Iowa State University Theatre faculty members Cason Murphy, Tiffany Antone, and Charissa Menefee were honored to present on three different panels at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference held in Boston, MA, on August 1–5, 2018.
ATHE advocates excellence in theory and practice in the fields of theatre and performance within higher education. Its goals include cultivating alliances and opportunity for collaboration across scholarly and creative disciplines, linking with professional and community-based theatres, and promoting access and equity. ATHE’s annual conference—this year themed “Theatres of Revolution: Performance, Pedagogy, and Protest”—served as an opportunity for its members to share intellectual and artistic knowledge about theatre and performance-related disciplines, particularly in relation to the notion of revolution.
Incoming assistant professor of theatre, Cason Murphy, was invited to present his paper, “Southern Discomfort: The Revolutionary Act of (and Resistance to) Staging Inclusive Theatre in the American South,” on the Debut Scholars Panel for the Theatre and Social Change focus group, about his experience staging inclusive theatre at the university level during his time in the southern United States. In addition to professional mentorship from a senior ATHE scholar, Murphy also received an honorarium for his presentation.
Dr. Charissa Menefee gave presentations on playwriting pedagogy and on ISU Theatre’s involvement with the Heal the Divide On Campus initiative, which took place as a collaboration with co-producers Vivian M. Cook and Nancy Gebhart, the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment, ReACT Gallery, and Focal Theatre Lab during the 2017–2018 academic year.
The Heal the Divide on Campus initiative—which encourages students to write shorts plays about their local communities to be exchanged with students and faculty at other participating universities across the nation—was created by incoming Lecturer of Acting, Tiffany Antone, who also moderated the panel at ATHE which included four Heal the Divide On Campus faculty participants. Through her innovative Protest Plays Project, Antone facilitates readings, theatre actions, and productions nationwide. www.protestplays.org