Call for INSIGHTS Articles: Extending the Museum Experience with Museum Theatre

The Summer 2010 issue of IMTAL Insights will focus on how museum theatre can extend to particular experiences outside of the traditional stage within your museum. Do actors add a particular dazzle to a special event or overnight experience? Do birthday parties come alive through amazing performances? Do you have a performance that is completely integrated into an exhibition, or a sketch that augments an overlooked exhibit? Do you use theatre techniques to role train front-line staff at admissions?

We are looking for 250- 1000 word articles from different museums to serve as case studies about how theatre experiences have transcended into new and interesting departments within your museum.

If you are interested in writing an article/ case study, please contact, Marcos Stafne, Publications Officer at pubsofficer@imtal.org

All articles will be due by May 25. Have a great idea, but don’t know where to start, email me, and I’ll be happy to help get you started!

The IMTAL Insights Article Submission form is available HERE.

DVDs of Opening Session in Monterey Now Available

Are you sorry you missed hearing Luis Valdez speak at the Global IMTAL conference in Monterey? Wish you could share his inspiring words with your colleagues?

Now you can! A DVD of the opening session (which includes the keynote address by Luis Valdez) is now available for only the cost of reproduction and shipping. (Please note, we can only produce DVDs in the American format.)

If you would like to order one, please mail a check for $5.00 (US) made out to "IMTAL" (sorry, we cannot accept Paypal for this one!) to:

Simone Mortan
c/o Monterey Bay Aquarium
866 Cannery Row
Monterey, CA 93940 USA

Exciting News about the Upcoming Global Conference!

Registration for the 2009 Global IMTAL conference is now open! Join us in beautiful Monterey, CA August 23-27 along the shore of the Pacific ocean as IMTAL members from around the world convene to share, discuss and grow the field of museum theatre. An extensive and truly inspiring program of sessions and events is planned with time allowed to visit our host institution, the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium. Read all about the conference, browse the preliminary program and register online on the Conference Page.

The conference theme, "Museum Theatre: On the Edge" can be interpreted on many levels: the 2009 meeting takes place on the western edge of the North American continent (or, conversely, on the eastern edge of the Pacific Plate); as forward-thinking professionals, we hope to be continually on the cutting edge of the field; in finding creative solutions to problems, we may occasionally have to edge around established institutional protocols; or, since museum theatre is such an effective interpretive tool, we simply may want to revel in the edge we maintain over traditional, static exhibitions and programming!

This year's keynote address is by Luis Valdez, Founder and Artistic Director of El Teatro Campesino, a theater of farm workers in California that inspired young Mexican-American activists across the country to use the stage to givevoice to history, myths and present-day concerns. Read Luis' bio HERE.

Luis will address the attendees on Monday and the Tuesday field trip includes a visit to his historic theatre.

And while the current state of the economy might make you worry about travel, here's what long-time IMTAL member Larry Gard of the Carpenter Science Theatre Company at the Science Museum of Virginia has to say:

Dear Fellow IMTAL Members,

As all of us are aware, the exciting field of Museum Theatre is an incredibly effective component in the education arsenal of museums world-wide. There is no doubt, those of us "museum theatre folks" who are so dedicated to the application of the craft, and who feel so passionately about its proven success, will benefit from opportunities to congregate and share our experiences: our successes, our failures, our inspirations, our techniques, our budgets and administrative challenges. It is important for us to take advantage of every opportunity possible to learn and grow through the power of artistic and institutional fellowship. Considering all of this, I urge you to attend the sixth international museum theatre conference in Monterey, California!

IMTAL events at AAM 2009 in Philadelphia

This year's AAM annual meeting will be in Philadelphia, PA from April 30 - May 4, 2009. IMTAL will be there and we hope you will join us!

For a full list of IMTAL-related events at AAM, please visit the AAM 2009 page on the IMTAL web site. Here are some of the highlights:

• Discuss the latest trends in museum theatre at the IMTAL luncheon where the IMTY award will also be presented.
• Join member institutions who will perform and discuss excerpts from their museum theatre programs at the Museum Theatre Showcase in the Expo - with a different lineup each day!
• The National Constitution Center, a member institution, will be hosting an On-Site Insights session about their museum theatre programs, and member Paul Taylor is presenting a session on developmentally appropriate museum productions.
• Meet and greet and chat informally at IMTAL's booth at the EdCom Marketplace of Ideas.

If you're coming, please let us know! And we're always looking for help, so please contact us if you are willing to volunteer.

