News

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https://www.astr.org/page/2019-working-sessions

Glenn Odom
Associate Editor Studies in Theatre and Performance
Reader
University of Roehampton | London | SW15
Office hours Mondays 12:40-1:40 and by appointment

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Proposed Volume:
Theatre and the Macabre

Editors:
Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Meredith Conti
Professor and Chair of Theatre Arts Assistant Professor of Theatre
Loyola Marymount University University at Buffalo, SUNY

Submissions Timeline and Contact Information:
Please send abstracts of 300-500 words and a 100-word bio to kwetmore@lmu.edu and maconti@buffalo.edu by June 1, 2019. Accepted contributors will submit their chapter drafts to the editors by May 1, 2020.

Project Description:
Theatre and the Macabre will be the first edited collection to consider the diverse ways that the macabre operates within live performance. We move from an understanding of macabre theatre as one that disturbs, horrifies, or provokes because of its involvement with or depiction of death and injury, the gruesome and the grotesque, the dark and the fearful. The macabre in performance is evocative, adaptable, and at times elusive; this volume seeks to elucidate how texts, bodies, atmospheres, choreographies, sounds, and stage effects work (independently or collaboratively) to convey the macabre to audiences.

Because the macabre is neither time-bound nor limited to a specific culture or cultures, we hope that the collection’s chapters will range across periods, geographic boundaries, and sites of entertainment in deliberate and productive ways. We are particularly intent on securing contributions from scholars of color and those working in disability studies; horror (as a genre that often employs the macabre) has problematic and fascinating relationships with race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability, and we are interested in interrogating these relationships within Theatre and the Macabre. Similarly, because macabre theatre also exists outside of playhouses and concert halls, contributors are encouraged to apply expansive notions of theatre and performance in crafting their abstracts.

Theatre and the Macabre is currently being considered for a contract with an academic press.

Possible topics for chapters include but are not limited to:

• Theatre’s performative/narrative hauntings and ghostings
• The supernatural and spiritualism onstage
• Figures of the macabre (murderers, ghosts, monsters, spirits, mad doctors, victims and innocents, etc.)
• Notions of identity and the macabre (gender, race, class, nationality, ability, religion, sexuality, etc.)
• Monstrosity, freakery, and the “horrification” of difference
• The intersection of theatrical spectatorship and theories of fear, horror, terror, trauma, and disgust
• Representations of dying and death in performance (secular or religious)
• Choreographies of horror/the macabre in movement
• Horror theatre (Le Grand Guignol, gothic dramas, McDonagh’s The Pillowman, National Theatre of Scotland’s Let the Right One In, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s The Snow in Midsummer, etc.)
• Theatrical adaptations of literary and filmic horror and how they emphasize the macabre (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sweeney Todd, Carrie, etc.)
• Global styles of macabre theatre and/or genres of horror (symbolism, surrealism, naturalism, medieval theatre, gothicism, Roman tragedies, German sturm-und-drang, British In-Yer-Face theatre, Iranian ta’ziyeh, Japanese kaidan, etc.)
• Medical theatre and medicalized bodies
• Dark designs and technologies (mise en scenes, soundscapes and smellscapes, extreme stage effects, and theatrical makeup)
• Immersive spectacles (hell houses, Halloween attractions, ghost tours, haunted tourism)
• Staging the unthinkable (graphic simulations of violence, horror, and torture onstage)

Please contact the editors at kwetmore@lmu.edu and maconti@buffalo.edu with any questions. We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Dr. Meredith Conti
Assistant Professor of Theatre
University at Buffalo, SUNY

Author, Playing Sick: Performances of Illness in the Age of Victorian Medicine (Routledge, 2018)
Book Review Editor, Theatre Annual
meredithaconti.com

Shoshin Theatre Association is organising an international theatre forum
and conference in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, between the 10-12th May 2019.
Co-organizer of the conference section is the Committee on Theatrical
Sciences of the Regional Committee in Cluj of the MTA.

