Research-based Theatre Research Articles

Empathy and Listening in Research-Based Theatre

This article shares excerpts from the playscript Unload, which brings to life research on military veterans and the lived experience of civilians carrying trauma. Co-developed by veterans, artists, researchers, and counsellors, the play follows a veteran’s journey to overcome challenges in and out of uniform and sees him guide a civilian friend through unspoken grief that has been haunting him for decades. This research-based play artistically synthesizes extensive data collected from focus groups, interviews, and surveys conducted with veterans, artists, counsellors, and audiences involved in a five-year research project. This article begins by situating the research-based play within the literature on theatre and empathy. Then, alongside excerpts from the playscript, the authors, who were co-writers of the script and members of the cast, offer insights gleaned from the performance of Unload.

Promoting inclusion for disabled students in healthcare education: Using research-based theatre to enhance knowledge and empathy

AimThis study explores and compares the impact of in-person and online versions of a Research-based Theatre production named "Alone in the Ring," aimed at increasing knowledge and fostering positive attitudes towards persons with disabilities in healthcare professions. The study examines changes in attitudes towards disabled persons in healthcare professions, levels of engagement in the play and knowledge about the experiences and challenges of disabled individuals in healthcare professions. It also investigates possible actions to increase inclusion for disabled persons in healthcare education and practice. BackgroundDisabled students face numerous barriers in healthcare education and practice, many of which are rooted in stigma and negative attitudes. Research-based Theatre promotes experiential learning to address these attitudes and stereotypes. The performance "Alone in the Ring" is based on a comprehensive study of the experiences of disabled students and clinicians in health professions, aiming to promote inclusion for students with disabilities in these fields. DesignThis study uses a pre-test and post-test design with two comparison groups. MethodThe study employed an explanatory sequential mixed method design to explore the impact of online versus in-person Research-based Theatre teaching in healthcare education. Participants were graduate health students (N = 198); 100 watched the in-person version and 98 watched the online version. Surveys were administered before and after the performance. Participants were also invited to share their experiences in semi-structured interviews and their responses were analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsResults indicated that students generally felt more comfortable with disabled persons in healthcare professions in the post-survey compared to the pre-survey, with online participants reporting greater comfort and higher engagement than those in-person. Knowledge of disabled persons' experiences and challenges, as well as possible actions to increase belonging and inclusion, improved significantly for both groups from pre- to post-performance, with online participants showing a greater change. Qualitative data revealed that online theatre was perceived as authentic and beneficial for accessibility, engagement and emotional impact on students, though challenges included potential distractions and technological issues. Positive correlations were found between changes in knowledge, positive attitude and engagement, suggesting that increased engagement and a shift in attitudes can promote knowledge and awareness of the inclusion of disabled persons in healthcare professions. ConclusionThese results support the use of online theatre-based academic teaching that experientially engages students, increases empathy and can promote more inclusive healthcare educational settings for disabled persons.

A Green Moment to Share: A Theatrical Laboratory to Explore Climate Crisis Possibilities within Single Moments

Many youth experience distress around the climate crisis. However, mainstream environmental messages ignore youth concerns, blame individuals, and suggest techno-fixes rather than addressing root causes. Young people need a way to productively process and collectively engage with their complex feelings about the climate crisis. During the spring of 2023, a group of university students facilitated a Research-based Theatre project to explore their relationship to climate and environmental justice as part of a biannual performance festival of student new work. Specifically, we used Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to slow down and embody participants’ struggles with environmental action. We argue that this process allowed participants to explore how and why they made sense of mainstream environmental messaging about the climate crisis. This paper offers a case study exploring how the interwoven themes of power, positionality, and agency emerged through embodied investigations during the early development of our Research-based Theatre performance. The paper concludes by discussing how Research-based Theatre can embrace a post-activist lens that supports the complexity of sense-making and troubles the over-emphasis on solution as the only response to environmental/climate crisis. Further, we argue for the kin-making possibilities that crisis can teach us when engaged through embodied exploration.

