Uncloseting Byron

A Public Art Initiative | Stuart Curran Symposium 2024

The Keats-Shelley Association of America & The Byron Society of America

“Uncloseting Byron” is a public art project that takes a creative, experimental approach to closet drama, using Lord Byron as its starting point. Beginning with a line selected from one of Byron’s plays as a writing prompt, participants will create short mixed-media closet dramas and share them via social media.

The closet dramas can be mixed media: drawings, paintings, photographs, short films alongside writing. Each closet drama should be between 3 and 6 slides in length. Participants should select one line of their choosing from any of Byron’s drama as the first line of their closet drama, although the new dramas are not required to be a direct response to Byron, nor must they address politics. Participants should feel freedom here. After all, this uncloseted, mixed-media virtual space is envisioned as a space of freedom, as these experiments leave behind the traditional enclosures of drama: the stage and the page. 

The rules of “Uncloseting Byron” are that each participant has 36-hours (one hour for each year of Byron’s life) to write their closet drama and then nominate three more people to write one. Participants will do this by uploading their closet drama to Instagram, tagging the official account @unclosetingbyron and the next three people they would like to see create a closet drama. This creative, playful response then is also one of urgency, and enables us to think about how art and creative possibilities can emerge under pressure, especially political pressures. 

The project officially begins on March 5, 2024, a key date in American politics, known as “Super Tuesday,” a date when many U.S. states and territories hold their primary elections, and it ends on October 1, 2024. Making this Tuesday even more super, “Uncloseting Byron” hopes the challenge of creating fast and furious closet dramas — an homage to the fervour and direct engagement of Byron himself in the politics of his day — will afford participants a means of responding to what many political analysts anticipate will be a year to dread in American politics, for reasons ranging from the rise in “deepfakes” (highly realistic-looking fake content) to the controversy of an indicted leading presidential candidate.

We strongly welcome diverse participants: teachers and students of all ages, playwrights, artistic directors, dancers, publicly engaged scholars, theatre buffs, social justice organizations, arts and humanities organizations, and Byron fans.

The organizing committee will select 3 submissions from all the closet dramas to be awarded a monetary prize. Winners will be announced at the 2024 Stuart Curran Symposium in New York City.

Questions about the project should be directed to info@unclosetingbyron.com.

See sample writing prompts and follow the project on Instagram @unclosetingbyron