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The 40^th Annual Mid-America Theatre Conference
March 15 – 18, 2018
Hyatt-Regency Cleveland

“Invention”

Emerging Scholars Symposium—Call For Papers

Two Emerging Scholars Debut Panels:  One Graduate & One Undergraduate

Undergraduate and Graduate students who have not yet presented at a national conference are invited to submit papers for the Emerging Scholars Symposium, two debut panels of the Mid-America Theatre Conference. Papers for the two panels are welcome on any topic in theatre history, theory, or dramatic literature. Papers that complement the conference theme of “Invention” are encouraged, but not required. For more information on the conference theme, please consult the MATC website: http://matc.us.

Up to three participants will be selected for each panel, and each panelist will have fifteen minutes to deliver their paper. Students whose papers are accepted will receive free conference registration, free admission to the conference luncheon, a one-year membership in MATC, and a cash prize of $50. Winners will also be paired with a conference mentor.

Papers should be 7-10 pages in length (1750-2500 words), and will be evaluated on the quality of their writing and research, their critical/theoretical sophistication, and their originality.

For consideration, please e-mail all submissions as Microsoft Word attachments to the Symposium Co-Chairs:

Dr. Scott C. Knowles, Southern Utah University

Dr. Dan Venning, Union College

matcemergingscholars@gmail.com

Submissions should include the following:

• Your name and the name of your academic institution.
• Contact information (including mailing address, e-mail, and telephone number).
• A brief bio (no more than 100 words).
• Indication of whether you are submitting to the Undergraduate or Graduate Debut Panel.
• COMPLETED paper (no abstracts, please).

Submissions MUST be received by:

Graduate Panel – OCTOBER 15, 2018

Undergraduate Panel – NOVEMBER 1, 2018

The Mid-America Theatre Conference is held every March with symposia in Theatre History, Practice/Production, Pedagogy, and Playwriting. Graduate students are welcome to submit proposals either to these forums or to the Emerging Scholars Symposium. All proposals are refereed. Because of its small size, MATC serves as an ideal setting for graduate and undergraduate students to begin to share their work with and get feedback from established scholars. Membership in MATC also includes a subscription to Theatre History Studies, a leading journal in the field. Please visit http://matc.us for more information.

No individual may present in more than two symposia. This limit is put in place to avoid scheduling conflicts and to provide more individuals the opportunity to present.

CFP: Dramaturgy as Public Criticism

ATHE 2019 in Orlando (August 7-11)

A multi-disciplinary panel to be submitted to Theory & Criticism and Dramaturgy Focus Groups

Public theatre criticism is disappearing from traditional outlets (periodicals) at the same as dramaturgs and education/audience development associates are increasingly developing initiatives and programming to help audiences make meaning out of their theatrical experiences. Program notes, audience study guides, interviews, talk backs, lobby displays, reading groups, pre/post show lectures, and interactive experiences are now regular features of theatre-going across theatres of various sizes, budgets, and missions. These dramaturgical efforts function to contextualize and offer frameworks for interpretation. In doing so, they overlap with the missions and activities of the public humanities, public history, and museum studies.

This panel aims to explore how public-focused dramaturgy (as opposed to production-focused dramaturgy) produces and teaches theatre criticism. Potential topics include:

• The place of theory in public-oriented dramaturgical practice (i.e. a Foucauldian or Althusserian lobby display)
• Comparative explorations between classroom/academic criticism and public dramaturgy
• Canons and vocabularies of interpretation and aesthetics for the public
• The place and problems of affect in audience development
• Best (and worst) practices for public criticism
• Public dramaturgy as public pedagogy

Interested scholars and dramaturgs should send a brief abstract (250 words) and CV or bio to Dan Smith (dansmith_251@yahoo.com) and Gina Di Salvo (gina.disalvo@gmail.com) by Sept 30 in preparation for panel submission in advance of ATHE’s deadline.

