Scott Magelssen

Theater-Historiography.org is saying goodbye

Greetings, Friends,

Nearly fourteen years ago, we launched theater-historiography.org as a site for your critical interventions into theatre and performance historiography–an online and community-driven continuation of the work in the co-edited collection after which the site was named. The idea came from LeAnn Fields, our wonderful editor at the University of Michigan Press. Through conversations with LeAnn and the team there, the site was also built as a space for breaking news, rich discussion, classroom resources, and the latest on publications in our field.

Since its launch in January of 2011, theater-historiography.org has showcased the work of over seventy contributors. In its heyday, the site featured new content monthly, enjoyed robust traffic, and was regularly a one-stop shop for colleagues planning courses or looking for a way to amp up a lesson plan. We are grateful to the many contributors who shared their thoughts, provocations, and teaching materials, vividly demonstrating that theatre historiography is, when all is said and done, a collaborative project.

Alas, the time has come to retire the website. The older generation WordPress sites are phased out and will no longer be supported by the University of Michigan Press and Libraries, who have generously hosted the content this long.  Theater-historiography.org will be taken down at the end of the 2024 calendar year, and the content will not be archived.

The good news is that the scholarly conversation continues in ways our website never imagined, through new online resources as well as podcasts and social media interfaces that saw a relative explosion in development and popularity in only a few short years after theater-historiography.org debuted. We encourage you to keep engaging in these ways.

And do take a moment to browse through the site to revisit exciting and sometimes provocative conversations, and maybe find a classroom activity or reading that is as relevant as ever!

All best wishes,

Henry and Scott
Editors

 

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CTR 168 (Fall 2016) now available!

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CTR 168 (Fall 2016) Theatre Criticism is now available at CTR Online and Project MUSE

It has been 27 years since CTR devoted an issue to the subject of critical practice in Canada. In the meantime, the field of theatre criticism has undergone considerable transformation, in large part due to the global erosion of print media and the unbridled growth of the Internet. This shift has had many consequences, from shrinking space devoted to arts coverage in mainstream media outlets, to the proliferation and diversification of critical voices online, to a widespread questioning of the role and relevance of expertise in critical discourse. CTR 168 Theatre Criticism, edited by Karen Fricker and Michelle MacArthur, takes stock of Canadian theatre criticism and charts the relationship of theatre studies to theatre criticism at this vital juncture.

Assembling an exciting array of voices from across the country, CTR 168 instigates lively and urgent debate on the uncertain future of theatre criticism. Artists speak back to their critics and outline their critical utopias, educators reflect on the importance and practice of teaching theatre criticism, and several contributors explore how innovative modes of criticism—from blogging, to anti-racist praxis, to interactive film screenings—might challenge the authority of traditional pundits and tastemakers and disperse their power to the masses.

In I Really, Really Mean Something: Ten Micro-Plays about Theatre, the featured script specially commissioned for this issue, Rosamund Small offers some criticisms of the Canadian theatre industry while exposing the different forms criticism can take. Small’s satirical and incisive script reflects a broader shift in the relationship between art and criticism, the boundaries of which are being increasingly blurred by a new generation using online platforms to create conversation and collaboration among different stakeholders—practitioners, reviewers, scholars, audiences, and those who straddle multiple categories.

The online slideshow illustrates this shift as well. Featuring excerpts from theFacebook Relay Interview, a project initiated by artist Erin Brubacher that connected 344 participants to discuss issues of equity and diversity in Canadian theatre, the CTR 168 slideshow demonstrates how social media can be used to generate dialogue, build community, and challenge traditional hierarchies structuring critical discourse.

Click here to view the full table of contents.

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CTR 167 (Summer 2016) Now Available

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NOW AVAILABLE AT CTR ONLINE  –  CTR 167, Summer 2016 “Funding”

Also available on Project MUSE

Can you put a price tag on art? How much is an artist worth? CTR 167 Funding, edited by Nicholas Hanson, follows the money, tracking the financial wellbeing of the Canadian performing arts network. From coast to coast to coast, our nation’s theatre artists are facing increasingly precarious living and working conditions. Nevertheless, artists and arts organizations are demonstrating imagination and innovation in the conception and implementation of new ways to pay the bills. In 2016, the Canada Council for the Arts will implement the most transformative changes in their history; this issue is perfectly timed to explore the unspoken realities about artistic labour, the complicated notions of accessibility, and the creative solutions for the future.

This issue critiques governmental policies and organizational structures, but never loses sight of the fact that arts funding isn’t an abstract topic—access to money (or lack thereof) impacts individual people in deeply personal ways. With dynamic contributions from a group of established and emerging voices, CTR 167 features lively conversations, insightful articles, and whimsical provocations. An eclectic range of topics includes an interrogation of Justin Trudeau’s promises, a program that offers free theatre tickets, and the impact of Vancouver’s real estate market. Financial literacy might seem like a subject reserved for mature adults, but this issue’s script—The Money Tree by Robert Watson—proves otherwise. Originally produced by Roseneath Theatre, the play has toured to hundreds of elementary schools, sparking playful ideas about money, greed, and responsibility.

The online slideshow documents some of the inventive methods used by artists and organizations to fund their projects despite challenging financial circumstances. Organized in three parts the slideshow focuses on creative approaches to performance venues, novel project-based fundraising techniques, and celebrates the artist-activists who’ve protested funding cutbacks and theatre closings across the nation.

