Join us for the 2026 Comparative Drama Conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, July 9-11, 2026
We are delighted that the 2026 Comparative Drama Conference will be hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, from July 9–11, 2026. We look forward to welcoming colleagues to this dynamic campus in the heart of the American Midwest for another year of rich, international dialogue in drama, theatre, and performance studies.
Contact
Baron Kelly & Ann M. Shanahan at cdc2026@theatre.wisc.edu
Location
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus and the Concourse Hotel, 1 W Dayton St., Madison, WI, 53703
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The Conference
The Comparative Drama Conference is an international, interdisciplinary conference founded by Dr. Karelisa Hartigan at the University of Florida in 1977. Every year, approximately 175 scholars are invited to present and discuss their work in the field of drama and 2 new plays receive a staged reading. The conference draws participants from the Humanities and the Arts, as well as other fields. The papers delivered range over the entire field of theatre research and production. Over the past 40 years, participants have come from 32 nations and all 50 states. Each year a distinguished theatre scholar or artist is invited to address the participants in the Keynote event.
From 2025-2030, the conference is hosted by the University of Wisconsin, Madison (UW-M) and the London Academy for Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in alternating years (2025, 2027, and 2029 in London, UK and 2026, 2028, and 2030 in Madison, WI, USA) and is co-directed by Baron Kelly and Ann M. Shanahan in Madison, and Nick Holden and Mark O’Thomas in London.
Registration
The Comparative Drama Conference is committed to retaining reasonable rates for attendance that make the conference accessible to scholars and artists in all phases of a career, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. CDC conference rates have remained relatively stable over many years. Budget shifts with the new international model and other economic factors will necessitate a very modest increase this year across the rate scale.
Registration will open in March 2026.
2026 Early Bird Rates
Available through May 15, 2026
| Ticket Type | Rate (USD) |
| Presenter, Reader or Presenter Session Chair (Faculty) | $145.00 |
| Presenter, Reader or Presenter Session Chair (Independent Scholar) | $125.00 |
| Presenter, Reader or Presenter Session Chair (Student) | $115.00 |
| Non-presenter Session Chair | $95.00 |
| Guest/Attendee | $80.00 |
| Student Guest/Attendee | $47.00 |
| One Day Pass | $40.00 |
| One Day Student Pass | $25.00 |
2026 Virtual Rates
Available through July 11, 2026
| Ticket Type | Rate (USD) |
| Virtual Presenter | $80.00 |
| Virtual Attendee (Non-Presenter) | $65.00 |
| Virtual Independent Scholar/Student | $40.00 |
2026 Standard Rates
Available May 16 to July 11, 2026
| Ticket Type | Rate (USD) |
| Presenter, Reader or Presenter Session Chair (Faculty) | $170.00 |
| Presenter, Reader or Presenter Session Chair (Independent Scholar) | $135.00 |
| Presenter, Reader or Presenter Session Chair (Student) | $125.00 |
| Non-presenter Session Chair | $115.00 |
| Guest/Attendee | $95.00 |
| Student Guest/Attendee | $55.00 |
| One Day Pass | $50.00 |
| One Day Student Pass | $35.00 |
Conference Venue
The 2026 Comparative Drama Conference will be held at The Madison Concourse Hotel (1 W Dayton St., Madison, WI, 53703) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus.
Lodging
The Comparative Drama Conference is thrilled to announce that the 2026 conference has secured a reduced lodging rate for attendees at the Concourse Hotel, which already offers competitive pricing. We are also exploring the possibility of further reduced lodging opportunities for graduate students as part of our commitment to ensuring an accessible conference experience for scholars and artists at all career stages.
Location: The Madison Concourse Hotel
1 W Dayton St., Madison, WI, 53703
Rate: $138/night + tax*
*Rooms at this rate are located on the Concourse Premier Level, while rooms on the Governor’s Level will be available at the standard rates listed on the hotel website. Please see The Madison Concourse Hotel website for current pricing and details.
Booking details will be included in the registration confirmation email sent to attendees upon successful registration.
Parking: Guests who book through the Comparative Drama Conference block are eligible to receive the reduced parking rate of $10.00 per night
Airport Access
The 2026 Comparative Drama Conference boasts convenient access to multiple airports—MSN, MKE, and ORD—offering attendees a wide range of flight options and price points. This connectivity helps ensure flexible, affordable travel for participants coming from across the country and abroad.
Public Transportation
Madison Metro Transit provides convenient route options from the airport to the downtown/campus area and is a reliable way to explore Madison. Riders can purchase fares using contactless payment with Mastercard, Visa, or Samsung, Apple, and Google virtual wallets directly on the bus, or at ticket machines located on most BRT platforms.
