ATDS Admin

Deadline: February 15, 2025 
THEATRE ANNUAL
A Journal of Theatre and Performance of the Americas 
Call for Articles 
2025 Issue 


Theatre Annual is the oldest theatre periodical continuously published in the United States. It is dedicated to examining theatre and performance of the Americas. We construe “America” broadly to include North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Articles may treat work in these geographic areas or work from these areas that is presented elsewhere in the world. We welcome articles on the history and ethnography of performance, drawing from such areas as theatre studies, performance studies, popular culture, music, anthropology, dance, communication, philosophy, folklore, history, and areas of interest that cross disciplinary lines. 

Submissions should follow the guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (endnotes, no Works Cited list). Authors should submit articles as Word attachments to the editor, Peter Reed (University of Mississippi, preed@olemiss.edu). In order to assist in the anonymous peer review process, the author’s identity should not be revealed in the manuscript except on a separate title page that should also include full contact information (academic affiliation, mailing address, home, cell, and work telephone numbers, and email address). Articles should be 5,000 to 6,500 words long including notes. Illustrations are highly desirable; authors are responsible for securing rights. Our submission deadline is February 15, 2025. Please allow at least eight weeks after the deadline for a response. 

Scholars wishing to write book reviews for Theatre Annual are invited to send an inquiry to the book review editor, Michael Lueger (Emerson College / Boston College, mlueger@gmail.com). If accepted, reviewers are asked to prepare their manuscripts in conformity with the guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style without footnotes and submit them as a Word attachment.  Reviews should be 750 to 800 words for a review of a single book, 1,000 to 1,200 words for a two-book review, and 2,500 words for a five- or six-book review essay. Submission deadline is April 1, 2025. If publishers would like to send review copies, they should contact the book review editor via email to make arrangements.  

Theatre Annual, founded in 1942 by the Theatre Library Association, is now published in the fall of each year by The College of William and Mary in Virginia, in association with the American Theatre and Drama Society. For more information on TA, see http://theatreannual.atds.org/

9-10 October 2025 

Tor Vergata University of Rome, Italy 

Funded by Next Generation EU 

Recent developments in the study of theatre festivals (Knowles 2020) highlight the importance of  investigating festivals as key events, both for the field of theatre and, more broadly, for cultural life.  These contributions demonstrate the value of examining festivals from transnational perspectives and  exploring their impact on the artistic and social communities that have designed, produced, and hosted  them. As recurring events that create a distinct time and space, festivals can be seen as a lens through which processes of negotiation between socio-political positions and artistic perspectives can be  investigated, often within a context that is simultaneously local and global. In the second half of the twentieth century, theatre festivals promoted social cohesion but often acted  as catalysts for conflict. They also served as spaces for experimenting with new approaches to theatre  and performance and fostered the creation of new individual and collective imaginaries. From this  perspective, the history of theatre festivals offers a valuable key to understanding transformations in  both theatre and society, particularly in relation to instances of crisis which prompted a rethinking of  the function of artistic and political institutions, and which sought new forms of integration between  theatre, arts and society. 

The conference “The Prism of Festivals in Theatre and Performance Studies,” organised within the  framework of the PRIN 2022 project Theatre Festivals between Local and Global: Rethinking  Theatre and Performance in Italy from the 1950s to the 1970s, aims to provide a platform for in depth discussion on theatre festivals, their histories, and the methodologies used for their analysis.  The conference will place particular focus on the Cold War period and emphasize the idea of festivals  as an “intangible cultural heritage” of the communities that produced them. Additionally, it will  address strategies for collecting, cataloguing, and connecting sources essential to the study of  festivals, as well as to the reactivation of festival memories. 

The conference will focus on the historiography and methodologies for studying festivals rather than  on the phenomenology of festival experiences themselves. It will also encourage comparative studies  between theatre festivals and dance, music and film festivals, with the aim of understanding the  specificities and differences between these fields of study. Moreover, the subject of ‘festivals’  presents an opportunity to rethink theatre and dance history in dialogue with cultural studies, global  studies, sociology, ethnography, and postcolonial and decolonial approaches. Finally, the conference will aim to facilitate the creation of new networks and collaborations between scholars, archivists,  artists, cultural workers, and institutions. 

Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to: 
• History and historiography of theatre festivals 
• Theatre festivals, both local and global 
• Theatre archives and festival studies 
• Oral history and festival studies 
• Theatre festivals and the Cold War 
• Theatre festivals and conflicts in the twentieth century 
• Theatre festivals and cultural diplomacy 
• Economics and organization of theatre festivals 
• Performance culture and theatre festivals in the twentieth century
• Festival Studies: comparative perspectives between theatre, dance, cinema, music, and  cultural studies 

Accepted languages: Italian and English. Please submit your abstract (max. 250 words), a short  biography (max. 200 words), and your contact information to: prism.festival2025@gmail.com The submission deadline is January 30, 2025. 

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:  
• Pascale Goetschel (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) 
• Heike Roms (University of Exeter) 

Organising Committee: Tancredi Gusman, Francesca Bortoletti, Arianna Morganti e Tommaso  Zaccheo. 

Scientific Committee: Francesca Bortoletti, Roberta Ferraresi, Roberta Gandolfi, Pascale  Goetschel, Gerardo Guccini, Tancredi Gusman, Donatella Orecchia, Armando Petrini, Alessandro  Pontremoli, Heike Roms. 

Partners: Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi, Santarcangelo Festival, Department of History,  Humanities and Society – Tor Vergata University of Rome, Department of Humanities, Social  Sciences and Cultural Industries – University of Parma.  
This event is part of the project “Theatre Festivals between Local and Global: Rethinking Theatre  and Performance in Italy from the 1950s to the 1970s” (PRIN 2022 – Next Generation EU; P.I.  Donatella Orecchia, Tor Vergata University of Rome; Co-P.I. Roberta Gandolfi, University of  Parma). 

Bibliography (Selected Works) 
Balme C., Szymanski-Düll, B. (ed.), Theatre, Globalization and the Cold War, Cham: Palgrave,  2017. 
Fléchet A., Goetschel P. et al., (ed.), Une histoire des festivals, XXe-XXIe siècle, Paris: Publications  de la Sorbonne, 2013. 
Guccini, G., Donatini, E., (ed.) La funzione culturale dei festival, Bologna: CuePress, 2019. 
Hauptfleisch, T. et al. (ed.), Festivalising! Theatrical Events, Politics and Culture, Amsterdam:  Rodopi, 2007.  
Fischer-Lichte, E. et al. (ed.), Theater und Fest in Europa. Perspektiven von Identität und  Gemeinschaft, Tübingen: Francke, 2012. 
Knowles R., International Theatre Festivals and 21^st-Century Interculturalism, Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2022. 
Knowles R., (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2020. 
Zaiontz K., Theatre & Festivals, London: Palgrave, 2018.

Submissions sought for a few more essays (or, rather, abstracts, at this stage) for a proposed edited book on Edward Albee to celebrate his centenary celebration. The proposed book has expressed interest from University of Michigan Press’ Theater: Theory/Text/Performance book series. 
 
Should you already be working on something on Albee, or you have an idea for an essay, please get in touch with Michael Y. Bennett, the editor of the proposed book (and also President of The Edward Albee Society), at bennettm@uww.edu.

The Arthur Miller Society at ALA 2025
May 21-24, 2025
Boston, Massachusetts
Proposals due January 10

The American Literature Association’s 36th annual conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts, May 21-24, 2025 (Wednesday through Saturday of Memorial Day weekend).
The Arthur Miller Society will have two sessions at this conference.

