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SUU College of Performing and Visual Arts

Utah Shakespearean Festival

Southern Utah University

Cedar City, Utah

The Wooden O Symposium is a cross-disciplinary conference exploring Medieval through Early Modern Studies, through the text and performance of Shakespeare’s plays. Scholars from all disciplines are encouraged to submit papers that offer insights and new ideas springing from the era of William Shakespeare.   His plays are replete with the language, thoughts and arts of the Renaissance and Western culture and represent an inexhaustible source for creative ideas and research.

The symposium is hosted by Southern Utah University, home of the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival. Scholars attending the conference will have the unique opportunity of immersing themselves in research, text, and performance in one of the most beautiful natural settings in the western U.S.

The Shakespeare Festival is noted for its beautiful outdoor theater modeled after Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the original "wooden O." Their 2009 summer Shakespeare season will include, The Comedy of Errors, Henry V, and As You Like It.  In addition, the festival will also produce Foxfire, Private Lives, and The Secret Garden.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER - DR. PETER PAROLIN Peter Parolin is Associate Professor and Chair of the University of Wyoming English department. He writes and teaches on early modern culture, with special emphasis on theatrical culture. With Pamela Allen Brown, he coedited Women Players In England, 1500-1660: Beyond The All-Male Stage (Ashgate, 2005). Other essays have appeared in Renaissance Drama and Shakespeare Studies with one forthcoming in Shakespeare Quarterly in summer 2009. An amateur actor in his spare time, he also lectures every summer at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada.