Rethinking our Field: A Forum: Editor's Note

A year ago David Savran gave a paper at the American Society for Theater Research that several contributing editors and I thought would be of great interest to Theater's readers, many of whom are in theater and performance studies as teachers or students. Savran's work also looked like a fine way to open a debate that could go beyond the academy to address the connections--more precisely, the ever-increasing disconnections--between American theories about theater and American theater practice.

The following essay is a slightly revised version of that paper, which we sent to a number of scholars in both theater and performance programs, and also to critics of a less academic bent. Alas, those damned disconnections instantly proved their power: the scholars responded with vigor, but critics who write for a wider intellectual audience weren't moved to reply. They seemed to think the whole conversation was exceedingly in-house--though Savran is, among other things, urging his fellow academics to become more public and more engaged.

I hope this forum will be the beginning of a wider discussion between scholars, critics, and artists--a discussion that examines the rise of performance studies and relative decline of theater studies through many lenses: social, political, cultural. . . . Meanwhile, I know people both inside and outside the particular debate below will see that it contains a multitude of useful and imaginative pointers toward its own expansion.

--Erika Munk

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