Event Title
The Death of Theatre
Location
Session I, Virtual Room 3: Musical Theater
Start Date
30-9-2020 2:00 PM
End Date
30-9-2020 2:55 PM
Participation Type
Poster
Description
Social distance made the lights on Broadway go dark this year. While there are lots of reasons to talk about the ongoing influence of COVID-19 as “unprecedented,” producers and playwrights have long confronted dramatic exaggerations about live theatre’s possible curtain call. This interdisciplinary panel uncovers some examples in performance history and theory to help us ask what comes next for us on stage. Emily Bryan (Languages and Literatures) will describe how 17th century plagues closed performance venues across England. Charles Gillespie (Catholic Studies) will look at the French theorist Antonin Artaud’s “cruel” and complex praise for a contagious and risky theatricality. Rachel Bauer (Media and Theatre Arts) will introduce how Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project prompted a resurgence of theatre in the United States during and after the Great Depression. In conversation, panelists will connect insights from their research to new ways our shows will go on. Does our own time of plague and economic turmoil signal the death of theatre… or an invitation to imagine new theatrical resurrections?
The Death of Theatre
Session I, Virtual Room 3: Musical Theater
Social distance made the lights on Broadway go dark this year. While there are lots of reasons to talk about the ongoing influence of COVID-19 as “unprecedented,” producers and playwrights have long confronted dramatic exaggerations about live theatre’s possible curtain call. This interdisciplinary panel uncovers some examples in performance history and theory to help us ask what comes next for us on stage. Emily Bryan (Languages and Literatures) will describe how 17th century plagues closed performance venues across England. Charles Gillespie (Catholic Studies) will look at the French theorist Antonin Artaud’s “cruel” and complex praise for a contagious and risky theatricality. Rachel Bauer (Media and Theatre Arts) will introduce how Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project prompted a resurgence of theatre in the United States during and after the Great Depression. In conversation, panelists will connect insights from their research to new ways our shows will go on. Does our own time of plague and economic turmoil signal the death of theatre… or an invitation to imagine new theatrical resurrections?
