Thursday Schedule

9:00 am - 6:30 pm
Registration Desk

PA UPPER FOYER

Your first stop at MATC! Check-in to get your credentials. Then, throughout the conference, feel free to come back with questions, to share your experiences in a quick survey, or for lightning discussions between sessions.

9:00 am - 6:30 pm
Quiet Space

SCRANTON

Feel free to use this private space for individuals needing a private moment while at the conference. If the door is locked, please see the registration desk.

Indigenous Theatre & Performance | History 1: Ohio
Paper Panel

Chair: Rebecca Jackson, Regis University

“Playing Indian Princess at the Campfire: Te Ata Fisher and Summer Camp Primitivism”
Christiana Harkulich, Eastern Illinois University

“Specters of Andrew Jackson”
I.B. Hopkins, University of Texas at Austin

“Performative Colonialism: The Worthy Colonizer Narrative in The Indian Queen, The Indian Emperour, and The Indian Princess”

Rowan Jalso, Louisiana State University

American Movement | History 2: Allegheny

Paper Panel

Chair: Ariel Nereson, The University at Buffalo

"Training the Democratic Body: Somatic Pedagogies and the American Experiment"
Melissa Flower Gladney, City University of New York

“Borderlands and Burlesque: The Boundary-Pushing Career of Lillian Washburn”
Christina Hurtado- Pierson, Stony Brook University

Gendered Complications in Americana Performances | Practice/Production 1: Monongahela

Paper Panel
Chair: Cate Heiner, Middle Tennessee State University

“Playing JonBenét”

Emily Harrison, Hamilton College

“Notes From the FRONTIER So Far”

George McConnell, Texas A&M University

“Staging Gender-Based Violence in Post #MeToo Era: An Experiment with Aesthetic Distance”
Natalia Poliakova, University of Washington

“Born to Be a Sissy--Hollywood's Coded Queer Characters Presented Onstage”
James Stover, Bowling Green State University
Dane Leasure, University of Akron/Bowling Green State University

Best Laid Plans | Pedagogy 1: Keystone

Workshops
Chair: Karie Miller, Grinnell College

“Can surface structure in course planning lead to deep structure in student learning?”
Jennifer Lale, Indiana University

"Stacking the Deck in your Favor: Instructional Design through a Game of Cards"
Lynn Deboeck

Contact Lenses | Pedagogy 2: Erie
Paper Panel

Chair: Daniel Gott, Florida State University

“Embodied Nostalgia in the Age of Ice: Social Line Dancing As a Site of Resistance”
Meghan Nelson, Florida State University

“The Americanized Shakespeare: Teaching Shakespeare in the States versus Across the Pond”
Amanda Rogus, University of Washington

Playwriting Welcome | Playwriting 1: Scranton
Chair: Tiffany Antone, Iowa State University

Performing Masculinity | History 3: Ohio
Paper Panel

Chair: Eero Laine, The University at Buffalo

“Forgotten Mentorship: Annie Baker’s Small Town Masculinity”
Foss Baldwin, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign

“The Rocket Men, Erasure, and Americans on the Moon: A Dramaturgical Intervention”
Vivian Appler, University of Georgia

“Bridging the Rupture: Firefighters, Empathy, and Mourning after 9/11 in The Guys”
Elaine Hendriks Smith, Florida State University

Immersive Theatre & Performance | History 4: Allegheny

Paper Panel

Chair: David Bisaha, Binghamton University

“From Show Boats to Show Boat - Floating Theatre, Popular Entertainment, and the American Imagination”
Erin Bone Steele, University of Maryland

“Confederate Christmas: Performing the Politics of Belonging”
Rebecca Jackson, Regis University

Supporting the Playwright in Universities | Practice/Production 2 & Playwriting 2: Monongahela
Roundtable

Chair: Bella Poynton, SUNY Oswego

Participants

Tiffany Antone, Iowa State University

Johann Choi, Arizona State University

Sam Collier, University of Colorado - Boulder

Bella Poynton, SUNY Oswego State University

Moving Toward New Horizons: Choreography and Embodiment | Practice/Production 3: Scranton
Paper Panel
Chair: Dan Dennis, Ohio University

“Deceleration Dramaturgy for Dance”
Ariel Nereson, University at Buffalo-SUNY

“Persian Dance: The tool for Resisting Silence and Cultural Erasure”

Shahrzad Hamzeh, University of Texas at Dallas

“Live Sound Action: Performance at the Crossroads of Theatrical Training and Spiritual Practice”

Eliza Schwarz, Case Western Reserve University / Cleveland Playhouse MFA

Trust the Process | Pedagogy 3: Keystone

Workshop

Chair: Karie Miller, Grinnell College

“Small ways to include Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis in a Script Analysis Classroom"
Greer Gerni, University of Missouri - Kansas City

Risk and Reward | Pedagogy 4: Erie
Paper Panel
Chair: Sam Collier, University of Colorado Boulder

“Censorship and Safe-Exposure within an Educational Theatre”

Miriam Mattsfield, Baylor University

“Remaking and Making Educational Theatre: Identitarian and Afro-Optimistic Graduate level Theatre Training at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)”
Troy Scarborough, Texas Tech University

“Dramaturgy/ing Failures”
LaRonika Thomas, Washington College

Playwrights in Perspective | History 5: Ohio
Paper Panel

Chair: Dave Peterson, Niagara University

“The Making of Lanford Wilson's Redwood Curtain on Broadway”

