Hello LGBTQ+ folx!

I'm sorry for the delay in getting these things out to you but I have two very important things:

1 - The link to the elections we said we would have online when we were finishing our final moments of the focus group meeting in Boston in August.  Please vote within 30days of today.  So as you are voting in the midterm elections, be sure to come to this link and vote for your newGrad Student Rep, Focus Group rep, and possibly member-at-large. 

Since we didn't have any candidates come forward for focus group rep, I've agreed to serve in a second term if the group votes to keep me. 

Here are your two candidates for grad student rep:

Name:  Dean McBride

Institution:  University of North Texas

I have over 20 years experience as a party and event planner and have spent the last six years as a vital arts administrator within the University of Texas - Arlington Department of Theatre & Dance and the Texas Tech University College of Visual & Performing Arts and the School of Theatre & Dance during the pursuit of my BA in Theatre Arts and MFA in Arts Administration respectively. I have attached my CV for your consideration and also refer you to my website https://www.deanmcbride.net/ (It needs a little bit of updating since my recent graduation from TTU but should still give you an idea of my work.) 

I have also attached here two proposals for panels at next years conference in Orlando.

Thank you for your consideration!

 

Name: Harry Hoke

Institution: Tufts University (2nd Year MA/PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies)

As a graduate student in my second year of coursework, and a new member of ATHE’s LGBTQ focus group, I am well positioned to understand the needs of graduate students early in their careers. As graduate student rep, I will work to provide a space for highlighting the scholarship of my emerging scholar colleagues. In my research, I spend a large amount of time working with a digital organization where leadership is spread over a wide area. As such, I regularly maintain open communication and work on logistics over long distances. As a new member of ATHE, I have a fresh perspective on where the needs for graduate students lie, and would love to bring my voice to the focus group leadership as I become more heavily involved in the conference community.

and the link to vote:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/T6KFM9Z

Please also see the CFP for Orlando 2019 below. 

Association for Theatre in Higher Eduction (ATHE) LGBTQ Focus Group

Call for Papers

Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress

Orlando, FL, August 7 - 11th, 2019

ATHE 2019 Scene Changes: Performing, Teaching and Working through the Transitions

The ATHE LGBTQ Focus Group invites papers, panels, and performances for the 2019 conference to be held in Orlando, Florida.  The theme this year “Scene Changes: Performing, Teaching, and Working through the Transitions” invites participants to consider the many changes that have transpired in Orlando, the nation, the world, our stages, and our classrooms in the six years since ATHE last gathered in “The City Beautiful” in 2013.

For LGBTQ+ people, the notion of transition is a more than a metaphor.  Our transgender siblings must fight for the support they need to navigate desired gender transitions, while our non-binary and intersex siblings often struggle for the right to stay put in places society sees as transitory. This year, the focus group would like to invite to the front of the line papers, panels, and performances by trans and non-binary scholars and artists.

The Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress is located 15 miles away from the former Pulse Nightclub, now a memorial to the mass shooting in 2016 that took 49 predominantly queer and Latinx lives. This geographic proximity asks us to look at how we memorialize and mourn our ongoing losses within LGBTQ+ and Latinx communities, particularly in a time when we witness new threats to our dignity and bodily integrity in the news every week.  How does theatre and performance shore us up as we attempt to simultaneously grieve and mobilize? How can our performative techniques of remembrance and resistance stand up to the grand theatrics of the current political sphere?

This past year saw the premiere of the first play by an Asian American woman on Broadway, While Young Jean Lee’s script centers the titular straight white men, it calls for non-binary people of color operating on the margins as visible managers of the stage, corralling the audience and moving actors like set-pieces.  How do queer people, and particularly QTPOC, grasp hold of the material conditions of production both in plays and in society at large? What are the politics and poetics of our movements in and out of the limelight?

In addition to work by and about trans and nonbinary people, work highlighting the intersections of queer and Latinx lives, and work examining queer people as scene changers, the LGBTQ+ Focus Group particularly invites:

• Multi-disciplinary panels co-convened with other working groups

• Panels/sessions that do not require AV

• Practice-based panels and other non-traditional session formats

• Low/no tech performances

Submission Deadlines & Guidelines:

If you have an idea for a session and would like to recruit additional participants, please share your idea with me via email at fairfieldj@rhodes.edu ASAP. I will attempt to recruit additional participants. Also reach out to me if you plan on coordinating a multidisciplinary session across multiple focus groups. You are also welcome to circulate your ideas through the ATHE webpage and/or the LGBTQ Focus Group’s facebook page (http://www.athe.org/members/group.aspx?id=130353 and https://www.facebook.com/groups/athe.lgbtq/).

Completed session proposals are to be submitted through the ATHE webpage (www.athe.org) by November 1st, 2018. Please fill in all required fields on the submission form, as incomplete proposals will not be accepted. ATHE will be making a concerted effort across the conference this year to use less audio-visual support. If you still intend on requesting audio-visual support, please make this request on the proposal form. Please note that proposing a panel does not guarantee acceptance to the conference, as the ATHE conference committee ultimately determines how many conference sessions the LGBTQ Focus Group will have.