Dear ASTR Members,

We are excited to share a milestone in our organization’s ongoing evolution: the ASTR Executive Committee has approved a new mission statement.

Over the past year, the EC engaged in a thoughtful strategic planning process, one designed to take stock of who we are today and where we are headed. As our membership has grown more diverse, spanning theatre history, performance studies, dance, and beyond, and as our reach has extended well beyond U.S. borders, it became important to articulate a mission that more accurately reflects who we are and the values that bring us together. Extending beyond borders also means opening ourselves more fully to scholars, educators, and practitioners across differences of culture, race, gender, language, methodology, and lived experience.

In many ways, this work resonated with the spirit of this year’s conference theme, “Taking Stock,” which calls us to reflect on the evolving forms, methodologies, and relationships that shape theatre and performance studies. Much like the idea of flocking that I’ve returned to over the past year, this process asked us to remain responsive to one another and attentive to how we move through change together. As we approach ASTR’s 70th anniversary, this mission statement becomes part of a larger practice of reflection, renewal, and collective movement toward the futures we want to make possible together.

At a time when theatre, dance, and performance studies departments face increasing precarity, we believe it is essential to affirm the importance of our disciplines and the expansive range of practices, histories, and ways of knowing they hold. We recognize ASTR not only as a site of rigorous intellectual exchange, but also as a space of care, collaboration, creativity, and collective support. As an organization, we hope to continue building structures that nurture inquiry and more expansive futures for our field. As the field continues to evolve, our mission must evolve with it.

The Board is proud to present the following:

“The American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) is a U.S.-based, globally-facing membership organization that cultivates community and inspires critical inquiry. Using the tools of theatre, dance, and performance studies to investigate the evolving landscape of our field, we foster collaborations, care, and creativity among scholars, educators, and artists at every career stage. Through our annual conference, publications, and year-round resources, we create spaces where relationships deepen, research flourishes, and new directions for scholarship emerge.”

We believe this statement honors the depth and range of our membership while helping guide the work ahead. We are more than just an academic society. ASTR is a space for rigorous inquiry, creative exchange, and collective care, bringing together scholars, educators, and practitioners across every stage of their careers.

Thank you for your continued engagement and for helping shape the direction of this organization. It belongs to all of us.

With gratitude and enthusiasm,

Patricia Herrera, President
On behalf of the ASTR Executive Committee

And there's more to come. In the weeks ahead, we'll be unveiling a refreshed logo to complement our new mission, a visual identity that better reflects the community we've become, honoring where we’ve been and where we’re going. ASTR’s new logo will be revealed in the coming weeks — we look forward to sharing it with you soon.

In moments like these, ASTR’s values are not abstract ideals. We remain committed to cultivating community, practicing care, and sustaining spaces where we can think, listen, and work together with generosity and intention. Our work is grounded in collaboration, in relationships that deepen over time, and in mutual support across difference, geography, and career stages. These commitments matter now more than ever, shaping not only what we do, but how we show up for one another and for the world around us.

It is in this context that I want to share reflections from the President’s Report at our Fall 2025 Annual Business Meeting, and to offer a sense of how we have moved through the first year of my presidency together.

Flocking as Practice
In my welcome to our annual conference, I offered flocking as a guiding metaphor for our moment: a way of moving together through turbulence by staying attuned to one another. Flocking is not about sameness. It is about coordination, care, and responsiveness, about rewiring inherited systems toward connection, justice, and renewal.

When I arrived in Denver, my Lyft driver, Sebastián, who had arrived from Venezuela two years earlier shared small stories about the city in a mix of Spanish and EnglishAt one point, he mentioned that he had lived in twenty-five states. When I asked how that was possible, he paused and said: “Cuando creces en un lugar que se llama a sí mismo socialista pero en realidad es una dictadura, tienes que seguir buscando un hogar. When you grow up in a place that calls itself socialist but is really a dictatorship, you have to keep searching for home.”

His words stayed with me. How do we find or create home amid displacement, constraint, and change? A few moments later, Sebastián pointed to a flock of birds and recalled once seeing a bald eagle guiding another bird toward the airport. That image stayed with me because it reflects how I hope to approach the work at ASTR: attuned to one another, finding openings together, and building connections that help us move through complexity rather than around it.

As we know from our work in theatre and performance, flocking offers a powerful lesson. Flocking birds do not follow a single leader. They take turns sensing openings, adjusting direction, and finding a way forward, and sometimes, a way back. Flocking is a practice of attunement, of moving through systems and storms together rather than alone.

I’ve been thinking alongside Jessica Riddel’s Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing, which reminds us that meaningful change in higher education requires rewiring the systems we inhabit toward more humane and sustaining forms of life. As Sara Ahmed teaches us, institutions are often “broken” not by accident, but because they function exactly as designed—serving some while excluding others. Transformation, then, is not about starting from scratch, but about rerouting existing circuits so that care, access, and possibility can flow differently. In this sense, flocking becomes a practice of hope: a collective way of reimagining movement, leadership, and belonging.

Coalition-Building in a Time of Fragmentation
At a moment when many institutions are shrinking or retreating, ASTR has reached outward. We have been working closely with our colleagues at ATHE and DSA to imagine shared advocacy, resource-sharing, and solidarity across societies.