Great-Grandmother, Grandmother, Mother, and Me: A Search for My Roots through Research-based theatre

Great-Grandmother, Grandmother, Mother, and Me: A Search for My Roots through Research-based theatre

Writing research-based theatre on aged care: the ethnodrama, After Aleppo

ABSTRACT This paper documents the visioning, crafting, and writing of an ethnodrama – a type of embodied writing that takes the form of a research-based play script – about one unusual experience within an aged care organization: what might happen when technology, specifically virtual reality, is implemented into this unique organizational setting? As well as reflecting on the artistic and scientific value of research-based theatre, the script of one of the monologue plays, After Aleppo, is shared. Play scripts are a uniquely creative form of embodied writing, helping people see, imagine, and better understand the experiences of others, with ethnodrama the translation and adaption of research into a written script. As well as generating empathy, this research-based theatre provides a novel form of knowledge translation to engage and educate the public and those working in aged care organizations, a diverse workforce dealing with issues of care relationships, ageing, technology, and death.

ReformED: Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods in Research-Based Theatre

This article reports on a research-based theatre piece about teachers leaving education. The data and scene shared in this article examine race and racism (both interpersonal and institutional) and demonstrate how quantitative data illuminated buried and unclear qualitative data. In social science research, surveys have the potential to contextualize interview data and enable researchers to interrogate information such as demographics or percentages of agreement or disagreement. When such quantitative data are compared to qualitative analysis, gaps and silences can be identified—which was the case in this study, where issues of race and racism emerged. This essay shares how quantitative data illuminated silenced issues around race and influenced the writing of a research-based theatre piece. The analysis (both quantitative and qualitative) reveals the tensions of white teachers feeling individually like they are addressing the needs of students of color, while it also shows that white teachers, overall, are not adequately serving the needs of students of color. This complete analysis is shared, and the article demonstrates how it was translated as a piece of research-based theatre.

Applied Theatre: Research-Based Theatre, or Theatre-Based Research? Exploring the Possibilities of Finding Social, Spatial, and Cognitive Justice in Informal Housing Settlements in India, or Tales from the Banyan Tree

This article draws on a twenty-year relationship of short-term interventions with Dalit communities living in informal settlements, sub-cities and urban villages in Mumbai, that have sought to create public theatre events based on research by and with communities that celebrate, problematise and interrogate sustainable urban living. In looking back over the developments and changes to our working methods in Mumbai, I explore how the projects priorities the roles of the community as both researchers and artists. I consider where a specific applied theatre project, which focuses on site specific storytelling with Dalit communities in Worli Koliwada and Dharavi, functions on a continuum of interactive, participatory, and emancipatory practice, research and performance. Applied Theatre practices should not and cannot remain static, they need to be constantly reformed and as practitioners and researchers we need to constantly re-examine the ways in which we work. This chapter poses two central questions: firstly, can this long-term partnership between practitioners, researchers and artists from the UK and India working with community members genuinely be a space for co-creating knowledge and theatre? And secondly, if so, is this Theatre-based Research or Research Based Theatre? I interrogate Applied Theatre’s potential to create a space of cognitive justice, which must be the next step for applied theatre, along-side its more widely accepted aims of searching for social and spatial justice and which places the community as both artists and researchers. The Dalit social reality is one of oppression, based on three axes: social, economic and gender. The chapter explores how working as co-researchers and the public performance of their stories has been a form of ‘active citizenship’ for these participants and is a key part of their strategy in their demand for policy changes. In looking forward I ask how working in international partnerships with community members can promote cognitive justice and go beyond a merely participatory practice. I consider why it is vital for the field that applied theatre practice includes partners from both the global south and north working together to co-create knowledge, new methods of practice to ensure an applied theatre knowledge democracy. In doing so I will discuss if and how this work might be considered to be Theatre-based Research.

