The Human Voice: Theatre as a Means of Celebrating Diversity and Creating Community

Abstract

AbstractAs a theatre professor working in the deep South of the United States, I am keenly aware of this region’s troubled history with civil rights, particularly as it applies to race and gender. My role as the primary theatre-voice instructor at my institution has afforded me the opportunity to participate in three dynamic collaborations in which the animating force of theatre and its applied training techniques played an integral role in facilitating the public affirmation of three historically oppressed groups: rural African-American school children (through the rehearsal and public performance of African-American praise poetry), transgendered individuals (through vocal therapy and applied acting techniques), and women in the STEM disciplines (through inter-active theatre presentations funded by the National Science Foundation). Each endeavor required the development of a unique application of both dramaturgy and a range of performance techniques designed to “give voice” to those who are frequently marginalized in the pursuit of their personal and professional desires, providing them with a sense of community and solidarity, and their audiences, often those belonging to the dominant culture, with new perspectives. My contention is that these kinds of theatre-based interdisciplinary projects can be effective instruments for empowering diverse groups with a sense of collective identity, and a forum through which their concerns can be heard, and their gifts celebrated.