The editors of the collection of essays on old age and aging in (currently) British theatre and drama have received a few wonderful contributions on Irish playwrights and plays. We therefore decided to potentially broaden the scope of the initially planned publication and include some more essays, focused on Irish and Northern Irish dramaturgy and old age/aging.

We invite abstracts on the following topics but other notions related to age, the elderly and aging in drama across centuries are likewise encouraged:

• biological, chronological, functional, cultural definitions of old age, senescence and aging in drama but also beyond

• performativity of old age (markers of old age; the old body on stage; etc)

• comic and tragic elderly and their plight

• old age/aging and playwrights/playwriting (deal with aging by means of art; do older playwrights write about old age or focus on youth)

• genderised aging on stage

• actors and actresses and aging

• younger versus older generations in drama (conflicts, struggles, reconciliations, etc)

• positive and negative stereotypes of the elderly

• stock characters (senex, crone, widow, benevolent father, dotard, etc) and their 'mutations' across centuries

• the influence of philosophical, religious and medical advice on old age and aging on drama (conduct texts, treatises, medical tracts)

• class/race/gender and dramatised old age

We encourage studies/analyses of all periods/types of/in Irish and Northern Irish theatre.

See the original cfp here: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/65031

Interested authors are kindly asked to send up to 500-word abstracts by 25th January 2016 to dr Katarzyna Bronk (kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl and bbronkk@gmail.com).

Upon acceptance by the publisher, the authors will be asked to write full versions of their papers.