Special Issue: Staging Crisis in Contemporary North American Theatre and Performance, December 2022

Deadline: 1 August 2022

Special Guest Editor:

Felicia Hardison Londré (University of Missouri Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emerita of Theatre)

Guest Editors:

Diana Benea (University of Bucharest), diana.benea@lls.unibuc.ro

Ludmila Martanovschi (Ovidius University, Constanța), martanovschi.ludmila@univ-ovidius.ro

In the last two decades, the field of global theatre production has witnessed the consolidation of an increasingly diverse and nuanced repertoire of representations of crisis. Engaging in dialogue with the growing body of research dedicated to this phenomenon (Delgado and Svich, 2002; Jeffers, 2012; Angelaki, 2017; Fernández-Caparrós and Brígido-Corachán, 2017; Balestrini et al., 2020; Wallace et al., 2022), our thematic issue aims to examine the ethical, political, and aesthetic stakes of responding to conditions of crisis in contemporary North American theatre and performance. Bearing in mind the Greek origins of the term, referring to the preference of one alternative over another, and its various acceptations as the concept has developed in time, particularly the productive ambivalence between crisis as a moment of rupture and crisis as an ongoing condition, we invite submissions that investigate the staging of contemporary as well as historical phenomena that have been interpreted as crises since the American Revolutionary War. Contributions could refer to theatrical explorations of climate change, the COVID-19   pandemic, the refugee and migrant crises, wars, riots, protests etc.

Some of the central questions to be addressed in our issue are: How does theatre participate in a broad array of current crisis formations? How can theatre represent states of continued insecurity, precariousness, and vulnerability in a way that makes full use of the medium’s strengths while acknowledging its inherent spatial and temporal limitations? What are the broader ecologies underlying the development, production, and reception of theatres of crisis? If new times need new forms of theatre, then what are the representational modes and aesthetic strategies employed in the staging of crisis? How are such representations shaped by specific theatrical formats (scripted plays, devised theatre, documentary theatre, community-based practices, dance theatre, music theatre etc.)? How has theatre functioned in post-crisis contexts (as a space of critical reflection / mechanism for survival / arena for public debate / site of individual and collective empowerment) and how has it contributed to the challenging task of envisioning and constructing post-crisis futures?

Thus, this issue aims to map the wide array of practices, themes, and aesthetics employed by canonical as well as lesser-known theatre artists and companies in their multi-faceted responses to crisis, through interdisciplinary lenses drawing from cultural studies, theatre and performance studies, ethnic studies, sociology, political philosophy, and other relevant fields.

Submissions can relate, but are not limited, to the following topics:

• staging crisis through specific gendered, ethno-racial, or class lenses
• crisis as catalyst / inhibitor of social change
• responding to crisis with the aid of new technologies
• coping with trauma / loss / grief resulting from crises
• crises and North American youth cultures
• crises and the North American city
• crises and their (de)colonizing potential
• crises and global, national, and community solidarities / divisions
• adapting / rewriting / reimagining the classics in the context of current crises
• dramaturgies of crisis, collective action, and activism
• states of emergency and the political instrumentalization of crisis

Articles will be subject to a blind peer reviewing process and must not be under consideration for any other publications.

Submission guidelines: The first page of the manuscript should carry the title, names of authors, institutional affiliations, a brief but detailed 200-word abstract, and 7-10 key words/ concepts. The article must be accompanied by a 200-word biographical note, and must conform to MLA referencing (9th Edition). Please see further information and instructions on the journal’s Submission Guidelines at: http://abcjournal.eu/.

The word-limit for articles is 8500 words, including notes and references.

Please email enquiries and submissions marked “Staging Crisis in Contemporary North American Theatre and Performance” to Dr Diana Benea at diana.benea@lls.unibuc.ro and Dr Ludmila Martanovschi at martanovschi.ludmila@univ-ovidius.ro, and copied to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro, before the closing date.