La Liga de la Decencia: Performing 20th Century Mexican History in 21st Century Texas

This article describes the development and public performances of La Liga de la Decencia, a new play presented as part of the 2023 New Works Festival at the University of Texas at Austin. Inspired by the cabaret scene and teatro de revista of the 1940s in Mexico City, La Liga de la Decencia combines live performance and video art to explore how hegemonic gender and social norms shaped by the emergent nationalism of postrevolutionary Mexico continue to oppress femme and queer bodies today across the US–Mexico border. Through satire, parody, and dance, La Liga de la Decencia problematizes the social, class, and gender norms as established by the cultural elite and the state. Following research-based theatre as an inquiry process, this article describes how writing and directing this play allowed for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of a historical period. By mixing facts, fiction, and critical commentary, La Liga de la Decencia investigates history through embodiment.

Viewpoints/Points of View: Building a Transdisciplinary Data Theatre Collaboration in Six Scenes

Data now plays a central role in civic life and community practices. This has created a pressing need for new forms of translation and sense-making that can engage diverse publics. Research-based Theatre (RbT) has proven to be an effective approach to delivering qualitative data to community stakeholders. We extend this tradition by proposing “community-engaged data theatre”. This approach translates quantitative data into theatrical language to engage communities in deliberative conversations on relevant issues. Community-engaged data theatre requires bridging multiple disciplines and involves creating new definitions and shared vocabularies in discourses that formerly have had little overlap in meaning. In this article, we share key insights from our initial experiments in which we adapted quantitative and qualitative data to devise a pilot piece in collaboration with a local community partner. In this essay, we communicate our collaborative process in polyvocal, artistic form. We edit and adapt materials from our conversations and creative practices into scenes illustrating how we taught and learned from each other about data science, participatory modeling, material deliberation and Composition to pilot our lab’s first community-engaged data theatre prototype.

Performing Yuánfèn: An Exploration of Untranslatable Words in the Lacunae Project

In this paper, we discuss a collaborative research project called Lacunae: Embodying the Untranslatable. The issue of untranslatability has been a much-discussed topic in translation studies, with recent debate linking it to performability. Although untranslatability has received some attention lately, the debate has been largely theoretical, confined to a textual conception of translation. In the study discussed in this article, we explored an applied approach to (un)translatability, working with/through the body in space, positing the body as the vehicle for deciphering the untranslatable. We draw on an embodied way of knowing as a phenomenological framework to construct knowledge as lived experience. The study aimed to investigate the lexical, intercultural, and aesthetic potential of performing untranslatability by exploring a series of untranslatable words through research-based theatre. The data generation process involved a retreat where nine researchers/artists/practitioners addressed the research question through practices like process drama, Butoh, physical theatre, improvisation, and visual arts on mixed media. In this paper, first, we introduce the theoretical framework and context of the study. Next, we illustrate the methodology, data analysis, and findings, with reference to one untranslatable word from the Chinese language, yuánfèn 缘分, loosely translated as ‘serendipity in relationships and life events’. We contemplate the practice in this workshop through a philosophical, pedagogical, and research-based lens. Finally, we contemplate future iterations of this project, reflecting on how performing yuánfèn could inform theatre-based research on migration and identity in education.

Behind the Scenes: Insights on Pedagogy during Implementation of an RbT Open Educational Resource

Research-based Theatre (RbT) offers a powerful stimulus for dialogue about the challenges of graduate supervisory relationships. This paper traces the implementation process for Rock the Boat, an open-access educational resource that includes four professionally acted scenes, a facilitator’s guide, and supplementary reading materials. The resource has been used extensively in online, in-person, and hybrid workshops to identify difficulties in graduate supervision, heighten awareness of power dynamics, and increase reflective practice among participants. Reflecting on lessons learned about the importance of pedagogy and practical logistics, we suggest that implementation aspects of RbT methodology are as vital as the creative and developmental.

