Theatre and Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: TaPRA 2025 Conference to be hosted at Warwick
We're delighted to announce that the annual Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) conference will be hosted by Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick between 27 and 29 August 2025. The conference will mark both the 20th birthday of TaPRA and the 50th anniversary of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick. Our conference keynotes, plenary panels, artistic activity, conference dinner and programmed events will speak to the themes of milestones and markers, focussing on celebrations, festivities, spectacle and joy. We'll look forward to welcoming you to Warwick next year!
To keep up to date with the conference plans, please visit our dedicated TaPRA pages here.
Addressing Food System Issues through Drama and the Creative Arts': A Webinar
Registration now open for the second
Food Global Research Priorities webinar!
University of Warwick
Coventry, UK
Wednesday 16th December @ 8pm GMT
'Addressing Food System Issues Through Drama and the Creative Arts'
The Food GRP’s second webinar, focusing on the Food Cultures theme, features Mary Swander, Distinguished Emerita Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. Swander is the Artistic Director of Swander Woman Productions, a theatre company that performs dramas about food and farming, and Executive Director of AgArts, a non-profit designed to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts.
In 'Addressing Food System Issues through Drama and the Creative Arts', Swander will highlight her success touring agricultural dramas throughout the United States, raising awareness about issues in the food system. She will discuss her plays Farmscape, Vang, and Map of my Kingdom that confront agricultural topics from livestock confinement to immigration to farmland succession. Currently, she is continuing her creative exploration of agriculture through a podcast called AgArts from Horse and Buggy Land, filled with storytelling about the Amish and interviews with farmers and others making artistic imprints on the rural environment.
The webinar will take place on Wednesday 16 December 2020, 20:00-21:00hrs via MS Teams and will be followed by a Q&A session. To register, please go to: https://warwick.ac.uk/research/priorities/food/webinars/maryswanderreg
Bobby Smith has edited a section in the latest issue of Research in Drama Education (RiDE) on theatre and development
Bobby Smith has edited a section in the latest issue of RiDE (vol. 25, No. 4).
Researchers and practitioners were invited to reflect on a range of issues and approaches. Their responses are varied and diverse, ranging from a consideration of Tiv Kwagh-hir performance in Nigeria as an alternative to dominant modes of practice, a project in Bangladesh exploring the climate crisis through Pot Gan, and reflections on issues of equality, global partnerships and networks. The section also includes a contribution from another member of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick, Dr Susan Haedicke. Her article examines how the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in the US is using theatre in popular education to support their wider work, which aims to improve conditions for migrant farmworkers and change agricultural practices.
Alison Porter Receives Support from the Space Theatre, Docklands
Unsettled shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award
We are thrilled to announce that JC Niala's play Unsettled has been shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award for Black British playwrights. The play is published in Contemporary Plays by African Women and JC is a core member of the African Women Playwrights Network. Find out more about the award here: https://www.alfredfagonaward.co.uk/awards/2020-award/