At the DSA Presidents’ Plenary (June 2025) and the ATHE 2025 session "Come September: The New Normal for Higher Ed," a recurring question: What can we do together that none of us can do alone? That question guided our joint session, “ASTR / ATHE / DSA: Collective Action and Reimagining” supported by the remarkable Tim Miller.

The session brought members together for conversation and collective practice organized around three linked strategies: vision, protection, and commitment. Vision shapes what we fight for, protection sustains the people and practices that make the work possible, and commitment transforms shared values into collective momentum. These conversations led to a manifesto committing to care, hope, and community, while building networks and spaces for collaboration, dialogue, and fearless expression. The manifesto reflects our guiding values and calls us to sustain solidarity and coalition beyond our annual gathering in this moment when the arts, higher education, and academic freedom most need it.

Deepening Our Mentoring Culture
Flocking also means caring for one another in motion. Under the leadership of Rhaisa Williams and Laura Edmondson, ASTR’s mentoring program has grown from a single conference session into a year-long network connecting scholars across ranks and institutions.

We also recognize that many of you have long been doing this mentoring work, often invisibly and without recognition. We see you and thank you for your work in supporting our community. Our goal is to build infrastructure that sustains and uplifts it. Mentorship, at its best, transforms hierarchy into mutual care. It is one of the ways ASTR remains distinct, and we are proud of this commitment.

ASTR at 70: Looking Back, Moving Forward
As ASTR approaches its 70th anniversary, we are reflecting deeply on who we have been and who we want to become. This moment invites both remembrance and recommitment: to our histories, to one another, and to the futures we are still shaping together.

Over the past year, three Strategic Vision groups of the Executive Committee met to reflect on ASTR’s mission, accomplishments, and future priorities. Their conversations reaffirmed that what grounds us is the dynamic interplay of community, scholarship, and advocacy, and the responsibility to hold those commitments together as we move through increasingly complex institutional and political landscapes.

This period of reflection also coincided with the launch of the BIPOC and Global Majority Advisory Committee. The committee proposed an Oral History & Legacy initiative to preserve ASTR’s collective memory through storytelling and archiving. In addition, to extend ASTR’s written history beyond the earlier documented accounts, past president Heather Nathans and I will be co-authoring an essay documenting the recent decades of ASTR’s collective leadership and evolution.

Looking ahead, we will gather in Minneapolis to mark ASTR’s 70th anniversary not only to celebrate longevity, but to renew our shared commitments. It is an opportunity to imagine how ASTR can continue to grow as a space of refuge, rigor, solidarity, and possibility. Our decision to convene in Minneapolis carries meaning beyond geography. In conversation with our hotel partners, we were moved by their explicit pride and commitment to supporting immigrant communities. We will continue to assess the values of all of our partners, and how they align with ours. At a time when immigrants are being targeted, criminalized, and erased, we affirm that where and how we gather matters.

In Closing
This has been a demanding year for higher education, for our field, and for many of us personally. Yet ASTR continues to be a space of refuge, imagination, and collective action. Together, we are flocking, finding our way through, our way back, and our way forward.

Thank you for your care, brilliance, and commitment to one another. ASTR thrives because of you. If you would like to become more involved in shaping its future, please reach out. We would love to welcome you.

With gratitude and solidarity,
Patricia

I am very happy to share the recent election results. I want to recognize and thank the Nominating Committee, chaired by Jimmy A. Noriega and Analola Santana, as well as the candidates and ASTR members who took part in the election process. As we all know, ASTR depends on the volunteer service and active engagement of its members. Your participation is essential for the health and longevity of the organization.

The following members have been elected to serve ASTR from November 2025 - November 2028:

Noe Montez, VP for Publications, Emory University
Re-elected to serve a second term

Executive Committee Members:
Sarah Fahmy, Florida State University
Jade Power-Sotomayor, University of California, San Diego

Respectfully submitted,

Patricia Herrera
ASTR President

• Daphne Lei (2015–2018) led with courage, organizing a hybrid conference at UCSD in solidarity with striking workers and expanding our focus on minoritarian and transnational theatre.
• Marla Carlson (2018–2021) strengthened our organization by transitioning from Ewald Management to a successful partnership with Executive Director Aimee Zygmonski and ensured financial stability during the pandemic.
• Jimmy Noriega (2021–2024) guided us through the pandemic's aftermath, streamlined committees, and established a pipeline connecting undergraduates to graduate programs. This initiative has raised funds, increased the number of teaching institutions engaged at ASTR, and embedded undergraduate research into our annual activities.

I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to these presidents and all past ASTR presidents for their steadfast leadership and vision, which continue to strengthen and sustain our organization. I hope to build on their successes.

Building on the 2023 and 2024 conference themes of "Hope" and "Ecologies of Time and Change," this year's theme, "Generative Acts," invites us to reflect on what theatre and performance can inspire in individuals, communities, and society while urging us to cultivate inclusive practices, reimagine our spaces, and confront urgent global. The idea that "generate" and "generosity" share the same root reminds us of the profound potential of giving: how acts of generosity can create ripples far beyond their initial gesture. As our conference planners ask, "What generous practices does theatre offer? What might it mean to be generous in our work and our interactions within the academy and theatre spaces? Across political divides and differences? What gifts do theatre artists hope to offer culture?" These questions challenge me daily to weave generosity into my work, even amidst frustrations and challenges, hoping such acts will generate possibilities of futurity.

One moment of generative generosity remains etched in my memory as we celebrated the remarkable career of President Emeritus (Occidental College) and Professor Emeritus (Stanford University) Harry Elam Jr., whose life and work exemplify the profound impact of mentorship. During a campus tour with my children at Occidental College, I reached out on a whim to see if Harry might be available to meet. Despite his demanding schedule, he graciously welcomed us, suggesting I return in an hour. That hour became a golden moment. Harry, who had witnessed my journey over the years, from attending ASTR conferences with my children to navigating my professional path, now sat with us, discussing access to education and our dreams for the next generation. It was not just his insights that stayed with me but his mentorship, taking time to plant seeds of encouragement and possibility for my children, and I am sure, countless other students. As a first-generation college graduate and professor, I witnessed the profound impact of mentorship, which came full circle with the next generation, exemplified by my daughter. In that moment, Harry modeled what it means to create pathways for others, weaving mentorship with generosity in ways that resonate far beyond the immediate exchange. I aspire to emulate his example—opening doors, offering encouragement, and creating opportunities for others to dream, thrive, and shape their futures.

ASTR's commitment to mentoring partnerships has sustained me and deepened my connection to the organization. The Executive Committee's decision to establish the Undergraduate Research Working Group as a permanent part of our annual activities reflects a holistic vision for the field. One that nurtures and inspires the next generation while supporting colleagues at every stage of their careers. This is exactly what Harry was modeling in that moment. It is my hope that my presidency will further activate a culture of mentorship at ASTR that lifts one another in meaningful and generative ways.

I was also struck by the generosity of time by our volunteers, specifically our award committees that contribute their expertise to assess fellowship and grant applications, reviews essays and articles, and read books and edited volumes each year. This year, ASTR provided over $28,000 in grants and prizes to 45 deserving awardees.

As we look ahead to our conference in Denver and beyond, I am energized by our collective values: equity for all, accessibility, and justice for queer, trans, and global majority people. Our bylaws cemented a BIPOC and Global Majority Advisory Committee, and its work will be needed more than ever as we move into 2025. We also have many committees at ASTR that rely on the dedication and attentiveness of volunteer members—please reach out to us if you have time to share your expertise. And don't forget, submission proposals are due February 3 for the 2025 conference.

We want to thank our current officers, outgoing board members, and newly elected members for their dedication and leadership:

Current Officers:
Vice President for Publications, Noe Montez
Vice President for Awards, Kate Bredeson
Treasurer, Lisa Jackson-Schebetta
Secretary, Eric Glover

Outgoing Board Members:
VP for Conferences Laura MacDonald
Michelle Liu Carriger
Angela Marino
Lillian Mengesha
Jonah Winn-Lenetsky

New and Current Board Members:
VP for Conferences Lindsay Cummings
Sukanya Chakrabarti
Laura Edmondson
Paola Hernández
Bethany Hughes
Khalid Long
Eric Mayer-García
Judith Rodriguez
Rhaisa Williams
Amanda Marie Rogus

As we settle into this new year, let us carry forward the spirit of collaboration, creativity, and care that makes ASTR a transformative community. Our most vital resource is you—your creativity, care, and commitment to lifting each other. Thank you for your dedication and your belief in the power of what we do.

I look forward to serving as your president and to all we will achieve in the coming years.

With deep gratitude and care,

Patricia Herrera

* These antidotes are by no means new mantras but are ideas passed down from BIPOC queer decolonial feminist thinkers. I am thinking of scholars and artists such as José Esteban Muñoz, Tavia Nyong'o, adrienne maree brown, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Jill Dolan and many others who have long championed the importance of imagination, care, resistance, and joy.

I am beyond excited to see those of you who will be able to attend the 2021 conference in San Diego, and beyond grateful for the understanding of those who are unable to travel at this time. I am particularly glad to see in the early registrations a thorough mixture of all membership levels. Please be aware that the discount rate for our block of hotel rooms is available until TODAY (Wednesday, October 6)—so if you’re planning to stay in the Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter and haven’t yet booked your room, you’ll want to do that immediately.

On Monday, I watched the first of this fall’s dynamic and important Field Conversations, “Black Studies without Black People.” A recording will be available soon on ASTR’s YouTube channel (as will a recording of Friday’s session), and I encourage you to watch it. Last year’s panels are there as well. You can still register for "Creating and Teaching Inclusive Syllabi: Multiple Perspectives” on Friday, October 8, from 3:15-4:00. We’ll have two Field Conversations in person at the conference, and then return to the virtual format in November.

ASTR leadership and staff have been closely monitoring the ever-changing pandemic and the wide variety of approaches to public health in different locations. We’ve been encouraged by the very high vaccination rate in San Diego and the hotel’s upgraded air filtration systems in all public spaces. We were not happy to see the adjustment in mask regulations to “highly encouraged” for San Diego County, but our conference attendees and the hotel staff are still required to be fully masked. I’m glad that our 2021 conference expenditures will contribute to the paychecks of hotel workers whose strike we supported in 2018.

I’d like to remind you to make use of the ASTR Commons, a feature of our website initiated last year to facilitate the exchange of resources and opportunities. I found a guest lecturer this semester through the Commons whose specific research expertise fills out my syllabus beyond what anyone with whom I was already familiar could offer. ASTR’s Mentoring Committee is working on new features for the Commons that will support year-round mentoring for members navigating their journeys both within and beyond academia.

Many other initiatives are underway, and you can expect news of them in the coming months. We are analyzing the data gathered from your responses to the ASTR membership survey, and I thank you for participating in this effort to understand who we are as an organization and how we can best move into the future. And the ASTR-led task force with representatives of ATHE, TAPRA, ATDS, and DSA is wrapping up its qualitative study of the career paths of doctoral graduates in Theatre and Performance Studies post-2011 who are not currently in tenure-track academic employment.

This is my last quarterly message as president, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve ASTR for the past three years. This time has been more eventful than I had anticipated, and I have learned so much from all of the people that I’ve had the privilege of working with. I treasure these experiences and friendships.

I hope that you and your communities are well. ASTR’s work is continuing behind the scenes as we plan for the 2021 conference in San Diego, analyze the results of the membership survey, and complete a number of other initiatives. I’d like to remind you that the application deadline for the next round of Research Grants and Travel Awards is July 16, including the first iteration of the Jessica Berson Dance Research Assistance Fund to support scholars specializing in dance-based work in theatre who do not currently have tenure-track employment but are no longer students.

The past year has been busy for ASTR leadership and staff during the pandemic. When we postponed the conference, we invested money and labor in facilitating virtual participation in the “pre-conference” working sessions and field conversations. We offered membership on a pay-what-you-can model, so that people could retain access to Theatre Survey and other member benefits during this time of economic uncertainty. Many members did take advantage of this option, and our income dropped significantly. We still provided awards, publication prizes, and research grants. And staff supported all of the massive labor involved in negotiating hotel contracts and training for health and safety protocols, all while relying on volunteer labor to keep the organization alive during the pandemic.

The main focus of this quarterly report is to explain why the Executive Committee decided to go ahead with an in-person conference in 2021 and why we cannot afford to accommodate requests for virtual participation. First and foremost, I deeply appreciate the ongoing work of the conference planning team—both our staff and our member volunteers—and working session conveners. We offer a visual snapshot of conference expenses, but I will also explain it and answer some questions that I’ve been asked via email including details about our contract with the Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter and about how the hotel contracts work in general. This may well be too much information, but I’m offering transparency.

How hotel contracts work for annual conferences: A standard hotel contract specifies a minimum number of “room nights” that an organization will reserve; that is, sleeping rooms booked by those attending the conference. The 662 room nights for our 2021 conference might mean 220 rooms booked for three nights in a row—or another breakdown of room reservations over the course of the conference. (We were able to adjust the contract earlier this month from its previous requirement of 860 room nights, taking into account difficulties in travel caused by the pandemic.) This contract ensures that our conference attendees can book a room in the hotel, but it also provides the hotel with the majority of its income, and the contract makes us liable for lost profit, charging ASTR for any unsold rooms. Let me give a concrete example: If only 290 people were to attend the conference, and their room sharing and other arrangements were similar to what occurred in 2019 (Arlington), then ASTR would owe the hotel $40,000.

Minimum expenses: We are also contracted to pay them at least $60,000 for food and beverages, including associated fees and tax. We spend this money on the awards luncheon, coffee service, and receptions. With this guaranteed income, the hotel provides meeting rooms at no charge. So we’re always working hard to make sure we spend that money but also that we don’t spend any more that we’ve promised. Your registration fee covers this minimum food and beverage expense, along with audio visual services ($28,000) and the very small part-time, year-round staff that we hire to plan and run the conference ($23,000). Registration fees do not always cover the operations expenses related to the conference ($15,000), and we pay the travel grants ($7500) out of an annual 4% draw down from our investments. That draw down is how we can continue providing grants and awards to our members even during times of serious financial constraints such as the past few years. As you may be aware, these unusual conditions include not only the cancellation of the 2018 conference, postponement of the 2020 conference, and the drop in membership income during the pandemic, but also significant expenses incurred in restructuring management without disrupting the 2019 conference. ASTR is not sitting on pots of money but, rather, has been forced into deficit spending that cannot continue.

Cancellation policies: This year's hotel contract was initially negotiated and signed in June 2016 for a conference in 2018. When we cancelled that conference to avoid crossing picket lines during a strike, ASTR was contractually obligated to pay the hotel $91,287.00 for lost revenue. We eventually negotiated an arrangement whereby we signed a new contract with the same hotel for 2021 and paid no cancellation penalty beyond the $11,298.66 that we had already paid as a deposit for 2018. If we had cancelled the 2021 in-person conference and convened virtually, we would have again been liable for lost revenue. The amount specified in the contract, $78,948, was reduced to $74,000 with the adjustment in the minimum room block. After July 1, that figure increases by 20%. This liability is a factor in the Executive Committee’s decision to reject the virtual conference option for 2021.

Hybrid conferences: The costs of a hybrid conference are different from the cancellation fee, and the infographic shows how these costs would impact registration fees: software and streaming services would significantly increase our audio-visual, operations, and part-time staff expenses. These expenditures would be required to create the sort of virtual access to working sessions that members would find fully satisfactory in exchange for paying a registration fee to participate remotely. But because ASTR does not have an extra $60,000 available, the hybrid conference would prompt an increase in registration fees that would itself prove exclusionary.

In-Conference Zoom: The question that remains is why we can’t just authorize working session conveners to bring their laptops, use their institutional Zoom (or similar) accounts, and facilitate remote participation on their own. This is a question I’ve raised myself, and I am also frustrated by the answer—but accept it. Our contract specifies complimentary basic wireless internet service in meeting rooms with a limit of 20 Mb/ps per day, which is sufficient only for web browsing. An upgrade adequate for remote participation in sessions would cost approximately $10,000, and this partial solution would still likely result in an unsatisfactory conference experience for those paying to participate remotely. Similarly, we cannot ensure that cell phone signal inside the meeting rooms will be adequate for remote participation and do not have the staff capacity to investigate and advise on this matter. In addition, offering virtual attendance as an option for NON-virtual working sessions (the bulk of the sessions) might leave ASTR significantly below the minimum number of room nights required by our contract. We know that some working sessions have come up with asynchronous approaches that allow for remote research-sharing, and we encourage session conveners to pursue these forms of inclusion outside the conference itself. Similarly, working session conveners who cannot travel can work with their group in advance of the conference and designate another member to lead the in-person session.

Meeting at universities: We began meeting in hotels early in the 2000s, around the same time that the Society made the transition to professional management and also began to actively encourage a larger and more diverse membership to attend its conferences. Prior to this, a volunteer committee was responsible for making local arrangements that combined university and hotel locations, and graduate students at the host university provided significant labor during the conference. Our recent conferences have been too large for universities to accommodate, so a return to those venues would also entail a more exclusionary approach to programming. A return to graduate student labor would also mean a return to limited participation by students in conference activities. A return to the fully volunteer local arrangements committee seems frankly untenable, given the increasing workload that comes with academic employment and the increasing precarity of scholars in our field.

Future Planning: The Executive Committee has begun conversations about a sustainable vision for ASTR’s future, informed by recent experience, your emails, and input from the member survey. I ask not only for your patience and understanding as we navigate the later stages (hopefully the ending) of the pandemic but also for your active collaboration with the incoming and continuing leadership in shaping the next phase of the American Society for Theatre Research.

Marla Carlson
ASTR President

At its bi-annual meeting on April 17, ASTR’s Executive Committee made three important decisions about the 2021 conference: (1) to hold the conference in person in San Diego; (2) to require proof of vaccination for those who attend in person; and (3) to convene a small number of virtual working sessions curated specifically for those members who are unable to travel to San Diego because of COVID-19 health concerns and international travel restrictions. I’m writing to explain the reasons for these decisions and to provide more information about what they entail. Above and beyond the budgetary considerations that I highlight here, the EC discussed at length the tremendous value of gathering in person to support our scholarly community and the organization.

(1) The Vice President for Conferences and the Executive Director extensively researched costs for different conference formats. The staffing and technology required for a hybrid conference, with some sessions in person and others online, would increase our deficit for the year by roughly 300% and threaten the Society’s long-term as well as immediate fiscal health. To cancel our hotel contract at this time and hold the 2021 conference fully online would produce an even larger deficit, given the cancellation fee we would be contractually obligated to pay. In addition, we found it troubling that several other learned societies experienced a 50% drop in attendance when they held virtual conferences. The only financially feasible option for ASTR is to hold an in-person conference in San Diego, CA.

(2) After much consideration, we have decided to require, with limited exceptions, everyone who attends the conference in San Diego to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The public health department in the state of California currently requires this safety measure, and the decision to extend this precaution to our meeting in October rests on three principles:

• the health and safety of our community is our top priority,
• science informs and guides our public health strategies, and
• the wellbeing of our community should not be put at risk by personal preferences.

Religious and health-related exceptions will be allowed, and we have budgeted for the expenses associated with privacy compliance.

(3) Unfortunately, the internet capacity at the conference site will not permit members of current working sessions to attend remotely. As you know from previous correspondence, all 2020 working sessions have been invited to continue. Participants will have the choice of remaining with their current working session or applying for a new one, and new participants to most working sessions are welcome. As a pilot program to explore possible avenues for future conferencing and in order to include those who cannot join us in San Diego for reasons related to the pandemic, we will also convene a few virtual working sessions alongside the in-person conference. Information will be included in next week’s call for participants. The number of such sessions is limited to what our existing staff can facilitate at the same time as they manage the in-person conference, as well as the capacity of our budget to support the technology and platforms associated with running online sessions. As I mentioned earlier, we cannot afford to hire additional staff, and we want to make sure that everyone has the best conference experience possible. These virtual sessions will be not be drawn from the 2020 program but, rather, are new working sessions added specifically for those subject to travel restrictions.

As part of our decision to hold an in-person event, ASTR is committed to producing an engaging and convivial experience for attendees with safety and well-being at the forefront of our planning. ASTR will be monitoring the current best practices from organizations such as the CDC, WHO, and the California Department of Public Health, and will provide updates during the months leading up to the conference. The current situation will require some design changes in the program and during the onsite execution of the conference. As a member of our conference community, we ask that you please review our future communications regarding policies around safety and well-being and that you be part of the solution in executing a safe and responsible event.

Warmly,

Marla Carlson
ASTR President

I hope that you are well and that, having passed the one-year mark with the Covid-19 pandemic, we are moving into less dire territory both as individuals and as a field. My thoughts this past week have been particularly focused on our female-identifying Asian members, colleagues, friends, and loved ones who are so familiar with the racism and misogyny surrounding the recent murders in Atlanta. I have nothing to say about returning to normal; rather, I cherish the prospect of working together toward justice, equity, and joy. This spring, ASTR is gathering information that will help us to shape the Society’s future in both the short and long term. The Executive Committee has two major initiatives underway: a general membership survey and a qualitative research task force on career paths.

