[Candrama] CFP: Theatre Architecture(s) & Spatial Justice (Canadian Theatre Review)

[Kimberley McLeod]

Call for Proposals: Canadian Theatre Review Issue 208 (2026)

Theatre Architecture(s) & Spatial Justice


Keywords: spatial justice, unsettling theatre, performance design and architecture practices, performativity of architecture, extended reality design/ scenography and architecture practices, performance and theatre (infra)structures.



This CTR issue on Theatre Architecture(s) & Spatial Justice focuses on the capacity that theatre architecture(s) and architectures of theatre/performance making have to operate as calls to action towards spatial justice. We envision this issue as a site for engaging critically with how theatre makers and performance design practitioners are unsettling existing perceptions of where theatre takes place. Engaging with theatre architecture(s), this issue puts forward the idea of “space as a collaborator,” bringing into question the agency and role that architecture and the built environment play in the structuring of creative processes, and of making and designing theatre and performance. The issue also foregrounds how theatre practitioners – performance creators, scenographers, writers, dramaturgs – are envisioning and devising (temporary/ ephemeral) performance spaces that refuse and unsettle colonial structures and architectures, towards addressing spatial justice. xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) scholar Dylan Robinson uses the term “structural refusal” as an aesthetic response and strategy to resist “Indigenous knowledge extraction and instrumentalization” (2020). When theatre leaves the building (eg. in the form site-specific practices, ambulatory performances, or experiences of performance are rendered in digital architectures etc.) what kinds of spatial injustices might it reveal and conversely how might theatre architecture(s) enact spatial justice? Furthermore, what kinds of engagements with architecture do theatre and performance design afford? And what might performance design architectures (as a theatrical ‘world building’ scenographic practice) have to do with unsettling feelings of place?


The issue Theatre Architecture(s) & Spatial Justice will be organized around Practices and Critical Perspectives. We seek proposals for contributions from theatre artists and scholars, performance designers and architects, in a variety of formats including: written texts and interviews (1500 to 3000 words in length), visual essays, audio and visual works, and play scripts that thematically link to themes of architecture and spatial justice.


One of the goals of this Special Issue is to create space for practitioners to reflect on their practice. Considering that writing can be a daunting task, as editors of this volume, we would like to work with practitioners who are interested in writing about their practice but who are unable to due to the exclusionary nature of academic research/writing. Should you have an idea you would like to write about, and feel you would like the support of the editors to bring it to fruition, we would be happy to provide you with the necessary support for your work to be included in this issue.

We invite interested contributors to submit a 300 word abstract and 150 word biography by March 1 2025 to editors Shauna Janssen (shauna.janssen at concordia.ca<mailto:shauna.janssen at concordia.ca>) and Kimberley McLeod (kimberley.mcleod at uoguelph.ca<mailto:kimberley.mcleod at uoguelph.ca>).  If accepted, first drafts will be due in September 2025 and the issue will be published in Fall 2026. There will be an honorarium for contributors.



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Kimberley McLeod (she/her) | Associate Professor
School of Theatre, English, and Creative Writing
104C Massey Hall
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON  | N1G 2W1

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