After the Show: Speculative Plays on Another Theater (2013) was a show about not making shows.
Organized with Robert Quillen Camp and presented at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, the event opened with these questions: Why does the ostensibly experimental wing of the performing arts persist in making shows—rather than, say, encounters, parades, meals, businesses, vehicles, protests, games, or vacations? Why, after turning away from terms like “theater” and “drama” to the much-touted promiscuity of “contemporary performance”, do so many artists predominantly perform for theatrical audiences in black boxes?
A performance symposium in the form of a “living publication”, After the Show featured interviews, case studies, proposals, and other contributions that challenged the model of the show. Exploring persistent artistic concepts and institutional forces that produce a constrained vision of theater’s form and horizons, After the Show also attempted to experimentally affirm and redefine theater, asserting the applicability of theatrical techne to other cultural forms and arenas.
With contributions by: Marc Arthur, David Conison, Alec Duffy, Jim Findlay, Yelena Gluzman, Shannon Jackson, Karinne Keithley Syers, Aaron Landsman, David Levine, Odyssey Works, Pearl Damour, Radiohole, Temporary Distortion, and Woodshed Collective.
