Psychoanalysts have borrowed liberally from the language of theater to describe clinical interactions, the mind, and the course of treatment. Playwrights have borrowed from psychoanalysis to explore the possibilities for capturing psychological experience in words. This symposium brings playwrights and psychoanalysts together to consider areas of overlap, and possibilities for mutual enrichment. 

Participants include past APsaA Fellow, playwright Christopher Shinn (2008 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Dying City), and noted theatre director Anne Bogart as well as two APsaA members with a history of involvement with the theater: Phillip Freeman, symposium chair and a consultant to theater troupes including the American Repertory Theatre; and Henry F. Smith, a past Performing Arts Fulbright Scholar in acting and playwriting.

Mr. Shinn's adaptation of Hedda Gabler starring Mary-Louise Parker opens in previews on Broadway in early January 2009. Shinn is also a winner of an Obie award in playwriting as well a Guggenheim Fellowship and he teaches playwriting at the New School for Drama. Bogart, a professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program, is a recipient of two Obie Awards, a Bessie Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Bogart is the Artistic Director of the SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. Bogart will be directing Freshwater, Virginia Woolf's only play, which opens in previews off-Broadway during the week of the Meeting.

 
Photo credit: Anne Bogart photo by Michael Brosilow
Photo credit: Christopher Shinn photo by Trevor Oswalt