"Period piece" is a phrase that is used to describe creative works.

Usage[link]

Setting[link]

In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres. It may be as long and general as the medieval era or as limited as one decade—the Roaring Twenties, for example.

Work from the past[link]

Period piece can also describe a work that was famous in a past era but less so today: for example, one might describe a production of a drama by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries as "an interesting period piece" but would be less likely to describe a production of Hamlet as such.^{[original research?]} Period piece is contrasted with "classic piece", or something with timeless or lasting broad readership.

Recent work[link]

Period piece can also be used subjectively, such as when applied to contemporary or recent works which have not been tested by time, since it is guessing how future generations will view the work. For example Harold Bloom in The Western Canon (1994) labels those works not included in his list of 20th century literature as being mostly "period pieces" (see Appendix header for "The Chaotic Age"). Since these works are still being widely read (Harry Potter for example), it is impossible to know if they will become regarded as classics in the future or simply fade away into mostly unread period pieces.

See also[link]

• Costume drama
• Historical drama
• Sword-and-sandal
• Jidaigeki
• Retro style

External links[link]

• Period Dramas.com – a costume-drama movie database based around a historical timeline.
• Period Movies listings of period piece films from various historical eras.
• Enchanted Serenity of Period Films fansite that profiles period piece films including news of upcoming films
• Recycled Movie Costumes website dedicated to documenting costumes used in more than one film
• Period Movies Box blog dedicated to period movies news and reviews

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Staceyann Chin

Staceyann Chin (born December 25, 1972) is a spoken word poet, performing artist and LGBT rights political activist. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Pittsburgh Daily, and has been featured on 60 Minutes. She was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she shared her struggles growing up homosexual in Jamaica.

Personal life[link]

Chin was born in Jamaica but now lives in New York City, in Brooklyn. She is of Chinese-Jamaican and Afro-Jamaican decent. She announced in 2011 that she was pregnant with her first child, giving birth to a daughter in January 2012. She has been candid about her pregnancy by means of in-vitro fertilization, and wrote about her experiences as a pregnant, single lesbian in a guest blog for the Huffington Post.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/staceyann-chin/lgbt-pregnancy_b_1104635.html^[1]

Career[link]

Openly lesbian,^[1] she has been an "out poet and political activist" since 1998. In addition to performing in and co-writing the Tony-nominated Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, Chin has appeared in Off-Broadway one-woman shows and at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She has also held poetry workshops worldwide. Chin credits her accomplishments to her hard-working grandmother and the pain of her mother's absence.

Chin's poetry can be found in her first chapbook, Wildcat Woman, the one she now carries on her back, Stories Surrounding My Coming, and numerous anthologies, including Skyscrapers, Taxis and Tampons, Poetry Slam, Role Call, Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies. Chin's voice can be heard on CD compilations out of Bar 13- Union Square and Pow Wow productions. In 2009, Chin published her autobiographical novel, The Other Side of Paradise - A Memoir. (New York: Scriber. ISBN 0-7432-9290-1).

She is a host on Logo's After Ellen Internet show, "She Said What?" and a co-host of Centric's My Two Cents.

In 2009, Chin performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States”.^[2]

Critical analysis[link]

Chin's "activist driven"^[3] work has garnered praise in various publications. Of her one-woman show Border/Clash, The New York Times wrote that Chin "is sassy, rageful and sometimes softly self-mocking."^[4] The Advocate wrote, "With poems that combine hilarious one-liners ("I told her I liked the way she made that pink push-up bra look intellectual") with a refusal to conform ("I want to be the dyke who likes to fuck men"), Chin is out to confront more than just the straight world."^[5] And in the book, Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz referred to Chin as "definitely the prize to win" among the three New York City Poetry Slam venues during the years she competed, adding:

Awards[link]

Chin was the winner of the 1999 Chicago People of Color Slam; first runner- up in the 1999 Outright Poetry Slam; winner of the 1998 Lambda Poetry Slam; a finalist in the 1999 Nuyorican Grand Slam; winner of the 1998 and 2000 Slam This!; and winner of WORD: The First Slam for Television. She has also been featured by Public-access television cable TV programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as many local radio stations including, WHCR and WBAI. The Joseph Pap Public Theatre has featured her on more than one occasion, and Staceyann has toured internationally, with performances in London, Denmark, Germany, South Africa and New York's own Central Park Summer Stage.

Works[link]

Books[link]

• Chin, Staceyann (April 2009). The Other Side of Paradise - A Memoir. New York: Scriber. ISBN 0-7432-9290-1. 

Anthologies[link]

• "Authenticity", in Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness. Edited by Rebecca Walker (Soft Skull Press, February 1, 2012)^[7]

Performances[link]

• Staceyann Chin: Performed Poems in Trikster - Nordic Queer Journal #3, 2009.

Interviews[link]

• Staceyann Chin & Ulrika Dahl: Articulating Honesty: A Conversation on Literature and Activism in Trikster - Nordic Queer Journal #3, 2009

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Boykin, Keith (October 3, 2006). "Staceyann Chin's Redemption Song". KeithBoykin.com. http://www.keithboykin.com/arch/2006/10/03/staceyann_chin_redem. Retrieved 2007-10-29 
2. ^ http://www.thepeoplespeak.com/pages/credits/
3. ^ Windy City Times "Multifaceted: Staceyann Chin Talks" by MARK CORECE. March 19, 2008
4. ^ LEE, FELICIA R. (July 17, 2005). "A Def Poetry Jam of Her Very Own". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/theater/newsandfeatures/17lee.html. 
5. ^ The Advocate "Getting raves for her rants" by MICHAEL GILTZBY. April 29, 2003
6. ^ Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. (2008). Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. Soft Skull Press. Page 181. ISBN 1-933368-82-9.
7. ^ Staff (December 12, 2011). "Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness. Edited by Rebecca Walker.", Publishers Weekly.

External links[link]

• Official Staceyann Chin website
• Staceyann Chin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Brantley, Ben (November 15, 2002). "Untamed Poetry, Loose on Broadway". The New York Times. http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9405E5DE1730F936A25752C1A9649C8B63. Retrieved 2010-02-07. 
• Voo, Jocelyn (September 2008). "Staceyann Chin: More Than a Mouthful". Curve Magazine. http://www.curvemag.com/Curve-Magazine/September-2008/Stacyann-Chin-More-than-a-Mouthful/. Retrieved 2010-02-07.