DRAMATIS PERSONAE: International Conference on Theatre, Performance and Human Sciences
Palazzo Calderara, Vanzago (Italy)
Organization: Officine Teatrali
About the Series
Dramatis Personae is an annual cycle of interdisciplinary, outreach-oriented conferences dedicated to exploring theatre through the lenses and tools of the human and social sciences. Each edition takes a specific theme as a point of convergence for researchers from different fields (anthropology, sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, political science, organisational studies and other fields of the human sciences), inviting them to approach theatre not merely as the exclusive object of theatre studies, but as a privileged site where the great questions of human experience become visible, are tested, and are transformed.
Dramatis Personae is born from the collaboration between Officine Teatrali, a centre for theatre research and studies, WakeUp, association for social promotion, and Antropolis, a cultural association for scientific outreach.
Thanks to the sponsorship of the Municipality of Vanzago, this annual event takes place in the splendid setting of the Sala degli Affreschi at Palazzo Calderara.
Theme of the First Edition
There is a kind of knowledge that does not pass through words. It is transmitted through gesture, learned through imitation and contact, deposited in muscle, in breath, in the posture one assumes before another. It is the knowledge theatre has always carried, and which the human sciences have come to recognise as one of the fundamental ways in which human beings inhabit the world and hand it down.
The first edition of Dramatis Personae chooses this borderland as its theme: bodies that know. Bodies that act, that teach without teaching, that carry within them collective memories and invisible competences. Bodies of actors who build stage presence through a training that is also a transformation of the self. Bodies that cross ritual thresholds, bodies that suffer and resist, bodies that work, that care, that lead.
Thematic Areas
Proposals are invited that engage with one or more of the following areas, each of which takes the stage as its point of observation and opens onto dialogue with one or more disciplines of the human and social sciences.
1. The Stage as a Laboratory of Embodied Knowledge
Body techniques, habitus, tacit knowledge: stage presence as a form of knowledge that resists verbal transcription.
2. Theatre and Ritual: Bodies Crossing Thresholds
Continuities and ruptures between ritual and theatrical forms, liminality, technologies of the collective body.
3. The Body on Stage as a Site of Power
Bodily normativity on stage and beyond it: gender, disability, migration, exclusion and resistance.
4. The Stage as Pedagogical and Transformative Practice
Theatre as an instrument of formation: of the actor, of the spectator, of communities.
5. Bodies on Stage that Testify and Resist
Documentary theatre, theatre of memory, theatre of war: the body as witness.
6. The Performer's Body in the Digital Age
Presence, liveness and technological mediation: what happens to the body when the stage becomes dematerialised.
7. The Body that Works, the Body that Cares, the Body that Leads
The transfer of the performer's embodied competences into organisational, clinical and educational contexts.
Proposals that, while not falling precisely within one of these areas, engage originally with the general theme of the edition are equally welcome.
Submission Guidelines
Contributions may be submitted by researchers (doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members, independent scholars) in the human and social sciences, and by theatre professionals with a reflective disposition toward their own practice.
Proposals must include:
title of the contribution
abstract (maximum 400 words), specifying the theoretical framework, method, and relevance to the theme of the edition
a maximum of 5 keywordsa brief biographical note for the author(s) (maximum 150 words), with institutional affiliation, if any
indication of the relevant thematic area (one or more of those listed above)
Proposals may be submitted in Italian or in English. Conference presentations will last 15 minutes, followed by discussion.
Selection Process
Proposals will undergo an anonymous peer review process, conducted by a joint scientific committee composed of scholars from theatre studies and the human and social sciences.
Between a minimum of four and a maximum of eight contributions will be selected, forming the presentations of the conference day, possibly distributed across two sessions.
Deadlines
Phase
Date
Deadline for submission of proposals: 30 october 2026
Notification of selection results: 30 november 2026
Submission of final texts for publication: 11 jenuary 2026
Conference day: 6 february 2027
Publication
Contributions selected and presented at the conference will be considered for scientific publication in a dedicated volume, subject to a further peer review process on the complete texts.
Programme Structure
The event takes place at Palazzo Calderara and opens with a performance, serving as an introduction to this year’s theme. This is followed by selected academic presentations, organized into one or two sessions. The afternoon is dedicated to hands-on workshops and concludes with a group reflection session.
Contact and Submission
Proposals should be sent to info@officineteatrali.it, with the subject line “Dramatis Personae 2026 - Call for Papers”.
Contact Information
Proposals should be sent to info@officineteatrali.it, with the subject line “Dramatis Personae 2026 - Call for Papers”.
https://www.officineteatrali.it/scuola/dramatis-personae
Samuel Maverick Zucchiati