations including make-up and dance. His performance experience began as a child and continued in graduate school when he participated in plays and sang for two years in the chorus of the New Orleans Opera Company. He studied at the École Dullin and the Sorbonne
in Paris, where he has spent a number of years, and he travels annually to Europe and Japan and to other more exotic climes.
Pronko won Distinguished Professor Awards twice at Pomona College, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
in 1972, Drury College Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1980, Tulane University Outstanding Alumnus Award in 1984, the Order of the Sacred Treasure
from the Japanese Government, 1986, and the ATHE Award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education, 1997. In 2006, he was made a Fellow of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre
.
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
at Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
in Claremont, California
Claremont, California
Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...
. Since 1965, he has directed some twenty kabuki productions in English at the college and elsewhere. In 1970, he was the first non-Japanese to study at the Kabuki Training Program at the National Theatre of Japan
National Theatre of Japan
The is a complex consisting of three halls in two buildings in Hayabusa-chō, a neighborhood in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The Japan Arts Council, an Independent Administrative Institution of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, operates the National Theatre...
. He has studied kabuki dance with a number of eminent dance teachers both in the U.S. and in Japan. In 1972, Pronko received a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards is an annual awards program presented by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle . Established in 1969, the awards recognize excellence in theatre in the Greater Los Angeles Area....
for his kabuki productions. In 1986, Pronko received the Order of the Sacred Treasure
Order of the Sacred Treasure
The is a Japanese Order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan as the Order of Meiji. It is awarded in eight classes . It is generally awarded for long and/or meritorious service and considered to be the lowest of the Japanese orders of merit...
, Third Degree, from the government of Japan
Government of Japan
The government of Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, he is defined by the 1947 constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Japan and other elected...
in recognition of his achievements in introducing kabuki to the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
. In 1997 he received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education.
Pronko has written a number of books on western and eastern theatre, including The World of Jean Anouilh, Avant-garde, Theatre East and West and Guide to Japanese Drama. He has translated the plays of Alfonso Sastre
Alfonso Sastre
Alfonso Sastre is a Spanish playwright, essayist, and critic. He was an outspoken critic of censorship during the reign of General Francisco Franco...
, and published monographs on a number of French playwrights. For 27 years, Pronko was Professor of Romance Languages at Pomona College and taught French language and literature and occasionally Spanish and Italian language. He continues to direct plays, including many western classics from Marlowe and Racine to Ibsen and Pirandello.
Biography
Leonard Pronko received his B.A. from Drury College, his M.A. from Washington University in St. LouisWashington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...
and his Ph.D. from Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
, all in French and Spanish language and literature. His first teaching position was at Lake Erie College
Lake Erie College
Lake Erie College is a private liberal arts college that is located in Painesville, Ohio, approximately east of Cleveland. As of the 2010-2011 academic year, the enrollment was approximately 1200 undergraduates and graduate students....
in Painesville, Ohio
Painesville, Ohio
As of the 2010 Census, there were 19,563 people. As of the census of 2000, there were 17,503 people, 6,525 households, and 4,032 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,928.6 people per square mile . There were 6,933 housing units at an average density of 1,160.0 per square mile...
. Since 1957 he has taught at Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
, where he began as an instructor in French, occasionally teaching Spanish and Italian. His interest in theatre manifested itself in numerous courses on French theatre, plays he directed and drama courses he taught from time to time in the Theatre Department. After his first sabbatical, largely spent in Asia, and subsequent study of kabuki at the National Theatre of Japan
National Theatre of Japan
The is a complex consisting of three halls in two buildings in Hayabusa-chō, a neighborhood in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The Japan Arts Council, an Independent Administrative Institution of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, operates the National Theatre...
, he directed many kabuki productions in English. In 1984, Pronko became chair of the Theatre Department, which he served in that capacity for seven years, and he has remained there, teaching courses in dramatic literature, in kabuki performance, and directing plays, including some eighteen kabuki productions, and twenty-four classic western plays from Shakespeare and Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
to Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
and Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...
. His courses have included surveys of drama, courses in kabuki, in Japanese Theatre, in Asian Theatre and Dance, on Seventeenth Century Drama, Modern European Drama, and an Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
seminar. He has offered a number of independent study courses, chiefly on contemporary theatre or on the avant-garde.
Pronko's first article was on the poetic theatre of Lebanese, Georges Schehadé
Georges Schehadé
Georges Schehadé was a Lebanese playwright and poet writing in French.-Life and career:Georges Schehadé was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in a Greek orthodox family but spent most of his life in Beirut, Lebanon...
, which led him to an interest in the most recent playwrights writing in French. When, during his frequent visits to Mexico (three months each summer for nine years), he witnessed plays by Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
and Jean Tardieu
Jean Tardieu
Jean Tardieu was a French artist, musician, poet and dramatic author. He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publishing house. He published several poetry collections in the 1930s before starting to write for the stage...
in the early fifties, he determined to study the new playwrights, and he published his second book (the first having been The World of Jean Anouilh, 1961, University of California Press), Avant-Garde, the Experimental Theatre in France, in 1962 (U.C. Press), one of two early books in English on that important movement. These were followed by short studies of Ionesco and an anthology of French plays. Pronko's sabbatical to Japan and points west of there in 1963-64 brought about a change in his research as he began to study Asian theatres and their impact in the West, resulting in Theatre East and West, 1967, U. of California Press, and Guide to Japanese Drama, 1973, 1984, as well as a number of published translations of kabuki plays to add to his list of translations of several articles by Ionesco and seven or eight plays by Alfonso Sastre
Alfonso Sastre
Alfonso Sastre is a Spanish playwright, essayist, and critic. He was an outspoken critic of censorship during the reign of General Francisco Franco...
. Later books studied the French writers of farce, Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic...
(1975) and Eugène Labiche (1982). He also co-edited Shakespeare East and West, and authored some fifty articles on French theatre, Japanese theatre, and comparative drama.
Pronko has lectured widely, chiefly on kabuki, and presented hundreds of lecture-demonstrations including make-up and dance. His performance experience began as a child and continued in graduate school when he participated in plays and sang for two years in the chorus of the New Orleans Opera Company. He studied at the École Dullin and the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris, where he has spent a number of years, and he travels annually to Europe and Japan and to other more exotic climes.
Pronko won Distinguished Professor Awards twice at Pomona College, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards is an annual awards program presented by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle . Established in 1969, the awards recognize excellence in theatre in the Greater Los Angeles Area....
in 1972, Drury College Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1980, Tulane University Outstanding Alumnus Award in 1984, the Order of the Sacred Treasure
Order of the Sacred Treasure
The is a Japanese Order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan as the Order of Meiji. It is awarded in eight classes . It is generally awarded for long and/or meritorious service and considered to be the lowest of the Japanese orders of merit...
from the Japanese Government, 1986, and the ATHE Award for Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education, 1997. In 2006, he was made a Fellow of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre
College of Fellows of the American Theatre
- Origin :The College of Fellows of the American Theatre is an honorary society of outstanding theatre educators and professional theatre practitioners. The organization was formed in 1965 as a project proposed by members of the American Theatre Association...
.
Publications
- The World of Jean Anouilh (1961)
- Avant-Garde, the Experimental Theatre in France (1962)
- Eugène Ionesco (1965)
- Theatre East and West (1967)
- Guide to Japanese Drama (1973)
- Georges Feydeau (1975)