Gracies Dinnertime Theatre
| Frequency | Weekly during the Rochester Institute of Technology school year. |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Hell's Kitchen |
| Founder | Sean T. Hammond, Kelly K. Gunter, Marc Trzepla |
| Year founded | 1994 |
| First issue | January 1995 |
| Final issue | Spring 2005 |
| Company | Hell's Kitchen |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Rochester, New York |
| Language | English |
| Website | www.hellskitchen.org/gdt |
Gracies Dinnertime Theatre (GDT) was a publication written by a group of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) students that was in production from 1995 to 2005. In its 257 issues, it was notorious for its political incorrectness of race relations, bizarre end-time prophecies, baseless conspiracy theories, provocation of the established student magazine, Reporter, the Clinton and Bush administrations and in particular, RIT President Al Simone.
Perhaps GDT's greatest single contribution was the article "The Politics of High Tech Damnation," which examined the close, covert links between the CIA and RIT in the early and mid 1990s.
Less controversial content included a weekly chess puzzle and frank sexual discussion.
GDT's presence on the internet initially began as a text-only finger plan.[1] By the fall of 1995, GDT had a web site hosted by one of its creators,[2] making it one of the first student satire publications to have a web presence. In time, the hosting of the web site migrated to servers owned by RIT Computer Science House.[3] Its final resting place came to be on the Hell's Kitchen server.
GDT spawned five sister publications which all published under the combined title of Hell's Kitchen. This was distributed for free on four universities in Rochester, NY and Rutgers University. Under this combined title, GDT received notable attention from the Independent Press Association, Rochester's daily newspaper The Democrat and Chronicle, and had a few articles reproduced via UWIRE.
The lasting influence of GDT on the RIT community can be seen in the silver stainless steel piece named Unity, created by Juan Carlos Caballero-Perez and Leonard Urso[4] and installed in the quad between the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, the College of Applied Science and Technology, and the College of Engineering.[5] Erected in 2008, the sculpture is visually similar to the logo used by GDT from 2000 to 2005.[6]
Intentional misspellings in title
- "Gracies" would appear to be a possessive pronoun referring to RIT's Grace Watson Dining Hall (colloquially "Gracie's"). Used without the apostrophe, "Gracies" may be read as plural, suggesting a multiverse of parallel dining halls.
- "Dinnertime Theatre" may recall a formal Dinner theater production, or it may simply denote theatre that occurs coincidental to meal without the willing participation of the diners. Socialization based around the sharing of "food" (not only physical nutrition, but also information) was a recurring theme in GDT production culture.
- "Theatre" uses the British English spelling; another frequently used affectation in GDT articles.
References
- ↑ "Gracies Dinnertime Theatre" (PDF). 1 (6). 9 April 1995: 2. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
- ↑ "Gracies Dinnertime Theatre" (PDF). 2 (2). 17 September 1995: 4. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
- ↑ "Gracies Dinnertime Theatre" (PDF). 4 (1). 17 March 1996: 4. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
- ↑ "Unity - RIT: Art on Campus". Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ↑ "Unity sculpture on Rochester Institute of Technology campus". Retrieved 9 November 2015.
- ↑ "What the what? The Unity sculpture and GDT". Retrieved 9 November 2015.
External links
- Gracies Dinnertime Theatre homepage, with complete archive.
- Reproduction of Democrat and Chronicle article on Hell's Kitchen.
- Reproduction of Independent Press Association article on Hell's Kitchen.
- UWIRE affiliate list.
- Politics of High Tech Damnation, by Ali Zaidi .