2024 Workshops & Events

April

Best Practices for Grants and Fellowships Roundtable

April 15th at 6:30 – 7:30 pm EDT on Zoom

As a continuation of ATDS’s Career Conversations virtual series, this 60-minute roundtable will feature professionals who have won major grants and fellowships to support their projects. The conversation will focus on strategies and best practices for writing grant and fellowship applications.

What questions should someone ask when they find a grant or fellowship they think might be a good fit for their work? What do committees and organizations look for in an application? What aspect(s) of a project should be highlighted in the application?

Perfecting Project Proposals: A Virtual Workshop for Fellowships and Grant Applications

April 23rd at 6:30 – 7:45 pm EST on Zoom

As part of ATDS’s Career Conversations virtual series, this workshop will feature a 30-minute roundtable discussion with professionals who work at different fellowship-granting organizations and faculty who have won major grants and fellowships. Then, mentors will be paired with graduate students and early career scholars. For the remaining 45minutes, mentors will provide specific feedback on participants’ project proposals. The workshop is open to a limited number of participants. Registration will close on April 5. Accepted and waitlisted participants will be contacted with more information.

January

Scholars Roundtable - January 9, 2024

The American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS) and Musical Theater Dance Association (MTDA) invite you to join us for a Scholars’ Roundtable. The event will celebrate recent scholarly work on race within the American musical theater and explore how the artform (and the scholarly conversation surrounding the art form) has traditionally been dominated by hegemonic whiteness. It will be organized under the auspices of ATDS’s Antiracism Initiatives and MTDA’s Book Launch series, featuring three books that are recent publications in Bloomsbury’s Topics in Musical Theater series.

The roundtable will feature the work of:

Eric Glover, African American Perspectives in Musical Theatre
Josephine Lee, Race in American Musical Theater
Nicole Hodges Persley, Hip-Hop in Musical Theater

with ATDS President Donatella Galella as moderator

The Scholars Roundtable will take place, online, on January 9, 2024 from 6:30-8:00pm ET / 3:30-5:00pm PT.

To register for the event, please complete the registration form (at this link).

A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants prior to the event.

Please note that Antiracist Initiative programming is a member benefit. If you need to renew or begin an ATDS membership, please visit https://www.atds.org/membership-shop/. Currently ATDS membership is available at many levels, including pay-what-you-can.

Previous Workshops & Events

2023 Workshops & Events

March

Exploring Faculty Careers Roundtable

March 29, 2023
7pm – 8pm (EDT)

As part of ATDS’s Career Conversations virtual series, this 60-minute Zoom roundtable will feature Patricia Herrera, Jimmy Noriega, Naomi Stubbs, and Harvey Young. The conversation will focus on the distinctions between faculty careers at different types of institutions and advice for applying to these positions. What does a tenure track assistant professor position involve? What do search committees look for in an application? What advice can faculty give applicants in terms of preparation, job applications, and interviews?

This event is open to members and non-members alike.

Featuring:

Harvey Young – Dean, College of Fine Arts Boston University
Naomi Stubbs – Professor of English, LaGuardia Community College
Jimmy Noriega – Professor of Theatre & Dance, The College of Wooster
Patricia Herrera – Professor of Theatre, University of Richmond

April

Pushing Back Against the Push-back

Sustaining Antiracist Work in our Institutions An Online Roundtable
April 20th, 12:30-2:00pm (EDT)

Please join us for an online roundtable discussion dedicated to exploring strategies for pushing back against institutional resistance to antiracist work in our institutions. Questions explored during the conversation will include:

How should we respond when administrators discourage or oppose antiracist work that we undertake on campus?
How can we more effectively promote initiatives that address systemic racism in our field and in our institutions to university administration and our campus communities?
What are the right and the wrong ways to respond to those who question our antiracist efforts?

This online roundtable explores these issues, in response to ATDS member suggestions. Participating panelists will be:

Anita Gonzalez, Co-Founder & Co-Director, Racial Justice Institute/The Woodshed, Professor of Performing Arts and African American Studies, Georgetown University
Khalid Y. Long, Assistant Professor of Theater and Institute for African American Studies at the University of Georgia, ATHE Vice President for Advocacy
Timea Webster, Department of Alumni Relations, Associate Director for Alumni Engagement, Howard University

To register for the discussion on Thursday, April 20th, 12:30-2:00pm EDT, please complete this online registration form by Tuesday, April 18th.

A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants prior to the event.

Curating Your Cover Letter

A Virtual Workshop for Applying to Faculty Jobs
April 20, 6:30 – 8pm (EDT)

As part of ATDS’s Career Conversations virtual series, this 90-minute workshop will feature Heather S. Nathans, Veronda Carey, Mark Cosdon, and Isaiah Wooden. In the first 30 minutes, panelists will give an overview of what the tenure track requires at their institution, what their institution looks for during job searches, and what kinds of advice they would give to applicants.

Following this discussion, faculty will be paired with graduate students and early career scholars. For the remaining hour, faculty will look over participants’ sample cover letters to offer specific feedback for their future job applications.

The workshop is open to a limited number of participants. Registration will close on April 5. Accepted and waitlisted participants will be contacted with more information.

This workshop is open to both members and non-members.

