Introduction

Introduction The topic of outdoor drama seemed quite attractive for the second of two symposia under my editorship. My scholarly interest is focused mainly on comedy, but that particular subject furnished the theme for the 2007 Theatre Symposium event at West Virginia University in Morgantown, where I teach (please see Theatre Symposium 16). The topic for the second event and its location took me out of my comfort zone into an intellectual and geographical area that would not only furnish material for this volume but would collaterally add to my own understanding of the range and variety of what constitutes outdoor drama. The location of any symposium event ideally reflects on the topic in some way, grounding the subject in a context that augments both the ideas of the symposium and the experiences of the participants. Once the Theatre Symposium Steering Committee of the Southeastern Theatre Conference, specifically Phil G. Hill of Furman University, described the Institute of Outdoor Drama (IOD) at the University of North Carolina , I knew that Chapel Hill had to be the location of the seventeenth Theatre Symposium event. Moreover, important people associated with the outdoor historical drama still lived in or near Chapel Hill: Mark R. Sumner, a writer of outdoor drama and a former director of the IOD; Rob Franklin Fox, its current director; and Scott J. Parker, Fox’s predecessor at the IOD, a former editor of Theatre Symposium, and a former president of the Southeastern Theatre Conference. The best-case scenario, therefore, was to find a way to involve all three of these men whose careers spoke directly to the topic at hand. Happily, the three of them graciously and 6 I N T R O D U C T I O N eagerly lent their time and expertise as the keynote speakers of the event. Chapel Hill promised to be a fabulous setting for the event. The call for papers invited presentations on all manner of outdoor drama, from ancient Greek theatre, which by necessity took place outdoors , to the plays that are still performed today in many parts of the world. Panels convened on historical productions, such seemingly esoteric topics as popular celebrations after the French Revolution and microperformances in contemporary society. Organizing the panels fulfilled the promise of the call for papers: the event examined outdoor drama in new and exciting ways. The panels, however, challenged the notion that the event concerned outdoor historical drama of the kind with which the keynote speakers usually dealt. Instead, given the varied topics of papers presented, and the interests of some current scholarship in the theatre (e.g., performance studies), the title of Theatre Symposium 17 more appropriately morphed from “Outdoor Drama” to “Outdoor Performance.” The event, and the essays in this volume that emerged from it, combined not only a keynote roundtable that dealt with the outdoor historical drama from the point of view of writing and production concerns but also essays that investigated performance in some of those well-known titles or in venues that stretched the definition of “Outdoor Historical Drama.” And so, the title of the symposium changed its perceived emphasis from that term to the broader “Outdoor Performance .” The present volume consists of the extended keynote roundtable, six articles that reflect the range of panels and topics at the event, and the give-and-take that generated the Symposium Response that synthesized some of the intersections between the traditional and the newest performances outdoors—performances that extend the boundaries and call into question the definition of “theatre space.” Holding the Theatre Symposium event in North Carolina, the home of many of the greatest examples of the outdoor historical drama, provided several benefits beyond the IOD and the informative papers. The University of North Carolina campus at Chapel Hill houses a professional regional theatre, PlayMakers Repertory Company, and many attendees of the symposium enjoyed a performance of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus (alas, indoors!) on Saturday night. The Friday-night plans supplied an interesting problem of how to provide a convivial scene at dinner for the members of this year’s event to mix and share their ideas. Again, the IOD staff assisted in the planning by suggesting a...