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Assistant Professor of Theatre Cason Murphy recently presented virtually at two international conferences, sharing research into theatrical and pedagogical innovation during the past two years of the pandemic.

Murphy was one of a select group of scholars invited to present their research at the one-day “Global Snapshot: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Media, Performativity, and Global Communities” conference, sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at University of California, Santa Barbara on May 14, 2022. This interdisciplinary conference invited panelists to interrogate the methodologies that have arisen with media development around the world, with Murphy’s presentation, “The Plague’s the Thing: How a Modern-Day Pandemic Brought the Bard Online” examining contemporary presentations of Shakespeare’s work in digital settings during the pandemic. He explored comparisons between the innovation inherent to these new practices with the historical adjustments to Shakespeare’s process and performance styles due to recurrent epidemics of Bubonic plague in the Elizabethan era.

Murphy was also invited to give the keynote speech at the international “Lessons from a Crisis: Education in a Time of Virtual Learning” Conference hosted by the Global Institute for Research Education and Scholarship which ran from May 14-15, 2022. Murphy’s keynote—“The Show Doesn’t Have to Go On: Making a Case for ‘Necessary Incompleteness’”—examined ways in which he and fellow faculty in the Department of Music and Theatre have wrestled with the cumulative impact of several years of disruption to the performing arts through the implementation of “incomplete” theatrical and pedagogical solutions which have allowed for new definitions of “success” in their classrooms and rehearsal rooms.

Murphy teaches courses in musical theatre, acting for the camera and introduction to performing arts. In 2021, Murphy received the ISU Early Achievement in Teaching Award and LAS Cassling Family Faculty Award for Early Achievement in Teaching, and recently was given the 2022 Arts Educator Award from the Ames Community Arts Council.