From comedias at comedias.org Tue Dec 1 12:33:56 2020 From: comedias at comedias.org (AHCT Listserv) Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2020 13:33:56 -0500 Subject: [Comedias] Roundtable: For a Theater of the Future, Part I Message-ID: Resituating the *Comedia* Roundtable: For a Theater of the Future, Part I Friday, December 4, 2020 2:00 ? 4:00 p.m. PST Organized by Barbara Fuchs (University of California, Los Angeles) Event details: http://www.1718.ucla.edu/events/resituating-the-comedia-roundtable1/ This event is free of charge, but you must register in advance to attend. All audience members will receive instructions via email after registration. Click the following link to register directly with Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrde-prz8iGdFix0bWId6_sqiyacfNGg2Q The history of theater is intimately bound up with the creation of public fora, the development of the city, and notions of citizenship. Theater examines both our private and our social concerns on a shared stage; it has always thrived when it can provide a commons?a meeting place for minds and spirits. In the early modern period, which saw the first large-scale commercial theaters, performances occurred outdoors, moving from the streets to informal spaces that only gradually developed into open-air theaters, with little in the way of scenery or other apparatus. Whether at the edges of the city, as in London, or at its heart, as in Madrid, theaters offered a place to reflect on community and belonging. Across the Hispanic world, performances were authorized despite moralists? misgivings because they helped pay for social services through the *hospitales de pobres*. Early modern theater thus offers a model of relevance and resilience: although it was periodically censured and repeatedly closed down during epidemics, it remained flexible enough to adapt or relocate while continuing to engage audiences. The Covid-19 pandemic has both exposed and exacerbated crises in the world of theater. There is a widespread sentiment among practitioners and critics alike that the closure of the theaters should afford the chance to come back stronger, rethinking key questions of form, audience, access, and funding models. Given the long history of theaters closed due to plague and political unrest, what lessons might we learn for how best to reflect, regroup, and reimagine theater going forward? As part of the Center & Clark?s year-long core program ?Resituating the *Comedia*,? we have convened a number of key figures in the Los Angeles theater world?directors, playwrights, producers, scholars?for two roundtables to examine the affordances of the pandemic closures in light of the long history of urban theatermaking and theater?s enduring role as a civic commons. Our goal is to produce a set of recommendations for the theater. We have also commissioned brief proof-of-concept digital theater pieces that enliven the classics in new formats. These will be presented at the January session; we expect progress reports from the artists in December. Key questions will include: ? What models of resilience does theater history offer contemporary practitioners (alternative modes/locations)? ? How can theater draw on its own history in bridging this transitional period, and how can it reemerge as a different sort of public art? ? What new affordances?more democratic access, greater diversity, transnational collaboration, lower bars to entry, etc.?has the pandemic yielded, and how might they be made permanent? ? What role can the classics play in appealing to audiences now? How can audiences be re-engaged, expanded, and renewed? ? What types of performance experimentation do periods of crisis elicit? ? How can theater provide community and a space for urgent cultural conversations through various media? *Program* 2:00 ? 2:30 p.m. *Presentations *(approximately 2 minutes each) Kristy Edmunds, UCLA?s Center for the Art of Performance Olga Garay-English, OMGArtsplus Michael Hackett, University of California, Los Angeles Erith Jaffe-Berg, University of California, Riverside Jessica Kubzansky, Boston Court Pasadena Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times Edgar Miramontes, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) Jonathan Mun?oz-Proulx, A Noise Within Jon Lawrence Rivera, Playwrights? Arena Gabby Shawcross, Gensler Digital Experience Design, Los Angeles Madhuri Shekar, Playwright Sean Stewart, Author & Experience Designer 2:30 ? 3:30 p.m. *Discussion *(moderated by Barbara Fuchs) 3:30 ? 3:45 p.m. *Artist Presentations* (approximately 5 minutes each) Annie Loui, University of California and Artistic Director, CounterBalance Theater Allan Flores and Fernando Villa, Efe Tres Teatro Elena Araoz, Princeton University 3:45 p.m. *Concluding Remarks* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From comedias at comedias.org Wed Dec 30 15:26:07 2020 From: comedias at comedias.org (AHCT Listserv) Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 15:26:07 -0600 Subject: [Comedias] Very Sad News Message-ID: Dear AHCT members, The AHCT Officers and Board just received the following very sad news regarding David Gitlitz, one of the four founding members of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater. David had recently been hospitalized in Oaxaca due to COVID-19. Early today, David?s daughter Abby sent the following update: "It is with a very heavy heart that I have to tell you dad passed away in the early hours of this morning. The doctors assured us that he wasn't in pain and that it was relatively quick. I think that he knew, even before he entered the hospital, that he might not recover and I think he had made peace with that. Tonight may we all raise a glass in his honor to a life truly lived to the fullest and then some." Please join me and the entire AHCT Board in expressing our deepest sympathies to David?s family and to all who knew and loved him. With profound sorrow, Bruce Burningham, President of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: