Theatre Symposium Conference

About Theatre Symposium 33

Theatre Symposium 33: Theatre and Community brings together theatre artists, educators, and scholars for a dynamic exchange of ideas, creative work, and scholarly dialogue.

Hosted by the Department of Theatre and Communication Studies at Clark Atlanta University, the symposium will take place May 29–31, 2026, in a hybrid format, welcoming both in-person and virtual participants.

This year’s theme, Theatre and Community, invites participants to explore how theatre engages with the communities it serves, creates spaces for connection, and reimagines what community can mean in contemporary performance and practice.

Through script readings, presentations, and collaborative discussions, Theatre Symposium 33 provides a space for practitioners and scholars to share their work, connect with colleagues, and contribute to ongoing conversations in the field.

Location

The 2026 symposium will be hosted by Clark Atlanta University, a distinguished research-intensive Historically Black University located in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia. As a hub of culture, history, and artistic innovation, Atlanta provides a vibrant setting for this year’s exploration of theatre and community.

Google Maps

Registration Options

Member Registration

In-Person – $200
Includes full access to all symposium sessions, script readings, and panel discussions, along with two provided meals. This option also offers in-person networking and collaborative opportunities.

Virtual – $125
Provides access to live-streamed symposium sessions, including presentations, panels, and discussions.

Non-Member Registration

In-Person – $300
Includes full access to all symposium sessions, script readings, and panel discussions, along with two provided meals, plus opportunities to engage with fellow participants in person.

Virtual – $200
Provides access to live-streamed symposium sessions and virtual engagement opportunities.

Member Discount Codes

SETC members may access discounted registration by selecting “Special Passcode” on the first page of the ticket system by entering one of the following:

In-Person: TS33MEMBER26
Virtual: TS33VIRTUAL26

Discount codes are offered on an honor system. SETC reserves the right to review and adjust registrations if codes are applied incorrectly. Discounts may not be combined with other offers.

If you have questions about your membership status, please contact info@setc.org.

Meals and Refreshments

All in-person registrations include meals and refreshments during Symposium programming:

Friday, May 29: Opening Night dinner and refreshments
Saturday, May 30: Lunch and coffee breaks
Sunday, May 31: Snacks and refreshments

Keynote Speaker

Noe Montez, Ph.D (Associate Professor of Theatre Studies, Emory University) is a scholar of performance and culture in the contemporary Americas. He is the author of Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina and numerous articles and essays. He is also editor and translator of Nothing to Do with Love and Other Plays by Santiago Loza, the Routledge Companion to Latinx Theatre and Performance (Co-Edited with Olga Sanchez Saltveit) and Critical University Studies and Performance (co-edited with Ariel Nereson). Currently, he is writing a book about Black activism in contemporary U.S. sports.

Dr. Montez serves as the Vice President for Research for the American Society for Theatre Research and has previously served as the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Vice President for Professional Development, Editor of the journal Theatre Topics and as the director of the Consortium of PhD Programs in Theatre and Performance Studies. In January, he will begin as Series Editor for the University of Iowa Press’s Studies in Theatre History and Culture series.

Noe is also a director and dramaturg, having served as resident dramaturg for The Cleveland Play House and as a director and dramaturg at many other theatres across the United States.

Noe Montez, Ph.D. Keynote Address:

Building Community through the Archive

Many of us think of archival work as isolated work. We envision sitting alone at a research table in a library, sifting through files, photographs and other ephemera in hopes of finding an insight that might inspire a new piece of scholarship. But what happens when we imagine the archive as something that must be built, a space where we can make community and strengthen the ties that unite us. This paper draws from research supported by the Latinx Theatre Commons Latinx Archives initiative to explore how theatre archives can be curated and shaped to highlight institutional histories that have previously been ignored. I also envision strategies that scholars can take on to support community archive initiatives in order to make spaces for history outside of research libraries and other traditional archival spaces.

Schedule

THEATRE SYMPOSIUM 33
Theatre and Community

Department of Theatre and Communication Studies
Clark Atlanta University
Atlanta, GA

May 29 - 31, 2026

All on-site activities held in the
Robert W. Woodruff Library, Lower Level
(Entrance on Beckwith Street)

Friday, May 29

Time	Event	Location
3:00 pm - 4:20 pm	Check-in
3:00 pm - 4:20 pm	Session 1 (online): The Rearticulation of Theatre and Community Panel Chair: Andrew Gibb, Texas Tech University Sarah Nesselroade Hopson, Bowling Green State University An Inherited Destiny: How Historical Reenactment in Dayton, Tennessee Amplifies the Voices of a Misrepresented Local Community Rahul Koonathara, University of Connecticut Theatre and Community in South Indian Shadow Puppetry Traditions Mariagrazia La Fauci, Trinacria Theatre Company It Takes a Village: The Role of International Theatre-Making in Revitalizing a Small Rural Sicilian Community
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm	Welcomes Eve Graves, on behalf of the Department of Theatre and Communication Studies J.K. Curry, on behalf of the Editorial Team of Theatre Symposium 33
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm	Keynote Address Dr. Noe Montez, Emory University Building Community through the Archive
6:00 pm -	Dinner (included with registration)	Amalfi Cucina & Mercato Downtown located at 17 Andrew Young International Blvd. NE, 2nd floor, Atlanta, GA 30303