For the first panel, we are inviting papers that consider how Arthur Miller’s life and work have been co-opted by contemporary playwrights, film directors, and writers. In recent years, works such as Becky Nurse of Salem by Sarah Ruhl, John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower, A Woman Among Women by May Jonas, The Good John Proctor by Talene Monahan, and Wife of a Salesman by Eleanor Burgess have riffed off his plays. Fellow Travelers by Jack Canfora, Bungalow 21 by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, The Un American by Claude Solnik,Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, and My Week with Marilyn have fictionalized events in his life. We are interested in the ways in which works pay homage to his signature plays and life, but also engage in conversation about the gaps and silences in them, the interstices where meaning can also be found and constructed to critique or defend his omissions.

For the second panel, we seek papers about any aspect of Miller’s works, life, and ideas, his relationship to other dramatists and thinkers, his relevance to contemporary issues, and productions and performance.

Proposals must be for individual papers of roughly 15-minutes (no more than 20) for a 75-minute session.
Please email proposals for papers by January 10 to Steve Marino at smarino@sfc.edu or arthurmillerjournal@gmail.com. The Miller Society’s proposal for pre-organized sessions is due to the conference administrators by January 30. Here is a link to the conference information.

Thank you for considering this call for papers.

Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference
July 28 – August 1, 2025, Online
Submissions Due December 19

Amplifying ATHE’s call for us to engage with “The Real” in our 2025 Conference, ATDS invites proposals addressing the theme of “The Realness.” We recognize the existential realities that artists, scholars, and educators confront today and seek submissions that explore the aesthetic, social, and political implications of staging “realness” in theatre and performance across the Americas.

In recent years, the concept of “realness” has evolved beyond a marker of authenticity into a charged and contested space within performance studies and the political arena, drawing attention to how we perceive and enact reality on and off the stage. Our current socio-political landscape, with rising systemic inequities, sharply drawn ideological divides, and threats of fascism, necessitates a critical reflection on the multiple layers of realness. Our call asks how theatre and performance both represent and contest “real world” issues stemming from systemic racism, patriarchy, precarity, ableism, and other intersecting oppressions when there exist competing claims to Truth, since many believe harmful falsehoods about migrants or do not believe trans people are real. How can our fields navigate, interrogate, and possibly reimagine the “real” amid such discord to support those really under threat?

Submissions may consider the following questions:

What is the “real” in performance, and who decides? As artists and audiences navigate authenticity and illusion, Erika Fischer-Lichte’s concept of “betwixt and between” highlights the theatre’s liminality, suggesting that “realness” is an ever-shifting state rather than a fixed truth.

How does performance respond to socio-political realities? Recent scholarship emphasizes the theatre’s role in reflecting and resisting ideological structures, creating a mirror where audiences may confront the “hard truths” of their worlds.

How does “realness” as a runway category in drag culture shape not only contemporary theatre, performance, and dance but also gender, identity, and spectacle? As RuPaul’s lyrics in “The Realness” assert, there’s an empowering possibility in crafting and embodying an “ideal” self, with all its exaggerations and contradictions, against a backdrop of constrictive norms.

How have colonial power dynamics influenced theatrical representations and realities in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, where performance can challenge and/or reinforce legacies of European and U.S. American empires? Scholars like Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Patricia Ybarra, and Nandi Bhatia invite us to address how theatre interrogates questions of identity, resistance, and cultural memory in response to enduring colonial and neo-colonial forces. 

What does it mean to mediate the real through performance? Building on the sociologists Sheldon Messenger, Harold Sampson, and Robert D. Towne’s “Life as Theater” approach, we encourage work considering the boundaries and fluidity between performance and life. 

Submissions may draw from an array of perspectives and methodologies, including (but not limited to):

Explorations of realism, non-fictional and docudrama forms, and their capacities to present “truth.”

Studies in the dramaturgical approaches to social reality and how these are challenged or reinforced through theatre.

Analysis of intersectional identity and representation within the context of realness on stage.

Performance and applied theatre works that actively engage with issues of social justice and community, fostering direct audience engagement with social reality.

Pedagogical sessions that engage with innovative teaching strategies that foster anti-oppressive frameworks and curricula, student reflexivity, critical awareness, and engagement practices to address the complexities of “realness” in performance. 

