2020 Conference / Conferencia 2020

Crossing Borders, Pt 3: On the (Digital) Threshold
—
Atravesando Fronteras,
parte 3: En el umbral (digital)

Amissa Miller

There is power in the gaze. But what burdens of hypervisibility – being overseen – do
we place on Black
audience members in moments of explicitly racialized performance? This paper weaves
my experience as a Black
theatre artist, educator, and audience member attending a performance of Jackie
Sibblies Drury’s
FAIRVIEW with the theoretical frameworks of Lewis Gordon, bell hooks, Simone Browne,
Christina Sharpe, and
other Black scholars to address the permeability of the hypervisible/invisible line
in the experiences of
Black audiences, with a particular focus on performances that engage with what
Jonathan Markovitz names
“racial spectacle.” I argue that this and other moments of racial
spectacle in the theatre
center the viewing experiences and racial awareness of white audiences, rather than
empowering Black
spectatorship. When this process is imposed upon Black audiences, we objectify and
further alienate those
who may already feel implicitly hyper/invisible in theatre spaces. This paper
illuminates the impact of
these moments and imagines how we as a field might create, contextualize, and
resource work that centers the
Black gaze when choosing to offer to our audiences the racial spectacular.

Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Eréndira Itzel Santiago Llamas

Virtual is a word that designates something that only exists apparently and that is
not real, or that does
not happen in the real world. It is also a word that makes me think about the way
dramaturgy has been
developed in Mexico City. Most of the people that are named dramaturgs nowadays,
here in Mexico, learned
about dramaturgy through texts, videos, or interviews. And in the best of scenarios
we have learned about
the work after getting in touch with a professional abroad, and after that,
practicing it. Therefore, in the
beginning, dramaturgy was taught and learned in Mexico virtually.

Kristin Johnsen-Neshati and Nicholas M. Horner

This year, 1,001 PLAYS forged its first international exchange of student plays,
culminating in two evenings
of staged readings and live-chat discussions with their counterparts and distant
audiences (the first in
Fairfax, VA, USA, and the second in Florianópolis, SC, Brazil). This year’s
theme was TOMORROW, and
our playwrights submitted short works engaging this idea. What are the surprises,
challenges, and rewards of
working across cultures, borders, and languages in student-centered collaboration?
What steps were
remarkably hard, or surprisingly easy? What does it mean to value process over
product cross-culturally?
What did we learn from our students and global academic partner? What insights will
we carry forward next
year?

Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Sarah Lee Chic

Let’s be real: Dramaturgy needs to be utilized by all theatre artists, but how do
designers use it? How do we
research light and sound? How does it help for contemporary plays? How are designers
dramaturgical research
different than the dramaturgs? And how do we work with dramaturgs? Additional
discussion includes
international work & help an audience member understand the play even if the
language in the script is
not a language they are fluent.

Shadow D Zimmerman

In lieu of my deeply materialist reading of Jack Kerouac’s The Beat Generation
(1957), I hope to use
this opportunity to reconsider my object of study in a manner deemed topically
necessary by the forced
distance of our current pandemic: engaging Michael Chemers’ definition of the
dramaturg as one who
“[transforms] that inert script into a living piece of theater” (3), I
look to interrogate the
intersections between dramatic research and literary studies dramaturgically. How do
we make the manuscript
a “living piece of theatre”? Too often, these pieces of our theatrical
past (and potential
present) are inaccessible, behind glass or in climate-controlled storage. My
original plans for accessing
this Kerouac manuscript would have proven difficult, but COVID-19 has now made them
impossible. As one with
a deep interest in the performatic nature of historical manuscripts — the ways in
which the physical,
embodied acts of reading meant something semiotically to the reader — I will
interview materialist
scholar(s) at UW and reprographic archivists at the Rose Library to explore any
possibility of
(re)presenting manuscripts as manipulative objects for the masses, to make
suggestions for the treatment of
these artifacts as living, interactive documents through reproductive (or other)
methods.

Claire F. Martin

During the first week of quarantine, I composed an original two-part stage adaptation
of Leo Tolstoy’s
WAR AND PEACE for a repertory company of 14 actors (7W, 7M). It was an unplanned
endeavor, fueled by the
timely thematic resonances I detected in the novel, particularly the endurance of
communities that are
forged in love (i.e. families, friendships, teams, etc). The twofold task I set for
myself as a
playwright/dramaturg was to update Tolstoy’s narrative for a twenty-first
century American audience
while maximizing the dramatic potential of theater as the medium for that narrative.

