The Governing Council International Shaw Society Executive Committee R. F. Dietrich, Outgoing President Leonard Conolly, VP & Incoming President Lagretta Lenker, Treasurer John McInerney, Recording Secretary Lori Dietrich, Membership Secretary Advisory Committee Charles Berst John Bertolini Charles A. Carpenter Bernard Dukore Anthony Gibbs Nicholas Grene Denis Johnston Martin Meisel Margot Peters Sally Peters Michel Pharand Ann Saddlemyer Al Turco Stanley Weintraub Don Wilmeth Honorary Advisory Sidney Albert Jacques Barzun Eric Bentley Michael Holroyd Stanley Kaufmann Rhoda Nathan Barbara Smoker Time to renew membership. Please send the form to: ISS P.O. Box 728 Odessa, FL 33556-0728 This Newsletter was produced by Richard Farr Dietrich www.shawsociety.org	2009 End-of-Year Newsletter		Table of Contents Theater in 2009 Events in 2009 Events in 2010 Calls for Papers for 2010-11 Editorials Membership Renewal END
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	The End of the Beginning? -by R. F. Dietrich That may ring a bit too Churchillian, but it does signify what I hope is the case, that the International Shaw Society has passed its founding stage and is ready to move on and become an accepted part of the literary-theatrical society landscape, known especially for vigorously promoting interest in GBS and his works. To pass from Churchillian to Shavian metaphors, I’ve done what I can as Founding President to launch the good ship ISS, and now it must sail off under a new captain, whilst Shotover retreats to his lab to work on his Death Ray. My very best wishes to Leonard Conolly as he takes the helm. He has lots of challenges in front of him, and I’m sure we’re all rooting for him to stay off the rocks! Much of that depends upon you, of course. My thanks to you for your contribution to getting us this far, and I hope you will continue your invaluable support. It’s been great fun! The Beginning of Something Else -by Leonard Conolly Well, yes, but the “something else” will, I hope and expect, look remarkably similar to what has gone before it. ISS members who attended the general meeting at the end of the Washington DC conference in October will recall the spontaneous and much-merited standing ovation given to Dick and Lori Dietrich. Such occasions often mark a farewell as well as an appreciation, but in this case, happily, the Dietrichs soldier on (in the Salvation Army sense of soldiering) with the ISS, Lori as Membership Secretary, and Dick as Treasurer, Webmaster, and prodder-in-chief of the new President. Ongoing and much appreciated support will also come from John McInerney as Recording Secretary, and from some unsuspecting soul out there who will soon succeed me as ISS Vice-President. So plenty of continuity in that regard, and, I think, continuity in ISS priorities–supporting and promoting GBS research and scholarship through publications, symposia, and conferences, with a particular stress on engaging younger scholars in these activities. I share the previous President’s passion for the GBS youth movement, and will add a passion of my own (here’s the “something else” bit)–emphasizing the “international” in our name. ISS members come from many countries, and there was good international representation at the Washington DC conference, but, in keeping with Shaw’s own international outlook, I think it’s worth making strong efforts to internationalize ISS as much as possible. Hence the proposed theme of the next ISS conference (to be held in Guelph and Niagara-on-the-Lake in July 2011): “Shaw sans frontières/Shaw without Borders.” More on that anon. So here goes. You might notice a modest change in Presidential style–despite the belligerent propensities of the current Canadian government, most Canadians (especially those with a reticent Anglo background) are fairly low-key folks–but the commitment will remain, believe me, at those dizzy Dietrichian levels that never cease to amaze and inspire.

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SHAW IN THE THEATER IN 2009: A SAMPLER
	THE SHAW FESTIVAL: Featured at the 6^th Annual Summer Shaw Symposium at the Festival was a perennial favorite, The Devil’s Disciple, and one of Shaw’s most challenging plays, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days,” perhaps a good litmus test for whether one is really a Shavian or not. Photo by David Cooper of the cast of The Devil’s Disciple, starring Evan Buliung as Richard Dudgeon and Fiona Byrne as Judith Anderson. The Shaw plays for 2010 will be The Doctor’s Dilemma and John Bull’s Other Island. For a performance calendar and other plays in the 2010 season, see www.shawfest.org. To register for the 7^th Annual Summer Shaw Symposium or view its call for papers, go to www.shawsociety.org/SummerSymposium-2010.htm.
