Call for Papers – THEATRALIA 2026/1: Puppetry with(out) Classics

CALL FOR PAPERS

Theatralia: Journal of Theatre Studies, 2026/1

Issue topic:

Puppetry with(out) Classics

Issue Editors: Kateřina Dolenská (DAMU, Prague, Czech Republic, Editor-in-chief of Loutkář [Puppeteer]) and Gabriella Reuss (PPCU Budapest, Hungary, and KU Ružomberok, Slovakia)

Puppetry is an art form, both materially defined and conceptually abstract, that offers a rich medium for interpreting the Classics. Puppets, in their myriad forms—from simple rod puppets to marionettes, from performing objects to bunraku, from shadow theatre to sand animation and prosthesis—embody diverse traditions, adding extra layers to character representation and enriching interpretive possibilities. As an autonomous audiovisual medium, puppetry spans genres from burlesque to tragedy, presenting a dynamic, multifaceted approach to storytelling.

Adapting classical texts for the puppet stage presents unique challenges—especially when "classical" refers to any canonized drama, past or contemporary, that frequently appears in theatre repertoires. Works by canonical playwrights, ranging from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Molière, Racine, Ibsen, Brecht, Beckett, Stoppard, and beyond, are often rich in verbosity. As such, they require significant transformation to align with puppetry's inherently visual and physical storytelling, which resists text-centered, logocentric performance. The medium’s emphasis on physicality, visual storytelling, and the unique interplay of object and performer calls for innovative dramaturgy, scenography, and performance techniques that pass on the spirit (rather than the entire text) of the well-known and canonized works while opening up the interpretation of these works by the distinctiveness of puppetry.

For Yorick, the double-blind peer-reviewed section of this issue, we invite research articles (4,000‒7,000 words) that explore the tradition, theory, practice, and even the avoidance of adapting classical works to the puppet stage. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• the simplified classics – the repertoire and dramaturgy of the travelling puppeteers and their in popularizing and disseminating classical plots and narratives
• performances of classical drama that aim to elevate, emancipate and/or legitimize puppetry as a theatrical form equal in artistic power to actors’ theatre
• the performance of classical texts with the meaningful co-presence and interplay between the puppet and the visible puppeteer, adding layers to the interpretation
• references/allusions/traces of classical texts in puppet productions that play with the distance, the emergence of visuality, and give room for an increased role of object theatre and technology
• reasons, examples and tendencies of avoiding performing classical /canonized dramatic texts

For the Events, Archive, and Review sections, we welcome contributions (1,000‒1,500 words) that highlight recent puppetry-related publications, festivals, conferences, performances, or report on projects/workshops/trainings or materials and techniques that should be preserved, or brought to focus, within the context of contemporary theatre studies.

Important dates

Proposal/abstract submission deadline: 15 April 2025 – Decision: 25 April 2025

Manuscript submission deadline for peer-reviewed sections (Yorick, Spectrum): 25 July, 2025

Manuscript submission deadline for non-reviewed sections (Reviews, Archive, Events): 30 November 2025

Issue publication: Spring 2026

All issue-related enquiries as well as submissions should be sent to the issue editors: theatralia@phil.muni.cz.

General guidelines for submission, formal requirements, article template and citation style are available at the section for authors on the Theatralia website. 

Theatralia is a peer reviewed journal of theatre and performance history and theory, issued by Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, and indexed in SCOPUS, EBSCO, DOAJ and ERIH Plus and listed in the Ulrich’s web Global Serials Directory.