NOTED: American Theatre Critics Association Re-Elected to International Governing Body

Members of the AICT-IATC Executive Committee meet in the shadow
of Anton Chekhov's bust at Дом Актера (Actor's House) in St. Petersburg

The American Theatre Critics Association, the United States national section of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC), was re-elected to the Executive Committee of IATC at the General Assembly during the association’s World Congress in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 15. The congress was held in conjunction with the 17th Europe Theatre Prize/Premio Europa per Il Teatro. Attending the congress were Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, IATC Vice President and Chair of ATCA’s International Committee, and Brad Hathaway, immediate past Vice Chair of the ATCA Executive Committee.

Prior to the General Assembly, members from across the globe were invited to address the congress on the topic of "Performing Arts Today: Freedom and (In)tolerance." Presenters included representatives from Serbia, Russia, Québec, the United States, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea. Following the conference, AICT-IATC honored the esteemed German scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann with the 2018 Thalia Prize, presented to a critic, scholar and/or practitioner whose work has had a profound impact on the nature of the field. Lehmann was honored for his groundbreaking work, Postdramatic Theatre. 

The General Assembly re-elected Margareta Sörenson (Sweden) to her final term as President. Michel Vaïs (Canada) was re-elected Secretary General, marking twenty years in that position. Further, the General Assembly confirmed that the 30th AICT-IATC World Congress will be held in Bratislava, Slovakia in early May 2020. The vote in the General Assembly resulted in the selection of ten national sections that will serve as the voting Executive Committee for the next two years: China, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Nigeria, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and the United States.

The USA section received 85 percent of the possible votes, which caused Jenkins to note, “It is deeply gratifying that our international colleagues are so supportive of keeping our section engaged in this time of global uncertainty for the arts and for humanity.”

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REPORT: News on International Theatre Criticism

Barry Gaines

American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) member Barry Gaines attended the 16th Europe Theatre Prize festivities in Rome last December and wrote about the experience for Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques, the journal of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT-IATC).

The 2018 prize festivities will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia, to coincide with the 29th World Congress of the International Association of Theatre Critics, November 13–18, 2018. During the World Congress, IATC will present the 7th Thalia Prize, which is given, according to IATC President Margareta Sörenson, to someone who has been "responsible for a body of work in criticism and theatre studies" that has also been "particularly important to us, the international critics, in our profession."

Hans-Thies Lehman

Hans-Thies Lehmann, the 2018 Thalia laureate, wrote the groundbreaking book Postdramatic Theatre (Routledge English edition, 2006), in addition to other influential texts. According to authoritative sources, Lehmann's work summarizes "a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the 1960s." What he refers to as "postdramatic" is not "focused on the drama in itself, but evolves a performative aesthetic in which the text of the performance" engages with the "material situation of the performance and the stage." Lehmann's codification of the field has been highly influential for artists and scholars alike since it was published in German in 1999. Past Thalia Prize laureates are Eric Bentley (USA, 2006), Jean-Pierre Sarrazac (France, 2008), Richard Schechner (USA, 2010), Kapila Vatsyayan (India, 2012), Eugenio Barba (Denmark, 2014), and Femi Osofisan (Nigeria, 2016).

For the World Congress, a conference on “Performing Arts: Freedom and (In)Tolerance” has been announced and paper proposals are currently being adjudicated. Given rising levels of nationalism and autocracy throughout the globe, this World Congress and its conference promise to richly engage participants on issues that are of great importance in this political and cultural moment. American delegates to the congress are IATC Vice President Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, and ATCA members Ellen Foreman and Brad Hathaway. Members of the editorial board of Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques will also gather in Russia to set the course for the journal's next two years.