THE SHAW/CHICAGO THEATER COMPANY: Their 2009-10 season featured John Bull’s Other Island, Ghosts, Votes for Women!, and Mid-Winter’s Tales in 2009 and continues into 2010 with Shaw’s The Philanderer February 6 - March 1, 2010, at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts and The Doctor’s Dilemma April 17 - May 10, 2010 at the Chicago Cultural Center. To see more on their season, go to www.shawchicago.org or write to Managing Director Tony Courier at info@shawchicago.org. See SHAW 29 for an article on Artistic Director Robert Scogin. Photo of John Bull’s Other Island (to the right) by Jake Dickens. Michael Lasswell as Tom Broadbent, Barbara Zahora as Nora Reilly and Kevin Theis as Larry Doyle - February 7, 2009. Please note that ShawChicago will be co-hosting the 1^st Annual Fall Shaw Symposium with the ISS on October 22-23, 2010, at the Chicago Cultural Center and the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. See the note below for information.
	PROJECT SHAW: David Staller’s Project Shaw at the Players Club in New York concluded in 2009 its merry march through the entire corpus of Shaw’s plays (over 60 counting every little bit), finishing with Why She Would Not, arguably “unfinished” by Shaw, but which was finished with a 6^th scene by 5 different critics, which provided the finishing touch to the Project’s finale. But David Staller is NOT FINISHED, it turns out. To see what is projected for 2010, go to www. projectshaw.com. To the left, a photo of the cast of Fanny’s First Play, on the stairway at the Player’s Club in Gramercy Park, NYC.
THE WASHINGTON STAGE GUILD: The ISS and the Catholic University of America, co-sponsors of the D.C. Shaw Conference in October, dedicated the conference to the Stage Guild’s former Artistic Director John MacDonald. The Guild, under the direction of Ann Norton and Bill Largess, provided us with very entertaining productions of Press Cuttings and Augustus Does His Bit, combined under the heading of “Strange Bedfellows.” See www.stageguild.org for an account of their plans for the future and the opportunity to contribute to them. In the photo to the right Vincent Clark as Lord Augustus Highcastle unknowingly submits to a search by The Lady, played by Lynn Steinmetz.
	MICHAEL FRIEND PRODUCTIONS: This year’s productions in Shaw’s back yard in Ayot St. Lawrence were Saint Joan in June and Arms and the Man (see photo left) in July, which then went on tour. Scheduled for 2010 are Arms and the Man on the 16th February to 6th March at Pentameters Theatre, Hampstead and the 19th March at the Vera Fletcher Hall, Thames Ditton; You Never Can Tell on the 25th to 27th June at Shaw's Corner in Ayot; and Widowers’ Houses on the 23rd to 25th July at Ayot. For more see www.mfp.org.uk.
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ISS EVENTS OF 2009
THE COMPARATIVE DRAMA CONFERENCE in March in Los Angeles, coordinated by Tony Stafford of the University of Texas El Paso, had three Shaw Sessions, and for details and names of speakers see the ISS Newsletter in SHAW 29. More Shaw Sessions are scheduled for the CDC in March of 2010. To submit paper proposals for 2011, write to “Tony Stafford”<tstaffor@utep.edu> by November 15 of 2010. For CDC information and to register, email Kevin Wetmore at kwetmore@lmu.edu. The CDC may be moving from Los Angeles to Baltimore in 2011.
