An advocate for the field of theatre and performance in higher education, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) serves as an intellectual and artistic center for producing new knowledge about theatre and performance-related disciplines, cultivating vital alliances with other scholarly and creative disciplines, linking with professional and community-based theatres, and promoting access and equity.
Whether in-person or virtual, the annual ATHE conference brings together a global community of educators, artists, and administrators over a weekend of intense days of workshops, panel presentations, plenary sessions, social events, and performances. ATHE provides its membership with the latest in theatre and innovation, at the forefront of theatre practice and pedagogy.
Schedule of Livestreamed Events on Friday 24 July 2026
Keynote: Standing Center Stage: Leadership and the Labor of Justice
9 a.m.–10:30 a.m. EDT
Join Baltimore Center Stage artistic director Stevie Walker-Webb and producing director Ken-Matt Martin in conversation with ATHE president Dr. Martine Kei Green-Rogers. Through conversation and questions, we will explore how theatre artists and leaders make daring, visionary choices in times of uncertainty—and how theatre makers sustain themselves and one another through collective action, community building, and creative resilience.
Plenary: Co-Creating Equity: Redistributing Power and Voice
11 a.m.–12:15 p.m. EDT
This plenary discusses how collaboration can become a practice of equity—centering race, gender, sexuality, disability, and other axes of identity—so that shared space is not just inclusive, but actively redistributive of power and voice. This plenary features Charlotte Canning, Asif Majid, Olga Sanchez Saltveit, and Samuel Yates, moderated by Khalid Y. Long.
Plenary: Refusing Neutrality: Theatre and Performance Under Pressure
1:30 p.m.–2:45 p.m. EDT
This plenary wrestles with how theatre and performance in higher education can become a politicized practice of resistance—rehearsing care, accountability, and shared power even as campuses face financial constraint, audit culture, and political pressure to depoliticize teaching and public expression. Featuring Anita Gonzalez, E. Patrick Johnson, Leonard Madrid, and Enzo Vasquez Toral and moderated by Julius B. Fleming Jr.
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