Joint Call for Submissions: RITA 2.1 and RITA 2.2

• RITA 2.1: Call for an open-themed issue

The Revue Internationale des Inventions Théâtrales Africaines (RITA) is releasing a call for an open-themed issue to appear online in June 2026. RITA is an open-access, multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal dedicated to theatrical creation in African contexts. We invite submissions that address theatrical invention from a range of perspectives, including, but not limited to, historical, aesthetic, social, political, or economic.

Submissions can address the theme of theatrical performance in any relevant geographical zone, time period, or artistic genre and should propose to shed new light on theatrical practices and approaches in Africa and among the diaspora. The committee will accept proposals in English, French, or Portuguese from scholars, artists and cultural actors. The issue will include scholarly articles, artistic reflections on theatrical practices, as well as reports on performances, events or venues.

Interested authors can send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a brief bio to Brian.Valente-Quinn@colorado.eduby October 3, 2025. The committee will respond to all submissions by October 15. Final article manuscripts (6,000 words) are to be submitted by February 15. Following a double-blind peer-review process, the issue will be published online in early summer 2026.

Please write to the editor at Brian.Valente-Quinn@colorado.edu for any further information. RITA is published in collaboration with the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship.

 

• RITA 2.2: Call for a guest-edited special issue

“People Theater for Development and the Plays of Gilbert Doho”

Edited by Cheryl Toman, The University of Alabama

A renowned Cameroonian playwright and theater scholar, Gilbert Doho was born in Bafounda in Western Cameroon in 1954, just before independence. A Bamiléké, Doho witnessed the killing of his father and other Bamiléké massacred by French troops in 1960, an event that would shape his life and career thereafter. As an adult, Doho redirected his anger into positive projects involving theater; he wrote several plays, such as Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon (in collaboration with Bole Butake, 1998, with a second edition released in 2022), Noces de Cendres (Wedlock of Ashes, 1996), and Le Crâne (The Skull, 1995), among other works. But Doho was also a scholar of theater, and he founded the Department of Theater at The University of Yaoundé I in the 1990s until he was exiled for producing plays that were critical of the government and Cameroon’s president. After being awarded a Fulbright at The State University of New York at Albany, Doho continued his career in the United States; yet he travelled back and forth frequently to his native Cameroon for fieldwork and to organize workshops in theater. His books on People Theater and his workshops in Cameroon were among the most recognized elements of his work. His academic writings include Théâtre populaire et réappropriation du pouvoir au Cameroun (2002), with an updated version in English entitled People Theater and Grassroots Empowerment in Cameroon (2007), in addition to several essays and a significant invited contribution to Routledge’s The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre Volume 3: Africa (1997).

In his book, People Theater and Grassroots Empowerment in Cameroon, Doho challenged the practice of an elitist theater that reached only small numbers of the population and, according to Doho, was performed “loin des espaces populaires dans des espaces hérités de la colonisation” or “far from the people, in spaces inherited from colonization”--such as in auditoriums of government buildings or universities.  He viewed such theater as rather self-serving, with the playwright reaping all the benefits for himself or herself at the expense of the people for whom he or she claims to represent (Doho 21).  Doho compared elitist theater to ‘People Theater,’ which is widely performed in streets and other public spaces in local languages.  As Doho states, it is “a theater of the people, by the people, and for the people” and “in the people’s spaces” (27).  While this type of theater may be the most successful and authentic in Cameroon, it obviously does not get its due national or international attention. People theater became especially popular in the mid-1980’s and, according to Doho, its roots can be traced to the Kumba Workshop Project which was a follow-up to the 1983 Murewa international conference in Zimbabwe.  In his book, Doho distinguishes “people theater” from “popular theater,” the latter seen as being “confiscated by intellectuals just as the central power was held by a handful of individuals working for the outside world” (30). He insisted that People theater must be a “form of developmental communication” (Doho 2) and about “education and empowerment” (38). Doho stated: “It is not a question of doing theater for the people, but of training them to do it. [People Theater’s] objectives may vary somewhat but its intentions are ever the same: to remove the disadvantaged of rural zones and shantytowns from intellectual, moral, and physical misery; to help them take their destiny into their own hands and participate in the election of their representatives and the management of their country” (27).

This guest-edited volume invites essays and perspectives from scholars and artists wishing to explore any aspect of Doho’s work. Explorations of the notion of People Theater and its implications for society as well as analyses of Doho’s numerous plays are welcome. The volume also accepts comparative analyses of the works of Doho and other Central African playwrights, or essays that use Doho’s theoretical approaches to discuss African theater. We also would like to include texts by artists and actors who might be interested in discussing the theme of the volume in relation to their own work or to trends in the field in general.

Potential contributors should send complete manuscripts (6000 words) and a short bio in either French or English by Feb. 1, 2026 for a publication date in November 2026. Submissions will be subject to double-blind peer review and authors will have the opportunity to make modifications in response to those evaluations. Please send proposals and / or full articles to Cheryl Toman at catoman@ua.edu or directly to the journal at https://journals.colorado.edu/index.php/rita/index.