ATCANY2025 | Annual Conference 2025

Early Bird $100 September 22, 2025 through October 26, 2025. Full Price $150 October 27, 2025 and after.

Members and Member Guests Only

The American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association 2025 annual conference celebrating theater and theater makers in New York City will be held November 7-9, 2025.

The conference planning committee (Scott Bennett, David John Chávez, Jay Handelman, Lou Harry, Bill Hirschman, Gerard Raymond , Martha Wade Steketee, and Maren Scriven Swensen) have been meeting since Spring 2025 assembling an exciting program. Details to be posted as they are finalized.

Stay tuned to this page and weekly ATCA newsletter for the latest developments in the evolving agenda.

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PRICE

• $100 Early Bird registration for full conference, available September 22, 2025 through October 26, 2025 [midnight Eastern] for all ATCA member types (Active, Associate, Affiliate, Alumni, and Emeritus)
• $150 Full Price registration for full conference, available October 27, 2025 [12:01 am Eastern] through end of conference for all ATCA member types (Active, Associate, Affiliate, Alumni, and Emeritus)

See below in area beneath the Agenda text for a link to purchase tickets of the available type (including limited free tickets to a pre-conference book talk). ATCA members wishing to register for the conference will take the following steps.

• Make sure you’re logged in as a member
• Click the EVENTS dropdown menu at the far right of the page (visible only to members)
• Select CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
• Scroll to the bottom of the event page to view tickets visible only to members.
• Members may purchase guest tickets at the member rates using the same procedure. If purchasing more than one ticket, select the total number of tickets desired first, and provide name and email for each attendee ticket in a following screen.

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CONFERENCE FORUM

The ATCANY2025 conference forum has been established for ATCA members who are registered for the conference. This is an area where attendees can discuss Housing options, Ticket arrangements such as available “plus ones” and other topics of interest to conference attendees. Only registered ATCA members are granted access to the discussions; member guests will need to feed their questions to members. We are using the same forum programming that we use for the work of our ATCA Membership and New Play committees, so members of those committees will be familiar with the mechanics. Webmaster Steketee will create forum topics and all registered ATCA members can comment in any topic threads created.

Registered conference attendees, after logging in first as an ATCA member, can follow this link to the ATCANY2025 conference forum.

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AGENDA
[Subject to change based on availability of invited guests.]
Presenter Bios and Headshots [atcany2025] [link to be included soon]

All times are Eastern. Session scheduling on each day and across the three days is tentative until finalized, but all confirmed content will be presented during the weekend. All final times to be confirmed.

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THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 6, 2025

venue: The Harvey Fierstein Theatre Lab at the Library for the Performing Arts
* 111 Amsterdam entrance: turn right at elevator, Lab on right
* 40 Lincoln Plaza entrance: head down hall, turn right, take elevator or walk stairs to “L”, Lab on left

6:00 pm BONUS PRE-CON SESSION: Queer Musicals. Robert W. Schneider  — Broadway historian, expert on musical theater and queer culture — will join early conference arrivals for an chat and discussion of his new book Queer Musicals: Boy Meets Girl to Jagged Little Pill. Attendees of the ATCANY2024 conference will recall Schneider’s session with Matt Koplik on “creative voices in theater podcasting” that kicked off our first day.

Note: conference attendees at the venue prior to beginning of the book session may enjoy touring the new Library exhibit accessible on the Plaza level, Syncopated Stages: Black Disruptions to the Great White Way.

SEPARATE REGISTRATION REQUIRED AS SPACE IS LIMITED. Individuals who purchase conference tickets may also RSVP to this session by selecting a no-cost ticket. See below Agenda for available tickets.

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FRIDAY | NOVEMBER 7, 2025

venue: Club 135 by Industrious at 135 West 50th Street
* meeting on 2nd floor of the venue

Lunch, coffee, tea, and drinks provided.

9:00 am PROGRAM OPENING. ATCA members meet-and-greet, welcome, introduction of new members, committee chairs, and board members, discussion of themes of the weekend.

[time]  SESSION: National Black Theatre: Ownership, Self-Determination, and Human Transformation. National Black Theatre, founded in 1968 by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, is the first revenue-generating Black art complex, longest continually-run Black theater in New York city, and one of the oldest theaters in the national founded and consistently operated by a woman of color. The session will offer a view of NBT’s theory of change (Black liberation + art + placemaking = transformation) in conversation with representations from the group. ATCA host: Lou Harry.

