McCall, Richard D. 1947- (Rick McCall)

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McCall, Richard D. 1947- (Rick McCall)

PERSONAL:

Born 1947. Education: Western Maryland College, B.A.; Indiana University, M.A.; Nashotah House, M.Div.; Graduate Theological Union, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Episcopal Divinity School, 99 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Episcopal clergyman, educator, and writer. Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, associate professor of liturgy and church music and provost of St. John's Memorial Chapel, 1999—. Also chaplain on the General Board of Examining Chaplains of the Episcopal Church. Previously at Indiana University, Bloomington, director of English/Theatre Program; Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, adjunct faculty member in acting and directing; Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, NY, canon residentiary and director of educational ministries; St. Paul's Church, Glen Cove, NY, rector; Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, CA, dean of the chapel and lecturer in liturgics.

MEMBER:

Societas Liturgica, North American Academy of Liturgy.

WRITINGS:

Do This: Liturgy as Performance, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN), 2007.

Contributor to books, including SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship; contributor to periodicals, including Worship, Anglican Theological Review, Doxology, Open, and Ecclesia Orans.

SIDELIGHTS:

Trained as an actor, director, and dramatic theorist, Richard D. McCall approaches church liturgy with an eye on its performance by real people within concrete social contexts. In addition to liturgics, his broad areas of interest and research include sacramental theology, theological aesthetics, medieval liturgy, history of theatre and dramatic literature, performance theory, and Buddhism. In his book Do This: Liturgy as Performance, the author examines the dramatic aspects of liturgy within a theoretical and philosophical framework that takes into consideration the works of thinkers ranging from Aristotle to Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian philosopher and literary critic. The book's title refers to the Biblical command by Jesus: "Do this in memory of me."

In his book, the author outlines the rise of the dramatic interpretation of early Christian liturgy, focusing on such diverse elements as costumes, gesture, and interpretative text. He also explores the development of performance theory and the definition of liturgy as a type of performance. In addition, the author brings Aristotle's categories in his Poetics, a treatise on the value of poetry and drama, to bear on liturgical action. He closes the book with a chapter on the Gregorian Sacramentary, a liturgical book ascribed to Pope Saint Gregory I, and the actions described in Ordo Romanus I, a ritual book containing directions for liturgical functions.