The Van Galder bus provides convenient route options from the Chicago O’Hare International Airport to the Madison campus area (250 N. Lake St.).
Co-Directors
Baron Kelly (Co-Director) is both the Marilynn R. Baxter and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Theatre and Drama. He has a joint appointment with the UW-Madison Department of Liberal Arts and Applied Studies. Baron concurrently holds the Colin Cook Professorship of Acting at the London Academy of Music and Art. A former Harvard faculty fellow, he recently received the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) Gold Medallion and the University Resident Theatre Association (URTA) Excellence in Undergraduate Training Award. In 2023, he was formally invested into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Baron has performed internationally for the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain; Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada; National Theatre of Norway; Yermelova Theatre, Moscow, Russia; Constans Theatre, Athens, Greece; Academy Theatre Dublin; Edinburgh Theatre Festival; Bargello, Florence, Italy; among others. Broadway: credits include Salome and Electra. He has performed numerous classical (major genres of Shakespeare, Greek Tragedy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Musset, and Ibsen) and contemporary roles (Wilson, Fugard, Williams, Piñero, Hansberry, Coward) for over 30 of America’s leading regional theatres including the Oregon, Utah, Dallas Fort Worth, and Southern California Shakespeare Festivals; Yale Repertory; The Guthrie; Shakespeare Theatre Washington; Actors Theatre of Louisville; among others. Film and Television include A Day Without a Mexican, Bird, Loving, Law and Order, and Frasier. Baron has been a participant at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. He is also in the psychological thriller The Coming, directed by Aaron Greer. His accolades include an Emmy Award (won), Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award (nominated), and an Audelco Award (nominated).
He is a four-time Fulbright Scholar and has traveled extensively as a Cultural Specialist for the United States Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, teaching and lecturing on the theatre on four continents. Professor Kelly has authored numerous essays, articles, and book chapters in journals and anthologies and has written two books. His most recent book is Building Embodiment: Integrating Acting, Voice, and Movement to Illuminate Poetic Text with co-author/co-editor Karen Kopryanski (Routledge, 2023). Dr. Kelly earned his PhD in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a diploma from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and an MFA in Acting from California State University Long Beach.
Ann M. Shanahan (Co-Director) is a professor of directing and acting in the Department of Theatre and Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she recently served as chair and artistic director. She is a Core Faculty of the Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies Program (ITS).
A scholar-artist specializing in feminist pedagogy, directing, and representations of domestic space on stage, she has directed over 60 productions, and writes about her own and others’ directing practice. Recent publications include “Changing Landscapes in Directing and Choreography in Higher Education” with Emily Rollie (SDC Journal, 2026); Active Speech: Critical Perspectives on Teresa Deevy (Open Book Publishing, 2025); Landscapes of Perception: Meredith Monk, Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman (Methuen, 2023); “‘A Visor for a Visor’: Two Approaches to Staging Romeo and Juliet in a Divided Country” in Playing Shakespeare’s Tyrants and Rebels, Vol. 4 (Peter Lang, 2021); “Making Room(s): Staging Plays about Women and Houses,” in Performing the Family Dream House: Space, Ritual and Images of Home (U of Iowa, 2019). Professional directing includes: Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (Room(s)), Vagabond and The Turn of the Screw (City Lit Theatre), Lies and Legends, Wasp, Warrior, The Living, and On Golden Pond (Buffalo Theatre Ensemble). Numerous productions at the university level include: original adaptations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, Romeo and Juliet, A Doll’s House, Twelfth Night, The House of Bernarda Alba, The Trojan Women, Hedda Gabler, Our Country’s Good, Arcadia, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Crucible, Ghosts, Fefu and Her Friends, and Abingdon Square.
Prior to UW, Ann was on the faculty at Purdue University and Loyola University Chicago where she founded Room(s) Theatre, an interdisciplinary organization devoted to performance-based research related to gender. Ann was a member of the Brecht Company in Ann Arbor, MI from 1987-1992 and performed in Stockholm and Prague with the American Drama Group and British Festival Theatre Company. Ann is founding co-editor of the Peer-Reviewed Section of the SDC Journal (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society) and an elected member of the National Theatre Conference (NTC). She holds a BA in Drama from the Residential College of the University of Michigan, and an MFA in Directing from Northwestern University.
The 2026 Comparative Drama Conference is hosted by the UW-Madison School of Education’s Department of Theatre and Drama and the office of Professional Learning and Community Education (PLACE). This partnership was made possible by the generosity of the School of Education Dean’s Office, and the Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies Program.
*PLACE is committed to creating inclusive and accessible events. If you need accommodations, please make sure to include this information when you register for this event. If accommodation needs arise after registration, please contact us at conferences@education.wisc.edu at least two weeks before the event. While we will do our best to fulfill late requests, we may not always be able to guarantee them.