Submissions to the 2026 IFTR Conference “What Theatre Does” will open Saturday, November 1, 2025. 

Over time and across cultures, performance has variously been said to beguile, celebrate, empower, entertain, exalt, instruct, oppress, provoke, purify, moralise, remember, subvert, transfigure, and welcome.  

But does it really?  

Instead of asking you to frame your scholarship around a novel theme or topic, What Theatre Does invites us all to interrogate the bases on which we make claims about the performance practices we study: Which orthodoxies no longer hold? How much of our scholarship is wishful thinking? Are our methods and theories fit for purpose?  As academic experts and public thinkers, the tensions of our times call upon us to ask anew what theatre, dance and other cultural performances do, and to present answers that are compelling, persuasive and impactful.  

Please see the full Call for Papers here. 

We invite submissions to our General Panels (individual papers and curated panels), Working Groups, the New Scholars Forum, and the inaugural First Nations Circle.

Hosted in Naarm (Melbourne) on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nations, our conference extends a special invitation to First Nations and Indigenous scholars and practitioners, to participate in a dedicated First Nations Circle. Gathering alongside General Panels, Working Groups and the New Scholars Forum, the inaugural First Nations Circle offers a sovereign space for Indigenous and First Nations scholar-practitioners. The Circle centres Indigenous ways of meeting — yarning circles, story-sharing, and collective reflection — and welcomes diverse Indigenous ways of knowing and making. Meeting twice during the conference and coinciding with NAIDOC Week 2026, the Circle invites connection, accountability, and emergence. For full details and to register interest, see the First Nations Circle page.

To learn more about IFTR’s annual conference, the Working Groups,  the New Scholars Forum, and bursaries and prizes for which you can apply, visit IFTR.org.  (For those new to IFTR, this page is a good place to start!)

Please note:

• The online submission form requires an abstract and a bio, of up to 250 words each.

If submitting to a Working Group or the First Nations Circle, please make sure you consult the relevant Call for Papers, as these sessions may differ in their approach to the conference theme.  

• If submitting to a General Panel either as an individual or as a curated panel (of up to four presenters) please indicate how your paper(s) takes up the question of how we make claims for "what theatre does."
• In order to submit a proposal to the conference, you must be a current member of IFTR. You can find more information about membership and how to join at IFTR.org. 

Submissions are due December 1, 2025.  

The 2026 Conference will be held at the University of Melbourne, July 6-10. We hope you will join us to celebrate disciplinary expertise and to share fresh ways of discovering and articulating the distinctive character of performance in the world today. The Conference Committee looks forward to reviewing your submissions!