The Open University of Cyprus (OUC), celebrating 20 years since its establishment, has the honor to host the world-famous Marvin Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Professor Emeritus of Theatre, Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, for a public hybrid talk entitled “Reflexions on the Theatre in the Age of Covid”. The public talk will be held on Monday, October 31, 2022 at the House of Cyprus in Athens, the Cultural and Educational Office of the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Greece, which supports the event. The event will start at 19:00 pm EEST, and will be broadcasted live through: https://diavlos.grnet.gr/room/1607?eventid=12998. On behalf of the Open University of Cyprus, Professor Vayos Liapis, Vice-Rector, will address the event. Avra Sidiropoulou, Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at the Open University of Cyprus and director, will introduce the speaker and coordinate the discussion.
The public talk will consider the effect of the temporary disappearance of live theatre on our cultural conception of this art. The concept of ‘liveness’, hitherto largely a theoretical concern, suddenly became a tangible one, and raised both the specific question of what form of theatre if any, could be created in the absence of liveness and more general questions about how and in what ways a post-Covid theatre might reflect this experience. The relationship of digital and live performance, already developing as a significant critical and practical concern in the twenty-first century, clearly gained in urgency and importance as a result of the Covid lockdown. Professor Carlson, who plays a leading role in the contemporary theatrical circles and in theoretical studies, reflects on the changing nature of this concern and will discuss with the audience, face-to-face and online, about its implications for the future.
Marvin Carlson is the Sidney E. Cohn Professor Emeritus of Theatre, Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens, the ATHE Career Achievement Award, the ASTR Distinguished Scholarship Award, the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and the Calloway Prize for writing in theatre. He is the director of the Marvin Carlson Center for the study of Global Theatre and the Shanghai Theatre Academy and the founding editor of the journals Western European Stages and Arab Stages. He is the author of over 330 scholarly article and twenty-three books, among them Theories of the Theatre and The Haunted Stage. His work has been translated into 23 languages.