A Note from the Editor

Abstract

A Note from the Editor Noe Montez I fell in love with academic work because I fell in love with the real-time process of seeing research and writing about theatre developed and distributed to an eager audience. It is a pleasure to hear work presented at a conference, and then to watch the author reimagine that presentation into a monograph or article. Four years ago, I joined the editorial staff at Theatre Topics hoping to highlight the ways that theatre moves between theory and practice to reach communities in and beyond our classrooms. This is my final issue, and I am truly moved by the generosity, care, and commitment to academic activism that many of you have written about over my time on the masthead. I look upon the work that my colleagues and I have published and I leave with a sense of appreciation for scholars and artists who have willingly written about their experiences with reproductive health in the academy, the value of theatre pedagogy in the aftermath of wildfire and mass shooting, the need to reimagine academic life in the wake of catastrophic climate change, and the labor that one must take on as a non-binary performer in order to create safe spaces. These are just a few among the many examples of the care work, classroom exercises, and productions that have asserted the value of theatre and performance in these pages. I am proud of the special issue on Graduate Education that captured the precarity of PhDs in the field, while offering suggestions about how our doctoral programs might better support those who matriculate. I am also grateful to my colleague and friend Kareem Khubchandani who coedited the special issue on Queer Pedagogy and Performance with me, giving space to those who practice pedagogy everywhere, from the classroom to the dance hall. It has been a joyful privilege to oversee this journal and build a representative editorial board, find more diverse external evaluators, and support authors of color who I hope will continue to see themselves represented in this journal and eventually apply for editorial positions here and elsewhere. I also want to thank several people. Soyica Colbert, DJ Hopkins, and Christin Essin have done tremendous work advocating for the journal during their respective terms as ATHE Vice President for Research and Publications. Gwendolyn Alker and Lisa S. Brenner brought me into the journal, created a system where I could learn from them, and have generously continued to offer guidance. Peter Campbell and Margherita Laera have invented and imagined the online editor roles in ways that have richly enhanced Theatre Topics’ offerings. Megan Sanborn Jones and Jessica Del Vecchio have been tireless book review editors doing unflagging work in an often-underappreciated role. Tufts University has supported me by providing graduate assistants, and I am deeply appreciative of Stephanie Engel, Jenny Herron, Teri Incampo, Mia Levenson, and Jessica Pearson-Bleyer for their careful proofing, initial evaluations of submissions, and other assistance. Finally, Bob Kowkabany and the staff at Johns Hopkins University Press make the journal run efficiently. Theatre Topics will remain in strong hands under the thoughtful editorship of John Fletcher (Editor), Susanne Shawyer (Coeditor), Jessica Del Vecchio (Book Review Editor), and Shannon Walsh (Online Editor). I am confident of the journal under their care. I leave the journal with four essays and one note from the field. These texts highlight a diversity of voices and demonstrate the ways in which the pedagogy moves people to reimagine themselves and the worlds they live in. [End Page ix] In “Developing Fontera Aesthetic through New Work Creation,” three professors from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) examine their process for investigating a performance aesthetic that is unique to the Texas/Mexico borderlands through the development and staging of Georgina Escobar’s Monsters We Create. The material was developed through three separate classes to promote student ownership of the artistic process while facilitating rigorous skill-building of playwriting techniques. The result is the creation of a “sci-femme frontera” aesthetic that enables UTEP students to embrace the inherent duality of their Latinx identity. Nicolas Shannon Savard writes of their attempts to engage undergraduate students with...