[time] SESSION: Legacy Reflections From Veteran Broadway Publicist and Press Photographer. The married couple press representative Adrian Bryan-Brown and photographer Joan Marcus will discuss their careers and reflect on their legacies and how things have changed for publicists (more marketing now than ever before) and press photographers now that images are everywhere. How have their professions changed, and how do those changes affect how critics navigate the theatrical landscape? There will be images! ATCA host: Gerard Raymond.

[time] BREAK: Lunch provided.

[time] SESSION: Liberation and Feminism and the Road to Broadway. Liberation, an ensemble play by Bess Wohl that straddles family memoir, midwestern consciousness raising, political sisterhood in the 1970s, and is at root is a mother-daughter love letter. It’s world premiere run began Off Broadway at Roundabout’s Laura Pels in the 2024-2025 season, and opens at the James Earl Jones on Broadway on October 2025. Director Whitney White and several members of the cast will join us for a conversation about creativity and the wildly positive reception this play and this production has received. ATCA host: Martha Wade Steketee.

Several additional sessions being planned and confirmed.

Program day will conclude by 5pm.

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SATURDAY | NOVEMBER 8, 2025

venue: Shiva Theater at Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street

9:00 am PROGRAM OPENING.

[time] SESSON: Jordan E. Cooper and Kelundra Smith in Conversation. Jordan E. Cooper‘s Oh Happy Day, an October 2025 offering at the Public — an “outrageous reimaging of Noah’s Ark” — will certainly be part of a career-spanning discussion, with a stop at his Tony-nominated satire Ain’t No Mo‘ (2022-2023) that started with a production at the Public (2018-2018). At the time of his nomination, he was the youngest Black American playwright nominated the youngest Black American playwright on Broadway. Kelundra Smith, ATCA member, cofounder of ATCA’s BEID committee and Edward Medina Prize, and director of publishing for TCG will lead the conversation and record the session for an upcoming edition of the American Theatre Offscript podcast.

[time] SESSION: From The Skin of Our Teeth to The Seat of Our Pants: Reimagining Wilder. When The Skin of Our Teeth opened in 1942, Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote, “Thank Mr. Wilder for a play that makes the theatre interesting again.” Now, eight decades after its premiere, composer and playwright Ethan Lipton has reimagined and musicalized the play as The Seat of Our Pants, opening at the Public November 2025. Venture into the process of adapting a beloved and tricky work for the musical form with Lipton, from inception and collaboration with literary executors, to melding one’s own signature sound with Wilder’s inimitable voice. ATCA host: D.R. Lewis.

[time] SESSION: A discussion ATCA Helbing Mentorship Program‘s vision and successes since 2021 to promote and amplify the voices of young LGBTQIA+ arts writers through scholarship, mentorship, and professional development. First Helbing fellow Billy McEntee and second Helbing fellow D.L. Lewis will discuss their individual project processes, origins, and the markets and regions in which they promote their work. ATCA host: Jay Handelman.

Several additional sessions being planned and confirmed.

Program day will conclude by 1pm.

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SUNDAY | NOVEMBER 9, 2025

venue: [to be determined]

9:00 am PROGRAM OPENING.

[time] SESSION: Fourth Annual ATCA Edward Medina Prize for Excellence in Cultural Criticism. Presentation of the award, followed by a discussion between new winner and a prior Medina Prize winner. ATCA hosts: Elizabeth Kramer and Nate Hinkle.

[time] PERSPECTIVES IN CRITICISM. ATCA’S lecture series inaugurated with remarks by Clive Barnes in 1992 continues with Caribbean-American arts journalists, theater and culture critic, and journalist Brittani Samuel. She is a co-editor of 3Views on Theater and her work has appeared in American Theatre Magazine, Broadway News, The New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, and other places on the Internet. She is an alum of the BIPOC Critics Lab and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Critics Institute, the inaugural recipient of ATCA’s Edward Medina Prize for Excellence in Cultural Criticism, and was awarded the 2023-2024 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. ATCA host: [to be confirmed].

Several additional sessions being planned and confirmed.

Program day will conclude by 1pm.

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