From Rick Gilbert:

Hello all!  Once again, I am looking for papers for the Comparative Drama Conference!  It is a really collegial, focused conference that alternates between London and Madison, WI. 

Here is the CFP for the ATDS panels:

Special Call for Prearranged American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS) Panels at the Comparative Drama Conference (CDC), Madison, Wisconsin, July 9-11, 2026

Special extended deadline for these prearranged ATDS panels (only): January 10, 2026 

Please note that the regular CDC conference deadline is December 15, 2025. In addition to abstracts for papers, CDC also invites proposals for new plays for staged reading at the conference, also due by December 15, 2025. For full details, see the CDC CFP linked here. For general inquiries on the CDC Conference, please contact cdc2026@theatre.wisc.edu]

For this special call for ATDS panels (only) please contact Rick Gilbert (Loyola University Chicago) at rgilbert1@luc.edu.

Panels Sponsored by the American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS)

The following panels are seeking papers for presentation at the Comparative Drama Conference July 9-11, 2026 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Papers for either panel should be 15 minutes in length, written for oral presentation, and accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience. Scholars and artists in all languages and literatures are invited to email a 250 word abstract in English to Dr. Richard Gilbert (rgilbert1@luc.edu) by January 10, 2026. Please include paper title, author’s name, status (faculty, graduate student, independent scholar), institutional affiliation (if any), and postal address at top left.  Anyone who presents on one of these panels should be (or become) a member of the ATDS (https://www.atds.org/) and must register for the CDC conference.

Panel 1:         American Political Theater

Companies throughout the Americas have come back from the pandemic to begin producing theater again and while many are reviving old chestnuts or offering escape from the political, some are experimenting with new kinds of political work while others are reviving classic techniques of agit-prop theater. All this despite the fact that American politics have become so farcical that in some ways political theater is more difficult to write and produce than ever.

This panel seeks papers that explore the ways in which contemporary American plays and productions seek to do political work. We are particularly interested in discussions of new plays or of new productions or interpretations of older work.

Panel 2:              The State of the Theater in 2026

The theater as an industry and as a community of artists has changed in the last decade in a host of ways. Theater is still struggling to recover the numbers it boasted pre-pandemic, both in terms of number of plays produced and sizes of audiences. Other changes which seemed promised in 2020 regarding representation and accessibility have proven elusive. Much loved institutions struggle or have closed. Yet the theater is still able to surprise us with new companies doing new and exciting work in new venues.

This panel seeks papers that discuss the current state of the theater, either as an industry or a community or a set of practices in boardrooms or rehearsal rooms.

Questions or submissions for the ATDS panels (only) should be directed to rgilbert1@luc.edu

For general CDC Conference Info, please see the 2026 CDC Conference Website: https://theatre.wisc.edu/comparative-drama-conference-cdc/

Hope to see you in Madison!

-Rick

Dr. Richard Gilbert (he/him)

Department of English

Department of Fine and Performing Arts

Loyola University Chicago