As a reminder, this year’s conference will be all online. This round of submissions is for “fully formed sessions.” A session coordinator should helm each proposal and have at least three presenters, a title, and a session description. (Presentation titles for each participant are optional at this point). If you have a compelling idea for a session and you are seeking partners, then please reach out to ATDS members via our listserv and to our Conference Planner, Samuel Yates.

We welcome creative approaches to submissions for panels, roundtables, performance-based presentations, and interactive workshops. Submissions should aim to explore how we embody the “real,” presenting performances that bridge audiences’ lived experiences with the creative acts of witnessing and questioning.

Submission Guidelines: The web portal will open for the 2025 Summer Conference Submissions on December 2, 2024. Please submit a short abstract of 250-300 words and the information requested in the ATHE portal by December 19, 2024 (11:59 p.m. Eastern). Submissions that draw from multiple disciplines, media, and innovative theatrical methods are particularly encouraged. We aim to foster conversations that are diverse, inclusive, and critically engaged with our theme. As in recent years, there will be a second round of submissions for additional participants in accepted sessions due March 14, 2025. The submission portal will be available through ATHE’s website.

Scheduling Note: ATDS is excited to use our available organizational resources to participate fully in the summer online conference, so please note that this CFP is for submissions to the ATHE 2025 Conference from Monday, July 28 – Friday, August 1. We encourage our members to submit to other sessions in the ATHE Spring Symposia Days (Saturday, February 22; Friday, March 14; and Friday, April 4), and we want to lift up participating Focus Groups such as the Black Theatre Association. ATDS will continue with its 2024-2025 pre-planned free online events on alternate dates, including our Anti-racist Initiatives, Career Conversations, and First Book Bootcamp. To learn more about ATDS’ year-round programming and to become a member, visit https://www.atds.org/. We look forward to engaging with you virtually–for real!

Proposals due January 31, 2025
Editors: Karen Jean Martinson (Arizona State University) and Dan Smith (Michigan State University)

Dramaturgy as a field in theatre practice continues to be codified through published scholarship on both the role of the dramaturg and acts of dramaturgy. A separate application of the term dramaturgy exists in the discipline of sociology, inspired by Erving Goffman’s foundational work The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. This volume proposes an interrogation of the disparate uses of the term dramaturgy, applying the techniques of theatrical dramaturgy to real world sites and encounters. In the sociological sense, dramaturgy refers to the performative interchanges that shape public life, which allow humans to communicate and make meaning. We combine this understanding with the ideas expressed in what is perhaps the most important and widely-cited article ever penned by a dramaturg, Elinor Fuchs’ “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play.” Fuchs balances intellectual rigor with creative analysis, stressing that the job of the dramaturg is to analyze the rules of the theatrical world to best understand how it operates. 

We have discovered that bringing our dramaturgical thinking to cultural objects and embodied experiences allows us to analyze how things work, and how patterns —design patterns, but also patterns of behavior— accumulate to curate both space and experience. Our process of bridging Goffman and Fuchs thus constitutes a methodological approach. We work from the assumption that someone has made decisions that encourage audiences/consumers to interact with these sites in particular ways. The dramaturg’s perspective as an informed audience member allows for multiple pathways of understanding these choices, and might further offer liberatory potential beyond the mere understanding of structures. A dramaturgical approach to understanding the real world might help us create pathways to social change.  

Building on “Small Planets” and “Real World Dramaturgies” sessions held at ATHE conferences over the past several years, we envision chapters that discuss curated venues for tourism (architecture, casinos, museums, galleries, heritage sites) as well as modes of engagement (the academic job market, curriculum and syllabus development, corporate storytelling). What do we gain when we apply a dramaturgical mindset to the interactions and experiences that surround us? How are real-world sites curated for audience engagement? To what extent are resistant readings possible? 

We invite chapter proposals (300-600 words) that identify real-world sites, networks, or events for this kind of dramaturgical analysis. We hope to curate a robust and expansive collection that highlights wide-ranging dramaturgical thinking, authored by a diverse group of artists, scholars, and critics housed within a variety of academic, professional, and creative settings. We estimate that finished submissions will be around 3000-6000 words, and we are happy to include pieces of varying lengths. We welcome first-time authors and are willing to mentor you through the publication process. 

