What we expect of the performing arts, what the performing arts expects of us: Introduction to the Bruce Kirle Memorial Emerging Scholars Debut Panel 2017

After distinguished musical theatre scholar Bruce Kirle died in 2007, the Music Theatre and Dance Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) began sponsoring the Bruce Kirle Memorial Emerging Scholars Panel at its annual conference. Each year, three panelists are selected to have the chance to present their work for the first time nationally, and then revise those talks and have their work published here in Studies in Musical Theatre, under the mentorship of the panel’s respondent. Here, respondent Jessica Sternfeld introduces the three articles that emerged from the 2017 Kirle Panel.