Earth Matters on Stage, an organization whose mission is to “nurture connection and collaboration among artists who share an ecological sensibility,” will be hosting the Ecodrama Playwrights Festival & Symposium in late May of 2009 in Eugene, Oregon, and has posted a call for submissions.

The Playwrights Festival will award prizes and workshop productions to several new works that relate to the environment and ecology, and will be chosen by a panel of distinguished theatre artists from the USA and Canada, including Martha Lavey, Timothy Bond, José Cruz Gonzaléz, Olga Sanchez, Diane Glancy, Marie Clements, David Diamond. The concurrent Symposium, to be keynoted by Una Chaudhuri, author of Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama, will “explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological situatedness in general.”

The Festival is the creation of Larry Fried and Theresa May, authors of the pioneering text Greening Up Our Houses: A Guide to a More Ecologically Sound Theatre.  This is the second iteration of the Festival: the original took place in  2004 at Humboldt State University in California.  The full call for proposals is below; visit the website for more details, particularly a article by Teresa May defining “ecodrama”.

Ecology is at the heart of burgeoning creativity and interdisciplinary scholarship across the arts and humanities. This Symposium, together with the concurrent Festival, invites artists, scholars and activists to share their work, ideas, and passions with one another and with the larger community who attend the Festival.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS (artist workshops/scholar papers)

We welcome creative and innovative proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, working sessions, installations, or participatory community gatherings that explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological relationships in general.

The form and format is wide-open and we will schedule and shape the Symposium around the types of proposals received and selected. We encourage proposals that go beyond a recitation of ideas or positions, and instead bring presenters and participants together as they engage the driving question of how theatre has or might function as part of our reciprocal relationship with ecological communities.

Possible topics include: land and body in performance; representations of bioregionalism; eco-literacy; representation of/and environmental justice; green theatre production; old cultural narratives/new stories; indigenous performance; community-based performance/ecological communities; sensing place/staging place; the ecologies of theatrical form and/or space; animal representation; and application of ecocriticism to plays, performance and culture.

Send a one-page proposal and/or abstract by 1 February, 2009 to: Earth Matters On Stage ~ Symposium 2009, Theresa May, Director, Theater Arts, VIL 216, U of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403. Please include: type of session & title; time-length (60 min; 90 min; 2+ hours; half-day); bio or cv. We encourage proposals that include more than one presenter; however, single person proposals are accepted and will be combined with others as themes and formats allow.

NEW PLAY CONTEST – CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

1st place: $2,000 & workshop production; 2nd place: $500 & workshop production; honorable mentions: staged readings.

The winning plays will be chosen by a panel of distinguished theatre artists from the USA and Canada, including Martha Lavey, Timothy Bond, José Cruz Gonzaléz, Olga Sanchez, Diane Glancy, Marie Clements, David Diamond.

Submission Deadline: Postmarked by Nov. 1, 2008.

Early submission encouraged. / Electronic submissions will not be accepted. Submit cover page with: Play Title, Author Name, Contact Information; and two blind copies of the script with synopsis and cast requirements (Please do not put author name on the script, only on the title page) TO: Ecodrama Festival, c/o Theresa May, Theatre Arts, VIL 216, U of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1231.

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