Click here to view the full table of contents.

Join CTR email list!

Please sign up for important news relating to Canadian Theatre Review. You’ll receive emails with peeks inside new issues, Tables of Contents, Calls for Papers, editorial announcements, open access articles, and special offers. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking “Unsubscribe” in the footer of our emails. Sign up here – bit.ly/ctralerts

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Modern Drama 59:3 (Fall 2016) Now Available

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Modern Drama, 59:3, Fall 2016 is now available at MD Online and Project MUSE – Read the issue today!

Join MD email list!
Please sign up for important news relating to Modern Drama. You’ll receive emails with peeks inside new issues, Tables of Contents, Calls for Papers, editorial announcements, open access articles, and special offers. Sign up here – bit.ly/mdalerts

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Now Available on Project Muse

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Modern Drama, 59:2, Summer 2016, “Aging and the Life Course”

Also available online

This issue of Modern Drama brings together major scholars in the fields of age studies, theatre history, and performance studies to examine how theatre, as an embodied art that unfolds over time, can both model and challenge narratives, affects, and cultural understandings (and misunderstandings) about aging. Modern drama and gerontology echo each other most directly in their search for new structures that might accommodate the pluralism and specificity of the entire life course. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 12.3 per cent of the global population was aged 60 or over in 2015; by 2050, that figure is estimated to grow to 21.5 per cent. Each of the six new essays in this issue considers how theatre, as an art that grafts flesh to figures, helps us to imagine growing older, caring for an aging population, dementia, and “successful aging” in an era when more people will live longer than they ever have in human history.

Click here to view the full table of contents.

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Reviews of Sofer: Dark Matter: Invisibility in Drama, Theatre, and Performance

Andrew Sofer. Dark Matter: Invisibility in Drama, Theater, and Performance (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2013).

  • W.B. Worthen, Theatre Journal 66 (2014): 495-496. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Ariel Watson, Modern Drama 57 (2014): 445-447. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Fran Teague, Comparative Drama 49 (2015): 228-230. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Lawrence Manley, TDR 59 (2014): 186-87. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Dean Wilcox, Theatre Research International 40 (2015): 130-131. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Peter Womack, Theatre Survey 56 (2015): 111-113. Available online [may require subscriber login].

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Reviews of Fletcher: Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age

John Fletcher. Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.

  • Hank Willenbrink. “Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age.” Theatre Journal 67.1 (March, 2013). p. 412. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Jeanie C. Crain.”Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age.”  Journal of American Culture 38.3 (September, 2015). pp.308-309. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Peter Civetta. “Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age by John Fletcher, and: Sensational Devotion: Evangelical Performance in Twenty-First Century America by Jill Stevenson (review).” TDR 59.4 (Winter 2015) T228. pp. 194-197. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Deborah A. Dougherty.”Preaching to Convert: Evangelical Outreach and Performance Activism in a Secular Age by John Fletcher and Sensational Devotion: Evangelical Performance in Twenty-First Century America by Jill Stevenson.” Theatre Survey 56.3 (September, 2015). pp. 443-446. Available online [may require subscriber login].

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Reviews of Wiles and Dymkowski: Cambridge Companion to Theatre History

David Wiles and Christine Dymkowski, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

  • J. Fisher. “The Cambridge companion to theatre history, ed. by David Wiles and Christine Dymkowski.” Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. 51.3 (November, 2013). p.471. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Maggie B. Gale. “Wiles, David and Dymkowski, Christine. The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History.” New Theatre Quarterly 30.4 (November, 2014) 404-405. Available online [may require subscriber login]
  • Scott Magelssen. “The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History.” TDR 58.4/T224 (Winter 2014). Available online [may require subscriber login]

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Reviews of White: Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America

Ann Folino White. Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

  • Michael Schwartz.  “Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America by Ann Folino White (review).” Theatre Journal 67.4 (December, 2015). pp.758-59. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Todd Holmes. “Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America by Ann Folino White (review).” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 114.1 (Winter 2016). pp. 122-124. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • J. Chris Westgate. “Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America by Ann Folino White.” Journal Of American History 102.3 (December, 2015). pp.917-918. Available online [may require subscriber login].

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Reviews of Conquergood: Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis

Dwight Conquergood. Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis. Edited by E. Patrick Johnson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013.

  • Laurie Frederik. “Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood, edited by E. Patrick Johnson (review).” Theatre Journal 66.4 (December 2014) p. 344. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Renée Alexander Craft. “Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood, edited by E. Patrick Johnson (review).” TDR 59.1 (Spring 2015) (T225). Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Scott Irelan. “Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood, edited by E. Patrick Johnson (review).” Choice Reviews Dec 2013. Available online  [may require subscriber login].
  • Bryant Keith Alexander. “Books in Performance Studies: Reviews and Reflections (review essay).” Text and Performance Quarterly 34.4 (October, 2014). pp. 416-433. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Norman K. Denzin. “Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis by Dwight Conquergood, auth. and E. Patrick Johnson, ed. (review).” American Anthropologist 116.3 (September, 2014) pp. 676-677. Available online [may require subscriber login].
  • Hari Stephen Kumar. “Cultural Struggles: Performance, Ethnography, Praxis. Dwight Conquergood, (edited by E. Patrick Johnson).”Anthropology & Education Quarterly 45.4 (2014) pp.415-417. Available online [may require subscriber login].

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