Performance, Learning & Heritage Research Report and DVD Now Available

Many of you may have been following the heritage performance research project at the University of Manchester. (Their Center for Applied Theatre Research was awarded a major grant by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council to study theatre and drama as interpretive tools with visitors to historic sites and museums.)

The three and a half year project officially ended on November 30. A Full Report, Executive Summary and detailed "data trawls" from each of the four case studies are now available on the PLH website, and also as part of a combined CD-Rom and DVD set.

The pack includes the full Research Report – the project rationale, narrative, methodology and detailed findings together with detailed 'data trawls' from each of the 4 main case studies – and edited highlights from the four main case study performances and also from keynote speeches (by Catherine Hughes, Baz Kershaw, Laurajane Smith and Tony Jackson and Jenny Kidd) given at the international conference held at the University of Manchester in April 2008: "Performing Heritage – research and practice". The performance extracts illustrate vividly and uniquely the diversity of museum performance and costumed interpretation practice, and the diversity of sites and audiences that the practice serves. Included are extracts from:

• The Gunner's Tale and The Chelsea Pensioner's Tale at the National Maritime Museum (London) – for the general public
• 'First person interpretation' and 'the great debates' at Llancaiach Fawr Manor (a 17th century manor in South Wales) – for organised school groups
• Triangle Theatre’s The Pollard Trail, in collaboration with The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (Coventry) – a 'heritage trail' for the general public
• This Accursed Thing at The Manchester Museum – for general public and organised school groups

Together with the report they provide an important and timely means of accessing the research findings, and a unique research, study, teaching and training resource, for use by researchers and students in theatre/performance studies and museum/heritage studies, by practitioners, and by museum learning and public programme managers.

The Report CD-ROM + DVD pack is now available. The price is £10 incl. P&P in the UK and £15 worldwide. For more information or to place an order, please see the PLH website: http://www.plh.manchester.ac.uk/

Theatre Program Evaluation Reports Available from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Thank you to Simone Mortan and the Monterey Bay Aquarium for posting their reports of the evaluations of their 2007 and 2008 summer museum theatre programs. The reports are available to IMTAL members in the Document Exchange in the members area of the IMTAL web site.

The above photo is of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's 2007 production of Basta Basura! Enough Trash! written and directed by Kinan Valdez of El Teatro Campesino. The founder of El Teatro Campesino, Luiz Valdez, will be the keynote speaker at the 2009 Global IMTAL conference (August 23-27, 2009) which will be hosted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, CA. Session proposals are now being accepted for the conference - the deadline is January 15, 2009. More information about the conference and session proposal guidelines are avaialable HERE.

IMTAL at MAAM in DC

The Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums (MAAM) held its annual meeting in Washington, DC from October 27-29, 2008 with the theme: MAAM on the Mall: The Museum as Storyteller. IMTAL maintained a strong presence at the conference with a double session titled Museum Theatre: Storytelling through Performance.

Eleven IMTAL members collaborated to present a fast-paced session that included sample performances, answered some basic questions and discussed the entire spectrum of museum theatre. Todd Norris, Bill Weldon and Jeff Villines from Colonial Williamsburg performed a scene (see above) and spoke about their Revolutionary City program and working with actors. Roberta Gasbarre from the Smithsonian's Discovery Theater showcased an excerpt from her touring show African Roots, Latino Soul with actors Nia Medina, Giselle Gilpin and Fernando Romero and technician Kathryn Pong. She also discussed the evolution of the Discovery Theater and its touring program. Jillian Finkle chaired the session and presented definitions of museum theatre as well as a case for its use.

In Part 2 of the session Larry Gard from the Science Museum of Virginia performed The Curse of King Tut's Tomb and discussed script development and working with playwrights. Jillian Finkle discussed the National Children's Museum latest outreach theatre productions and introduced the attendees to creative drama. Harriet Lynn of the Heritage Theatre Artists' Consortium in Baltimore, MD closed the session with a presentation of oral history performance as a way to engage museums' communities, highlighting her program East-Side West-Side Life Stories as an example.

Lively discussion throughout the sessions raised questions such as how the museum theatre community might engage with the professional theatre community and how the current economic crisis might affect existing, emerging and new museum theatre programs. The idea of quality control and the setting of museum theatre standards of excellence was raised as an important issue facing the field moving forward, pointing to the impact that a single negative experience with museum theatre can have on museum colleagues and decision-makers. (If any of you have thoughts on that topic, please leave a comment!)

IMTAL members can access the outline and handouts from the session on the Conference Hub page of the Members Only Area.