[Comedias] Roundtable: For a Theater of the Future, Part II | January 15

[AHCT Listserv]

*Resituating the Comedia Roundtable: For a Theater of the Future, Part II*

Friday, January 15, 2021

2:00 – 5:30 p.m. PST

Organized by Barbara Fuchs (University of California, Los Angeles)

Event details:
http://www.1718.ucla.edu/events/resituating-the-comedia-roundtable2/



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/webinar/register/WN_ldTrUpWDQCCkrW7J9fKGwQ



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 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 on December 4, 2020 and January 15, 2021 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.

The second roundtable will begin with a presentation of three
proof-of-concept digital theater pieces that enliven the classics in new
formats:

*Mme Modjeska: fairytales*
Annie Loui, University of California, Irvine, and Artistic Director,
CounterBalance Theater

*The Portrait of Juan Rana by Villaviciosa*, translated by Dr. Peter E.
Thompson
Elena Araoz, Princeton University

*La firmeza en la ausencia*
Allan Flores and Fernando Villa, EFE Tres Teatro

To enjoy the full experience offered by EFE Tres Teatro, be sure to start
following this Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CJlzhBCpRa_/?igshid=zu3fv5oe66vi now to see
daily posts from one of the characters in their adventure.

Following a dialogue about the theater pieces with the artists who created
them, the second part of the roundtable will expand on our conversation
last December, with guiding questions including:

How can we formalize and extend institutions' commitments to be a resource
for artists, and for their communities, in all their diversity?

What are the spaces for theater going forward? How will the pandemic
transform the possibilities, whether in terms of platforms or of
collaborations across distance?

How impermeable is theater? To what extent can it take advantage of
collaborations with new possibilities in design/experiential
architecture/pluralistic storytelling? What might this look like?

How can we support artists, without whom there is no theater? What are some
ways to do this sustainably, to build it into our theater institutions?




*Roundtable Participants *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 MunÞoz-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



*Program*

2:00–3:15 p.m. PST
Theatre Presentations & Discussion with the Artists


*Mme Modjeska: fairytales *Annie Loui, University of California, Irvine,
and Artistic Director, CounterBalance Theater

*The Portrait of Juan Rana by Villaviciosa*, translated by Dr. Peter E.
Thompson
Elena Araoz, Princeton University


*La firmeza en la ausencia *Allan Flores and Fernando Villa, EFE Tres Teatro



3:15–3:30 p.m. PST
Break



3:30–5:30 p.m. PST
Panelists Discussion (based on the questions and following Part I)

______________________________________

Cheryl A Johnson
Instructional Technologist
Department of Modern Languages
Fellows Hall 301-O
Denison University
Granville, OH 43023
740.587.6684

johnsonc at denison.edu



*The only constant in life is change.*   ~ Heraclitus
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