Song, Stage and Screen 2024

Renewing/Rethinking/Reviving
June 26-29, 2024
Hosted by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Song, Stage and Screen is back!

This call for participation heralds Song, Stage and Screen’s first return to an in-person gathering since 2019. Song, Stage and Screen XVII will convene at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City from June 26-29, 2024. This conference will be in-person, free and open to the public. While the pandemic forced the global musical theatre industry to restart itself since our last meeting, issues surrounding reboots, reckonings, and revivals have long beset both the industry and the study of musicals. What resulting implications for musical theatre research have arisen? We encourage submissions that consider how the terms “renewing,” “rethinking,” or “reviving” apply broadly to any aspect of the musical theatre on the page, stage or screen.

Topics for panels, papers, and presentations may include:

• The politics of revival/the revival of politics
• Revisals and revivals of “problem” musicals
• Renewing or rethinking musical theatre industries
• Possibilities for reinvention, renewal or revival
• Rebooting/renewing/reckoning with changing audiences
• Rethinking historiography and its challenges

Panels and workshops will last 1 hour/1.5 hours/2 hours TBD.

Instructions for proposing an individual paper

Individual papers will be 20 minutes in length with 10 minutes for discussion. Please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words in a PDF file labeled by title and omitting your name and affiliation.

Instructions for proposing a workshop

Workshops will engage attendees in discussions or activities about a specific theme or topic. The focus can be scholarly (related to the conference theme; focused on a collection of the repertoire; honing a particular methodology; unpacking a particular theoretical lens). Or it can be centered on practical, career-oriented themes (careers; pedagogy; publishing). Workshops should be convened by groups of two to five people, and can be organized in a number of ways. Proposals should explain clearly how attendees will participate: a workshop might include discussion questions, for example, or breakout sessions or a series of activities. Workshop conveners should use no more than one-third of the allotted time to present the topic at hand. The remainder of the time should be spent engaging with attendees. Workshops will be from 1-2 hours depending on content.

To apply to convene a workshop, presenters should submit a proposal identifying the workshop topic, its relationship to the conference theme and the names of the conveners. The proposal should specify how the time will be used.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words in a PDF labeled by title and omitting names and affiliations.

Please submit your abstract for an individual paper or a workshop via this form by Friday January 5, 2024..

Our international program committee will perform an anonymous review of all submissions. Prospective participants will be notified by the end of January 2024.

Conference Co-Chairs: Ryan Donovan, Liz Wollman, and Jessica Sternfeld

Conference Program Committee: Ryan Donovan, Hyunjung Lee, Emilio Méndez, Doug Reside, Jessica Sternfeld (chair), Millie Taylor

Questions? Drop us an email at [email protected]. For more information about the Song, Stage and Screen conference, the Studies in Musical Theatre journal, and their sponsoring organization, the International Society for the Study of Musicals (ISSM), please visit issmusicals.org.