New Thoughts for New Ages and Stages: Teaching Artistic and Educational Responsibility in the Devising Process

Abstract

New Thoughts for New Ages and Stages: Teaching Artistic and Educational Responsibility in the Devising Process Elizabeth Brendel Horn (bio) A Moment Sitting in my neighbors’ living room, I am completing the same homework assignment as my students: to interview a person different from me in a definable way, starting with the prompt, “What’s something people don’t see when they see you?” The couple is sixty years my senior, their living room dated and minimally decorated. I am close with the wife, whom I am interviewing, but have always felt intimidated by her husband, who can seem cold and brooding. Logically, I know his demeanor is the result of his feeling isolated due to his loss of hearing; still, I am uneasy in his presence. Following the interview I recalled little of the wife’s responses. What struck me most was watching this man in the comfort of his own home. As he reached across the table in pursuit of a jigsaw puzzle piece, he placed a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder while smirking at me over the rims of his glasses, prepped with a witty quip in response to his wife’s stories. He surely knew them all by heart. The interview was the vehicle to the story: one of a misunderstood, forgotten senior citizen and his unwavering devotion to his wife. A Shifting Perspective My advanced-acting high school students and I gathered this interview and over a hundred others for a project aimed to introduce the students to contemporary devising practices. I facilitated the project, which culminated in an original one-act play titled WAIT, in my former career as a high school theatre teacher. We explored the source material and established a plot during the 2011–12 school year; I then completed the final script over the summer and directed WAIT as a competition piece in fall 2012. In Signs of Change: New Directions in Theatre Education, Joan Lazarus describes the crossroads of secondary theatre education in our country. In one direction, a traditional approach, with no consideration of the shifting needs of modern society and youth; in the other direction, Lazarus says, “theatre education is learner-centered, socially responsible, provocative, and connected to the world in which students live. This is theatre education facilitated by teachers who understand the power of theatre to give voice to young people’s concerns” (32). Lazarus’s description of a new approach to theatre education parallels my intentions with WAIT. By collecting interviews, exploring them through devising exercises, and using group discussion to determine the theme, structure, and storyline of the play, I aimed for a “learner-centered, socially responsible, provocative” model. Lazarus, along with education and theatre theorists who promote engaged pedagogy (hooks), a process-based approach (Neelands), and ensemble-based meaning-making (Heathcote and Bolton), inspired my inclusion of WAIT in my high school curriculum. In recounting the process I am reminded that WAIT was [End Page 195] done with the best intentions for the students’ artistic, educational, and personal growth. Why then do I remain unsettled, convinced that both the process and final product were compromised? Looking back, questions arise that cause me to feel conflicted about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the project. What role did I play as the sole adult in the room? What are the responsibilities of the theatre educator when guiding students through the devising process? In August 2015 I stepped into a new position as assistant professor in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). As a graduate-level instructor in TYA, I explore devising practices with my students, examining how these techniques apply in their work with and for young people. Primarily, we explore devising through a project called Writes of Spring, an annual writing competition held by Orlando Repertory Theatre (The REP) in which my graduate students craft the K-12 submitted poems, essays, and short stories into an original play. With this new initiative I have the opportunity to use my past practices as a high school teacher to inform how I frame devising with my graduate students—the future educators, directors, and leaders of TYA. Using WAIT...