UMass Theater faculty invite local theater artists to a symposium featuring leading Latinx theater scholars
A major compendium of Latinx theater scholarship, The Routledge Companion to Latine Theatre and Performance, has just been published. To celebrate the book as it deserves, on April 8 & 9, two UMass Theater faculty members are presenting Building Bridges As We Walk: A Latinx Theater Symposium, which will feature many of the book’s contributors. The symposium is free and open to to anyone interested in Latine theater.
Among the guests at the event, will be noted Latine Theater scholar, artist, and educator Dr. Jorge Huerta, who will deliver the keynote address the morning of April 8, as well as leading a post-show talk-back the evening of April 9.
The symposium, which will take place in various locations on the UMass campus, is free and open to registrants on a first come, first serve basis, and folks can register here. UMass Theater Professors Elisa Gonzales and Dr. Priscilla Page are among fifty contributors to The Routledge Companion to Latine Theatre and Performance, edited by Noe Montez and Olga Sanchez Saltveit. The volume features “interdisciplinary contributions written by some of the leading Latine theatre and performance scholars and practitioners in the United States to highlight evolving and recurring strategies of world making, activism, and resistance taken by Latine culture makers to gain political agency on and off the stage.”
“It is an encyclopedic resource,” says Dr. Page, who described the book as having a “briliant and encompassing vision.”
She and Prof. Gonzales hatched the idea for the symposium as “a celebration and expression of gratitude” for the work done by editors Montez and Sanchez Saltveit. They invited the book’s contributors to participate on April 8 in a day of panel discussions about Latine/x theater, as well as asking Montez and Sanchez Saltveit to lead a round table discussion. There will be a reading of selections from several plays by contributors. In addition, on April 9, participants are invited to a staged reading of a new play by MFA student Pedro Eiras, followed by a post-show talk-back by Dr. Huerta.
You can visit our website for the full listing of events.
Both Page and Gonzales are thrilled that Dr. Huerta will be kicking off the event with his keynote. “He’s somebody that Elisa and I have been looking to for scholarship on Chicano and Latinx theater,” Dr. Page explains. This event is open to theater students and faculty in the Five Colleges, as well as community members. Registration is first come, first serve, and free.
In a closed event, Dr. Huerta will also teach a workshop for UMass Theater students.
Join UMass Theater for this exciting free event as we examine the scope of Latine theater; register now!