Papers are sought for an approved PAMLA special session panel: Stage to Screen: Contemporary Playwrights. While much attention has been paid to film versions of Shakespeare, film adaptations of contemporary playwrights’ work have received relatively little scholarly notice. This panel will examine stage-to-screen adaptations of post-1950 dramatic works, and the changes wrought upon them by the possibilities and demands—technical, artistic, and commercial—of the different medium. Topics we are interested in include (but are not limited to):
· adaptations across linguistic, national and cultural boundaries. · the consequences of commercial imperatives, or the “hollywoodization” of artistic works.
· analyses of stage-to-screen adaptations that illuminate (or blur) the essential boundaries of theatre and cinema.
· the playwright in the film industry.
· how particular stage-to-screen adaptations support or discredit the theories of Eisentsein, Bazin, Truffaut, Sontag, Debord, Deleuze and others.

The conference will take place at Seattle University, Washington from October 19-21, 2012.
Submission Deadline: Saturday March 31, 2012.
Proposals should be submitted by March 31, 2012 via the PAMLA website’s 2012 conference form available at www.pamla.org, where they will be accessible to session chair Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. PAMLA’s submission form should be available by the end of January, 2012. The form will require the following information: name, email address, academic affiliation, paper title, proposal (max. 500 words), abstract of the full proposal (max. 50 words), an indication of whether you’ll need audio/video equipment and, if so, what kind. (You must request A/V equipment during the submission process, not at a later date.)

Send complete proposals to Barry Hall at bhalltw@gmail.com. Participation in the conference requires payment of PAMLA 2012 membership dues by May 1, 2012 and the separate conference registration fee by September 15, 2012. See www.pamla.org for details. The conference program will be posted online by October 1, 2012.