Seven Ways of Looking at the American Society for Theatre Research

It was my first ASTR conference, a gathering on “Popular Entertainment” held over two decades ago in New York City, and every time my tweed-clad, bearded husband and I neared the conference arena, he was mistaken for the ASTR member. Determined to prove myself a scholar through my performance if not my looks, I strode into the dimmed conference auditorium, sat near the front, and listened intently to the chair of the next panel as he announced that, “unfortunately,” the aging vaudeville star scheduled to perform the fan dance for us had fallen ill. While I tried to process that information, a leotard-covered American Ballet Theatre replacement glided onto the stage, fan in hand. I was transfixed. I knew I was inexperienced—I had only attended two other theatre conferences—but was this really happening? At my first theatre conference prior to ASTR's—an inexplicably weeklong sojourn dedicated to Sarah Bernhardt—I had watched the aging French diva stomp around in an early silent movie as an independent collector slavered over “Sar-aah's divine ah-rt” and Laurence Senelick offered me a simultaneous (and inimitable) sotto voce commentary. At my second conference, I had found myself engaged in a group sing-along of a nineteenth-century barroom ditty and had encountered my still-favorite opening line: “Canadian provincial theatre is an almost virgin field.”