Addressing water-health equity through biological engineering and theatre

For the past decade, RESEAU has been engaging with Indigenous and rural communities across Canada in pursuit of water-health equity. RESEAU consists of a team of engineers, community partners, industry groups, and government officials working together to develop innovative solutions for water-health in small communities. Over the last six years, RESEAU has partnered with the UBC Research-based Theatre Lab to develop Treading Water, a research-based theatre play that brings to life some of the rich stories discovered during these community collaborations. The play flows between the intersecting narratives of individuals in a community dealing with unsafe drinking water and explores the resulting challenges to their health and well-being. Water operators and their experiences are central in Treading Water, and the research-based play illustrates their pivotal role in the community. This article, like the theatre initiative described, aims to open conversations addressing water quality and health issues facing rural communities in the 21st century. The article shares the collaborative process of developing the play with the various partners, the short script, as well as feedback from a performer and an evaluator. Cover image: Boil water advisory lifted. Photo credit: RESEAU

The space in between: Notes on a research-based play about moral injury and the transition to civilian life

LAY SUMMARYDominant biomedical framings of military trauma and resulting treatment approaches for mental health issues can sometimes fall short for military members and Veterans and risk individualizing and pathologizing normal human reactions to the emotions at the core of moral injury. Accordingly, philosophical and aesthetic exploration are warranted. This research-based theatre project was inspired by the work of Jonathan Shay, who looked to ancient Greek theatre to develop his concept of moral injury and argued that healing can only take place in community. In-depth interviews with nine Canadian Armed Forces Veterans led to the creation of a research-based play in which each scene represents one of the major themes identified during or after interview sessions (family, betrayal, brotherhood and mothering, public honour, sickness and coping). Sub-themes (heroism, the body, militarized masculinity, the role of women) became smaller or transition scenes in the play.

“Everyone should get the chance to love”: Sexual health education and disability research-based theatre with self-advocates

Too often, individuals with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) are left out of discussions on romantic relationships and sexuality. However, many individuals with IDD want to become sexually expressive, fulfilled persons who are sexually active, yet they are often denied the sexual health education to support their sexual agency. Given this, we conducted a three-year disability Research-based Theatre (RbT) project in New Westminster, British Columbia to better respond to the needs of individuals with IDD, who refer to themselves as self-advocates—those who speak and act with agency—regarding their sexual agency. The project, entitled Romance, Relationships, and Rights ( RRR), sought to disrupt sexual ableism, and present the lived experiences of self-advocates on stage. Throughout the three phases of RRR, the themes of sexual agency, self-advocacy, and self-determination arose. As an extension of this previous work, we take up these themes in a critical self-study where we reflect on the project across, within, and between each phase by focusing on the implications for sexual health education. We present findings about the impact of creating RRR to engage in a retrospective dialogue across all three phases to offer recommendations for intersectional, accessible, inclusive, and comprehensive sexual health education. Key recommendations include recognizing self-advocates’ rights to self-determination and sexual agency, active involvement, and hands-on approach to sexual health education where accessibility, flexibility, and an awareness of needs are built in to lesson plans and curriculum.

A Spotlight on Research-Based Theatre

“Tell me about your research.” How does one begin to convey the importance of our life’s work—our research? Enter stage right, Research-based Theatre, an innovative, arts-based methodology that takes research data and brings it to life, by showing, rather than telling. In this article, we tell the story of how Research-based Theatre first came to be, and why it is especially well suited to the contemporary challenge of showcasing diverse and marginalized voices. We also share a short scene that illustrates the methodology in practice. We conclude by offering ways Research-based Theatre can be a meaningful approach for pedagogy and community-engaged initiatives.

