DIGITAL ACCESS TO THE PERFORMING ARTS

TRANSMEDIA ARTS

SPEAKERS: Maxime de Brogniez, Kasia Lech, Richard Misek, Doug Reside, Jessica Rizzo, Talia Rodgers, Magda Romanska, Ilinca Todoruț, Antoine Vandenbulke, Amy Pradell

Join us for a virtual book launch marking the publication of Digital Access to the Performing Arts, a pioneering study written by experts at metaLAB at Harvard and developed through the Digital Access Research Project (DARP). The book explores the urgent need to rethink digital access in the performing arts in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drawing on comparative research across the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Australia, the study examines how the pandemic revealed both the potential and the shortcomings of digital programming—particularly for disabled and marginalized audiences. Through case studies and critical legal analysis, the book traces the rise and decline of digital theatre during and after the pandemic, analyzes the tensions between copyright law and disability rights, and considers the role emerging technologies, including AI, may play in the future of the performing arts. Straddling the fields of performance studies, digital humanities, disability studies, law, and public policy, the book argues for a new global framework that balances copyright protection with the human right to culture, advocating for increased accessibility through sustainable digital tools. Digital Access to the Performing Arts was selected by the Knowledge Unlatched Selection Committee—an international network of over 200 libraries—for inclusion in the 2026 Digital Lives: Technology’s Influence on Contemporary Life Collection, highlighting twenty of the most significant new books exploring how technology shapes society, culture, governance, and everyday life. The selected titles are available open access through the Open Research Library: https://uplopen.com/books/m/10.56687/9781529257052

About the Speakers

Maxime de Brogniez holds a PhD in law and a master's degree in philosophy. He is a lawyer (Explane law firm), lecturer at ULiège, and assistant at ULB. He has been a guest researcher at EHESS (Paris). His research has led him to examine the interactions between law and art, often from a philosophical perspective. He teaches cultural heritage protection law and public procurement law and is involved in various training programs. He mainly practices public procurement law, urban planning law, environmental law, and general administrative law. 

Paul Harpur, OAM is an internationally recognised disability rights scholar and Professor in the T.C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland, where he leads major initiatives advancing disability inclusion. He is an Associate with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, contributing to global disability research and advocacy. A dual Paralympian and former Fulbright Future Scholar ., Professor Harpur’s work strengthens higher‑education reform and disability-inclusive policy. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to people with disability and continues to drive systemic change through research, leadership, and public engagement.

Kasia Lech is a theatre maker and an associate professor at the University of Amsterdam. Her scholarly and creative work explores the intersection of theatre and performance with multilingualism, verse, translation, migration, and artistic research. She authored "Dramaturgy of Form: Performing Verse in Contemporary Theatre" (2021), "Multilingual  Dramaturgies: Towards New European Theatre"(2024), and "Feminist Imagining in Polish and Ukrainian Theatres" (with Ewa Bal, 2025). Lech performed internationally and co-founded Polish Theatre Ireland – a multilingual theatre company based in Dublin. She is an Executive Director at TheTheatreTimes.com, a global theatre portal.

Richard Misek is a filmmaker and media scholar. His research focuses on visual capitalism, digital access to arts and culture, and the possibility of a digital commons. He has led grant-funded projects on public space in the metaverse (2022-23), widening access to arts and culture through video streaming (2021-22), immersive nonfiction (2017-18), and the relation between audiovisual essays and artists’ film and video (2015-16). His films have screened at over eighty festivals including Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, Clermont-Ferrand, Hot Docs, and IDFA, and at various national galleries, archives, and museums. He is a Professor in Film and Media at the University of Bergen in Norway.

Doug Reside is the Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division at the New York Public Library. He manages all aspects of the division’s collections and public services. He joined NYPL in 2011 first as the digital curator for the performing arts before assuming his current position in 2014. Prior to joining NYPL, Reside served on the directorial staff of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland. He has published and spoken on topics related to theater history, literature, and digital humanities, and has managed several large grant-funded projects on these topics. Reside is especially interested in the use of digital forensic tools to study the creative process. He received a PhD in English from the University of Kentucky.

Jessica Rizzo is a writer, attorney, and theatermaker. She is a member of the antitrust and competition group at Ballard Spahr LLP. She has worked with theaters including the Wilma, New Paradise Laboratories, Woolly Mammoth, the American Theatre of Actors, the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, and the Yale Repertory Theatre. Her first book, Waste, was published by punctum books. Her second book, Dramaturgy and the Law, is forthcoming from Routledge. Her other writing has appeared in publications including Wired, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and various scholarly journals. DFA: Yale School of Drama. JD: University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Talia Rodgers is the Head of Higher Education at Digital Theatre. From 1991-2015 she was Publisher for Literature, Theatre and Performance Studies at Routledge. In the mid-1990s Talia managed the launch of the third edition of the Arden Shakespeare, and also the journal 'Performance Research’.  She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of London in 2018.  She is a trustee of Flute Theatre: Shakespeare for Inclusive Audiences and of the Secret Garden in Brighton where she lives.

Magda Romanska is Professor of Performing Arts at Emerson College in Boston, Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, and Researcher at Harvard metaLAB. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheTheatreTimes.com, and editor of Focus on Dramaturgy series from Routledge. Selected books: Digital Access to the Performing Arts: Comparative Study of Legal and Structural Challenges (2026); TheaterMachine: Tadeusz Kantor in Context (2020); Reader in Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2016); The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy (2014); and The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor (2012). A recipient of many awards, she has taught at Harvard, Yale School of Drama, and Cornell.

Ilinca Todoruț is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania. She served as Artistic Director of the 2023 International Online Theatre Festival (IOTF). Her research on the intersections between artistic practices, digital media, and contemporary politics appeared in journals such as Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Theater, TDR, and Performance Research, as well as in various edited collections. Her book, Christoph Schlingensief’s Realist Theater, investigates how a multidisciplinary artist challenges traditional theatrical realism to engage with pressing social and political concerns. She is currently working on a forthcoming book entitled Feminist Dramaturgies.

Antoine Vandenbulke is Professor of EU Law, Economic Law, and Comparative Law at the School of Law of the University of Mons –  Free University of Brussels. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Liège and has been a visiting scholar at Paris Panthéon-Assas University and Columbia University. His research focuses on EU and economic law, with a particular interest in the intersections between law, the arts, and economics.

Amy Pradell is the Senior Strategist for Communications, Fundraising and Advocacy at European Theatre Convention. Boston-born, Berlin-based, Amy is an executive with deep expertise in communications, fundraising and advocacy. Throughout her fifteen-year career, she has led teams in both the private and non-profit sectors and brings direct experience working with global thought leaders, high-level policymakers and top media and artistic talents throughout Europe and the US. Passionate about using her skills to tackle real-world problems, she brings a lifelong love of the performing arts to her work at ETC. She studied comparative literature at Free University, Berlin (M.A.), University of California Berkeley (B.A. summa cum laude), and Harvard Summer School. She joined ETC in March 2026.

If you have any questions, please contact Magda Romanska at magda[at]metalab.harvard.edu

This event is co-sponsored with metaLAB (at) Harvard.