Call for Papers: Theory and Criticism Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), 2019 Conference

Orlando, Florida August 7-11, 2019

Please send questions to Theory and Criticism Conference Planner:

Daniel Ciba (danciba@hotmail.com)

1)      “Unities of Action”—An Interactive Roundtable Event

In response to the 2019 ATHE conference theme, “Scene Changes: Performing, Teaching, and Working through the Transitions,” the Theory and Criticism Focus Group will center our conversations around scholarly and practical explorations and mutations of “the unities.” How might reconceiving the concept of unity impact our roles as theorists, practitioners, and educators?

Citing Aristotle, neoclassicists such as Castelvetro and d’Aubignac framed the three unities—of time, place, and action—as mandatory rules that created a standard for what makes a good play. Playwrights, from various cultures and periods, either accept or reject the unities as the first step in the process of constructing a play. The decision to follow or ignore the unities shapes decisions made by directors, designers, and actors as well as the responses of audiences, critics, and scholars. Building on the idea of scene changes, ATHE’s 2019 Orlando conference provides our community of theorists, artists, and teachers an opportunity to question, reconsider, and stretch the unities by thinking broadly about the concept of unity as a guiding principle in our research, our performance spaces, and our classrooms. Aren’t Orlando’s various amusement parks attempts to create a unified experience of commercialized nostalgia?

What are the ways in which practitioners and scholars interpret and perhaps even intervene with the unities? What is the value of teaching the unities as a foundational component of any course? Why do playwrights ranging from Shakespeare to Brecht to Naomi Iizuka reject some unities while embracing others? What kind of national imaginaries do scholars construct around the unities? What kind of unities are the most pressing for contemporary practice? How might the concept of unity further silence already marginalized voices? From this exploration of the unities, can we transition from unity to action?

The Theory and Criticism Focus Group seeks position papers from theatre artists, educators, scholars, activists, philosophers, and critics interested in examining our 2019 Roundtable Series theme, “Unities of Action.”

The roundtables eschew formal paper presentations in favor of short position papers and provocations designed to encourage interactive critical conversations among panelists and audience members. Building on our previous roundtable series, we strive to include a diverse range of participants from graduate students and emerging scholars, to professional critics, artists, educators, and senior scholars.

Position papers can take the form of a short essay, a manifesto, an outreach exercise, a critical review, a theoretical musing, a research report, a creative project, an interview, or an embodied performance practice. Questions include, but are not limited to:

• Theory: What is the mythology behind the unities? How are the unities still a valuable framework for certain types of performances? What might we replace the unities with and why? What is the relationship between unity and universality? How does the concept of unity change over time and place both inside and outside of theatrical contexts? What is the role of critics to evaluate a performance based on its adherence to certain unities?
• Practice: How do playwrights use the unities? How does this affect directors, designers, actors, and audiences? What is the value of creating a unified production? What are reasons that theatrical practitioners reject the unities? What does it mean to be forced to perform disunity? How can theatrical or performative disruptions of the unities manifest both inside and outside of traditional theatre spaces? What kinds of unities do theatrical practitioners explore in rehearsals and performances? What is the value of the unities on stage if they are not maintained in the real world?
• Pedagogy: What is the value of teaching the unities? What is their place in our curriculum? Is there a unity in the creation of syllabus and/or the composition of each individual lesson plan? How can intentional disruptions of the unities be employed as a pedagogical strategy? What kinds of unities might we learn from our students? What is the relationship between unity and diversity?

The Theory and Criticism Focus Group will accept individual, 250-word position paper abstracts for the “Unities of Action” Roundtable Series until Monday, October 15, 2018. Submissions should include:

1) Abstract (250 words or less)

2) Title

3) Contact information (name, institutional affiliation, email address, and phone number) 4) a brief bio of 50 words or less

5) any specific A/V requirements (only if absolutely necessary)

T&C will inform participants of their acceptance by Friday, October 26 and the Theory and Criticism Focus Group will oversee the submission of the Roundtable Series panels through ATHE’s online proposal process. Send your position paper abstracts to the Theory and Criticism Focus Group conference plannerDaniel Ciba at danciba@hotmail.com.

2) Call for Complete Session Proposals, Sponsored by the Theory and Criticism Focus Group

We also seek complete session proposals for the 2019 conference that include a broad range of theoretical/critical interrogations and applications based on the theme of “Scene Changes: Performing, Teaching, and Working through the Transitions.” We encourage multidisciplinary dialogues across the fields of performance scholarship and praxis. We also seek participants from a variety of focus group affiliations.

The Theory and Criticism Focus Group supports broad definitions of criticism and performance, and therefore encourages a wide range of examples and topics. Feel free to explore both historical and contemporary critics and theorists, in popular culture, academic scholarship, and performance praxis. Panel proposals that engage scholarly conversation in creative ways are highly encouraged.

Please Note:

• Single Focus Group Sessions can address questions to the conference planner (danciba@hotmail.com) before submitting their proposal.
• Multidisciplinary proposals must be authorized by TWO sponsoring ATHE focus groups. Email and get authorization from each focus group’s conference planner before submitting.
• You can only participate in 2 sessions.
• You can only choose 1 Free A/V aid: audio or CD player OR flip chart OR LCD projector.
• If you need additional A/V, you or the focus group will need to apply for a conference grant. Let your conference planner know.
• For more detailed information see: http://www.athe.org/page/18_home.

Complete session proposals (separate from the Roundtable Series) should be submitted directly to the ATHE website (www.athe.org). You must have the names for all participants ready for the proposal. The website includes submission information and forms. The session proposal deadline is November 1, 2018.

NOTES:

If you have questions about the ATHE panel proposal submission process, feel free to email Daniel Ciba at danciba@hotmail.com.

Single paper submissions (outside of our annual roundtable series or a completed session proposal) looking for a session home may contact Daniel Ciba at danciba@hotmail.com.

Individuals do not need to be a member of the Theory and Criticism Focus Group or ATHE to submit single presentations or panels. However, if chosen and scheduled, participants must become members of ATHE by the time of the conference.

Interdisciplinary Bilingual Conference
Call for Papers

Mediating Performance Experiences:
Cultures and Technologies in Conversation

To be held in LabO at the University of Ottawa, April 25 – 27, 2019

Hosted by:

The Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa
Studies in Migration, Interdisciplinary Research Group, University of Ottawa

Organizing Committee:

Dr. Yana Meerzon, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa
Dr. Peter Kuling, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa
Dr. Anne-Marie Ouellet, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa
Dr. Stefanie Hasten, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Dr. Natalia Vesselova, Department of Modern Languages, University of Ottawa

Keynote Speakers (confirmed):

George Seremba, Performance Artist
Dr. Sarah Bay-Cheng, Bowdoin College, United States of America
Dr. Nicole Nolette, University of Waterloo
Dr. Joel Beddows, University of Ottawa and Toronto French Theatre

Workshop Leaders (confirmed):

Dr. Art Babayants, University of Regina
Dr. Joel Beddows, University of Ottawa and Toronto French Theatre
Dr. Anne-Marie Ouellet, University of Ottawa

This interdisciplinary and bilingual conference brings together a diverse group of scholars, performance artists, and media developers to discuss the challenges and advantages of interpersonal, political, cultural and performative dialogues produced under the irreversible changes in communication technology. After witnessing Donald Trump’s life-changing political decisions continuously performed on social media and Saudi Arabia’s extreme diplomatic reaction to a single tweet from Foreign Affairs Canada, it has become painfully clear technology has forever altered all forms of human communication from everyday conversations to global political positioning.

