Central hosts A Roundtable on Sports Plays to mark the premieres of its productions of ‘Colossal’ and ‘The Wolves’ and the publication of Sports Plays (Routledge, 2021)
On Wednesday 21 July, Central’s Research department will host A Roundtable on Sports Plays to coincide with the online premieres of Central’s undergraduate productions of Andrew Hinderaker’s Colossal, directed by Robert Styles and Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves directed by Debbie Seymour, both streaming online from the 14 - 28 July.
The roundtable will welcome three authors from the forthcoming edited collection Sports Plays, released on 20th August 2021, a book about sports in the theatre and what it means to stage sports. The collection has been edited by Central’s Broderick Chow, Deputy Director of learning and Teaching, together with Eero Laine at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York who will also feature on the panel alongside contributions from cast, designers, and creatives from both productions.
As well as Broderick Chow and Eero Laine, the panel will feature Sean Metzger (Associate Dean for Faculty and Students in the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television), SAJ (PhD, McNair Scholar and co-editor of Lateral, the journal of the cultural Studies Association) and Kim Solga (Professor and Director of Theatre Studies in the Department of English and Writing Studies at Western University, Canada)
The discussion will focus on questions of neoliberal girlhood; how the labour of both athletes and actors is bought, sold and traded; and an exploration of ‘locker room dramas’ that pose questions about the performance of masculinity.
Of the event, Broderick Chow said:
“I’m delighted that we can bring together Central’s research and scholarship, teaching, and creative practice for this event. The intersection of sport and theatre has been at central to both mine and Eero Laine’s research for a long time, and in publishing this book we are hoping to highlight what might be considered an underexplored genre. The productions of The Wolves and Colossal demonstrate just how rich a site sport is for human drama, while at the same time enabling actors to engage in a dynamic physical language.”
I’m delighted that we can bring together Central’s research and scholarship, teaching, and creative practice for this event.
Find out more about Sports Plays by visiting Routledge’s website.
You can also read Broderick’s recent contribution, together with Central’s David Harradine and Robin Nelson, to the Practice Research Report. Published by James Bulley & Özden Şahin for the Practice Research Advisory Group, the report seeks to answer the questions ‘What is practice research?’ and ‘How can practice research be shared?’ through interviews and discussions with 62 contemporary practice researchers, theorist, research support professionals and policymakers.
Watch the live streamed premieres of Central’s BA (Hons) Acting and BA (Hons) Theatre Practice productions of Colossal and The Wolves between 14 – 28 July.
About Colossal
Colossal, a new play written by Andrew Hinderaker, tells the story of a star football player at the U of Texas, son of a modern dancer. Described as the Anti-Billy Elliott, Colossal expresses masculinity through emotional and physical journeys of the performers by integrating the languages of football, disabilities, and dance.
Trigger warning: viewers of this video may find some content offensive. It includes strobe lighting, homophobic language, abandonment, traumatic and life-changing injury.
This amateur production of Colossal is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
About The Wolves
Pulitzer Prize finalist The Wolves is the debut play of up-and-coming playwright Sarah DeLappe. Featuring an all-female cast (comprised of nine adolescents and one briefly-seen adult), The Wolves chronicles six Saturday mornings in the lives of a soccer team somewhere in suburban America as they prepare for their games. The girls discuss everything from genocide to menstrual cycles to drugs to boys to literature to each other, and a group of girls whom at first seem indistinguishable as each is referred to by only her number and all are clad in the same jersey only bearing her number quickly become identifiable and different. In the course of six short weeks, the Wolves deal with love, loss, and identity in ways that real teenagers do.
Trigger warning: viewers of this video may find some content offensive. It includes discussions about death, sex, sexism, sexual violence/rape, violence/murder/genocide, racism, body image and appearance, implied sexual assault, eating disorder, and bereavement.
This amateur production of The Wolves is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk