CALL FOR PROPOSALS

AUTHORING THEATRE

New performance, text and the return of the auteur

An international conference

Central School of Speech & Drama

University of London

Thursday 28 - Friday 29 April 2011

Theatre and performance have long been preoccupied with the problem of
authorship. In recent years we have seen a ‘return to writing’: not only
with the phenomenon of ‘new writing’ – Kane, Ravenhill, Crimp, amongst
many others – but also the return to writing within performance work as
instanced by practitioners including Claudia Castellucci with Societas
Raffaello Sanzio, Robert Lepage with Ex Machina and Tim Etchells with
Forced Entertainment. Beyond the return of the author narrowly conceived,
debates about authorship have been ongoing in all areas of theatrical
production: isn’t, for instance, the sceno-graphic inscription of the stage a
form of authorship? What of choreo-graphy? Not to mention the rise in
autobio-graphical performance? And what forms of authorship are being
innovated via the appropriation of social networking platforms, new
technology and the involvement of non-theatre participants in performance
work by companies such as Blast Theory, Rimini Protokoll and The Builders
Association?

The aim of this conference is to raise an old question, but in a timely and
relevant fashion – once again we ask: what is an author?

We invite you to consider, respond to, reject or rejoice in a return to

authorship.

• Are we witnessing the return of the auteur?

• What is the relation between performance, audience, text and – as
Foucault once described it – the ‘author function’?
• How effective is collaborative creation as a mode of writing
performance?
• In what way does ‘new writing’ respond to new performance
contexts?
• Where does writing end and authorship begin in theatre?
• What of non-verbal modes of authorship in theatre and performance?
 • And what of work that might be described as ‘text curation’ and the
‘facilitation of utterance’?
• In what way does scenography or choreography ‘write’ the stage?
• What is the difference between ‘writing’ and ‘text’?
• How dominant does Aristotelian dramatic form remain given the
emergence of so-called postdramatic idioms and forms?
• To what extent is the turn to reality and testimony managed by
writing?
• What are the ethics of writing somebody else’s story?
• What role do literary departments of new writing venues such as the
Bush or Royal Court play in the development of innovative forms of
theatre?
• To what extent can developments in authorship be mapped against
developments in culture?

Authoring Theatre features

- Keynote presentations by eminent practitioners and scholars
- Round tables featuring invited guests from performance industries
and the academy
- Papers
- Readings and performances
- Workshops
- Publishers’ stands

The conference includes social and networking activities and, throughout,

delegates can relax and chat at Central’s celebrated and convivial
conference bar.

Proposals are invited that address the themes of the conference. The
precise meaning of the terms ‘Authoring’ and ‘Theatre’ are open to
interpretation by contributors.

Proposals should specify one of the following formats:

- 20-minute paper presentation
- 2-hour workshop
- Round table

Proposals should be 300 words in length, with a 150-word biography of the

key presenter(s). Proposals should be submitted to the conference
organisers at authoringtheatre@cssd.ac.uk by 6 October 2010.

In keeping with Central’s conferences, Authoring Theatre is both an

industry expo and a sharing of new thinking, where cutting-edge practices
and new scholarship connect.