Theatre and performance arts remains one of the primary public venues to discuss the power and the faults of such technological mediation. Hence, this conference’s primary objective will be engagement with growing linguistic and cultural gaps happening in cultural interactions throughout contemporary performance environments, which are changing rapidly due to accessible emerging technological innovations. Theatre is already using aspects of augmented reality, interactive surtitles, immersive digital content, as well as promotional campaigns in multiple languages mediating messages on stage or in public forums. This conference aims to provide a framework for interpreting new levels of meaning generated by evolving technologies in performance, especially amongst our wider interdisciplinary and cultural communities.

The second focus point of this gathering will be investigating the place of technological, performative and language based mediations between people and the state, specifically in the situations of asylum seekers, refugee claimants, and other forms of personal interactions with authorities. Hospitality can be ambivalent, as Derrida reminds us, specifically when claims for asylum are made in the language of the host thereby mediating protection seekers into vulnerable and precarious positions. Theatre and performance arts is at the forefront of cultural performances interrogating the influence, power, and liabilities of such state-level mediations.

Using a variety of performance theories, communications research, and participatory media, this conference will workshop new critical responses to pressing conversations happening between cultural groups and technology. Participants are invited to examine questions of translation, performance mediation, use of technology, and media influence as manifested historically, conceptually and practically in theatre and cultural performances. Possible topics of inquiry include:

philosophical and ethical conceptualizing of performance mediation and use of technology;
language, mediation, and performance;
technological mediation in governmental laws and political discourses;
migration, mediation and urban space: communal living in the past and in the age of mobility;
politics of mediation in social media and everyday life;
performance technology and education

In addition to these topics and specifically in the context of the Canadian state, the organizing committee will be curating academic panels and performative events dedicated to public and artistic discourses related to the history and current practices of multilingualism in Canada. Through research presentations, performative workshops, and other conference activities, we aim to discuss, analyze, and conceptualize the leading role Canada—its political, economic and cultural practices, as well as media discourses—plays in understanding how communication technology has changed us, both through its historical paradigms and as a defining aspects of today’s global society.

We are looking for proposals for curated panels (90 min), individual papers (20 min), and performance interventions (40 min). The deadline to apply with proposals for this conference is November 1, 2018. Please, send your inquiries and proposals to Dr. Peter Kuling (pjk@uottawa.ca) and Dr. Yana Meerzon (ymeerzon@uottawa.ca).

Please take note of two special issues of Theatre Journal, “Theatre and the Nonhuman” and “Water.” Deadlines for essay submissions are 6 January 2019 and 1 February 2019. Please contact individual issue editors with questions. We welcome your submissions.

Theatre Journal

Call for Papers

Special Issue for September 2019: “Theatre and the Nonhuman”

As terms continue to pile up to describe a condition, a time, or a mode of thought that must begin to acknowledge the nonhuman elements in a decidedly anthropocentric world–“becomings-,” “post-human,” “Anthropocene,” or Donna Haraway’s latest, “Chthulucene” (the tentacular or weblike series of interrelations with other species or “things,” as Jane Bennett might put it)–Theatre Journal proposes a special issue devoted to considering the nonhuman in theatre and performance. This special issue turns to the nonhuman not as a turn away from the ongoing human concerns, indignities, and inequalities in the current global climate, but rather to suggest that a “nonhuman turn” might make us, as humans, more attuned and responsive to our reliance on nonhuman “others.”

Expanding the issues raised in Ric Knowles’s 2013 Special Issue “Interspecies Performance,” where “interspecies” emerged from intercultural and interdisciplinary concerns, this issue aims to examine and encounter nonhuman figures themselves within theatre and performance practices. In his edited collection The Nonhuman Turn, Richard Grusin proposes that: “To turn toward the nonhuman is not only to confront the nonhuman but to lose the traditional way of the human, to move aside so that other nonhumans–animate and less animate–can make their way, turn towards movement themselves.” (Grusin, xxi) How nonhuman forms and figures move through theatre and performance is the focus of this issue.

