The Segal Theatre to Host Book Talk with Avra Sidiropoulou Next Week

The Segal Theatre will host a book talk with theatre scholar and director Avra Sidiropoulou discussing her latest publication Staging 21st Century Tragedies. Τheatre, Politics, and Global Crisis (Routledge 2022). A conversation with panelists Carol Martin, Karen Malpede, and Peter Campbell will accompany the presentation, as well as live excerpt readings from Karen Malpede's 2020 play Troy Too, which is featured in the collection. The book will be introduced by Professor Marvin Carlson. Di Zhu, and David Glover will read from the play, which Avra Sidiropoulou will direct at HERE Arts Centre, New York (May 11th-21st). The talk will also be live streamed through HowlRound.

Staging 21st Century Tragedies. Theatre, Politics and Global Crisis examines ways in which the political, ecological and social tragedies of our century are being negotiated on international stages. Sidiropoulou explains how the globally reemerging practice of politically engaged art-a "Theatre of Crisis"-represents our century's equivalent to the genre of classical tragedy. Using an interdisciplinary perspective, the book discusses participatory, immersive and documentary theatre practices that emerged in the public sphere-creating the theatre of "modern tragedy." The coexistence of scholarly essays with provocative manifestos, interviews, original works, theatre texts and diaries by theatre artists is meant to provide a multifocal, rich lens for performance analysis and a better understanding of the creative process. This new international collection published by Routledge in 2022, consists of essays, interviews, plays and manifestos by leading academics, artists, writers and curators, including Anestis Azas, Taiwo Afolabi, Silvia Bigliazzi, Peter Campbell, Freddy Decreus, Ana Contreras Elvira, Lupe Gehrenbech, Hanane Hajj Ali, Karen Malpede , Carol Martin, Yana Meerzon, Aldo Milohnic, Ana Fernandez Caparrós, Avra Sidiropoulou, Ogah Mark Onwe, Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah, Frank Raddatz, Miguel Rojo and Javier Hernando, Tadashi Uchino, Su Xiaogang, Daniel Wetzel and, Constantina Ziropoulou.


Avra Sidiropoulou is Associate Professor of Theatre at the Open University of Cyprus and Artistic Director of Athens-based Persona Theatre Company. She has published extensively on directing theory and practice, contemporary performance and dramaturgy and is the author of Directions for Directing. Theatre and Method (Routledge 2018) and Authoring Performance: The Director in Contemporary Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan 2011). She was a Visiting Scholar at the Martin E. Segal Centre at CUNY, Columbia University, Freie University in Berlin and the University of Tokyo. Avra recently directed Sophie Treadwell's Machinal at the Cyprus Theatre Organization and Enter Hamlet at the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival and is currently staging Karen Malpede'sTroy Too at Here Arts Center (NY).She was a nominee for the LPTW 2020 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award.

Peter A. Campbell is a theatre-maker, teacher, and scholar. His professional work includes the recent installations PUBLIC DISCOURSE, Mediacracy, and Can't Get There From Here was worshopped at MASS MoCA; and medea & medea/ for medea, iph.then, and Yellow Electras at the Incubator Arts Project in New York City. He has published essays in venues such as Theatre Topics, Modern Drama, Contemporary Theatre Journal, and The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. He is Professor of Theater History and Criticism and Dean of the School of Contemporary Arts at Ramapo College.

Marvin Carlson is the Sidney E. Cohn Professor Emeritus of Theatre, Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens, the ATHE Career Achievement Award, the ASTR Distinguished Scholarship Award, the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and the Calloway Prize for writing in theatre. He is the director of the Marvin Carlson Center for the study of Global Theatre and the Shanghai Theatre Academy and the founding editor of the journals Western European Stages and Arab Stages. He is the author of over 330 scholarly article and twenty-three books, among them Theories of the Theatre and The Haunted Stage. His work has been translated into 23 languages.

David Glover is an actor, poet and director from Philadelphia. He is an artist drawn to telling needed stories that press at the potent roots of trauma and healing. Historical productions in New York and Philadelphia include the revival of The Escape; Or A leap for freedom (the first published play by an African American), the American premieres of; The View and The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, for which he won a Barrymore Award, and the World premiere of The Brother Sister Plays trilogy. He's been a company member/choreographer with The HOW for five years, the recipient of a Cultural Solidarity Fund Grant and a NY Artist Grant, served in the US Army (2011-2016) and worked as a Public/Private School Teacher in NY (2017-2018). His artistic body of work centers on identity, history, and home with a focus on the complexities of Black life, love and liberation. His debut book of poetry, Beneath My Body Armor, will be released Spring 2023.

Karen Malpede is the author and sometimes director of 22 plays. She co-founded Theater Three Collaborative with George Bartenieff and Lee Nagrin in 1995. They are known for their social justice, ecofeminist poetic plays of which Troy Too is the most recent.

Carol Martin is a Professor of Drama at New York University. Her recent books, Theatre of the Real and Dramaturgy of the Real on the World Stage, examine the ways a wide range of international theatre and performance participates in the construction of the real and theorizes how we come to know, experience, and understand the important events of our personal, social, and political lives. She is a guest editor of three special issues of TDR "Performing the City," "Reclaiming the Real," and "Documentary Theatre." Her many essays and book chapters have been translated into several languages. Her current project is on house museum's performance of public and private space.

Di Zhu is a Chinese-American actress, pianist, and theater producer based in NYC. She is currently playing the role of Mozart in Alexander Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri (And Scene From Faust), now playing at The Russian Arts Theater and Studio. Other select appearances include Animal Farm, Yama The Hellhole, Another Life, The Beekeeper's Daughter, The Waiter and The Slut, The Rise and Fall of Macondo, Enemies Of The People and Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Film and TV credits include Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (with Tina Fey and Margot Robbie), NBC's The Blindspot, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (with Tom Hanks) and WeCrashed (with Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway). www.whoisdi.com

Moderated by Frank Hentschker
Live Streamed by HowlRound Theatre Commons
Talk Time: Monday, April 17th, 6:30pm
Location: The Martin E. Segal Theatre CUNY Graduate Center 365 34th st and 5th avenue
Live Stream Link: https://howlround.com/happenings/book-talk-staging-21st-century-tragedies-theatre-politics-and-global-crisis