ATDS Panels at 45th CDC Conference
The American Theatre and Drama Society is sponsoring two pre-constructed panels to be presented at the 45th Comparative Drama Conference. The CDC is a really lovely conference. It is relatively small, with plenty of time for discussion and getting to know people. Each year the keynote is delivered by a guest playwright. This year’s guest is Lucas Hnath (Doll’s House 2, Red Speedo, Hillary and Clinton).
Conference Details:
Orlando, Florida
March 30 – April 1, 2023
https://blogs.rollins.edu/drama/
Panel 1: Reimagined American Theaters
The pandemic had a crushing effect on American Theater, and plays are only haltingly coming back to the stage. Early in the pandemic, many practitioners hoped that the enforced break would lead to changes in the way we tell stories and in what stories are being told. Movements like “We See You White American Theatre” and Not In Our House have agitated for a change in the way theaters are run, from the back office to the rehearsal room, as well as in the kinds of plays programmed for “post-pandemic” seasons. In the last year, theater has begun to come back. This panel seeks papers that examine the ways in which that hope has been (or has not been) fulfilled.
Panel 2: American Oppressions
The theatre is one venue through which we can come to terms with the systems under which we struggle. Some playwrights dig more deeply or more often into our nation’s structures of oppression; from Redlining to the Prison-industrial complex, from historical plays about slavery to contemporary ones about immigration or racial profiling. Productions can also choose to use plays that might have been written about other issues to thematize these systems, often bringing new life to old works. Papers may address any aspect of particularly American oppressions, as thematized by American plays or productions. Equally welcome would be papers about plays written or produced in other countries but which explore particularly American issues.
Submission Instructions:
Papers should be 15 minutes in length, written for oral presentation, and accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience. Please send a 250-word abstract to Dr. Richard Gilbert at rgilbert1@luc.edu by October 7, 2022. Please include your paper’s title, your name, your status (faculty, graduate student, independent scholar, theater artist, other), your institutional affiliation if any, and your email and postal addresses.