Derek R. Munson, Illinois State University

“Suzan-Lori Parks's 365 Days/365 Plays as Everyday Historiography”
Cassie Archer, University of California - Santa Barbara

Theatre for Social Change | History 6: Allegheny

Paper Panel

Chair: Christiana Molldrem Harkulich, Eastern Illinois University

“American Tragedy: Connection, Tragedy, and American Verbatim Theatre”
MaryRose Jones, University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign

“A Tribute Act to Zorita: Keeping Florida Sexy and Gay”
Maria White, Florida State University

“The World after #MeToo: Role of Aesthetic Distance in Staging Gender-Based Violence”
Natalia Poliakova, University of Washington

Memories and Legacies: Re-Staging American Histories | Practice/Production 4: Monongahela
Paper Panel
Chair: Cate Heiner, Middle Tennessee State University

“‘A toast in good American lemonade!’: Bodying the Mind in Inherit the Wind”
Dan Dennis, Ohio University

“‘Give me Liberty, or Give me Death’: An Examination of the Performance of Historical Interpretation at St. John’s Church”

Katie Jackson, Virginia Commonwealth University

“Memories of Memory Play: Dramatizing Tennessee Williams”
Aaron Scully, University of Central Missouri

“Unspoken Tension: Devising Theatrical Resistance to a Literary Americana”
Melissa Sturges, Independent Scholar

Best Laid Plans | Pedagogy 5: Erie
Paper Panel

Chair: Greer Gerni, University of Missouri - Kansas City

“Beyond the Scripted Curriculum: Embracing Improvisation in the Classroom”
Nicole Minardi, DePaul University/Triton College

“Defining the Pedagogical Path: The Essential Shifts Within the American Classroom Between Via Negativa and Via Positiva Pedagogies”
Rebecca Johnson, Texas Tech University
Scott Jones, St. Mark's School of Texas

Writing from the Self | Playwriting 3: Keystone
Workshop

Chair: Tiffany Antone, Iowa State University

With TJ Young, Carnegie Mellon University

We are told to write what we know. One thing we know more than anyone else is ourselves. Through a series of exercises, you will mine your personal life and explore what narrative distance can bring to your own experiences in order to find material for your playwriting. All you need is something to write with and the source of inspiration - yourself! 

International Perspectives on the Americas | History 7: Ohio
Paper Panel

Chair: Noe Montez, Emory University

“Americana auf Deutsch: Views of 19th-Century US Life Through Immigrant Playwright Eyes”
Nate Ferguson, University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Staging America on the Toy Stage: Juvenile Adaptations of Pizarro”
James Armstrong, City University of New York

Race in Performance | History 8: Allegheny
Paper Panel
Chair: Cason Murphy, Iowa State University

“Lynching Drama as an Aesthetic Form of Traumatic and Healing Experience in Black Theatre: An analysis of Jackie Sibblies Drury's Play, We Are Proud to Present a Presentation about the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Südwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915"
Thokozani Lawrence Kapiri, Bowling Green State University 

“‘I Need Ten More Pickaninnies and Mammies’: Casting and Popular Representation of African Americans in the 1930’s”
Aaliyah Carter, Baylor University

“Afrosurrealist History is American/a History”
Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson, City University of New York/Queensborough Community College

Cross-Cultural Connections: Staging Multifaceted American Identity | Practice/Production 5: Keystone
Paper Panel
Chair: Bella Poynton, SUNY Oswego

“'Old Times There Are Not Forgotten': Remaking Americana in Dolly Parton's Stampede"
William Bonfiglio, Saint Louis University

“From Saloons to Soundstages: The Irish Seisiún and the Lost Intimacy of Americana”
Daniel Gott, Florida State University

“Repulsion and Resilience: Generating Premonitions of Americana in María Irene Fornés’ What of the Night?”
Anna Novak, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Juliana Frey-Méndez, Oberlin College and Conservatory

“Sanctuary City as Rehearsal for Uncertainty: Remaking Americana through Probabilistic Performance”
Roberto Prestigiacomo, Trinity University

Trust the Process | Pedagogy 6: Scranton
Workshop

Chair: David Melendez, California State University Bakersfield

“African American Spirituals as Embodied Collective Creation”

Audrey Pernell, University of Pittsburgh
Andres Zara, Independent Artist

Dramatist Play Lab | Playwriting 4: Monongahela

Chair: Stacey Schiller, Baylor University

Las Chicas Alvarez
Playwright: Alicia Garcia
Director: Shawna Mefferd Kelty, SUNY Plattsburgh
Dramaturg: Jeanmarie Higgins, University of Texas at Arlington

Acting Company
Júlia Cerqueira, Indiana University Bloomington
Lanah Velazquez, Independent Artist

Memory Cuts Deep
Playwright: Kristy Thomas
Director: Ronald J. Zank, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Dramaturg: Jeanmarie Higgins, University of Texas at Arlington

Acting Company
Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson, University of Illinois Springfield
Julia Moriarty, Missouri State University

Magic & Miracles

Playwright: Franky D. Gonzales, Bishop Arts Theatre Center
Director: Aaron Scully, University of Central Missouri
Dramaturg: Merritt Popp, Baylor University

Acting Company
James Stover, Bowling Green State University
Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, University of Illinois Springfield