The interior of the Royal George has been completely restored in the style of a mini-Edwardian opera house. Photo: David Cooper.
Speakers
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Tanja Jacobs (Director / Shaw Festival Ensemble):
SHAW 2019: Director for Getting Married; appearing in Cyrano de Bergerac and Man and Superman; 2nd season.
(Selected Credits) FOR THE SHAW: Augustus Does His Bit, Night of January 16th. ELSEWHERE: directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, co-directed Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information, Canadian Stage; directed La Bête, appeared in The Way of the World, Phèdre, A Christmas Carol, Soulpepper; multiple theatres across Canada, including Necessary Angel, Theatre Aquarius, Crow’s Theatre, Theatre Porte Parole, National Arts Centre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Centaur Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Citadel Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Grand Theatre, Young People’s Theatre. AWARDS: three Dora awards; eleven Dora nominations. TRAINING: MFA in Directing, York University (in collaboration with Canadian Stage).
PANEL SPEAKERS
Brigitte Bogar recently completed her Ph.D. “Hidden in plain sight – musical subtext in drama” at York University. She has worked as conference organizer for MAPACA, served on their board (2013-2018), and as Area-Chair for Body Art and Musical Theatre. She has lectured/performed/presented widely alone and with her late husband Christopher Innes, at invited public lectures/concerts in USA, UK, Canada, Sweden and Denmark (including NEMLA Keynote 2015). Together they edited Carnival: Theory and Practice, (2012), and Shaw Criticism: Music, (2016). She is the guest editor of SHAW 39.1: Shaw and Music, and is currently working on (her last book with Innes) Art and Myth: the Operas of R. Murray Schafer. In 2014, she recorded a CD featuring music by GBS. Her recent stage appearances include Sentain Der fliegende Holländer and Lenora in Beethoven’s Fidelio, as well as Elvira in Don Giovanni, Agathe in Der Freischütz and Gutrune in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
R. F. Dietrich is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Florida, Founding President of the International Shaw Society, and a Vice President of the Shaw Society UK. He is the author of British Drama, 1890 to 1950: A Critical Heritage and Bernard Shaw’s Novels: Portraits of the Artist as Man and Superman.
Barbara Inglese, M.A., M.L.S., earned her double Bachelor’s degrees in Latin and Classical Greek and English at St. Bonaventure University, her Master’s degree in ancient studies at Columbia University, and her M.L.S. degree from the School of Communication and Library Studies at Rutgers University. She is an R&D competitive analyst at Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company. In that position, she covered immuno-inflammation diseases for four years, and now covers rare neurological diseases, analyzing clinical trials and competitor pipelines and preparing presentations for research project teams and R&D management groups. She also is the global administrator and trainer for clinical trials and biopharmaceutical experts on an externally developed specialized database, building Sanofi-specific vocabularies and features in collaboration with the vendor. Barbara has always had a deep love of opera (especially Italian and French operas of the 19th century) and taken continuing education courses in music for more than 30 years. Her second love is theatre, with a special affinity for the plays of Bernard Shaw. This is her 29th season for attending his plays at the Shaw Festival.
Sharon Klassen is Associate Professor or Theatre Arts at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, where she teaches courses in both academic and practical aspects of theatre. She recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, examining Wilde’s influence on popular comedy in the Edwardian period. One aspect of her current research is the relationship between Shaw and the artist Feliks Topolski, who illustrated Pygmalion, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days, and Geneva.
Kay Li, a founding member of the International Shaw Society, is the Project Leader of the SAGITTARIUS—ORION Digitizing Project on Bernard Shaw funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She studies cross-cultural literary encounters and cultural globalization, and is the author of two books: Bernard Shaw and China: Cross-Cultural Encounters (2007) in the University Press of Florida Shaw Series and Bernard Shaw’s Bridges to Chinese Culture (2016) in the Palgrave Macmillan Shaw Series. She is Adjunct Professor in the Department of English at York University, Toronto, and President of Asian Heritage Month–Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc. Her other government-funded projects include the Virtual Museum of Asian Canadian Cultural Heritage (VMACCH), Arts and Artificial Intelligence, and the Asian Heritage Month Festivals.
John McInerny is Professor Emeritus at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania), where he taught modern drama, including Shaw, and film criticism for more than forty years. He also worked in University and Community Theatre, as an actor, writer, and director -- work he continues in retirement. Ten of his original plays have been performed in various venues. In addition, McInerney has served as an officer for the ISS, contributed chapters to several published Shaw studies, and directed presentations offered to Shaw Symposium audiences by the “Not Ready for Prime Time Shavians.”
Hisashi Morikawa is Professor Emeritus at the National Institute of Technology, Wakayama College, Japan. He has been president of the Bernard Shaw Society of Japan (BSSJ) since 2014. His main research interest is in the musical aspects of Shaw’s plays, especially Shaw’s interpretations of operas by Mozart and Wagner. He has written several essays on Shaw and Wagner, including “Widowers’ Houses: Shaw’s Spin on Das Rheingold,” (SHAW 31). Dr. Morikawa is currently editor-in-chief of a collection of Shaw plays in Japanese translation to be published in 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the BSSJ.
Vishnu W. Patil is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Deogiri College, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. There he teaches literature courses to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Lisa Robertson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her research is concerned with nineteenth-century political and intellectual history; feminist and gender studies; and the built environment. With Flore Janssen, she is the editor of the recent collection of essays Margaret Harkness: Writing Social Engagement, 1880-1921 (MUP, 2019) as well as the open access digital resource dedicated to Harkness’s writing, The Harkives. Her monograph, Housing Crisis: Home and Identity in Nineteenth-Century London, will be published by Edinburgh University Press in 2020.
Yulia Andreevna Skalnaya is a member of the Faculty of Global Studies and the Faculty of Philology at Lomonosov Moscow State University, where she teaches English and Foreign Literature. She earned her PhD there in the Department of Foreign Literature in 2018. Her Philology thesis (2015) is titled “Bernard Shaw’s Interwar Dramas: Theatre as Synthesis.” Born in Kirov, since the age of ten she has been living, studying, and working in Moscow.
Justine Zapin teaches dramatic literature and college writing at American University. She holds a Masters degree in Literature from American University, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Classical Theater from Marymount Manhattan College. Her teaching and research interests include the life and works of Bernard Shaw, the early production history of Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, and contemporary staging of early Irish theater. In addition to her work at the University, she teaches acting and performance at a school for young adults with high-functioning Autism.
Tanja Jacobs (Director / Shaw Festival Ensemble):
SHAW 2019: Director for Getting Married; appearing in Cyrano de Bergerac and Man and Superman; 2nd season.
(Selected Credits) FOR THE SHAW: Augustus Does His Bit, Night of January 16th. ELSEWHERE: directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, co-directed Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information, Canadian Stage; directed La Bête, appeared in The Way of the World, Phèdre, A Christmas Carol, Soulpepper; multiple theatres across Canada, including Necessary Angel, Theatre Aquarius, Crow’s Theatre, Theatre Porte Parole, National Arts Centre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Centaur Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Citadel Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Grand Theatre, Young People’s Theatre. AWARDS: three Dora awards; eleven Dora nominations. TRAINING: MFA in Directing, York University (in collaboration with Canadian Stage).
PANEL SPEAKERS
Brigitte Bogar recently completed her Ph.D. “Hidden in plain sight – musical subtext in drama” at York University. She has worked as conference organizer for MAPACA, served on their board (2013-2018), and as Area-Chair for Body Art and Musical Theatre. She has lectured/performed/presented widely alone and with her late husband Christopher Innes, at invited public lectures/concerts in USA, UK, Canada, Sweden and Denmark (including NEMLA Keynote 2015). Together they edited Carnival: Theory and Practice, (2012), and Shaw Criticism: Music, (2016). She is the guest editor of SHAW 39.1: Shaw and Music, and is currently working on (her last book with Innes) Art and Myth: the Operas of R. Murray Schafer. In 2014, she recorded a CD featuring music by GBS. Her recent stage appearances include Sentain Der fliegende Holländer and Lenora in Beethoven’s Fidelio, as well as Elvira in Don Giovanni, Agathe in Der Freischütz and Gutrune in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
R. F. Dietrich is Professor Emeritus at the University of South Florida, Founding President of the International Shaw Society, and a Vice President of the Shaw Society UK. He is the author of British Drama, 1890 to 1950: A Critical Heritage and Bernard Shaw’s Novels: Portraits of the Artist as Man and Superman.
Barbara Inglese, M.A., M.L.S., earned her double Bachelor’s degrees in Latin and Classical Greek and English at St. Bonaventure University, her Master’s degree in ancient studies at Columbia University, and her M.L.S. degree from the School of Communication and Library Studies at Rutgers University. She is an R&D competitive analyst at Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical company. In that position, she covered immuno-inflammation diseases for four years, and now covers rare neurological diseases, analyzing clinical trials and competitor pipelines and preparing presentations for research project teams and R&D management groups. She also is the global administrator and trainer for clinical trials and biopharmaceutical experts on an externally developed specialized database, building Sanofi-specific vocabularies and features in collaboration with the vendor. Barbara has always had a deep love of opera (especially Italian and French operas of the 19th century) and taken continuing education courses in music for more than 30 years. Her second love is theatre, with a special affinity for the plays of Bernard Shaw. This is her 29th season for attending his plays at the Shaw Festival.
Sharon Klassen is Associate Professor or Theatre Arts at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, where she teaches courses in both academic and practical aspects of theatre. She recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, examining Wilde’s influence on popular comedy in the Edwardian period. One aspect of her current research is the relationship between Shaw and the artist Feliks Topolski, who illustrated Pygmalion, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days, and Geneva.
Kay Li, a founding member of the International Shaw Society, is the Project Leader of the SAGITTARIUS—ORION Digitizing Project on Bernard Shaw funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She studies cross-cultural literary encounters and cultural globalization, and is the author of two books: Bernard Shaw and China: Cross-Cultural Encounters (2007) in the University Press of Florida Shaw Series and Bernard Shaw’s Bridges to Chinese Culture (2016) in the Palgrave Macmillan Shaw Series. She is Adjunct Professor in the Department of English at York University, Toronto, and President of Asian Heritage Month–Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc. Her other government-funded projects include the Virtual Museum of Asian Canadian Cultural Heritage (VMACCH), Arts and Artificial Intelligence, and the Asian Heritage Month Festivals.
John McInerny is Professor Emeritus at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania), where he taught modern drama, including Shaw, and film criticism for more than forty years. He also worked in University and Community Theatre, as an actor, writer, and director -- work he continues in retirement. Ten of his original plays have been performed in various venues. In addition, McInerney has served as an officer for the ISS, contributed chapters to several published Shaw studies, and directed presentations offered to Shaw Symposium audiences by the “Not Ready for Prime Time Shavians.”
Hisashi Morikawa is Professor Emeritus at the National Institute of Technology, Wakayama College, Japan. He has been president of the Bernard Shaw Society of Japan (BSSJ) since 2014. His main research interest is in the musical aspects of Shaw’s plays, especially Shaw’s interpretations of operas by Mozart and Wagner. He has written several essays on Shaw and Wagner, including “Widowers’ Houses: Shaw’s Spin on Das Rheingold,” (SHAW 31). Dr. Morikawa is currently editor-in-chief of a collection of Shaw plays in Japanese translation to be published in 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the BSSJ.
Vishnu W. Patil is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Deogiri College, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. There he teaches literature courses to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Lisa Robertson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her research is concerned with nineteenth-century political and intellectual history; feminist and gender studies; and the built environment. With Flore Janssen, she is the editor of the recent collection of essays Margaret Harkness: Writing Social Engagement, 1880-1921 (MUP, 2019) as well as the open access digital resource dedicated to Harkness’s writing, The Harkives. Her monograph, Housing Crisis: Home and Identity in Nineteenth-Century London, will be published by Edinburgh University Press in 2020.
Yulia Andreevna Skalnaya is a member of the Faculty of Global Studies and the Faculty of Philology at Lomonosov Moscow State University, where she teaches English and Foreign Literature. She earned her PhD there in the Department of Foreign Literature in 2018. Her Philology thesis (2015) is titled “Bernard Shaw’s Interwar Dramas: Theatre as Synthesis.” Born in Kirov, since the age of ten she has been living, studying, and working in Moscow.
Justine Zapin teaches dramatic literature and college writing at American University. She holds a Masters degree in Literature from American University, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Classical Theater from Marymount Manhattan College. Her teaching and research interests include the life and works of Bernard Shaw, the early production history of Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, and contemporary staging of early Irish theater. In addition to her work at the University, she teaches acting and performance at a school for young adults with high-functioning Autism.