ANNOUNCING BADA’S SYMPOSIUM: MARCH 15TH – 16TH 2026 | LONDON

‘Why don’t you just try acting?’: The Theatre of Marginalised Communities and the Encounter between US and UK Actor Training

Sunday 15^th March – Monday 16^th March in London (at the British American Drama Academy and Shakespeare’s Globe)

On the set of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman admitted to not having slept for 72 hours. His sleep deprivation was an acting technique – a tool that would allow him to accurately portray his character. In response, his costar Laurence Olivier asked him, ‘why don’t you just try acting?’ This possibly apocryphal story encapsulates the supposedly oppositional attitudes taken by Americans and Brits – method acting for the Americans and highly technical approaches developed for classical texts for the Brits.

Bringing together scholars and practitioners, the symposium will challenge such simplistic binary narratives and explore how encounters between acting systems and theatre cultures have been enriched by the transatlantic movement of marginalised communities. Through interviews, panels, workshops and performance, we will explore how innovation and identity intersect across borders.

Panels

Stonewall to Soho: Transatlantic Exchanges in Queer Theatre and Performance
- The Art of the Culture War: Lessons from the Battlefields
  - Speaker: Phoebe Patey-Ferguson
- Queer Practice, Queer Pedagogy: A Transatlantic Conversation on Voice and Actor Training
  - Speakers: Becca Barret and Richard Delaney, moderated by Jay Paul Skelton
- Surviving the Crossing: A Queer Migrant Dialogue Between London and New York
  - Speakers: Alejandro Postigo and Edu Diaz
Jewish Methods: How Jewish-American Practitioners Influenced Contemporary British Actor Training
- Title tbc
  - Speaker: Conrad Cohen
- Doreen Cannon Changed My Life (and the nature of actor training in London drama schools)
  - Speaker: Margaret Coldiron
- The Heart of the Method
  - Workshop with Lola Cohen
Beyond the Hollywood Ten: ‘Un-American’ Americans and the British Theatre Industry
- Title tbc
  - Speaker: Paul Prescott
- “More English than the Brits”: Hollywood’s Exiles in 1950s Britain
  - Spealer: Rebecca Prime
- Paul Robeson – the artist must choose
  - Speaker: Hakim Adi
- “A guest in your country”: Bertolt Brecht between Europe and America
  - Speaker: Tom Kuhn
‘Lifting it Up’: Shakespeare, Hip Hop and the Poetics of Black Speech
- Speakers: Sideeq Heard (MIO ’14), Jonzi D, Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu, and Miriam A. Hyman/Robyn Hood (MIO’ 10)

Keynote Speakers and Additional Sessions

Phylicia Rashad and BADA Patron Joseph Mydell (MIO ’84) in conversation.
Zoë Wanamaker and Patrick Spottiswoode (Founder, Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe)
Simon Godwin, Drew Lichtenberg and Deborah C. Payne

Performance

Deep Azure by Chadwick Boseman (MIO ’98) (at Shakespeare’s Globe)

Join us in person in London or online for two days of timely conversations, performance, and reflection.

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Online participation will be available for sessions taking place on Sunday 15^th March and some sessions on Monday 16th March, including:

Stonewall to Soho: Transatlantic Exchanges in Queer Theatre and Performance
Jewish Acting Methods: How Jewish-American Practitioners Influenced Contemporary British Actor Training
Zoë Wanamaker and Patrick Spottiswoode (Founder, Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe)

Registration is now open

Post updated 11 February 2026