Cocreating Spaces of Belonging: A Campus Workshop Using Research-Based Theatre for Affective Learning

Creating climates that embrace justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, must involve learning by everyone in the community. Although active learning techniques for promoting cognitive learning have received much attention in recent decades, techniques for affective learning are less developed. Affective learning is, however, essential to this particular area of change. Using the example of an innovative workshop about creating more welcoming environments for Disabled people, this article demonstrates how Research-Based Theatre, in combination with other active learning techniques, can promote affective learning and encourages readers to reflect on how they might incorporate creative, arts-based, research-informed approaches.

Through a Glass Brightly: Generative Ethical Tensions in Research-Based Theatre

This qualitative case study methodically explores ethical tensions that arose in the Research-based Theatre (RbT) project, Alone in the Ring (AitR), as a case. We borrowed Elliot Eisner’s set of tensions in Arts-Based Research (ABR), exploring the extent to which they manifested as ethical tensions in AitR. Following analysis of in-depth interviews with key project members, we identified five areas of ethical tension in AitR, adapting Eisner’s framework to account for the ethical dimensions of the tensions, their generative quality, and their temporal and social dimensions, as they manifested in AitR. Complicating Eisner’s general tensions for ABR, this article advances an adapted, RbT-specific framework with meta-language to reflect on the ethical terrain of RbT using the richness and specificity afforded by a case study. The framework is particularly useful for RbT practitioners seeking to maximize the benefits of RbT for knowledge translation, arts-based inquiry, and community engagement.

Planning of knowledge dissemination in health and social sciences through research-based theatre under the Covid-19 pandemic

Planning of knowledge dissemination in health and social sciences through research-based theatre under the Covid-19 pandemic

The Pull of Opposing Forces: An Inquiry Into the Ethical Dimensions of an Emergent Research-Based Theatre Project

In this article, the author conducts a retrospective interrogation of the ethical issues embedded in the development (over a 5-year period) of a one-woman play, Goldilocks’ s Testimony, about the accumulation over time of the organizational processes and practices that marginalize women in workplaces. She describes the play’s developmental trajectory, from conception through to the final performance to date as a serendipitous one. In the article, she explores many of the ethical issues that emerged over the course of this trajectory, some of which became apparent only in hindsight. In her exploration, she attends explicitly to the many opposing forces she negotiated over the lifetime of the project.

Bringing disability experiences front stage: Research-based theatre as a teaching approach to promote inclusive health education

BackgroundDespite efforts to promote inclusion of people living with disabilities in health and human service education and professions, students and clinicians living with disabilities continue to face powerful barriers, arising most notably from the stigma and negative attitudes of their peers. Increased awareness of these lived experiences are needed to affect attitudinal changes and reduce barriers to participation in those professions. To achieve this, information (stories) must be presented to learners in a way that promotes emotional engagement and highlights these issues from multiple perspectives. The following study measures the impact of a Research based Theatre play, based on the collected experiences of people living with disabilities in health and human service professions, as a teaching approach for knowledge and attitudinal change among audiences. MethodThis mixed-methods study (pre and post surveys, groups and individual interviews) aimed at measuring the impact (knowledge and attitudinal change) incurred among audience members. In total, a 174 students, faculty, staff, and clinicians in health and human service professions across two major Canadian cities completed the surveys before and after witnessing the play. Of these, 20 participants also participated in follow-up interviews. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare the pre and post surveys while thematic content analysis was used for the interviews. ResultsTwo main themes emerged from combined analysis of both the quantitative and qualitative data. First, quantitative data revealed a significant change in participants' attitudes towards people living with disabilities which was corroborated by interview participants who expressed more comfort in their interactions with students and clinicians living with disabilities. Second, learners also reported meaningful and statistically significant change in their knowledge about the experiences of health and human service professionals living with disabilities. ConclusionsThe results of this study support applying Research-based Theatre as a teaching approach that can promote knowledge and attitudinal change among audiences and increase the inclusion and equity of people living with disabilities in health and human service education. Future research in this area might investigate Research-based Theatre's pedagogical impact using a randomized control design and measuring longer term impact.