Please send proposals (or longer drafts) to both Karen Jean Martinson (karen.jean.martinson@asu.edu) and Dan Smith (smit2030@msu.edu) by January 31, 2025. Do not hesitate to reach out with any inquiries.

April 24 – 26, 2025
University of Missouri
Abstracts due: November 15, 2025 

Call for Abstracts of Papers and Presentations
 
On Thursday, April 24, through April 26, 2025, the University of Missouri Department of Theatre and Performance in cooperation with the Cambio Center, MU Libraries, and The Bridge, will host a new theatre and drama conference, Cachimbonas!: Celebrating Latina/e Dramatists & Social Engagement, which will feature a full production of Romero, an award-winning new play by Xiomara Cornejo, Salvadoran American director/playwright.  Cachimbonas is a Central American term for a “strong, fierce, courageous woman,” or “good person,” and the conference will be centered on the work of Latina/e dramatists and will celebrate the lives, music, food, and culture of the traditions of those would have come to the US from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. 
 
The conference, which will feature a virtual component, lead by our professor, Dr. Kevin Brown, a collaborator with playwright Caridad Svich, will give special attention to Latina dramatists (for both stage and screen) who deal with issues of social justice, migration, undocumented workers, and the border with a special focus on the Mexican and Central American refugee experience.  Xiomara’s play focuses on the assassination of El Salvador’s Archbishop Óscar A. Romero and his subsequent canonization, but more broadly looks at faith as resistance, liberation theology, and the impact of war and US intervention in Central America. 
 
While the primary focus will be scholarly papers and creative workshops that address the work of Latina dramatists who focus on the above-mentioned issues in their work, some of the panels we’d like to present will be more broadly focused on Latine and Latin American theatre artists and dramatic literature, and how these works get at the realities of issues like US intervention, the US border, refugees, and migration. 
 
Featured guest artists include renowned playwright Elaine Romero, award-winning author of Title IX and Mother of Exiles, and professor of theatre at University of Arizona at Tucson, Xiomara Cornejo, author of Romero, Theater of the Oppressed practitioner, and assistant professor of theatre at the University of Illinois at Chicago , and Lil Lamberta, a trans non-binary mother, artist, puppeteer and Founder/Director of All The Saints Theater Company, all of whom will be teaching workshops in Theatre of the Oppressed, Dramatic Writing, and Radical Puppetry as part of the conference.  The conference seeks to support the work of every level of theatre, drama, and performance scholarship, however, we’ll be offering a special focus on emerging graduate and undergraduate scholars who might debut with this conference. 
 
Scholars and Artists wishing to present at the conference should send:
 
An abstract of 150-250 words describing topic(s), goals, and guiding questions
A short bio (50 words) and your contact information including email and phone number 
 
Submissions must be received by Nov. 15, 2024, and in order to attract emerging scholars and artists, we’ll be keeping registration low, and it will be free to all MU students, faculty, and staff.
 
For additional information about the conference contact Dr. David A. Crespy at his email: crespyd@missouri.edu.

June 19-31
Cologne, Germany
Abstracts due January 15, 2025

IFTR’s Popular Entertainments Working Group is interested in uncovering and giving
voice to historical forms of popular performance that have largely been overlooked in
dominant theatre history narratives. The multiple performance styles/genres within the
group’s field of interest include circus, burlesque, variety, vaudeville, revue, sport as
performance, music in popular entertainments, popular theatre, clowns, comedy,
stand-up, video gaming, cosplay, comic festivals and more. More recently the scope and focus of the group’s work has expanded to consider popular entertainment’s important role in the wider theatre ecology; the influences of the popular on historical avant-garde and contemporary experimental practices; and the changing cultural status of popular forms. You can find out more about the group’s work athttps://iftr.org/working-groups/popular-entertainments


For the IFTR conference in 2025, which will take place in Cologne, Germany from 9-13 June, the Popular Entertainments Working Group wishes to take advantage of the conference theme of Performing Carnival and its keywords of Ekstasis, Subversion, and Metamorphosis to highlight the omnipresence of popular entertainments both temporally and spatially. 


