BIMP Puppet Forum: Performing Object and Theatrical Things

Joanne Zerdy and Marlis Schweitzer will talk about their book, Performing Objects and Theatrical Things.

Performing Objects and Theatrical Things rethinks historical and contemporary theatre, performance, and cultural events from the perspective of the objects and things that activate stages, venues, environments, and archives.

Embracing methodologies from across the humanities and social sciences, we understand physical materials as actants, with particular frequencies, energies, and potentials to affect human and nonhuman worlds. The texts, stage properties, instruments, costumes, photographs, and detritus that animate this collection emerge from the thirteenth- to the twenty-first century, traversing sites across Europe and North America.

Challenging anthropocentric narratives that foreground humans as sole agents, our authors present object and ‘thingcentric’ methodologies that range from deeply personal autoethnographic reflections and close textual readings to carefully researched archival studies and rhizomatic explorations of an object’s journey from one place and time to another.

Marlis Schweitzer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at York University, Canada, and author of When Broadway Was the Runway: Theater, Fashion, and American Culture (2009). Her articles have appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Performing Arts Resources, and The Drama Review (TDR) . She edits Theatre Research in Canada/ Recherches théâtrales au Canada.

Joanne Zerdy is an Instructional Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at Illinois State University, USA. She researches Scottish theatre and performance events, and cultural and environmental policies. Her essays have appeared in Contemporary Theatre Review, Theatre Research International, The Drama Review (TDR), and A Further Shore: Essays in Irish and Scottish Studies (2008).