Theatre Scholarship and Technology: A Look at the Future of the Discipline

Abstract

In 1956 a small group of scholars, all of them engaged in some way or other in the study of theatre, past and present, met and founded a certain remarkable organization. I hardly need to explain that that organization was the American Society for Theatre Research, then and still the only organization of American scholars devoted entirely to promoting the cause, the activity, and the results of research in theatre. Nor is it necessary here for me to recapitulate, even briefly, the course of events that now sees us celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Society. Fortunately, one of those founding members, Thomas Marshall, has generously accepted the charge offered him a year ago by the ASTR Executive Committee to write a concise history of the Society from the time of its founding. That review of the first twenty-five years has just come off the press, nicely timed for distribution to all members in attendance at this meeting. Subsequently it is to appear also in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of the Society's journal, Theatre Survey.