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Conference Schedule

PTRS will take place from 12 pm to 10 pm on Wednesday, April 29, 2015 in Bartley 1011 and Vasey Theatre. There will be breaks throughout the day and a book signing after the panels. Keynote speaker Sarah Ruhl will speak at 4 pm. Performances will take place in the evening.

Registration for PTRS is free of charge.  

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Subject to change

11:00 am - 12:00pm   Registration

12:00 - 1:30pm             Emerging Scholars Panel  - Bartley Hall 1011

• Christen Mandracchia - A Beauty But a Funny Girl: A Queer Investigation of the “Broadwayfication of Disney”
• Heidi Breeden - Reimagining History: Guy Butler’s Interrogation of Two Colonial Ideologies in Demea 
• Meghan Winch - “Ya beautiful, beautiful child, I could ate ya”: Maternity, Love, and Viciousness in Juno and the Paycock, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and By the Bog of Cats 

1:30 – 2:00pm               Break

2:00 – 3:30pm               Rewriting Histories Panel - Bartley Hall 1011

• Jonathan Shandell, Ph.D. - The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil  Rights Movement: A Book in Progress
• Laura Oseland - Desiring-Revolutions: Queering/Queered Femininity in the Plays of Cherrie Moraga and Sarah Ruhl
• Ivan Rodden, Ph.D. - "Jean and Johnna sit at the kid's table": The Palliative Metaphor of the Noble Savage in Tracy Lett's August: Osage County

3:30 - 4:00pm                Break  

4:00 - 5:00pm                Keynote Address: Sarah Ruhl, Playwright - Bartley Hall 1011

5:00 – 6:00pm               Book signing and Reception - Bartley Hall 1011

• We will have copies of 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write available for purchase, and you are also welcome to bring a play of Ms. Ruhl's from your own collection.

6:00 - 8:00pm                Dinner Break

8:00pm                            Evening of Performances - Vasey Hall

• The Death of Thomas Edison - Written by Lee Smith, Directed by Katherine Hammond - Vasey Theatre

The Warehouse of Theatre in collaboration with ODU Rep presents a haunting tale of love, jealousy, and the inexplicable human desire to create. Taking on history, Edison lyrically explores a shattered man whose philosophical leanings crash headlong against sophomoric humor.  

• Or What You Will: Staged Reading of a Play In Progress - Written and performed by Alix Rosenfeld - Vasey Studio, Room 206

A one-woman adaptation of Twelfth Night with text pulled from Shakespeare's canon (plays, poems, and sonnets included) and woven together with some original text to create new monologues exploring women's societal roles as well as their roles within Shakespeare's canon.

Keynote Address: Sarah Ruhl  

Sarah Ruhl’s plays include The Oldest Boy, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play; 
The Clean House, Passion Play, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Melancholy Play; Eurydice; Orlando, Late: a cowboy song, Dear Elizabeth  and Stage Kiss.  She has been a two-time Pulitzer prize finalist and a Tony award nominee. Her plays have been produced on Broadway at the Lyceum by Lincoln Center Theater, off-Broadway at Playwrights’ Horizons, Second Stage, and at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater. Her plays have been produced regionally all over the country, often with premiers at Yale Repertory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, the Goodman Theater, and the Piven Theatre Workshop in Chicago. In 2014 she was the second most produced playwright in the country. Her plays have also been produced internationally and have been translated into over twelve languages. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her M.F.A. from Brown University where she studied with Paula Vogel. She has received the Susan Smith Blackburn award, the Whiting award, the Lily Award, a PEN award for mid-career playwrights, and the MacArthur "genius" award. You can read more about her work on www.SarahRuhlplaywright.com. Her book of essays 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was published by Faber and Faber last fall. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama, and she lives in Brooklyn with her family.