At the 2024 conference in Manila, we discussed the tendency for popular entertainments to be dismissed as culturally and temporally delimited and lacking in aesthetics and social criticism. We welcome proposals on all aspects of popular entertainment. We would especially welcome abstracts within the context of the conference theme and/or that consider how popular entertainment: cultivates intermediality, intercultural, and chronological networks
is situated within an aesthetic context serves the subversive aspects of the carnivalesque embraces intermediality and crosses temporalities through embodiment recuperates lost voices repurposes the negative language used against popular entertainment survives and adapts to legislation and regulation creates grounds for resistance and transformation


For those who are interested, we’d like to consider Stuart Hall’s essay “Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Popular.’” Working group member Jason Price will be leading a discussion of the article on Zoom in early January. (Information forthcoming in the next couple of months.) Submissions that engage with the article and one or more of the prompts above may be considered for a general panel to be proposed by the working group. IT IS NOT REQUIRED THAT YOU ENGAGE WITH THE ARTICLE FOR YOUR ABSTRACT TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THE WORKING GROUP. 


Group Meetings
The Popular Entertainments Working Group operates by circulating members’ draft papers in advance of the conference, enabling a more focused discussion. Once papers are circulated, members are then asked to nominate another paper they’d like to moderate. The group allocates approximately twenty minutes for discussion of each
paper. Members are asked to speak about their research for ten minutes; visual or AV material that amplifies or supports their paper in some way is encouraged. (As all papers are read in advance, presenters are not required to provide an oral summary of their paper.) A moderator assigned to the paper will then lead the remaining ten minutes
of discussion.


Submission of Abstracts
Abstracts of 250-300 words should be submitted no later than 15 January 2025 via IFTR’s Cambridge Core portal. Please specify ‘Popular Entertainments’ working group when submitting your abstract. Accepted participants will be asked to submit full papers (no more than 5000 words) to the convenors in early May for distribution. Papers need not be in a finished state: drafts and works-in-progress are acceptable. Once gathered, all papers will be made available to group members for reading and a discussant will be allocated to each.


Please send any questions to the conveners of the Popular Entertainments Working Group:


Aastha Gandhi, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi: agandhi@aud.ac.in
Susan Kattwinkel, College of Charleston, U.S.A.: kattwinkels@cofc.edu

Published by Penn State University Press, Theatre and Performance Notes and Counternotes (TPNC) is a theatre studies generalist journal of short-to-medium length research articles,response articles, and discussion articles (https://www.psupress.org/journals/jnls_TPNC.html).

[NOTE: Issues 1.1 (2024) and 1.2 (2024) are already published. We are currently looking for submissions for issues 2.2 (2025) and beyond.]

TPNC operates via rolling submissions, so there is no specific deadline to submit your article.

To submit a manuscript to Theatre and Performance Notes and Counternotes (TPNC), please visit Editorial Manager (https://www.editorialmanager.com/tpnc/default.aspx). The online system will guide you through the steps to upload your article to the editorial office. Except in response or discussion articles in which the identity of the author is appropriate and/or required, in order to undergo the journal’s double-blind peer-review process, all articles should (1) be anonymized, (2) be between 1,500-4,000 words, and (3) conform to the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.

Research articles

Original research articles can range from focused notes to medium-length articles. Articles can be on any subject(s) in the broadly-defined field of theatre studies, but the scope, ambition, and thesis should be appropriate to the length of the submitted article.

Discussions

Discussion articles can offer proposed solutions and/or problematize specific ideas related to, or emerging from, conversations or debates within the field. Discussions can also serve as a place to crystalize conversations or debates in the field, or to bring seemingly-disparate ideas into a more coherent conversation.

