Call for Papers: “‘Game Over!’: US Drama and Theater and the End(s) of an American Idea(l)”

6th International Conference on American Drama and Theater | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) | June 1-3, 2022

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2021

The Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, co-sponsored by the Spanish universities of Cádiz and Sevilla and the University of Lorraine in France, and working in partnership with the American Theater and Drama Society (ATDS), the International Susan Glaspell Society, the Arthur Miller Society, the Eugene O’Neill Society, and RADAC (Recherches sur les arts dramatiques anglophones contemporains), is announcing a call for papers for the conference “‘Game Over!’: U.S. Drama and Theater and the End(s) of an American Idea(l) ” to be held from 1 to 3 June 2022 at La Cristalera , located in the accessible northern mountains of Madrid.

This 6th International Conference on American Drama and Theater will be dedicated to the study of ends and new beginnings, games and gaming, players and playing, especially during, but not limited to, the current coronavirus pandemic. The five previous conferences were held in Málaga, 2000; Málaga, 2004; Cádiz, 2009; Sevilla, 2012; and Nancy (France), 2018; topics included violence, plays and players, politics, romance and migrations in and of the theater.

To submit a paper, a roundtable discussion, or an already organized panel, please send abstracts of 300 words and a brief CV to gameoverconferencemadrid@gmail.com by December 1, 2021 (extended deadline) .

Please check the conference website for updated information on conference venue, accommodation, travel and registration: https://sites.google.com/view/americandramaconfmadrid2022

The idea of a game also suggests play (in all of it semantic variants) and, as such, expe rim entin g, discovering, trying out new things. How, exactly, is U.S. theater and drama r enewing itself, especially at a time when theater culture has been put on hold due to the pandemic, and theaters and companies from Broadway to Main Street are strugglin g ju st to survive? Video games have evolved from the telos of Pong to the multiple endings of online games, where technological advances are only partly responsible f or the renewed interest from one generation of players to the next. Is innovati on a thing of the past on the U.S. stage, despite its avant-gardist fascination with mult imedia? Is the present pandemic forcing theater in America – from Zoomed stage readings, through plays written online in collaboration, to holding masterclasses in playw riting and actin g online – to reinvent itself, to become more immersive or at least participator y in something different from improv? Could the fourth wall definitively fall? Historically, American playwrights have taught us the enduring nature of theater and drama , especially at times when the nation has hit the “ pause ” button. But c an the game simply resume where we had left it suspended? The shuttered English theater surely survived its bout s with the plague, popish plots, and a civil war, but what emerged onsta ge afterwards had little in common with the drama that preceded it. Must the U.S. theater e xplore new avenues, or should it rely on past modes of expression to insure its longevity? Is the fragile artistic market welcoming of new adventures and willing to give ne w playwrights and theater artists the space wherein to truly play ? Did it e ver in the past, or is nostalgia for a golden age merely revisionist in nature? All of these questi ons are closely linked to the idea(l) that America has somehow been endowed with m any “ends,” but are they limited in number and, if so, how many “ liv es ” in the proverbial video game has the nation already used up, and how many still remain? Answe rs to these and other questions await us in Miraflores de la Sierra, Madrid, in June 2022. Individual papers or collective panels are invited to respond directly to them, or to suggest other avenues of discussion and debate linked to the study of games and gami ng, players and playing, ends and new beginnings in U.S. drama and theat er from any watershed period in the nation’s history. To submit a paper, a roundtable discussion, or an already organized panel, please send abstracts of 300 words and a brief CV to gameove rconferencemadrid@gmail.com by 1december 2021 (extended deadline) . Please check the conferen ce website for updated information on co nference venue , accommodation , travel and registration (https://sites.google.com/view/americandramaconfmadrid2022 ) Organizing com mittee John S. Bak, Université de Lorraine Alfonso Ceballos Muñoz, Universidad de Cádiz Ramón Espejo R omero, Universidad de Sevilla Josefa Fernández Martin, Universidad de Se villa Noeli a Hernando Real, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid