Stop the World, I Want to Get Off: Musicals Everywhere

Call for Participation:

Because musicals have always been a transnational form, Song, Stage and Screen 2026 will be fully online as a virtual multi-hub conference. We invite consideration of musicals everywhere–whether on stage or on screen, no matter the size or scope, in both well-examined places and those hitherto understudied, and in conversation with geopolitics. 

Approaching musicals with a global lens opens up possibilities for fresh dialogue about how musicals can both deliver hard truths (“Stop the World”) and provide necessary pleasure (“I Want to Get Off”). As Joel Grey recently stated in his New York Times op-ed, musicals have “always been both the peanut butter and the pill hidden within.” Musicals have long provided a means to process personal, social, and political concerns, even as pleasure remains central to their appeal. 

Musical theatre studies is in the midst of its own global turn, as scholars from around the world advance knowledge about the genre and introduce new perspectives to the field. Song, Stage and Screen 2026 aims to connect scholars from as many places as possible with a virtual multi-hub conference, with each day hosted by scholars in different time zones. 

Papers may address:

Musicals and geopolitics

Musicals and pleasure

Musicals and spectatorship

Musicals and cultural or linguistic translation

Musicals and 21st century centers of production

Global musical theatre studies and historiography 

Reports from the field

Local, indigenous, and site-specific musicals

Instructions for proposing an individual paper.  Individual papers will be 20 minutes in length with 10 minutes for discussion.  Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to this form.  

Instructions for proposing a pre-composed panel and/or roundtable. Pre-composed panels will last 60 or 90 minutes depending on the number of presenters. Roundtables will last 60 minutes. Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to this form.

Please submit your abstract for an individual paper, pre-composed panel, or roundtable by Friday January 9, 2026.

Our international program committee will perform an anonymous review of all submissions. Prospective participants will be notified by early February 2026. 

Questions? Drop us an email at info@issmusicals.org. For more information about the Song, Stage and Screen conference, the Studies in Musical Theatre journal, and the International Society for the Study of Musicals (ISSM), please visit issmusicals.org.

Conference Co-Chairs: Joanna Dee Das, Ryan Donovan, Elizabeth L. Wollman, and Jessica Sternfeld 

Program Committee: Elizabeth L. Wollman (chair), Jonathan Bollen, James Lovelock, Barbara Pitak-Piaskowska, Faye Rigopoulou, Colleen Rua

Sample multi-hub schedule (official schedule to come)

Tuesday June 23

Hub: London 12 pm-4 pm

Tokyo 8 pm-12 am

NYC 7 am-11 am