Registration open for "Paying the Piper: Economies of Amateur Performance"

[Mary Isbell]

RAPPT is ​an international interdisciplinary network of researchers working
on amateur performance and private theatricals ​​(rappt.org). We write to
announce that registration is now open for our inaugural conference,
"Paying the Piper: Economies of Amateur Performance,"which will run from
June 28-29, 2014. This conference will showcase the results of two RAPPT
projects currently underway: 1) a digital archive of the Pic Nic Society
(arguably the first amateur dramatic society in England), which will serve
as a digital dramaturgy site for 2) an amateur production of one of the
plays that members of the society performed at the Tottenham Street Theatre
in 1802. Our goal is to situate this research into conversations about the
economies of non-professional performance across periods and locations. In
drafty church halls and lavish ballrooms, on board ships, in parlours and
in purpose built spaces, lovers of the performing arts have long
collaborated creatively without the sanction of academic or professional
recognition. Yet not-for-profit performance still has a cost. The
extravagance of the Earl of Barrymore’s theatricals at Wargrave practically
bankrupted him and, as the Pic Nic controversy demonstrates, the fashion
for private performance was, at the very least, perceived as a financial
threat to London’s patent theaters, as depicted in James Gillray’s famous
etching, “Blowing up the Pic
Nics<https://www.dropbox.com/s/qwp126ov6vgclpm/Gillray%20Blowing%20up%20the%20Pic%20Nics.jpg>
.
”​

You can find a description of the conference
here<http://rappt.org/conferences/>,
and a draft programme
here<http://rappt.org/conferences/draft-programme-for-rappt-2014/>.
Our venue
is the London home of the University of Notre Dame, located just off
Trafalgar Square. To register, please click
here<http://onlinestore.rhul.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=584>.
​

If you have any questions, please contact Judith Hawley and Mary Isbell,
conference organisers, at rappt2014 at gmail.com​.
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