CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS
ACTING WITH FACTS:
PERFORMING THE REAL ON STAGE AND SCREEN
1990-2010
University of Reading
Wednesday 01 Friday 03 September 2010
The University of Reading Department of Film,
Theatre & Television is pleased to
announce an international conference on factual
drama, linked to the Arts and Humanities
Research Council project ?Acting with Facts:
Actors Performing the Real in British Theatre
and Television Since 1990?.
Factual drama has burgeoned in the UK and
elsewhere during the two decades under
review. The conference presents an opportunity
for practitioners and academics to debate
the significance of an important cultural shift.
While ?Acting with Facts? research has
focused on the British context, the conference
welcomes papers on material from outside
the UK.
Distinguished guests who have agreed to attend
and contribute, schedules permitting,
include:
David Edgar
Patricia Hodge
Mark Lawson
Jan Ravens
Sylvia Syms.
There will be several ?Keynote Panels? at the
conference, rather than ?Keynote Lectures?.
These aim to enable two or more speakers to
debate key issues and provoke further
discussion. Speakers participating in Keynote Panels include:
Steven N. Lipkin
Carol Martin
Bella Merlin
Brian Winston.
Other conference events:
? a lecture/performance from iceandfire Theatre
Company?s ?Outreach? group Actors for
Human Rights (director: Christine Bacon)
? a film screening (yet to be finalised)
? a Book Launch for the 2nd edition of Derek
Paget?s No Other Way To Tell It (courtesy of
Manchester University Press)
The Project Team invite proposals for individual
papers on any aspect of modern stage or
screen docudrama between 1990 and the present.
Papers might, for example, focus on:
? Verbatim and Tribunal Theatres
? Community and Constituency Theatre involving documentary/factual material
? Screen (that is to say film as well as
television) hybrids that include elements of
reconstruction/dramatic performance
? Theatre and/or Screen dramas based on fact and
focused on social and political themes
? Film and television ?biopics? centred on individuals in the public eye
? Historical-Event television and film
? Docudrama and New Media.
We are also interested in papers that
incorporate practice of some kind into the
presentation. Possibilities for theoretical/practical focus might include:
? the specific demands made by different media
on actors? and other creatives?
competencies when making or performing fact-based drama
? comparisons and correspondences between docudrama and fictional drama
? the ways television docudrama has responded to:
- the 1990 Broadcasting Act,
- increased international co-production,
- the digital revolution,
- accelerated social and political change since 1990
? the impact of social and political change
(nationally and internationally) on documentary
theatre since 1990
? the ethical and/or institutional and/or
practical constraints on docudrama (e.g. legal
restrictions, marketability, cost), and the aesthetic consequences that follow
? the usefulness of existing academic theories
(of form, genre, format, audience, etc.) in
the analysis of stage and/or screen docudrama.
PROPOSALS
Please send your 200-word proposal by email or
letter to arrive no later than:
FRIDAY 30 APRIL 2010
to Conference Organiser:
Dr Heather Sutherland
'Acting with Facts' Conference
Department of Film, Theatre & Television
Bulmershe Court
University of Reading
RG6 1HYUK
email: (h.a.sutherland /at/ reading.ac.uk)
The ?Acting with Facts? team:
Principal Investigator: Dr Derek Paget
Co-Investigators: Professor
Jonathan Bignell, Lib Taylor
Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr Heather Sutherland