Theatre and performance have always relied on nonhuman forces–from stage spectacle to animals (live, pantomimed, imitated, or metaphorical), from technologies to environmental or site-based scenarios, from the chimeric figure to the mechanical robot. Nonhuman figures historically have populated texts and stages: from the Dog of Montargis to the robots of R.U.R; Actors “exit, pursued by a bear,” and co-create figures with masks or puppets. Animals, chimeras, and spirits have also been central to ritual and religious performances. More recently practitioners have turned to bio-art, to cyborg figures, to environments devoid of human actors in an attempt to relate to or evoke the nonhuman. This issue then invites essays that encounter, analyse, and/or historicize nonhumans in theatre and performance, broadly understood. How and why has theatre traditionally addressed the nonhuman? How has the nonhuman been represented historically or in contemporary performance? How might the nonhuman begin to shift theatrical forms, texts, futures?

This special issue will be edited by Theatre Journal editor Jen Parker-Starbuck (Jen.Parker-Starbuck@rhul.ac.uk)

Submissions (6000-9000 words) should be e-mailed to managing editor Bob Kowkabany (bobkowkabany@me.com) no later than 6 January, 2019

Please Note: Theatre Journal tends not to publish essays that focus predominantly on one play or production.

Theatre Journal

Call for Papers

Special Issue for December 2019: “Water”

The 2011 appointment of an emergency manager to take over the city of Flint, under Michigan’s controversial “Emergency Manager” law had disastrous consequences for the safety of Flint’s water and the health of Flint’s residents. The water crisis reverberated through the state, as water shut-offs began in Detroit, and protestors sought to block the state from allowing Nestlé to withdraw more water from its well in central Michigan. At the same time, climate change has brought about an increase in extreme weather patterns, leading to more frequent and more intense hurricanes and longer and more severe droughts. It also brings a rise in sea level, that threatens archives and architecture in Venice, and devastates communities such as the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. While water covers three-quarters of the planet, less than 1% is available for use. The United Nations predicts that by 2025, nearly two billion people will not have access to clean water.

We invite scholars to submit essays that examine the relationship between water and performance, broadly defined. Essays might cover a wide range of water topics, including: Desiree Duell’s A Body of Water, Fire on the Water by the Cleveland Public Theatre, plays on water rights in the Global South such as Water! by Komal Swaminathan, Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses, the Vesturport Theatre’s underwater finale to their production of Woyzeck, Juliana Snapper’s performance in the underwater opera You Who Will Emerge from the Flood, drama-in-education and Theatre for Development water projects, creative protests for clean water, the act of water boarding, and water performance as a representation of community identity. What is an ethical use of water in performance and in spectacle? How might theatre be used as a tool for agitating for water justice? What is our relationship to water as artists, theatre scholars, and as human beings?

This special issue will be edited by Theatre Journal co-editor E.J. Westlake (ej.westlake.theatrejournal@gmail.com).

Submissions (6000-9000 words) should be e-mailed to managing editor Bob Kowkabany (bobkowkabany@me.com) no later than 1 February 2019.

AMERICAN THEATRE AND DRAMA SOCIETY (ATDS) SESSIONS

ASSOCIATION FOR THEATRE IN HIGHER EDUCATION (ATHE) CONFERENCE

AUGUST 7-11, 2019 – HYATT REGENCY GRAND CYPRESS – ORLANDO, FL

Submission Deadlines:

October 15th (abstracts for individual papers only: submit to David Bisaha at

dbisaha@binghamton.edu);

November 1st (complete panel proposals: submit to ATHE at www.athe.org)

ATHE 2019—Scene Changes: Performing, Teaching, and Working Through the Transitions

For ATHE 2019 ATDS invites both individual paper abstracts and full session proposals that explore scene changes, shifts, and changes across the Americas, broadly conceived. We welcome proposals that consider transitions of location, approach, leadership, and pedagogy, and/or how artists have responded or might respond to transition. Colleagues may also submit proposals that deal with other engaging topics, though preference will be given to proposals that engage the ATHE 2019 theme. Papers and panel submissions are welcome from all colleagues. ATDS members are especially encouraged to submit. To learn more about membership benefits, please visit the ATDS website: www.atds.org.