THE 6^th ANNUAL SUMMER SHAW SYMPOSIUM, coordinated by Leonard Conolly, featured a keynote address by Stanley Weintraub on “Noel Coward and the Avuncular Shaw,” and actors/directors panels on The Devil’s Disciple (Richard Stewart, Donna Belleville, and Evan Buliung) and “In Good King Charles's Golden Days” (Claire Julien, Graeme Sommerville, and Eda Holmes the director). Papers on those two plays or related issues were provided by Al Lyons, Christopher Gray, Rodelle Weintraub, Brad Kent, John McInerney, Neil Hultgren, Robert Gaines, Tom Wilmeth, Miriam Chirico, and Larry Switzky. Kay Li expanded on “the ORION Shaw Digitizing Project,” David Staller explained his hopes and plans for “A New York Shaw Festival,” and Anthony Wynn spoke on “The Lifelong Dedication of Barry Morse to “GBS.” Winners of ISS Travel Grants/Bryden Scholarships were Neil Hultgren of California State U. Long Beach, Christopher Gray of Trent U., and Miriam Chirico of Eastern Connecticut State University. And a special thanks to Suzanne Merriam, Senior Manager for Education at the Festival, and her assistant Amanda Tripp, for their invaluable assistance.		Below, Symposters (as we call participants in and organizers of our Symposiums) Stan Weintraub, Dick Dietrich, Christopher Innes, Leonard Conolly, Kay Li, and Suzanne Merriam.
THE 2009 D.C. SHAW CONFERENCE, “Shaw & Politics”: With about 100 attendees and over 50 speakers, this conference, co-sponsored by The Catholic University of America, the Washington Stage Guild (see above), and the ISS, overcame logistical problems (no hotels anywhere near to the campus) and bad weather to become a very enjoyable and profitable experience. We are extremely grateful to both CUA and their Drama Department, chaired by Gail Beach, and the Washington Stage Guild for providing us with an excellent conference.
The conference got off to a great start on Thursday night with a reception at the home of the Irish ambassador, hosted by Mrs. Marie Collins, concluding with powerful dramatic readings from Man and Superman and Major Barbara by actors Bob Lilli and Philip Bosco (right).
			Proceedings at CUA’s Pryzbyla Center on Friday began with a welcoming by the Chair of the CUA Drama Dept, Gail Beach, followed by Jackie Maxwell’s lively keynote address on “Shaw and the Politics of Performance.” Other featured speakers were Al Turco on “’Nobody’s Perfect’—GBS as Wagnerite,” Bernard Dukore on “How to Win an Election,” and Charles A. Carpenter on “Shaw’s Mode of Fabian Activism: ‘Educate, Permeate, Irritate.’”
Breakout sessions were held in rooms just across from the Great Room, with papers from, in session order, Michelle Ashley, Sarah Canfield Fuller, Ellen Dolgin, Michael Pharand, Cary DiPietro, Kay Li, Jennifer Lauren, James Scott, Sarah Plummer, Valerie Fehlbaum, Valerie Pilmaier, Margaret Stetz, Christopher Innes, Annie King, Annable Rutherford, Charles Del Dotto, Tony Stafford, Lawrence Switzsky, Sharon Klassen, Lynn Parker, Susan Shelangoskie, J. Ellen Gainor, Michelle Kritselis, Robert Gaines, Charles Andrews, Peter Byrne, Stanley Weintraub, Brad Kent, Elizabeth Miller, Desmond Harding, David Kornhaber, Jean Reynolds, Brian Hudson, Amanda Cuellar, Mark Lepitre, Robert Combs, Christopher Gray, Margaret Wright, Nelson Ritschel, Peter Gahan, Irene Furlong, Richard Burke, Virginia Costello, Eugene Ngezem, Rosemary Jann, Christopher Gray, Margaret Wright, Marrhew Yde, Howard Einsohn, Michael Malouf, Hannes Schweiger, and Devrim Ozlem Varol. Our special thanks to session chairs Lagretta Lenker, Leonard Conolly, Ernest Suarez, Stanley Weintraub, Christa Zorn, Brigitte Bogar, Michel Pharand, Jean Reynolds, Nancy Cole, John McInerney, Martin Meisel, Charles Del Dotto, Bernard Dukore, Charles Berst, Robert Gaines, Michael O’Hara, Dorothy Hadfield, Tony Stafford, and Joseph Sendry for introducing speakers and moderating the panels. After Friday night’s bussing downtown to Clyde’s of Gallery Place for a buffet dinner, we were relieved on Saturday night to find our farewell banquet conveniently staged in the room in Pryzbyla right next to the Great Room, at the conclusion of which the winners of the ISS Travel Grants were asked to stand and be acknowledged.
