Introduction to Bruce Kirle Memorial Panel debut papers in music-theatre-dance

In 2007, the distinguished scholar of musical theatre Bruce Kirle passed away unexpectedly. In tribute to his contribution to this field of scholarship, the Music-Theatre-Dance focus group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) established a competition for new scholars researching in the field. This is now the second season in which three prize-winning entries to this competition have been presented both as conference papers (at the 2010 ATHE conference in Los Angeles),and as written articles in Studies in Musical Theatre. Judith Sebesta, respondent to the papers at the ATHE conference, introduces them in this short address.