Tom Sellar – författare

As violence escalates around the world, its victims and perpetrators struggle to develop comprehensible narratives to present truthful accounts of history and experience. This special issue of Theater-a collection of theater artists’ responses to contemporary events-examines the human psyche and its capacity for violence and explores theater’s possibilities for political dissent.In Theater and Violence, through interviews, play excerpts, and full-length plays-including the first American publication of two major German playwrights and directors-theater artists offer their own narratives for humankind’s violent psychologies. One full-length play, Falk Richter’s Seven Seconds (In God We Trust), probes the mind of an American pilot moments before he releases a bomb on a city below. Another, RenÉ Pollesch’s 24 Hours Are Not a Day, humorously explores the ironies and pathologies of globalization after September 11. The issue also includes a commentary on the National Endowment for the Arts’ Shakespeare presentations for the U.S. military; interviews with Russian theater artists on the first anniversary of the Chechen rebels’ siege of a Moscow theater; and Jonathan Kalb’s powerful adaptation of Heiner MÜller’s Mauser, set in Tikrit. Contributors. Josh Fox, Gitta Honegger, Jonathan Kalb, Anna Kohler, James Leverett, Mark Lord, Marlene Norst, RenÉ Pollesch, Falk Richter, Yana Ross, Scott Saul, Tom Sellar, Catherine Sheehy, Robert Woodruff

This issue examines how performance curators are responding to today’s crises both within the world of theater and performance and in the broader spheres of politics, economics, and history. Interviews with four leading performance curators-Boris Charmatz, Sodja Lotker, Florian Malzacher, and Miranda Wright-explore the evolution of their work in response to changes in funding, audience demographics, and creative practices. A special section, coedited by Sigrid Gareis, features essays from a convening at the 2015 SpielART festival that consider the role of the curator in transnational exchange and in response to issues of postcolonialism.Contributors. Tilmann Broszat, Boris Charmatz, Kenneth Collins, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Sigrid Gareis, AndrÉ Lepecki, Sodja Lotker, Florian Malzacher, Jay Pather, Suely Rolnik, Tom Sellar, Miranda Wright

Contributors to this special issue investigate the ways surveillance and the fields of theater and performance inform one another. Considering forms of surveillance from government mass spying to data mining to all-seeing social networks, the contributors demonstrate how surveillance has found its way into our lives, both online and off, and how theater and performance-art forms predicated on heightened experiences of viewing-might help us recognize it. This issue includes scripts, photographs, essays, interviews, and reviews from Live Arts Bard’s 2017 performance biennial We’re Watching, a series of commissioned performances paired with a conference of scholars and artists. The performances  focus on the appropriation and integration of surveillance technologies into theater and performance, such as a piece that uses Python code and Twitter data to create performance text, and one that uses an interplay of video projection, movement, and poetry. Drawing on these performances and more, contributors collectively argue that contemporary surveillance is characterized by both anonymous systems of digital control and human behaviors enacted by individuals. Contributors: David Bruin, Annie Dorsen, Shonni Enelow, Miriam Felton-Dansky, Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Caden Manson, John H. Muse, Jemma Nelson, Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, Alexandro Segade, Tom Sellar

Built around the Live Arts Bard 2019 Biennial of the same name, “Where No Wall Remains” is a record of performances and interactive art projects by international artists on the subject of borders. The artists mark the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall through an exploration of contemporary borders in kaleidoscopic forms: political, physical, psychological, culinary, autobiographical. As the United States accepts fewer and fewer immigrants, ICE commits human rights violations at the Mexican border, and international borders close due to COVID-19, these newly commissioned performances hold urgent significance. Although the state of the world and its borders is dire, “Where No Wall Remains,” a phrase taken from a love poem by Rumi, invites us to imagine not only our xenophobic present, but a future utopian state of being-a fully unbordered world.  ContributorsBasel Abbas, Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Mirna Bamieh, Ali Chahrour, Jason de LeÓn/Undocumented Migration Project, Tania El Khoury, Rudi Goblen, Gideon Lester, Alex Ripp, Emilio Rojas, Tom Sellar, Ashley Thomas

Cultural paradigm shifts, unstable funding sources, newly defined internal and external pressures, and a fractured public sphere have placed unprecedented pressure on theatrical institutions. Topics covered include equity, diversity, and inclusion within a theatrical context; the encroachment of right-wing policies and constituents on cultural institutions; new paths forged between organizations, their audience, and the citizens of their city; and theatrical institutions in Europe, South America, Asia, and North America.Contributors. Peter Boenisch, Lily Climenhaga, Marta Keil, Kopano Maroga, Nelda Murray Prado, Uroran Prasad, Milo Rau, Tom Sellar, Marcos Davi Silva Steuernagel, Tadashi Uchino, Lena Vercauteren