Last week, a group of actors joined me in a full-cast online reading of my two plays.
After each reading, a
colleague facilitated a ~45-minute talkback via Liz Lerman’s “Critical
Response” model.
These two discussions yielded such provocative questions and insights that I
extended the process into an
ongoing virtual playwriting workshop. Now, in collaboration with the three actors
who read for the leading
trio in our April 7-9 sessions, I am developing my W+P adaptation through a series
of online sessions that
combine dramaturgical discussion of content and cultural relevance with new-play
scene work.

What sets these workshops apart is the necessity of the digital platform to make them
possible. I live in
Portland, OR. My actors live in San Diego, NYC, and Miami. All three of them
directly inspired my
reimagining of Tolstoy’s central trio, but in ordinary times, I probably would have
had to settle for
Skyping *one* of them into an in-person workshop with second- choice performers.
However, because this
project unfolded during the pandemic, bringing all my top-pick actors together
electronically was not an
artistic compromise but rather just a function of the workshop format itself. We are
now deep into this
virtual development work and my actor-dramaturgs are revolutionizing the way I
engage with Tolstoy’s source
material. They are responsible for so much new material, so many new moments of
complexity and nuance, and
so much more clarity in the dramatic storytelling. Quarantine has made geography a
secondary obstacle to
uniting my theater “dream team.” Perhaps that can be seen as one of the pandemic’s
artistic upsides.

Dr. Janna Segal

In collaboration with Diana Grisanti and Steve Moulds, the Co-Artistic Directors of
Theatre [502], the senior
Theatre Arts majors at the University of Louisville embarked upon a journey at the
start of the Spring 2020
semester to devise a post-apocalyptic performance piece set in a museum in America.
Within a few short
months, the fictional world we were collectively creating in a classroom became our
reality as the pandemic
hit and we were required to shift our devised project to the digital realm. As the
dramaturg for the
project, I served as the curator of what became The Museum of the American
Apocalypse. What was to be an
on-campus performance shifted to an online stage reading of an experiential
performance piece set in 2076,
50 years after the imagined end of the America we currently know. This paper traces
the innovative
approaches undertaken to dramaturg the end of times before and during what feels
like the end of times.
Unpacking how a collaborative process initially shaped by the physical constraints
of a classroom adapted to
the amorphous terrain of the online world during the pandemic will reveal the ways
in which we might cross
digital thresholds in the future.

Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Patrick Myers

Members of the Alliance Theatre Education Team will share lessons learned, strategies
that worked, and
challenges that were raised through the wide range of virtual programs they have
launched since the
beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, including streaming performances, virtual spring
break camp, online
classes, and more. Participants will be able to ask specific questions of the team,
and explore the ways
their findings can apply to other programs nationally.

Asynchronous Content Coming Soon + Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Elvira Dimitrova Popova

Hablar del trabajo de dramaturgista en Monterrey, México, es hablar de un
proceso de
profesionalización del trabajo teatral; de formación, de
enseñanza. El estudio de caso
se refiere a dos puestas en escena de las que fui dramaturgista durante 2019 y las
experiencias de este modo
de producción y trabajo. Una obra de autor mexicano y la otra, de autora
inglesa. Una – con un
equipo numeroso de 10 actores, la otra – de un equipo íntimo de solo
dos actrices.
¿Qué aportación tuvo el trabajo como dramaturgista para la vida
escénica de
estas dos obras?

Diane Brewer

In response to the LMDA call for Dramaturging the Phoenix, CoViDEO ViSiONS assembles
people with strong visions about the institutions that will emerge from the ashes of
COVID-19. The project takes a cue from Jill Bolte Taylor—a trained
neurobiologist—who purposefully managed her recovery after a stroke severed
the connection between the left and right hemispheres of her brain. Resisting the
temptation to settle into the blissfully isolated innocence of her right hemisphere,
she realized she could not reconnect to society without her more practical and
stubbornly logical left hemisphere. Through intensive work, she sent the circuits of
her left hemisphere through a sieve, trying to consciously choose the practicalities
she would allow to merge with her idealism. In this video, we ask participants to
consider four circumstances: an experience in the theatre that they’d love to
relive, their visions for a theatre they could build from that experience, an
experience in the theatre that made them think they should pursue something else,
and an opportunity to reinvent that experience to make it better. Their visions
pursue the ideal but leave room for the real. They do not offer a uniform consensus.
Rather, they delve into the energy of diverse perspectives and encourage us all to
envision dynamically inclusive and equitable institutions.

Dramaturgical Coordinator: Diane Brewer is Professor of Theatre History and Criticism
at the University of Evansville, where she also dramaturgs and directs. With several
other faculty members, she meets regularly with the University of Evansville Theatre
Artists of Color. She is a proud member of LMDA.

Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Phaedra Michelle Scott

Vichet Chum

Finn Lefevre

Christopher Smith

Amy Attaway

Rochelle Torres

Trey Gray

Remy Sisk

Lori Wolter Hudson and David Hudson

Stephen Buescher

Sarah Johnson

Outpost Repertory Theatre’s 2020 production of Grounded exposed the
audiences of West Texas to
solo performance with a specific outreach to veteran communities using the online
platform of the charity
organization Vet Tix. This presentation will explore my work as dramaturg to engage
the local veteran
community by donating tickets to Vet Tix. Lubbock‘s Outpost Repertory Theatre
is in its second season
as the first professional equity house in the Llano Estacado region of West Texas
with the closest Equity
house being 5 hours away by car. This presentation will also discuss the
establishment of a professional
theatre in such a remote area, the model of partnership with Texas Tech University
and outreach to
longstanding community theatre organizations. George Brant’s exploration of
drone pilots exemplifies
Outpost Repertory Theatre’s commitment to expanding the style, content, and
modalities of theatre
available to our proudly arts-friendly community. I will explore tactics for
building an audience with
specific community outreach goals in mind using digital and analog tools.

Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Deanie Vallone

In this round table, we aim to start a conversation about what new play development
and producing looks like
during and after a pandemic. While this group is by no means comprehensive of the
variety of projects and
conversations on the subject, we’re spotlighting some of the institutional artists
currently working on
dramaturgically-driven, digitally-focused new play programming that has been shaped
by the pandemic. What
does new play development and producing look like during and after COVID-19? What
challenges and
opportunities have we found? What dreams do we have for the future of new plays and
dramaturgy? This round
table will feature AP Andrews (Seven Devils New Play Foundry), Hayley Finn
(Playwrights Center), and Lily
Wolff (Alley Theatre), and will be facilitated by Deanie Vallone (Milwaukee
Repertory Theater).

Moderated by Jacqueline Goldfinger

Most of us love working in theater, but the reality is that jobs can be hard to come
by. However, there is a
wide range of businesses that need your know-how to thrive! This video conversation
is meant to kick off a
larger discussion of how dramaturgs can find work outside of the theater industry.
On June 10, Goldfinger
will post a video with interviews with dramaturgs who have found jobs outside of
theater that use their
dramaturgical skills; we’ll cover how they found the jobs, what the jobs are, how to
frame your skill set,
and more. Watch the video. Then during the Conference, we will have a live Q&A
panel where you can ask
questions and learn more!

Live Q & A at Discussion Groups

Hosted by Brenda Muñoz

A friendly encounter with some Mexican Dramaturgs to hear about their lives, careers,
and current projects.

Following the classic Hot Topics format, each participant will get exactly five
minutes to answer the
questions:
who are they? and what are they
doing?

After that, we’ll all meet together for coffee to discuss how dramaturgy lives
and breathes in Mexico.

Celise Kalke, Josephine Kearns, Hank Kimmel, Addae Afura Moon, Amrita Ramanan, Dr.
Angela Farr Schiller and Pheadra Michelle Scott

Moderated by Amber Bradshaw

This 55 minute panel event was created for the 2020 Crossing Borders 3 Literary
Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas conference, moderated by Amber Bradshaw of
Working Title Playwrights in Atlanta, Georgia. Re-focusing New Play Dramaturgy
for the Future is a roundtable discussion between new play dramaturgs from
across the country. Together we will explore how to re-focus new play dramaturgy now
and post Covid-19. Advice, wisdom and guidance will be offered to all of
our artists during this challenging time.

Lojo Simon

Gabriela Román, César Enríquez, Luis Santillán y Camila
Villegas

Hosted by Brenda Muñoz

Sponsored by American Theatre Archive Project

Cuatro dramaturgos mexicanos comparten y discuten de qué manera el proceso de
dramaturgismo por el que
atravesaron en Nueva York el marco del programa THE LARK US – Mexico EXCHANGE
(apoyado por el FONCA y The
Lark Play Development Center) fue determinante durante la traducción de cada
una de sus obras y para
la presentación de las lecturas dramatizadas de:

• Cósmica – Gabriela Román
• La Prietty Guoman – César Enríquez
• Autopsia de un copo de nieve – Luis Santillán
• Jacinto y Nicolasa – Camila Villegas

Four Mexican playwrights share their experience and the dramaturgical process to
translate their plays
from Spanish to English at The Lark
Mexico – US Exchange
2019.