Winners of ISS Travel Grants to the conference were Charles Andrews of Whitworth U. in Spokane, Michelle Ashley of Southern Illinois U. Edwardsville, Christopher Gray of Trent U., Brian Hudson of the U. of Oklahoma, Michelle Kritselis of Tufts U., Jennifer Laurence of Duquesne U., Elizabeth Miller of U. of California Davis, Valerie Pilmaier of the U. of Wisconsin Waukesha, Sarah Plummer of Virginia Tech, Annabel Rutherford of York U., Hannes Schweiger of the Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biograpy, and Cary DiPietro of the U. of Toronto Missasaugua. A special thanks to Charles and Roelina Berst, who paid the conference fee for all thirteen of the grant winners.
			We were particularly well served by performances of Shaw plays, on all three nights of the conference. Mentioned above are the contributions of Philip Bosco and Bob Milli at the residence of the Irish Ambassador on Thursday night and the Washington Stage Guild’s performances on Friday night at one of CUA’s theaters of the two Shaw one-acts under the general title of “Strange Bedfellows.” Saturday night found a mostly undergraduate cast tackling one of the most demanding of Shaw’s plays, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days,” and doing quite well with it, with much credit to the Director Jay D. Brock and the entire artistic staff. Tom Donahue’s set made it clear that this large play (“large” in scope and grasp) looks better on a large stage. Nell Gwynn and the boys to the left: Grace VanderVeer as Nell, Nick Hagy as George Fox, Maureen O”Rourke as Mrs. Basham, Jake Garcia as James, Tom Carman as Charles.
No account of the conference could do justice to all its facets or thank everyone involved, but, in conclusion, special thanks must be accorded to CUA Dean Larry Poos for his crucial support, to Patrick Tuite, the Associate Chair of the CUA Drama Department, Debra Hanselman, Alan Balch, and Megan Reichelt, for their often very helpful behind-the-scenes coordination, and to the entire D. C. Conference Committee, CUA members Gail Beach, Patrick Tuite, Joseph Sendry, Christopher Wheatley, and Ernest Suarez, Washington Stage Guild representatives Ann Norton and Bill Largess, and ISS members Richard Dietrich, Leonard Conolly, Michael O’Hara, and Lori Dietrich, all of whom contributed in one way or another.
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PROSPECTS FOR 2010-2011 & CALLS FOR PAPERS (in order of deadlines)
SHAW SESSION AT THE 2011 MLA CONVENTION IN LOS ANGELES, Jan. 6-9, 2011: The topic for the Shaw Session offered at the 2011 MLA Convention is "GBS:  Global Bernard Shaw."  The deadline for submitting abstracts to Charles Del Dotto at Duke University (cjd@duke.edu) is March 15, 2010. Send queries to him or to dietrich@shawsociety.org.
THE 7^TH ANNUAL SUMMER SHAW SYMPOSIUM at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, July 23-24-25, 2010, will be focused on The Doctor’s Dilemma and John Bull’s Other Island, the two Shaw plays scheduled at the Festival. Discussions of those two plays will be complemented by panels of actors/directors/designers involved in the play productions. April 15, 2010 is the deadline for submitting abstracts (300-500 words) for papers and panels and applications for Bryden Scholarships/ISS Travel Grants, which should be sent to Dr. Leonard Conolly, preferably as an attachment to an email (lconolly@trentu.ca), or by mail to Professor Leonard Conolly, Department of English, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9J 7B8. Those applying for scholarships/grants should submit additional information (see www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-Symposium-2009.htm). To register for the Symposium (which includes a ticket for the two Shaw plays) and to order tickets for other plays, call the Shaw box office at . For registration prices and all the details of the Symposium, see www.shawsociety.org/SummerSymposium-2010.htm.
SPECIAL NOTICE: THE FIRST ANNUAL FALL SHAW SYMPOSIUM, co-hosted with the ShawChicago Theater Co. and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, will be held on October 22-23, 2010: on the 22^nd at the Chicago Cultural Center and on the 23^rd at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. For the inauguration of this event, we hope that you will make a special effort to attend. Proposals for papers and panels should be sent to Professor Michael O’Hara at "Michael O'Hara" <mohara@bsu.edu> by July 1, 2010 or by mail to him at Associate Dean Michael O’Hara, 2000 W. University Ave., College of Fine Arts, AC 200, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306. For details on the Fall Symposium, including a Call for Papers, please go to www.shawsociety.org/FallSymposium-2010.htm. In addition, read SHAW 29 (230-238) for an account of the career of ShawChicago’s Artistic Director Robert Scogin, which provides a good introduction to ShawChicago and Shaw in Chicago as well.