Street – or open space – theatre, and alternative, non-classical ways of
doing performances count as rather widespread genres in the West,
sometimes with rich roots dating back centuries. Furthermore, several
companies exist whose primary purpose is not equivalent with the
artistic purposes of the state theatres; rather they lay emphasis on the
role of theatre in society,
while not neglecting artistic aspects either. However, in our region
these endeavours are only starting to come into public awareness. Among
the many reasons of this time delay we can mention not to a small extent
the absence of reliable funding as well as the rigidity which can be
experienced in the system of subsidized state theatres.

These currents usually function in the case of theatre companies who do
not exist in a strictly hierarchical system or as a state-supported
institution. What is the relationship between artistic intent and
functioning? Is it possible for independent, ‘other’ types of companies
to be able to grow in an environment where state theatres prevail? Is it
possible (for example following the examples of the Ghent Manifesto or
the National Theatres of Wales and Scotland) for subsidized, state
theatres to reinterpret themselves and to transform radically? In what
does a street performance differ from a performance held in a closed
space? What kind of other opportunities do public/alternative spaces
offer us? What kind of affair can a performance establish with public
space, what kind of doer-viewer relation does it presume, and how can a
performance influence our relationship with the public space?
Furthermore, what kind of examples do we know of theatre(s) turning
towards the periphery? For example, is the tradition of "landscaping"
(taking performances to villages) an out-dated custom, or indeed an
existent and urgent need that we need to adapt to the 21st century? And
how can we help the mostly abandoned communities living in rural areas
(villages and small towns) in a systemic way, through theatre (among
others)?

The above questions offer orientation, but they are not exclusive. We
await applications from university teachers, researchers, artists,
university students, cultural managers, leaders of theatres as well as
professionals from other areas. We are curious to see how these themes
can be approached beside the angle of theatre – in policy making,
cultural entrepreneurship, anthropology, sociology etc. Please send your
abstract of up to 400 words accompanied by a short CV until the 25th of
March 2019 to the following address: shoshin.mail@gmail.com. The
abstracts will be peer reviewed by the scientific committee asked for by
the Association, followed by the final confirmation until the 1st of
April. The lecturers of the chosen papers will be provided with meals,
accommodation (1 night) and their travel expenses will be reimbursed up
to the sum of 50 euro/person (in case of lecturers arriving from outside
Romania or Hungary).

The language of the conference is English. The conference will be held
on the 11th of March from morning to early afternoon and it is an
organic part of the weekend-long event called Out of the frame organized
by Shoshin Theatre Association. The theme of the event is: the research
of less institutionalized, alternative theatrical genres, with
particular regard to open space genres (street theatre, interactive
performances, community genres), furthermore, the analysis of what kind
of role performing arts have in the periphery and on the lives of
communities living in rural environments, and in a broader sense on the
whole of society. Other events in the programme consist of workshops,
book launches and roundtable discussions with acknowledged international
guests and professionals from Romania.

A keynote address will be held by Paul Allain, Professor of Theatre and
Performance, researcher, author, and Dean of the Graduate School of the
University of Kent.

More information soon on https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shoshintheatre.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7CGlenn.Odom%40ROEHAMPTON.AC.UK%7C8c2d4c99ed1f4502ac9508d69dd97216%7C5fe650635c3747fbb4cce42659e607ed%7C0%7C0%7C636869954606977637&sdata=wFSZjhwSzPu7mzrAq%2B1A0vbdSidOB44u7%2B8D875%2FqF4%3D&reserved=0 and
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Glenn Odom
Associate Editor Studies in Theatre and Performance
Reader
University of Roehampton | London | SW15
Office hours Mondays 12:40-1:40 and by appointment

Please find below the two statements from the two candidates for the chair of SCUDD, Kate Newey and Mark O’Thomas.

(Though working fine in most cases, some browsers may fail to show both statements, but the download link is functioning for both)

Please do not send us an individual response to the election, but ensure that the vote you send is the consensus of your SCUDD member department or unit.  Please send your unit’s vote to m.j.taylorbatty@leeds.ac.uk (using the subject line ‘SCUDD chair 2018’) by midnight on 15 April. Please use your ac.uk email address as a means to confirm affiliation.

Statement from Kate Newey

One ‘good news’ item about a Drama student from the University of Manchester. Please help me to populate these pages with other stories, news items and information about any mental health issues in your institution. Send information to alison.jeffers@manchester.ac.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41445840