This is Your Brain on Academia

Welcome Slide for the ASTR Conference, Denver, CO 2025

Last week I attended the ASTR (American Society for Theatre Research) Conference for the first time. It was held in Denver this year, and I’m on sabbatical to research and write a book, so I thought I better not pass up the opportunity.

Let me summarize:

Day One: Ostracized

Day Two: Tolerated

Day Three: Disoriented

Day Four: Punted. Streamed movies with my husband. He made me watch Die Hard, which seemed vaguely appropriate. "Yippee-ki-yay..."

Research has always been part of my job as a performer, director, and eventually faculty member, but it has never been the centerpiece of my work. Really, it’s just a tool to make better theater.

Good thing I did NOT say that out loud at the conference.

I’ve been in academia for over 12 years, but I still sometimes feel a bit like a poser. This conference brought all those feelings to center stage.

It was . . . interesting? . . . . educational? . . . slightly terrifying spending four (actually, three) days with people who do spend most of their time and energy on research.

Why did I put myself through this? I could have guessed that it was going to be pretty highbrow from the title of the organization, right?

I guess I like doing scary things.

Seriously, I was hoping to get tips on conducting solid academic research (as opposed to on-the-fly dramaturgy). As a performer, I loved researching everything I could about the shows I was in and the characters I played. It added depth to my work, and research was fun. But the interesting thing about the theater as a workplace is most actors don’t talk about their process. They just do it on their own time and show up with lots of well-studied material to play with in the rehearsal room.

Research for a performer is also very practical. For example—When I was in a production of Civil War, I needed to know, how does a person in the late 1800s sit in a giant hoopskirt? Because I had to sit on that bench stage left, and I didn’t want the thing flipping over on me.

Practical research versus “academic rigor” was my struggle throughout the conference. Imposter syndrome loomed large from the moment I walked into The Grand Hyatt.

I chose the first session by title alone: “Shouting “F” Words: Re/Generations of Feminist Resistance in American History.”

They had me at “F” Words.

In this “Working Session” (learning the lingo), several women shared their papers in progress and responded to each other’s work. I was in the role of “Silent Observer,” which was a good thing. Wow, they were going deep into feminist works, and I enjoyed their conversations. Weirdly, I even kept up with the vocabulary, so maybe 12 years in higher ed was starting to pay off.

After the session, I checked my inner introvert and walked up to each presenter to thank them for their work and conversation. This was met with confused nods most of the time. Was I not supposed to talk to them after the session either?

Anyway, on to the Plenary! Yippee!

This was billed as the State of the Profession & Conference Welcome.

Cool. I’ve been to many of these at other conferences. Should be fine.

It started out fairly interesting, but then they opened the floor to questions and comments, and someone went off about how we weren’t giving enough attention to the scary political times in our country, and the game was on.

This was followed by a Long Table Reception, which was a great idea in concept. It was meant as an opportunity for us to have deep conversations with strangers. But it was nearly impossible to hear anyone at the other end of my long table in a ballroom full of long tables, so it was a bust.

Day two was looking up in the morning. I was assigned a mentor, and we had a wonderful conversation over coffee. She encouraged me to publish a paper in one of the scholarly theater journals, which I understood to be the goal of everyone at this conference, and she gave me some great ideas of how to start that process.

I headed into the rest of the day feeling inspired.

Immediately, I tapped the breaks for just a sec when I realized I don’t know the definition of “Plenary.” I thought there was only one of those in a conference, but I saw several more on the schedule.

I attended a few more Plenaries to find out what all the fuss was about . . . Plenary 1: Generative Ecologies . . . Plenary 2: Indigenous Archives . . . Plenary 3: Inter-Generation-s . . .

I may have been sleeping at some point, but I came to just in time for this slide:

Slide I Observed When I Woke Up . . . Day 2 or 3?

Whoa. What did I miss?

At some point, I started a list of words I was pretty sure people were making up. I also spent about a half hour watching a woman in front of me unpack and organize her lunch. She was an awesome character study in the way she precisely folded and refolded her napkin between taking birdlike pecks at her muffin and sipping boba tea.

By the middle of day three, I was feeling dizziness, disorientation, and general malaise—quite literally. Was it a migraine? I’ve never had one of those. Tension headache? Aneurysm?

Plenary #5 . . . is there a combo platter with this?

I don’t know what happened there at the end. I don’t drink, so that wasn’t a possible explanation. Maybe my body was calling bullshit.

Conferences are tricky places for those of us who started out working in the field rather than firmly planted in academia. It’s a whole new world with interesting rules and measures of success. I’m not sure I buy into it, but I am grateful to have learned a little something after spending time in their sphere.

On to the next scary thing.