Responses

Response articles are, most often, directed at either the theses of a specific scholar(s) and/or a specific conversation or debate within the field. Often, responses engage directly with the strengths and weaknesses of particular theses or broader ideas in the field in order to either strengthen, modify, or challenge these theses/ideas. The aim of these responses is not to create debates or arguments (and, certainly, never arguments or attacks of a personal nature) but to move the field to a clearer and more accurate understanding of the subject at hand. These response articles can also provide a space to revisit and/or modify one’s own previously-published ideas.

Finally, if you would like to discuss the possibility of proposing and/or curating a “Symposium” consisting of 3-5 related discussion and/or response articles, please send an email to the Editor of Theatre and Performance Notes and Counternotes, Prof. Michael Y. Bennetbennettm@uww.edu.

We are delighted to invite you to join the Opulent October & Noble November Wacky Writing Challenge hosted by the American Theatre and Drama Society — one of the Wacky Writing Week series that you may remember from the past several years.  

It’s a low-stakes, fun way to tackle your research (or maybe to finish your ASTR paper!).

All are welcome!  Interested?  Read on…

ATDS Wacky Writing Challenge 

October 28-November 3

7 days, 10 pages.  

Why not? 

Riding high on a Halloween candy sugar rush?  Looking to wrap up your ASTR project?  Dying to dive back into some research from the summer?  Whatever your motivation, we invite you to join the Opulent October/Noble November ATDS Wacky Writing Challenge!

Here’s what you have to do: 

Sign up at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1wGix6KE9C4T0l9gMtIsBYiwIvm114vPXxnPnIxFQ-G8/viewform?edit_requested=true

That’s it.  The Wacky Writing Challenge is open to everyone and there’s no application process.  

QUESTIONS?  Email us at: onlineresearchshare@gmail.com   

The schedule is below.  You can set your goals.  You can join the Zoom chatting sessions.  You can share your writing selfies and word-count snapshots as you go.  We’re here to cheer you on to your goal, however you get there!   

Structure:

Make-a-Plan Monday, October 28: 

Create your schedule for the week, assemble the materials you need (books, notes, files), get yourself organized, re-read what you’ve already written (if anything), and set goals for the week. Tuesdays and Thursdays have pre-set goals, but on Wednesday and Friday, you should set your own, whether that’s time spent writing, word count, page count, or any other writing milestone you choose. The program’s recommended goal is 10pp for the week.  

There will be an optional Zoom check-in the night before kick-off at 8pm EST Sunday evening  (October 27) for those who want to share their goals for the week ahead and say hello to their fellow Wacky Writing Week colleagues.  Zoom links will be sent to those who sign up.  

Two-Page Tuesday, October 29: 

95 years ago today, the US Stock Market crashed, so how hard could it be to write two pages? You can write more, but you can’t write less.  

Word Count Wednesday, October 30:  

Set your timer for whatever you put in your Monday plan.  Write.  Enjoy watching the word count climb as you go!  Challenge yourself to hit a certain number.  Take a screen shot of your word count and send it to us at onlineresearchshare@gmail.com. Celebrate every 50 words with a piece of candy corn.

Two-Page Thursday, October 31:   

Hide from rabid trick-or-treaters!  Hoard all the good candy!  Also, lather, rinse, repeat from Tuesday and write two pages!

Free-Write Friday, November 1:  

Set your timer for whatever you put in your Monday plan.  Write whatever you want to.  Also, consider eating some kale to counteract all that candy.

Sleep-in Saturday, November 2:  

Enjoy the day and take 30 minutes to re-read what you’ve written this past week. 

Synthesize Sunday, November 3:   

Daylight Savings Time has come to an end, and so has the Wacky Writing Week!  Now that you’ve written and re-read, take the time you’ve allocated today to edit and expand.  Your goal is to hit 10pp total for the week.  There will be an optional Zoom gathering at 8pm EST that evening for those who want to share their success stories and congratulate their fellow writing colleagues.  Zoom links will be sent to those who sign up.  

We also invite you to take a victory selfie and send it in to onlineresearchshare@gmail.com!