Fiona Graham, Zainabu Jallo, Adam Lenson, Jonathan Meth, Sarah Sigal, Hannah
Slattne, and Catherine Young

Using four case studies from work happening across the globe, artists and dramaturgs
discuss the artistic
implications and practical challenges of reaching across borders to create and share
work. Chaired by
Jonathan Meth of The Fence
in collaboration with The
Dramaturgs’ Network.

• Choreographer Catherine Young and dramaturg Hanna Slattne share the challenges
  of developing
  Floating On A Dead Sea, about Palestine, in times of Covid-19.
  Contemplating vantage points
  across borders, confinement and physical presence in occupied territories.
• Writer Sarah Sigal and director/dramaturg Adam Lenson discuss workshopping
  Sarah’s play
  Stills with performer Debbie Chazen, a one-woman show about women, Jews
  and bootlegging during
  Prohibition. Sarah and Adam transformed their working process to create a
  digital performance across the
  UK and the US due to CV-19.
• Over eleven years the British dramaturg Fiona Graham has collaborated with New
  Zealand director Stuart
  Young and Hilary Halba at Otago University working with Talking House Theatre
  Company. This case study
  introduces the dramaturgical development processes in three verbatim theatre
  projects, attempting to
  cross borders of content, form, methodology and geography.
• The aging diaspora is at the centre of the play We Take Care of Our Own
  (2019). Three
  first-generation immigrants ruminate on the interruption of intergenerational
  practices by the choice to
  migrate to Europe, Writer Zainabu Jallo will highlight how four distinct
  locations and production teams
  enriched the writing process for this play.

Taylor Jane Cooper, Karen Jean Martinson, and Jane Shiermeyer

Tiny Humans, Big Wonder will present the findings of two theatre-for-the-very-young
residencies, designed to
work with young people as dramaturgs. Using nature as metaphor to explore how we can
create a better world
together, these very young dramaturgs were immersed in a fantastic theatrical world
designed with them, just
for them. In this imaginative nature-space, they were empowered to enact their own
storylines in partnership
with adult facilitators. These residencies were a first step towards creating a
dramaturgical theory for
approaching theatre for the very young to create safe, inclusive spaces; wonder; and
a pathway for
collaborative spectatorship. Our panel will begin with a dramaturgical overview of
the work and process,
followed by a sharing of the performance created from the two theatre-for-the-very
young residencies, and
culminating in the discussion of our still-emergent dramaturgical methodology and a
consideration of the
theoretical implications of this work. There is still so much we do not know about
the world around us and
theatre for the very young. Yet we believe that by empowering very young people as
dramaturgs, we can create
theatre that allows them the freedom to create, explore, and discover the world
around them.

Función de Gala: Homenaje Centenario Amalia
Hernández
Dirección: Salvador López López

Esta función de gala es parte del programa “Contigo en la
Distancia” de la Secretaría de Cultura y el Instituto Nacional de
Bellas Artes y Literatura.

SINOPSIS

Amalia Hernández Navarro nació el 19 de septiembre de 1917.
Incursionó en la danza desde muy temprana edad. Fue una mujer incansable,
visionaria cultural que tuvo el enorme mérito de llevar el baile popular
mexicano y gran parte de nuestra historia a los más grandes y prestigiosos
escenarios.

Esta gala, organizada por el Ballet Folklórico de México, cerró
con broche de oro los festejos del centenario de su fundadora y contó con
invitados de lujo como Elisa Carrillo, la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional y la
Compañía Nacional de Danza

Función del 17 de septiembre 2017.

#ContigoEnLaDistancia #INBAL #QuedateEnCasa

Gala show: Amalia Hernández Centennial Tribute
Directed
by: Salvador López López

This show is part of the program “Contigo en la Distancia” from
Secretaría de Cultura (Mexico) and Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y
Literatura (Mexico).

SYNOPSIS

Amalia Hernández Navarro was born on September 19th, 1917. She dabbled in
dance at a very young age. She was a tireless woman, cultural visionary who had the
enormous merit of taking Mexican popular dance, and a great part of our history, to
the biggest and most prestigious stages.

This gala, organized by Ballet Folklórico de México, closed with a
flourish the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of its founder and had luxury
guests like Elisa Carrillo, the National Symphonic Orchestra and the National Dance
Company.

September 17th, 2017 show.

#ContigoEnLaDistancia #INBAL #StayHome