ATHE 2021 – Bruce Kirle Memorial Debut Panel in Music Theatre/Dance
ATHE’s Music Theatre/Dance Focus Group:
The Bruce Kirle Memorial Debut Panel in Music Theatre/Dance
Deadline: March 1, 2021
The Music Theatre/Dance (MT/D) Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) announces its call for papers for the Bruce Kirle Memorial Debut Panel in Music Theatre/Dance at the 2021 ATHE conference in Austin, TX from August 5-8, 2021. Accepted papers will be published in Studies in Musical Theatre, and panelists will receive a complimentary copy of Bruce Kirle’s Unfinished Show Business: Broadway Musicals as Works-in- Process.
This annual panel is held in memory of Dr. Bruce Kirle, scholar of musical theatre and longtime member of the MT /D Focus Group. Dr. Brian Herrera, Associate Professor of Theater at Princeton University, will serve as this year’s respondent. (Please see below for more on Drs. Kirle and Herrera.)
Paper submissions may concern any area within the purview of the MT/D Focus Group, which encompasses opera, operetta, musical theatre, dance theatre, performance art with music or dance elements, and pedagogy of music theatre and dance. This year, in the spirit of the 2021 ATHE conference theme of recognition and reckoning, paper submissions are encouraged, but not required, to embrace topics, methods, and strategies that decenter white cis- heteropatriarchy.
Submissions are open to emerging scholars (including graduate students) who have not yet presented at a national conference on a topic related to music theatre or dance, as well as established scholars who have not previously presented or published in the areas of music theatre or dance. Scholars must not be scheduled to present on music theatre or dance topics at any other national conference prior to the submission date, and papers may not be cross- submitted to another ATHE panel for the 2021 conference. Scholars may, however, present or serve on other panels at this conference.
For consideration, please submit your paper, 10 to 12 pages in length, as a Microsoft Word document to mtdgradrep@gmail.com by March 1, 2021. Please include a cover page with your name, paper title, institutional affiliation, and contact information, but remove your name from the body of the essay.
Three papers will be selected by a blind-review committee for inclusion on this competitive panel. The selected authors will be expected to participate and present their papers at the conference in Austin. Due to the flexibility required by COVID-related public-health constraints, participation may transpire in an in-person or digital basis, to be determined at a date closer to the conference. Each panelist will receive a copy of Bruce Kirle’s Unfinished Show Business:
Broadway Musicals as Works-in-Process, generously donated by the Kirle family. In addition, panelists will also receive a yearlong subscription to Studies in Musical Theatre (Intellect Books), and their essays will be prepared for publication in that journal.
Please direct any and all questions to the current MT/D Focus Group Graduate Student Representatives, Adrienne Oehlers and Anne Potter, at mtdgradrep@gmail.com.
For more information on the ATHE 2021 conference, visit http://www.athe.org.