Featuring:
Heather S. Nathans – Dean, The College of Arts & Sciences Tufts University
Veronda Carey – Professor of Speech and Theater, Oakton Community College
Mark Cosdon – Professor of Theatre & Performance Studies, Allegheny College
Isaiah Wooden – Assistant Professor of Theatre, Swarthmore College

May 2022

Antiracism Reading Circle

Please join us for our fourth and final “Antiracism Reading Circle” event of the year on Wednesday, May 25th, 3:00-4:30pm EST. To honor and reflect on the recent passing of bell hooks, we will gather to discuss these reading selections:

“Theory as a Liberatory Practice” from Teaching to Transgress

“Community: Loving Communion” from All About Love

Introduction and first two chapters from Feminism is for Everybody

ATDS Executive Board member Dr. Isaiah Wooden will facilitate this session. To join the event, please register in advance at this link: https://forms.gle/AaUFjxn26kJPn6wX6. A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants prior to the event.

These short readings can be made temporarily available for event participants. Please contact Ariel Nereson (ariel.nereson@gmail.com) or Jonathan Shandell (shandelj@arcadia.edu) to arrange access.

Please note that the reading circle is a member benefit. If you need to renew or begin an ATDS membership, please visit https://www.atds.org/membership-shop/. Currently ATDS membership is available at many levels, including pay-what-you-can.

We look forward to welcoming you into the circle.

Ariel Nereson (ariel.nereson@gmail.com)
Jonathan Shandell (shandelj@arcadia.edu)
ATDS Anti-Racism Initiative Co-Chairs for 2021-22.

April 2022

PhDs on the Move: Building Non-Faculty Careers

Thursday April 14 from 7-8PM (Eastern)

Registration Link

Interested in a non-faculty career? “PhDs on the Move: Building Non-Faculty Careers” explores the diverse career journeys open to people who hold PhDs in theatre and performance studies. Featuring four panelists who work in non-faculty positions, the conversation offers an opportunity for panelists to share their thoughts and advice and talk with audience members about their questions.

The conversation will touch on how panelists pursued their positions, what their positions involve, how graduates might frame their doctoral work when applying and interviewing, and how to think through a career trajectory outside of the tenure-track path. The panel aims to provide advice and resources for anyone considering a career beyond the professorate.

Featured Panelists:

Dr. Brittany Proudfoot Ginder
Associate Director of Communications, Shakespeare Theatre Center

Dr. Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa
Associate Director of the Division of Health and Human Performance, Stanford University

Dr. Arden Thomas
Theatre Educator, Sequoyah School

Dr. Annie Reynolds
Exhibitions and Collections Curator, East-West Center

For more information, contact co-organizers Michelle Granshaw (ATDS Board Member, mkg31@pitt.edu) and Mia Levenson (ATDS Graduate Representative, Mia.Levenson@Tufts.edu)

Reframing Your Resume

Tuesday April 19, 6:30 – 8PM (Eastern)

Registration Link

A Virtual Workshop for How to Market Yourself for Careers Outside Professorships

This two-part workshop brings together PhD graduates from the field of theatre and performance studies who have found success outside the academy to meet with current PhD students or recently graduated independent scholars interested in careers beyond professorships. Mentors will share their chosen career, how they navigated the non-academic job market, and what tools were useful as they pivoted away from academia.

In small groups, participants will have the opportunity to go over their current resume or CV with a mentor. They will examine the language used to describe their work, build new vocabularies, and reimagine how to frame their skillset for non-academic recruiters. This workshop aims to provide participants with a new lexicon with which to describe their doctoral work as well as a body of knowledge and resources to take with them as they enter any job market.

“Reframing Your Resume” will be 90 minutes long and is open participants who are currently enrolled in a doctoral program or recently graduated. Please bring a current resume or CV.

Featured Panelists

Dr. Lisa Kelly
Program Coordinator, Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching & Learning at University of Iowa

Dr. Daniel Sander
Independent Curator

Dr. Stephanie Lein Walseth
Theater Education Specialist, Perpich Center for Arts Education

Dr. Yining Lin,
Manager of Partnerships, Cleveland Play House

For more information, contact co-organizers Michelle Granshaw (ATDS Board Member, mkg31@pitt.edu) and Mia Levenson (ATDS Graduate Representative, Mia.Levenson@Tufts.edu)

Antiracism Reading Circle

Please join us for our next “Antiracism Reading Circle” event on Friday, April 29th, 3:00-4:30pm EST. We will gather to discuss a selection from Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality by Jennifer C. Nash. Ariel Nereson will facilitate this session. To join the event, please register in advance at this link: https://forms.gle/yZTzrBZ9DstxeooD6. A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants prior to the event.

Here’s some more information about the book:

In Black Feminism Reimagined Jennifer C. Nash reframes black feminism’s engagement with intersectionality. Nash outlines how women’s studies has both elevated intersectionality to the discipline’s primary program-building initiative and cast intersectionality as a threat to feminism’s coherence. As intersectionality has become a central feminist preoccupation, Nash argues that black feminism has been marked by a single affect—defensiveness. Nash contends that only by letting go of this deeply alluring protectionist stance can black feminists reimagine intellectual production in ways that unleash black feminist theory’s visionary world-making possibilities.

We invite participants to prepare for the discussion by reading the book’s introduction and chapter 2(or more, if you feel so inspired). The introduction is available through this link: https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-1-4780-0059-4_601.pdf.

We encourage you to request that your campus or community library purchase copies for their collections, and/or that you obtain your own personal copy directly from the publisher through the link above, or through an independent/minority owned bookstore.

We look forward to welcoming you into the circle.

Ariel Nereson (ariel.nereson@gmail.com)
Jonathan Shandell (shandelj@arcadia.edu)
ATDS Anti-Racism Initiative Co-Chairs for 2021-22.