The 42nd Annual Mid-America Theatre Conference

Marriott Cleveland Downtown, Key Tower, Cleveland, OH

March 3-6, 2022

The Mid-America Theatre Conference CFPs are live and the Practice/Production Symposium wants your proposals by 11:59pm on November 1! More info—and the submission window—are available at http://matc.us/calls-for-papers/acting-and-directing-symposium This year at the 42nd gathering of the conference, we are seeking traditional and REVOLUTIONARY outside-the-box proposals for paper and co-paper presentations, round-table discussions, organized panels, workshops, performances, and hybrid presentations that can be linked to the theme REVOLUTION broadly construed, from the perspective of directors, actors, choreographers, movement specialists, technicians, designers, playwrights, dramaturgs, stage managers, and spectators. We greatly encourage and welcome submissions from early career scholars, graduate students, and non-academic practictioners! As a symposium, we seek to examine current and emerging challenges/opportunities/successes and failures across production disciplines. Papers and presentations may be critical analysis or evaluative responses or theoretical explorations of a specific theatrical event(s) or the work of a significant practitioner(s) or company. We especially encourage non-traditional formats that include active involvement of both presenters and auditors such as workshops, interactive theatre, devised performances, performance for found space, etc. While most should prepare to be presented in-person in Cleveland, we are open to considering outstanding proposals for an asynchronous collection of scholarship to be showcased virtually during the conference. Submissions should include a 150-200 word abstract with the applicant’s name, rank, academic affiliation, address, telephone, email, presentation format (single paper or co-paper presentation, panel presentation, roundtable discussion, workshop, or performance), title of presentation, preference of consideration for in-person or virtual, and a 2-3 paragraph description of the presentation. Please include any audio/visual or other technology needs in your abstract—A/V services are limited.

Possible investigations of REVOLUTION—in its broad and myriad historical and contemporary definitions and contradictions—might include, but are not limited to:

• Staging a Revolution: How is/has revolution been theatrically realized on stage, or in the streets? How has revolution been staged across geography/time? What productions or practitioners have defined how theatre has shaped our cultural concept of revolution? Can staged acts of revolution ignite real actionable change?
• Revolutionary Designs: How is revolution designed? What processes do designers use to cultivate revolutionary ideas? What practices and technologies are revolutionizing the field? How have you personally revolutionized your design process?
• Acts of Revolution: How do blocking, dance, choreographed intimacy, movement, or staged violence aid in rotations of concepts and theme within a performance? How have these forms been developed throughout history? How do non-physical methods aid in realizing these acts?
• Revolution and Space: How have theatrical spaces contained revolutionary performances? In what instances have these spaces been revolutionized of late?
• Digital Revolutions: How has the notion of revolution intersected with technology/online performance? What has the pandemic taught us about the new forms that have emerged from our collective shift online? What are the high, or low, points from our revolutionary experiments this past two years? How have these new tools helped expand or contract the potential scope of revolutionary theatrical offerings?
• Revolutionizing the “Season”: In what new ways can we consider the process of season selection? What factors should theatre artists, institutions, and organizations consider now when planning their programming? How can/are current practices reinforcing harmful practices, and where can they stand to be revolutionized?
• Rehearsal for the Revolution: What revolutionary ideas/strategies for making theatre are taking place in rehearsal rooms and classrooms right now? What experimental methods in the aspects of making theatre are in ascendance? How do these new pedagogies account for the revolutionary push for EDI & anti-racist practices across our educational/professional spaces?
• Revolution and Audiences: How do audiences figure into theatrical revolutions? How have audiences, and our understanding of audiences, shifted our visions and concepts as theatre makers? What revolutionary strides are being taken to reach new audiences?
• Revolutions in Storytelling: What revolutionary new forms have come from playwriting, composing, and devising? Are there such things as “new” stories, or just revolutionary new ways to conceive of and present them?
• Children of the Revolution: What revolutionary practices have you inherited in your teaching or practice? Are they still revolutionary? How do we decide which ideas to pass on to new generations of artists, and which to discard?
• ¡Viva la Revolución!: How does revolution inform performances outside of the United States? Where are the revolutionary practices and theories emanating from the global majority? How do we de-center the hegemonic notions of theatre and usher in truly revolutionary global ideas?
• Keeping the Revolution at Bay: What are the limits of revolution within theatre? Who places those limits? When has the revolution in theatre failed? How do the realities of creating educational and/or commercial theatre tamp down sparks of revolution? What are the consequences of keeping the truly revolutionary productions/ideas from reaching audiences?
• The Revolving Door: How does your practice inform your pedagogy? What revolutionary ways are you or your colleagues managing the demands of teaching alongside the demands of working professionally? Have you willingly/unwillingly left academe or industry behind?
• Revolution in the Air: How has the extreme disruption of the pandemic revolutionized your process? How have you changed the way you conceive of/produce/present/document your work? As the push continues to return to “normal,” have the past two years been a portal for change…or are you back where you started…or worse off?

Questions can be directed to Practice/Production Co-Chairs and Cason Murphy (Iowa State University) and Chloe Whiting Stevenson (Independent Scholar) at practice_production@matc.us