First, you will soon receive an invitation to respond to the first comprehensive survey of ASTR members in a decade. As a result of many complicated transitions in recent years, we don’t even have reliable demographic data right now, so this survey is crucial for learning who our members are and what they need and want from ASTR. Fortunately, Scott Magelssen once again stepped up to lead this effort as he did in 2010, and I am also grateful for the work contributed by Aparna Dharwadker and Rhonda Blair (who was president for the last survey!). I thank you in advance for participating in the 2021 ASTR member survey.

Second, the Task Force on Career Paths has begun interviewing people who earned a doctorate in Theatre/Performance Studies after 2011 and who are not currently in tenured or tenure-track academic employment. Margaret Werry is leading this initiative on behalf of ASTR, with collaborating participants from ATHE, TaPRA, ATDS, and DSA. This systematic qualitative study aims to understand the experiences of fifty recent doctoral graduates in our field, including how their doctoral training serves them in their current career and how professional organizations and individual doctoral programs might better support their ongoing scholarship and development. The task force has also put together a considerable resource list and review of what other professional organizations are doing to support career diversity for doctoral graduates, and it plans to complete its work by summer 2021.

Other things of note: The application/nomination deadline for the next round of Publication & Presentation Prizes is April 20. The 2021 election slate will be posted on our website in early April along with instructions for members to add further nominations by petition if they so wish. Voting will begin in early May. I thank our Nominating Committee for all their hard work.

Finally, I hosted representatives of academic organizations in theatre and performance studies on Zoom for a third leadership summit on March 20. This group has been quite active over the past year in advocating for academic freedom as well as urging specific universities to maintain the programs and departments related to our field. Together, we’re drafting a joint letter to protest the proposed reorganization at the Victoria and Albert Museum that would have serious adverse effects for the Theatre and Performance Department. A communications platform provided by USITT has made it easy to share information, coordinate letter writing, and collaborate on various initiatives. So when you reach out to one organization about program cuts and closures, you will likely reach all of us, and we’ll work together to provide whatever assistance is possible.

Marla Carlson
ASTR President

I am grateful to Soyica Diggs Colbert, Douglas A. Jones, Jr., Shane Vogel, and their Program Committee for assembling the plenary presentations and working sessions that the conference program on our website documents. Many of these will carry forward to 2021, and 82% of the working sessions held pre-conference meetings last month. Vice President for Conferences Jimmy Noriega will send an email to the membership as soon as the conference planning team has worked out the logistics for shifting the conference from New Orleans to San Diego. This will include information about how the organizers will seek additional participants for “Theatre and Performance After Repetition,” and I look forward to seeing many of you in California next fall.

If you missed this fall’s virtual Field Conversations, I encourage you to watch them ASTR’s YouTube channel, easily accessed through our website. Thanks to all who participated in these conversations about careers beyond the professoriate, progressive mentoring strategies, season selection with an anti-racist approach, and what happens to theatre and performance departments post-Covid. You’ll also find our 2020 virtual awards ceremony in both locations, including an interview with Ric Knowles celebrating his receipt of the 2020 Distinguished Scholar Award. Watch for an announcement for 2021 award applications, which will include three new awards: the ASTR Translation Prize, the Jessica Berson Dance Research Award for scholars without secure academic employment, and the José Esteban Muñoz Award for scholars presenting at ASTR for the first time.

In addition to creating new awards, the Executive Committee has been working with other ASTR committees and other organizations to envision and implement new forms of mutual support during these precarious times. The ASTR Commons will expand in early 2021 even as this resource exchange continues to add new connections for guest lecturers and pedagogical assistance. Work continues on initiatives to plan for flexible conference options in the event that they become necessary yet again and to bring scholars from underrepresented groups as well as those without regularized institutional support into the center of ASTR’s conference, awards, publications, and leadership.

Faced with growing challenges across the field and across academia, we have formed a Fund Development Committee to pursue grant writing and other avenues for raising money from sources outside the Society. If you have experience or interest in this area, please contact me directly to discuss joining this crucial committee. And of course ASTR always welcomes tax-deductible donations. Our annual conference itself does not turn a profit but does provide a significant incentive to pay membership dues. Membership is currently down from approximately 700 members to around 450, many of whom took advantage of the flexible dues option this year. We are minimizing expenses where we can; for example, this spring’s EC meeting will be conducted on Zoom even if travel becomes possible by that time. Although much of ASTR’s work is done by volunteers including the elected officers and members of the Executive Committee, we truly need the administrative services for which we pay our Executive Director and a few other consultants. We also need to meet ongoing expenses such as our website and membership services database, and there are costs involved with the initiatives that we undertake to support our member community. Because we were not able to hold our regular business meeting this year, I’ve glad that I have this opportunity to share information about the Society’s operations.

Wishing you a restorative and generative midwinter,

Marla Carlson
ASTR President

As you know, we will not meet face to face for a conference this fall. Details about the virtual field conversations will be announced soon. Rather than attempting to create a full online conference experience that would exacerbate the Zoom fatigue that many of us are experiencing, these events are scaled down to be easily manageable within your undoubtedly unusual working conditions. Awards will be announced and celebrated asynchronously online, and we will be diligent about sharing news and information via email and the ASTR website in the absence of an annual business meeting. Please take a look at the conference program on our website to see the fabulous collection of panels and working sessions put together by our 2020 conference program committee, most of which will carry forward to 2021. Forty-five of the fifty-five working sessions listed in the program have chosen to meet with their participants this fall. I’m delighted that one of the Society’s most significant activities (and the one that made ASTR my scholarly home) can move forward within these challenging circumstances.

The first phase of the ASTR Commons launched in August to foster visibility, connections, and experience for scholars with insufficient resources and/or whose work has been undervalued. This resource-sharing interface is already connecting guest lecturers, especially BIPOC scholars, contingent faculty, and graduate students, with instructors seeking in-class guests or speakers for virtual colloquia and also connecting faculty and graduate students navigating changing formats and environments for teaching with peers who have relevant pedagogical experience in, for example, online course design and instruction. With this first phase in place, we plan to expand the types of connection we can offer and welcome your suggestions of ways in which ASTR can facilitate mutual support.

ASTR’s officers and Executive Committee continue to work with other organizations and with our ad hoc committees to address specific challenges. In addition to the inter-organizational task force on open access publishing that ASTR’s Vice President for Publications Dorothy Chansky is leading, Margaret Werry will be working with representatives from ATDS, ATHE, CATR, and TaPRA to conduct qualitative research that tracks trends in career pathways/employment in theatre and performance studies with particular attention to questions of equity such as: What does the “pipeline” look and feel like? What are the obstacles faced and transitions navigated by members in non-academic/contingent employment? What is job-quality like for those in such positions? What are the intersecting ways in which members are being impacted by structural racism in academia, healthcare, and public life? This data is intended to supplement and build on the quantitative research that Noe Montez has been doing for several years now. Shayoni Mitra is leading an ASTR task force to re-envision ASTR’s support for scholars in our field without secure academic jobs, working with members of the Membership, Mentoring, and New Paradigms Committees as well as some members at large. After conducting a brief survey in collaboration with ATHE, the Empowerment Committee is continuing to develop recommendations for ways in which ASTR and its membership can advocate for precarious faculty within our institutions.

You will have received the 2020 call for nominations just recently. Please visit our news page for more information, and then nominate yourself or someone else. In 2021, we will elect a President, a Vice President for Conferences, four members of the Executive Committee, a member at large for the Conference Program Selection Committee, and a Graduate Student Caucus President. If this commitment is beyond what you have time for right now, please consider volunteering for one of the committees that evaluate award and fellowship applications, plan different activities at the conference and beyond it, and work to help the Society better serve its membership and the field. All ASTR committees proactively welcome members from communities that have been historically excluded or marginalized from leadership roles within academic organizations, as articulated by the call for nominations, and appointments comply with ASTR’s longstanding non-discrimination policy.

Finally, please renew your membership if you haven’t already done so. You may choose what you pay for membership dues this year. This flexibility reflects ASTR’s commitment to executing specific, concrete, and meaningful actions to address equity and representation. At the same time, we do need funds to cover ongoing expenses, and I must ask (again) for financial help from those of you who are able to make a tax-deductible donation to support the mission of ASTR.

Marla Carlson
ASTR President

I hope you’re well and want to let you know that ASTR’s leadership is focusing on ways to support you in navigating the ongoing pandemic and the particular challenges it creates for us as scholars, instructors, students, and artists, and at the same time working with you to eradicate systemic structural racism within our organization, our institutions, our field, and our society. 

I share your disappointment that we had to postpone the conference on “Theatre and Performance After Repetition” to 2021. I deeply appreciate the hard work that the conference planning team—both our staff and our member volunteers—have done in making sure that we have a viable plan for moving forward that minimizes the financial impact of this change. Thank you for your patience as we monitored the COVID curves and then negotiated with the hotels in San Diego and New Orleans—a delicate process that could bankrupt the organization if improperly handled. And I am so grateful to all 2020 working session conveners for managing to create participant lists so quickly in order to create a full program.

Without a conference in 2020, ASTR is developing other ways to support scholarship, professional development, and personal connections. Various forms of member-to-member resource sharing and support will become available through our website within the next couple of months. Our efforts are intended to complement the ongoing Research Conversations, Publication Development Forums, and Dissertation Bootcamp. Thinking longer term, a task force with members of the Executive and other ASTR committees is considering structural changes that will enable the organization to better support those of us without secure academic employment—precarity did not begin with COVID but is likely to increase. The Empowerment Committee has already published a list of recommendations for response to COVID-19 and is working with ATHE’s Professional Development Committee to gather data on the way the pandemic is affecting the members of both organizations. Please respond to their survey and also feel free to share your thoughts with me. In the meantime, I’d like to suggest that everyone who participated in the Mentoring Breakfast in Arlington check in with your small mentorship group. 

The application deadline for the next round of Research Grants is July 16. We will not be making travel awards in 2020 that are specifically intended to support conference attendance, so look for these again in 2021. In the meantime, we’re excited to announce three new initiatives to support and recognize scholarship in particular areas:

• The José Esteban Muñoz Initiative will continue, taking the form of travel grants 
• for individuals presenting at ASTR for the first time. 
• The Jessica Berson Dance Research Assistance Fund will begin as a five-year initiative to support contingent scholars who specialize in dance-based work in theatre.
• A new award will recognize outstanding translation into English of a work in the field of theatre and performance studies.

Keep an eye out for more information during the 2021 application cycle.

