CALL FOR PAPERS SHAKESPEARE AND THE QUEEN'S MEN CONFERENCE Toronto, 27-29 Oct 2006 -- Abstracts deadline: February 15, 2006 This major international conference at the University of Toronto is being organized by the SSHRC-funded "Shakespeare and the Queen's Men" project in association with Poculi Ludique Societas (PLS). The project, a joint venture led by Alexandra Johnston (REED, University of Toronto) and Helen Ostovich (McMaster University), aims to recreate the staging conditions of a sixteenth-century touring company in order to study and test scholarly theories about acting styles and repertory through performance practice. The conference will feature keynote addresses by Roslyn Knutson, Tiffany Stern, and Martin White; these will be followed by thematically organized seminars on the Queen's Men and their theatrical contemporaries, including questions of repertory, acting styles, and touring, as well as ensemble and casting issues. Participants will have a rare opportunity to see three Queen's Men plays (King Leir, Three Ladies of London, and The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth) in different venues in Toronto and Hamilton reflecting the range of playing spaces available to touring companies. We invite papers dealing with theatrical practice in the plays of the Queen's Men and other companies of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries or addressing theatre-historical questions pertaining to the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries and collaborators, and their borrowings from or transformations of theatrical material of the 1580s and 90s. Related concerns might include the social history of playing, the history of censorship, provincial and metropolitan conditions of performance, or early dramaturgy, including but not limited to questions of staging, clowning, extemporization, jigs, etc. Submissions from graduate students and theatre practitioners doing work in these fields would be particularly welcome. Proposals of 250 words for papers (maximum length 3000 words) should be submitted by February 15, 2006 to [log in to unmask] (no attachments please). For more information on the "Shakespeare and the Queen's Men" project, consult http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/QueensMen/conference.html. Chris Hicklin, Jeremy Lopez, Helen Ostovich, and Holger Syme Program Committee