Saturday, May 30

Time	Event	Location
8:30 am - 9:00 am	Coffee and light fare provided
9:00 am - 10:20 am	Session 2 (in person): The Staging of Theatre and Community Panel Chair: Eve Graves, Clark Atlanta University Austin Bomkamp, Louisiana State University Illuminated Garments: Interdisciplinary Design and Community Suellen Coelho, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (co-author Christopher Kaminstein, Goat in the Road Productions) Embodied Translation: Sensory Methodologies in Immigrant Theatre Design Ryan McKinney, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY Creating Community in The Music Man at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Deana Nichols, Knox College Engaging Teenaged Communities Across Scotland: The National Theatre of Scotland’s Transform Project	Conference Room
10:30 am - 11:50 am	Session 3 (online): The Limits of Theatre and Community Brandon Graves , Cincinnati Jazz Academy When Engagement Fails: Reimagining Theatre as Community Rather Than Strategy Christopher L. Jones, Bowling Green State University Making Theatre Dangerous Again: Moving Beyond the Myth of Community Building and Inclusion Erin Stoneking, The University of Alabama The Limits of Confederacy: Staging the Conditions of Liberatory Community in Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates Xinda Zhu, Independent Scholar Community Under Exclusion: Chinese Opera, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Decolonization of American Opera Studies	Media Resource Center
10:30 am - 11:50 am	Session 3 (in person): The Relationality of Theatre and Community Fallon Clark, Noogavision Theater & Performing Arts Company Care Is Collective: Theatre as a Community Care Model and Catalyst for Mental Wellness Justice Maxey, Independent Scholar Shaping Culture Through Relational Interconnectedness in TYA (Emergentheatre) Zackary Ross and Megan Burnett Practicing Community: Devised Theatre as Collective Inquiry in the Classroom and Beyond	Conference Room
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm	Lunch (included with registration)	Provided on site by Panera
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm	Tour of Atlanta University Center
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm	Session 4: The "Who?" of Theatre and Community Panel Chair: TBA Hazael Gomes, University of Georgia Bhar-rah-jugaad: A Collaborative Methodology Jashodhara Sen Pink-Collar Performers: Navigating the Invisible Labor of the Theatrical Community Lawrence D. Smith, University of Arkansas at Little Rock An Incomplete Biography of George W. Ferris	Conference Room
3:30 pm - 4:50 pm	Session 5 (online): The Building of Theatre and Community Panel Chair: TBA Sabrina E. Becker, Virginia Commonwealth University A Community of Nerds: Kitchen Table Theatre Sharon Green, Davidson College Building Intergenerational Community through Shared Arts Experiences Thom Miller, Syracuse University Drama Engagement as Community Care: Building Connection Among Military Caregivers Heidi L. Nees, Bowling Green State University Home(land)-Coming as Community-Building	Conference Room

Dinner on your own or with friend

Alliance Theatre’s Production of Basura: A New Musical
Curtain 7:30 pm; all attendees who have reserved tickets need to be on site by 7:00 pm

Sunday, May 31

Time	Event	Location
8:30 am - 9:00 am	Coffee and light fare provided
9:00 am - 10:20 am	Session 6: The Space of Theatre and Community Panel Chair: TBA Tom Fish (co-author Ebony Golden), Kennesaw State University Staging Mas: Trinidadian Medea and Rhoma Spencer’s Folk Dramaturgy Veronique MacRae, Stage and Spirit Embodied Healing: Theatre as Sacred Space for Addressing Generational Trauma in Community Devra Thomas, North Carolina Literary Review Page to Stage: Building Community Through Literary Adaptation in North Carolina	Conference Room
10:30 am - 11:30 am	Conference Response Keynote Speaker Noe Montez	Conference Room
11:30 am - 11:45 am	Closing Remark

Past Events & Publications

Did you miss an issue? Want to buy additional copies? Books may be purchased directly from the University of Alabama Press.

Past Issues of Theatre Symposium

Commedia dell’Arte Performance
Theatre in the Antebellum South
Voice of the Dramaturg
The Reemergence of the Theatre Building in the Renaissance
Drama as Rhetoric/Rhetoric as Drama
Crosscurrents in the Drama: East and West
Theatre and Violence
Theatre at the Margins: The Political, the Popular, the Personal, the Profane
Theatre and Politics in the Twentieth Century
Representations of Gender on the Nineteenth-Century American Stage
Constructions of Race in Southern Theatre: From Federalism to the Federal Theatre Project
Elizabethan Performances in North American Spaces
Theatre in Transit: Tours of the South
Theatre, War and Propaganda
Theatre and the Moral Order
Comedy Tonight!
Outdoor Drama
The Prop’s the Thing: Stage Properties Reconsidered
Theatre and Film
Gods and Groundlings: Historical Theatrical Audiences
Ritual, Religion, and Theatre
Broadway and Beyond: Commercial Theatre Considered
Theatre and Youth
Theatre and Space
Cross-cultural Dialogue on the Global Stage
In Other Habits: Theatrical Costume
Theatre and Embodiment
Theatre and Citizenship
Theatre and Race
Theatre and Politics
Theatre and the Popular
Material Performance and Performing Objects