Conference Awards
The Comparative Drama Conference bestows three awards every year.
The Joel Tansey Memorial Award for Graduate Student Travel to the Comparative Drama Conference
The Comparative Drama Conference is pleased to announce this award, established in 2016, and presented in memory of Joel Tansey, award-winning scholar, writer, professor of French Literature, and Assistant Editor of Text & Presentation (2008-11). Any graduate student who presents a paper at the conference is eligible for consideration. Interested applicants should submit a full-length version (15-25 pages) of their research paper, as a Word attachment, to the Editor of Text & Presentation, Jay Malarcher, Jay.Malarcher@mail.wvu.edu, by 31 May following the conference. The winning paper will be published with special recognition in Text & Presentation. The winner will also be honored at the next year’s conference, where she or he will receive the award, accompanied by $400 for conference travel expenses.
Tansey Award Winners
2017–Mark Scott “Irreconcilable Differences: Charles I, Henrietta Maria, and Jones and Townshend’s Court Masques” Text and Presentation, 2017.
2016–Ariel Sibert “Identifying with Presence, Absence and Identity in Laurie Anderson and Mohammed el Gharani’s Habeus Corpus” Text and Presentation, 2016.
The Anthony Ellis Prize for the Best Paper by a Graduate Student
In memory of Tony Ellis, a board member, valued friend, and committed mentor to graduate students, the Comparative Drama Conference is pleased to announce the Anthony Ellis Prize for Best Paper by a Graduate Student. Any graduate student who presented a paper at the conference is eligible for consideration. Interested applicants should submit a full-length version (15-25 pages) of his/her research paper to the Editor of Text & Presentation by 31 May following the conference. The winning paper will be published with special recognition in Text & Presentation. The winner will also be honored at the next year’s conference, where he/she will have the conference registration fee waived and will receive one night’s free hotel room and $100 for additional conference expenses. Please email submissions as Word attachments to the editor, Jay Malarcher, Jay.Malarcher@mail.wvu.edu, by 31 May following the conference.
Ellis Prize Recipients
2017–Mary Lutze “Challenging Accessibility: The ‘Radical Deaf Theatre’ of Aaron Sawyer’s The Vineyard” Text and Presentation, 2017.
2016 — Beck Holden “Signifyin’ Sam: Motivated Signifyin(g) and Future Nostalgia in Post-Reconstruction Black Musicals” Text and Presentation, 2016.
2015 – Lydia Craig (Loyola University Chicago) – “Politic Silence: Female Choruses in Lochhead’s Medea and Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale” Text and Presentation, 2015
2014 – Giuseppe Sofo (University of Avignon/University of Rome, La Sapienza) – “Translating Tempests: A Reading of Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête in Translation” Text and Presentation, 2014
The Philadelphia Constantinidis Essay in Critical Theory Award
The $1000 Philadelphia Constantinidis Essay in Critical Theory Award is given to the best comparative essay on any aspect and period of Greek drama or theatre that was published in English in any journal or anthology in any country between January 1 and December 31 in the prior year. The award was established in 2006 in memory of Philadelphia Constantinidis to encourage research and writing on Greek drama and theatre. This is an open rank competition for academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students. The award is administered by the Board of the Comparative Drama Conference. The Board solicits nominations and self-nominations for this award. The winner will be notified by the Director of the Comparative Drama Conference, and will be offered complimentary hotel accommodations and a registration fee waiver to attend the Comparative Drama Conference.
The winner will also receive a check of one thousand dollars ($1,000) during the awards ceremony. The deadline for nominations is December 31. Nominating letters and electronic copies of the essays (converted to Adobe PDF) should be emailed to The Constantinidis Award Committee, Chair Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., at Kevin.Wetmore@lmu.edu. Postal mail and faxes are not acceptable. The letter of nomination should include the name of the author of the published essay, the title of the essay, the year of publication, the name of the journal, the email address and postal address of the author, and a brief statement explaining why this essay was chosen for nomination. Recipients of the award are not eligible for nomination for a three year period.
Philadelphia A. Constantinidis (1912-1982), was born in Artaki, lived in Thessaloniki, and died in Athens. She was the youngest child of a wealthy merchant who lost everything that he owned when the Greek-Anatolians were driven out of their homeland in 1922. She was a survivor of the First World War, the Greek-Turkish war, the Second World War, and the Greek Civil War. Her husband died from an old wound in 1950 and she raised her two sons alone. Her oldest son was killed in 1983. She often expressed her philosophy of life with a quote from a Greek play: “ἄνδρα δ᾽ ὠφελεῖν ἐφ᾽ ὧν ἔχοι τε καὶ δύναιτο κάλλιστος πόνων” (ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ ΤΥΡΑΝΝΟΣ, 314-315). She occasionally replaced the word “ἄνδρα” (man) with the word “γυνή” (woman).
Constantinidis Award recipients
2015 C. W. “Toph” Marshall (University of British Columbia), “Performance Reception and the Cambridge Greek Play: Aristophanes’ Frogs in 1936 and 1947.” Classical Receptions Journal 7/2 (2015): 177-202.
2014 Peter E. Portmann (University of Manchester), “Arabs and Aristophanes, Menander among the Muslims: Greek Humor in the Medieval and Modern Middle East.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 21/1 (2014): 1-29.
2013 Gonda Van Steen (University of Florida), “The Story of Ali Retzo: Brechtian Theatre in Greece under the Military Dictatorship.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 31/1 (2013): 85-115.
2012 Loren Kruger (University of Chicago), “On the Tragedy of the Commoner: Elektra, Orestes, and Others in South Africa.” Comparative Drama 46/3 (2012): 355-377.
2011 Robert Davis (City University of New York), “Is Mr. Euripides a Communist? The Federal Theatre Project’s 1938 Trojan Incident.” Comparative Drama 44/4 (2010) and 45/1 (2011): 423-440.
2010 Amanda Wrigley (Open University, UK), “A Wartime Radio Odyssey: Edward Sackville-West and Benjamin Britten’s The Rescue (1943).” The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media 8/2 (2010): 81-104.
2009 Melinda Powers (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York) “Unveiling Euripides.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 23/2 (2009): 5-19.
2008 The committee determined that none of the nominated papers met the award requirements.
2007 The committee determined that none of the nominated papers met the award requirements.
2006 Kelly Younger (Loyola Marymount University) “Irish Antigones: Burying the Colonial System.” Colloquy: text theory critique 11 (2006): n.p.
Constantinidis Committee members
Frederick Ahl (Cornell University), Robert Davis (Graduate Center, City University of New York), Michael Ewans (University of Newcastle, Australia), Helene P. Foley (Columbia University), Mary-Kay Gamel (University of California, Santa Cruz), Kiki Gounaridou (Smith College), Karelisa Hartigan (University of Florida), Loren Kruger (University of Chicago), Donald Lateiner (Ohio Wesleyan University), Helen Moritz (Santa Clara University), Melinda Powers (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York) Elizabeth Scharffenberger (Columbia University), Gonda van Steen (University of Florida), Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Loyola Marymount University), Amanda Wrigley (University of Westminster, UK), Gonda van Steen (University of Florida), Kelly Younger (Loyola Marymount University), Katerina Zacharia (Loyola Marymount University).
The committee consists of no less than seven members annually. Committee members serve 3-year non-renewable terms at the invitation of the committee chair, and they are not eligible to be nominated for an award during their term of service.