In addition to the traditional format of panels and papers, ATDS is open to proposals for interactive, site specific, or other alternative-format presentations. Presenters submitting proposals outside of the traditional panel format are asked to be very specific in their proposals concerning the structure and number of participants so that ATHE can be advised about space/time needs.

The Fine Print: Additional Proposal Submission Information:

Individual paper proposals should be submitted to ATDS Conference Planner, David Bisaha (dbisaha@binghamton.edu), who will group submissions into cohesive panels for consideration by ATHE. Individual proposals must be submitted to David Bisaha by OCTOBER 15, 2018. Proposals should include an abstracts of 250 words, a paper title, a short bio, and contact information including phone number and email. Please specify any A/V needs. ATHE does not accept individual paper submissions, so DO NOT submit your individual proposal on the ATHE website. Individuals wishing to identify colleagues to create panels prior to the November 1st deadline should use the ATDS listserv: ATDS@LISTSERV.COFC.EDU or the new ATDS focus group page on the ATHE website: www.athe.org/group/ATDS to circulate questions or possible panel topics.

Completed panel proposals (with all panel members assembled) must be submitted directly to ATHE (www.athe.org) by NOVEMBER 1, 2018. Please forward a copy of your completed proposal to David Bisaha (dbisaha@binghamton.edu). Unlike multidisciplinary sessions, single focus group panel proposals do not require focus group approval before submission. Include all requests for A/V, guest passes, or conference grants when you submit your panel proposal. ATHE permits two conference presentations per participant.

Multidisciplinary session proposals must be sponsored by a minimum of two (2) ATHE Focus Groups and/or Committees. It is your responsibility to contact each Focus Group Conference Planner or Committee Chair prior to the submission deadline to gain approval of all sponsoring Focus Groups and/or Committees. For contact information and additional details on proposal submissions visit ATHE’s website: www.athe.org and click on the “Conference” tab.

The 40th Annual Mid-America Theatre Conference
Cleveland Marriot Downtown at Key Center, March 7 – 10, 2019
“INVENTION”

Theatre History Symposium—Call for Papers

All proposals must be received by October 15, 2018

We seem awash in invention at the moment. But are we drowning in it? What innovations float to the top? Does our current sea of inventiveness baptize us, clearing the way for new ways of thinking, being, and performing? As familiar conventions, narratives, and laws are cast aside, a space opens for rebirth, flights of fancy, and spectacular deceit. From students inventing a march for their lives to daily additions to the lexicon of fake news, invention promises hope and portends destruction.

After experiencing a tidal wave of inventiveness in the 18th- and 19th-centuries, Cleveland found itself on the ebb of industrial and economic prosperity. In the wake of this fallout, the city has been working to invent a new reputation, and the theatre scene is one way in which the city is innovating and reinvigorating its history. As the Cleveland-based inventor John Nottingham puts it, “I see a sea change coming back to the Midwest.” In what ways do we see a “sea change” in theatrical practice and scholarship?

This year’s Theatre History Symposium asks participants to consider the promises and problems that characterize our inventions on the stage, on the page, and in our classrooms. Some questions papers might address include: As historians, pedagogues, and artist/practitioners, how do we respond to today’s political/economic/social/cultural realities? In what ways has artistic invention been stifled? How do we innovate modes of critique? In what ways is “invention” gendered/racialized/sexualized? How do correlations between invention and progress create problematic considerations of invention? Does invention privilege the individual over the collective? What happens when collaborators are ignored/erased/silenced in histories about groundbreaking creations? How might historiographic approaches shed light on the collaborative processes that lead to invention?

We are excited to announce that Dr. Amy Hughes will serve as this year’s Theatre History Symposium Respondent.

For further information:http://matc.us/calls-for-papers/theater-history-symposium

All proposals must be received by October 15, 2018