THE COMPARATIVE DRAMA CONFERENCE, probably scheduled at the end of March (as usual), 2011, will likely have at least one Shaw Session and a deadline of November 15, 2010 for submission of paper abstracts to Tony Stafford of the U. of Texas El Paso (“Tony Stafford” <tstaffor@utep.edu>). The general topic is always broad enough so that almost any subject will fit. For information about the conference and registration, email Kevin Wetmore at kwetmore@lmu.edu. The CDC may be moving to Baltimore from Los Angeles in 2011.
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EDITORIALS & CONCLUSIONS
From the Outgoing President, re our first Fall Symposium: Believe it or not, there’s a master plan at work (albeit arrived at inductively, from experience) in our attempting an annual Fall Symposium in Chicago that I’d like to see send the ISS in a somewhat different direction in hosting conferences. Instead of this incredibly expensive, time-consuming, and very complicated process of getting universities to host and largely fund our biennial or triennial conferences, which often brings logistical problems with it, I think we would be better served in the long run by instituting a series of symposiums, perhaps in the spring (New York?), summer (Niagara-on-the-Lake?), and fall (Chicago?), where Shaw productions can be counted on, that could also serve on a rotating basis for the conferences and that would be largely à la carte in their registration menus. With our next conference in 2011 at the U. of Guelph but also involving the Shaw Festival, where we’ve been holding summer symposiums for six years, we have what could serve as a transitional conference in that it will make use of a symposium venue for part of the conference and replace the symposium for that year. The next conference after that might very well go the next step if it’s, say, a fall conference in Chicago that would combine with and replace the Annual Fall Symposium there and not involve a university subsidy or hosting at all. A conference after that, again without a university subsidy or hosting, and again combining with and replacing an annual symposium, might find a home in New York, say, if David Staller’s plans for a continuance of his Project Shaw bears fruit there. This assumes a lot of course, but it’s a plan worth considering, for it would save a lot of time and effort. Part of my reason for proposing this is that I’m concerned about wearing our officers out if we keep asking them to continue with things as they are. There are simpler ways to do conferences. --DD
From the Outgoing President, re “hitting the wall:” Stan Weintraub asked an excellent question at the ISS business meeting in D.C. about the possibility that the ISS is overextending itself by co-hosting too many events. My answer is that we’ll know when we’ve hit a wall only when we hit a wall, and then we’ll do the sensible thing and back off. But as the principal agenda of the ISS is to renew and expand interest in Shaw, particularly among the young, it seems to me that we’re obligated to keep pushing until that wall appears. That is, as long as the ISS President and his intrepid volunteers can keep up the pace! --DD
From the Membership Secretary, Lori Dietrich: I have one more year to go on my second term as ISS Membership Secretary, and then someone else will have the joy and privilege of doing this job. During my final year, I would love nothing better than to mentor some younger person in the task of at least maintaining and hopefully increasing ISS membership (which has grown from 109 members in 2004 to 198 members in 2009, despite an annual attrition rate of 8 to 10%). I’ll first ask for volunteers to write to me at “Lori D” <lruse@tampabay.rr.com>, but if I don’t hear from anyone soon, don’t be surprised if you hear a cyber knock at your door. Opportunity will be knocking.
			From the Outgoing President, re his wonderful wife: There are “helpmeets” and then there is Lori, who has served the ISS cause way beyond what anyone would expect or any husband deserve. I can’t sign off as president without thanking her profusely for her invaluable work, which only cost me a trip now and then (Lori’s bag is never unpacked, so to speak, in constant anticipation of the next trip). And together we’ll now sign off with one of our favorite photos from our trips abroad, taken in the backyard of the Brocket Arms in Ayot St. Lawrence, just a stone’s throw from that infamous teetotaler’s house. A toast to GBS and the ISS, and may they both thrive!
And a good step in that direction is to renew your membership for 2010. Click here for a printable form. TOP

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