The TaPRA Annual Conference 2022 will be hosted by the University of Essex, 12–14 September 2022. This will be a hybrid event. Presenters and delegates are invited to join us in person at the University of Essex, just outside Colchester (the UK’s oldest recorded town). An online attendance option (with much lower registration fees) is available for those who are not able to participate in person.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Sean Metzger (UCLA) will be presenting the conference keynote. He will be discussing how the formulation of the Chinese Atlantic might shape new directions in theatre and performance studies in the UK, considering specific Chinese British theatrical productions as well as other expressive cultural forms.

In the Platinum Jubilee year and with the recent announcement that our home and the UK’s oldest recorded town, Colchester, has received city status in 2022, we are looking forward to welcoming you to the University of Essex’s Colchester campus, set within the historic Green Flag award-winning Wivenhoe Park.

Keynotes and Working Group panels will take place in the UK’s first zero-carbon business school building at the Essex Business School; the building contains two lecture theatres, multiple flexible Zoom-equipped class spaces, a café and a stunning winter garden that brings the outside indoors. The garden is designed to be a positive place for mental well-being, and the plants themselves help to regulate air quality.

The conference dinner will take place at Wivenhoe House Hotel, a beautiful four-star hotel located within our Colchester Campus at the University of Essex. Wivenhoe House Hotel is home to the Edge Hill Hotel School, the first school of its kind in the UK to offer vocational training in a fully commercial hotel. Following the conference meal, the space will open up to enable all delegates to gather for a live DJ set.

A sharing of new performance work will be presented at our University’s creative hub, the Lakeside Theatre; our Lakeside Theatre venue contains a 200-seat auditorium, black box studio theatre space and a café, all set beside the three man-made lakes at the centre of Wivenhoe Park.

The publisher stands will be located in the Hexagon building (or “The Hex”), one of the iconic brutalist buildings built at the birth of the University in 1964, which was recently renovated and is located in the heart of our Colchester campus. Architect Kenneth Capon, who designed The Hex, described that he wanted to create “something fierce to let them [students & staff] work within”.

For the Practice-as-Research gallery we will be taking over an entire building to curate and present our delegate’s research; the Tony Rich Teaching Centre is a high quality, modern space with a flexible layout spanning 20 rooms. All rooms are equipped with state-of-the-art technology including screens, interactive whiteboards and projectors, with a large lobby providing guests with a comfortable seating area with access to Wi-Fi and charging points for laptops.

All of the conference spaces above are fully accessible with lifts and/or ramps for wheelchair access.