Theatre Survey is moving to a hybrid open access model, meaning that the journal can now accept work from scholars whose institutions require that they publish in open access journals. Nearly half of TS submissions come from outside the U.S. and are subject to this sort of requirement. Looking at the issue of open access more broadly, ASTR’s Vice President for Publications is leading an inter-organizational task force to consider the position our field should take on open access publishing, working with representatives from ATDS, ATHE, CATR, DSA, PSi, TLA, and USITT. The move toward open access is driven by STEM fields and has very different implications and impacts for the arts and humanities. Given that the impacts and implications also differ geographically and institutionally, the task force is specifically focused on the situation for theatre, dance, and performance studies organizations based in the U.S. and Canada with international membership.

Most urgently, I would like to remind you that ASTR’s members are the organization. Aside from a small number of part-time contractors who provide management services, we are all volunteers working to help one another. Many of you serve or have served on ASTR committees and as mentors for newer members as well as sharing your scholarship and professional expertise at our conferences. In addition to inviting you to take part in various on-line activities, we’ll be asking you to renew your membership to provide the financial support that we need to continue our work together. Your renewal notice will include specific information about options for those who cannot afford their regular dues payment this year and also for those who are able to contribute to a fund to sponsor membership. ASTR needs you and it also needs your financial support if you can manage it. 

Perhaps it will be useful to share more information about our budget. When we plan a conference, we try to make sure that the registration fees cover the expenses. Sometimes we come up a bit short. Only rarely is there a surplus, and that’s never enough to cover our ongoing operating expenses. We need to pay our part-time Executive Director and the people who manage our website, finances, and conference services. There are other costs associated with the website and member database, insurance, and Theatre Survey. Our awards and fellowships are funded by the small percentage that we withdraw a from our investment accounts each year, and we have been able to preserve those funds even after the 2018 conference cancellation and 2019 management transition, both of which presented serious challenges. We have been unable to fund all of the worthwhile initiatives proposed during the past eighteen months, and we appreciate your support in any form. 

As always, we’ll be needing new members for our numerous committees. Although most of these positions need to be filled in the fall, it’s never to early to indicate your interest. Please volunteer! Right now, I’m looking for new Nominating Committee members and want to add a graduate student to the Transnational Committee. (We would really like, if possible, to find someone from Latin America, the Middle East, or the global south—there is no one on the committee now from these parts of the world.) Please contact me directly about either of those opportunities. And finally, remember that you can get news updates from ASTR’s official Facebook page and Twitter account.

Marla Carlson
ASTR President

Nancy Erickson bid us adieu at the end of November after skillfully guiding us through our management transition. Executive Director Aimee Zygmonski is now overseeing all operations, with the continued support of Red Door Alliances for conference services, Franklin-Sewell Communications for communications and membership services, and FitGrowth Partners for financial services.

As this challenging year ends happily, please keep in mind that ASTR is its membership, and that the Society needs your full participation. In order to keep membership dues and conference registration fees as low as possible while also providing vibrant programming and a slate of awards and fellowships that constitute a significant but vital expense, much of ASTR’s work is done by volunteers including the elected officers and members of the Executive Committee. Numerous committees evaluate award and fellowship applications, plan different activities at the conference and beyond it, and work to help the Society better serve its membership and the field. Volunteer with ASTR by sending an email to any of the addresses on our volunteer page. When you contact us, please tell us something about yourself and feel free to indicate areas of particular interest.

Since ASTR strives to balance representation on its committees whenever possible, we also appreciate receiving information about your current affiliation (within or beyond the academy). All ASTR committees proactively welcome members from communities that have been historically excluded or marginalized from leadership roles within academic organizations, as articulated by the call for nominations, and appointments comply with ASTR’s longstanding non-discrimination policy.

On Monday, we sent an email requesting proposals for plenary presentations and from those wishing to convene a working session for ASTR 2020, both of which are due February 1, 2020. You can also view the conference announcement on the ASTR website with links for proposal submission. In Fall 2018, the Executive Committee selected the proposal from Soyica Diggs Colbert, Douglas A. Jones, Jr., and Shane Vogel for a conference on the theme “Theatre and Performance After Repetition,” and appointed them as Program Chairs. They have put together a Program Committee that will blind review plenary abstracts and working session proposals. For plenary sessions, so called because they are given before a plurality of conference attendees, the committee selects—without regard to seniority or rank—contributions that constitute original and interesting research making significant interventions into the conference theme and our discipline’s discourse. Working sessions, scheduled concurrently with one another, focus around a subject and can take different forms as the conveners see fit—this format allows maximum flexibility, allowing session leaders to create the structure most suitable to the group’s work. Detailed information about working sessions is available on the website.

Those selected to convene working sessions for 2020 will circulate a call for participants in April, with submissions due in May. Please apply to present your work at ASTR 2020—this is the single most important way to make sure that the conference represents your interests. If your initial proposal is not accepted, please understand the limits of time and space, and apply to participate in a working session.

I look forward to seeing many of you in New Orleans from November 5-8, 2020.

Finally, I must ask for financial help from those of you who are able to donate. ASTR has come through the challenges of this past year in better shape than one would have expected after the cancellation of the 2018 conference and consequent loss of revenue. Donations provide funding for ongoing activities such as the awards and fellowships that enhance our members’ important work. Membership dues and conference registrations do not cover all of our annual operating costs, so please consider a tax-deductible donation to support the mission of ASTR.

Marla Carlson
ASTR President