TaPRA 2019: Full Schedule

Welcome to TaPRA 2019 at the University of Exeter!

2:15pm BST

Working Group Session 1: Directing and Dramaturgy

Strangeness and Strategies Estrangement

Presenters

Kate Katafiasz

Taking a fresh look at theatre’s conventional modes of interruptionThe appearance of Benjamin’s stranger at the door delivers as Freddie Rokem notes, a momentary yet revealing ‘tableau’ (2019: 12). Vakhtangov also created this effect when the piano player in his production... Read More →

Benjaminn Poore

The Politics of Déjà Vu: Nora, Emilia and Top GirlsStef Smith’s Nora, a ‘radical new version’ of A Doll’s House, opened at Tramway, Glasgow, in March 2019. It reimagines Nora Helmer’s story taking place in 1918, 1968 and 2018, with the actors playing the three Noras remaining... Read More →

Silvia Dumitriu

Sarah Kane: A Dramaturgy of Otherness While the tradition of mimetic theatre thrives on the idea of verisimilitude – the conformity of the theatrical action with the rules imposed... Read More →

Oge Nwosu, Rhiannon Randle

The Dysfunctional Word and the Mimetic Alien: Negotiating Emotional Estrangement and Artificial Intelligence On The Operatic Stage.The opera we are creating, a deconstruction of Pericles’ 447 BC Epitaphios Logos (Funeral Oration) through one perfect, 21st century, nuclear family... Read More →

Wednesday September 4, 2019 2:15pm - 4:15pm BST
Thornlea: White House 3

Working Group Sessions, WG: Directing and Dramaturgy

9:30am BST

Working Group Session 2: Directing and Dramaturgy

Audiences, Strangers and Friends

Presenters

Tom Nicholas

Geographies of the “Authentic” and the “Strange” in James Graham’s Labour of LoveThe promotional literature for James Graham’s Labour of Love (2017)—a dramatisation of 25 years of tensions between different factions within the Labour Party—took immense pride in the... Read More →

John Whitney

Reconstructing The Other: Otherness, Estrangement and Social Narratives in Playable PerformanceParticipatory or playable performance is ingrained in a process of developing and understanding its own social context. In ‘Beyond Immersive Theatre’ (2016: 222), Adam Alston argues... Read More →

Thursday September 5, 2019 9:30am - 11:00am BST
Thornlea: White House 3

Working Group Sessions, WG: Directing and Dramaturgy

2:00pm BST

Working Group Session 3: Directing and Dramaturgy

Strangers and Migrants

Presenters

Kara McKechnie

Performing (Br)Exile: Dramaturgies of Estrangement in the UK and GermanyThis paper considers cross-cultural practice which grows out of political estrangement, focusing on Anglo-German cultural exchange and exile. The impulse comes from a quotation by director Peter Zadek (1926... Read More →

Szabolcs Musca

Deconstructing Strangeness: migrant theatre and dramaturgies of belonging In her Strange Encounters, Sara Ahmed provides an important analysis on the figure of migrant often constructed as a stranger, asking: ‘how can we read migrant narratives without taking for granted the stranger... Read More →

Mary Mazzilli

Strangeness in post-Brexit Britain: migrant communities in North Essex connected through theatre. Considering the effect of the Brexit referendum, the ‘human side of migration’ has involved migrant communities (Syrian, Polish, Filippino and Chinese) from the North Essex region... Read More →

Thursday September 5, 2019 2:00pm - 3:30pm BST
Thornlea: White House 3

Working Group Sessions, WG: Directing and Dramaturgy

2:00pm BST

Working Group Session 4: Directing and Dramaturgy

Feminist Disruptions

Presenters

Nora Williams

(Un-)Strangemaking Gender: Cross- and Single-Gender Productions of ShakespeareWhile review headlines would have us believe that casting women in Shakespearean roles normally given to men is a new and fleeting trend, women have been playing male characters on professional stages in... Read More →

Hannah Greenstreet

Re-estranging realism: Ophelias Zimmer (2015) by Katie Mitchell, Chloe Lamford and Alice BirchIn Unmaking Mimesis (1997), Elin Diamond argues ‘realism operates in concert with ideology’ because it ‘mystifies the process of theatrical signification’, ‘naturalizes the relation... Read More →

Isabel Gatzke

On Strangeness – Dramaturgies of Alienation In her essay Dramaturgy and the Facilitation of Encounters Synne K. Behrndt describes how »dialogue, encounter and potential collision with ›otherness‹ can be dramaturgical strategies […], inviting an exploration of the ways in... Read More →

Rebecca Benzie

Estrangement in Narrative Content and Dramaturgical Structure: a feminist exploration of the reimagining of history in the work of Helen Edmundson. This paper interrogates unfamiliar historical representation and dramaturgical structures in the work of playwright Helen Edmundson... Read More →

Friday September 6, 2019 2:00pm - 4:00pm BST
Thornlea: White House 3

Working Group Sessions, WG: Directing and Dramaturgy