Theatre Project Research Articles

Whose social impact is it anyway? Directionality and the potential of affect in community music

ABSTRACT Social impact is an increasingly common factor in judging the “success” of arts projects within communities, yet its applications can work to entrench marginalizations. This article notes the risks of looking only unidirectionally and dyadically, for the effects projects have on those participating. What would happen if we focused instead on how socially-engaged projects support participants to make their own impacts through the performing arts? The article combines interdisciplinary theoretical discussions with perspectives from the sex worker-led community musical theatre project, Sex Worker’s Opera. Having problematized certain approaches to social impact, the author flags the potential of the concept of affect for community music practitioners and researchers. She suggests affect – as it is more commonly used in the adjacent field of applied theatre – offers a helpful counter to limiting understandings of effect, and should be integrated into social impact discussions by socially-engaged arts funders, organizers, practitioners and researchers.

Senior Theater Projects: Enhancing Physical Health and Reducing Depression in Older Adults.

The aim of this study was to clarify the effects of a theater training program intervention on the physical and cognitive functions in community-dwelling older people. Of the 59 participants, 30 were the control group, and 29 were the intervention group. We assessed physical and mental/cognitive functions and criteria of physical frailty. Statistical analysis showed that the usual walking speed (UWS) (p < 0.01), grip strength (GS) (p < 0.01), and GDS-15 (p < 0.05) improved significantly in the intervention group, whereas the Geriatric Depression Scale short-form (GDS-15) (p < 0.01) worsened significantly in the control group. Cognitive function was not significantly different between the two groups. Physical frailty was unchanged in the control group but significantly improved in the intervention group (p < 0.05), and a significant interaction was found for GDS-15 in ANOVA (F = 5.76, p < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that a theater intervention for the older adults may be effective in preventing and improving depression and physical frailty in old age.

Inclusivity in Physical and Digital Theater Environments

Today, there is a problem with the organization of inclusivity in theatrical institutions, which becomes very significant for groups of people with increased needs, when the lack of certain solutions and the inability, for one reason or another, directly affects the attendance of people with limited mobility.Purpose: The aim of this work is to explore the possibility and methods of organizing inclusivity in theatrical space using up-to-date technologies such as VR, AR, metauniverse, etc. Methodology: The analysis of modern research projects related to reorientation of design and construction to the inclusivity and well-being of the architectural environment of buildings and identification of the main criteria, tools and alternative solutions. The use of high technologies in theaters are considered using real-life projects.Research findings: The main criteria are identified for reorientation of design to architecture that consider increased needs of citizens. Focusing on existing theater projects, the possibility of using virtual and augmented reality technologies and metaverses, is determined for the theater space.

Jordana Cox. Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers in New York

In Staged News, Jordana Cox offers an insightful and innovative analysis of Living Newspaper productions during the Federal Theatre Project within the context of the history of American journalism.

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.

In the dead time: The unfacilitated encounters among participants of the Oberammergau Passion Play

The 2022 Oberammergau Passion Play – a giant applied theatre project with almost 2000 participants, running for 110 performances over five months with a run time of over 5 hours – provides an opportunity to study how community participants use applied theatre’s ‘dead time’: the unstructured, unfacilitated time between onstage appearances. This study argues that in the tight spaces backstage, participants talk, play and engage in acts of care and mentorship, imbuing the dead time with tremendous social value. In fact, much to the initial surprise of the authors, most participants described their interest in the project as being primarily anchored in this dead time, rather than the staged action. These findings leave us with many salient questions for the field of applied theatre, and more research will be needed across varying contexts to better understand how to mitigate the social risks of dead time while invigorating its community-building potential.

Collaborative songwriting as and for artistic activism

This article explores collaborative songwriting as a form of artistic activism – the creation, performance and/or distribution of art to advance social justice – and demonstrates its potential both in terms of the process of songwriting and the songs that result from it. In doing so, it compares two songwriting workshops facilitated as part of Sex Worker’s Opera (SWO), a grassroots musical theatre project by and for sex workers, drawing on participant observation, archival research and music elicitation interviews. In unpacking the contingent nature of this potential, it evaluates the practical significance of different intentions and material constraints, approaches to fostering ownership and solidarity, and the balance between structure and freedom in facilitating the workshops. Critically, the findings suggest that public engagement, alongside a commitment to community leadership, can help to harness the activist potential of the practice. Looking at how collaborative songwriting can function as and for artistic activism – through creative processes and cultural products – the article emphasizes the opportunity this practice offers for marginalized groups to reclaim cultural space and to challenge norms of silencing in both the cultural and political spheres.

Staging the Theatrical Public Sphere in The Laramie Project

Abstract Contemporary documentary theater has become a favored genre in scholarship to investigate the relationship between theater and the public sphere (Reinelt, “Promise”; Balme; Claycomb, Lurch). Drawing on Christopher B. Balme’s concept of the theatrical public sphere and other scholarship, I examine how The Laramie Project (2000) by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project stages the idea of the public sphere and, in the process, rethinks the form of documentary performance. On one level, the play reflects a discursive turn in documentary practice as multiple narrative layers dramatize the collision of opposing value systems and civic voices in order to challenge established boundaries between the private and the public, the liberal and the conservative, the rural and the urban, poverty and wealth, life and art. The theatrical sphere is constructed as an imaginary space not just of rational debate but of negotiating questions of accountability by appealing to the affective engagement of the audience. On another level, I argue, the play operates as a metatheatrical piece, using strategies such as a narrator and anti-illusionism to establish the theatrical public sphere as a conceptual framework that fuses sociopolitical engagement with a self-reflexive theater practice.

The Peculiarities of the Formation of Russian Serious Opera

Serious opera in Russia began its formation long before the works of M. I. Glinka, and although it is represented by few samples, it reveals rather specifi c features in its genre and expressive means. The ideas that fed it in the 18th century were widely discussed in the literary and musical sphere, and they were also largely shared by Empress Catherine II, who was one of the authors of musical and theatrical projects at the end of the century. From the works of Italian composers, who largely focused on the genre of the Italian opera seria, but created music based on the Russian text, serious opera moved on to melodrama with choruses, focused on the example of ancient Greek tragedy. This made the line of succession of Russian and Greek culture especially clear, which was important both in the light of classicist aesthetics and in the context of Catherine II’s “Greek project”.

Kenyan Rock Art: protecting the past, facilitating the future through immersive technologies, archaeology, and drama education

ABSTRACT This article responds to Olof Franck’s vision of a less didactic and more creative approach to Education for Sustainable Development. We consider how a multidisciplinary applied theatre project, bringing together Earth Sciences, Ancient Rock Art, storytelling, digital technology, and drama education knowledges and techniques can foster a more creative approach. The article is rooted in our analysis of the African Rock Art: protecting the past, facilitating the future project. We reflect on the challenges and possibilities of engaging with issues of climate crisis, responsibility, agency, and action in the Korogocho informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

From the head to the heart: A less-than-orthodox means for foreign language teaching and learning through theatre practice

In this article I reflect on the use of theatre as a tool to teach a foreign language. Within the context of language education, theatre practice does not focus on the final product. On the contrary, it emphasises the process of learning a foreign language. Between 2020 and 2022 I conducted in-class theatre projects with students learning Spanish at the University of Otago in New Zealand. These projects entailed the translation of literary texts from English to Spanish, which later were dramatised. The translation was carried out as an in-group discussion about grammar and vocabulary. The dramatised reading encouraged students to use a variety of tones and levels of volume to physically embody the text. The dramatisation allows students to design their performance with freedom, because they are not ‘acting themselves’, but are performing a different person. The final presentation of these projects filled students with pride because the work was done entirely by them, from selecting the text, to the translation and finishing with its dramatisation in front of an audience. These projects prioritised freedom of expression and promoted autonomy in students to integrate and apply the learnt content within a specific context in another language. This paper provides a detailed description of how theatre-based instruction developed different aspects of the learners’ language skills with students ranging from 100- up to 300- level.

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.

The ephemerality of bearing witness: participatory refugee theatre with Syrian young adults in exile

ABSTRACT In this essay, we critically reflect upon the ephemeral nature of theatre. Such a reflection becomes particularly important in participatory refugee theatre, since the process of participants' bearing witness to experiences of trauma and violence is emphasised as the core impetus. To this end, we investigate the experiences of Syrian young adults participating in a theatre project in Belgium. We argue that the ephemeral nature of theatre enables a potential to initiate reparative pathways of bearing witness by creating a space that may hold both remembrance and forgetfulness, as well as distance and interconnectedness. In a final section, we discuss the implications for theatre practice.

Theatre without borders: Evaluating e-book publication of play texts in the Nigerian educational space

The theatre ecology had embraced digital technology long before the Covid-19 pandemic entered our lives. The orange economy, as we know it, is driven by creativity from the arts and humanities as well as the sciences. Playwriting pedagogy, as was traditionally taught, pointed to the stage, printing press and elitist publishers as windows to the world. The theatre arts is a discipline that has a value chain of products and services. Adopting the survey and historical-analytic methods, this paper focuses on playwriting and the playwrightpreneur’s options to the conventional style of publishing for product spread and economic empowerment. The excitement and apprehensions of digitisation on this venture are interrogated via an online survey on consumers of play texts, on the one hand, and playwrights on the other hand. The researcher argues that the availability of online stores does not necessarily translate to the availability of e-books. The results show that even though we are in the digital era, the acceptability of e-books is low compared to hard- copy books. It also reveals that knowledge of online publishing is poor. The gains of digitising theatre projects are illuminated. Furthermore, teachers and students of theatre arts studies will find this option complementary to the age-long style of hard copy inventories as institutional or personal collections. The paper concludes that adequate information on how to publish play texts online is urgently needed especially for writers of dramatic texts. It recommends that workshops on online publication be organised for teachers and students of playwriting.

Alternative spaces of encounter: Characterological metadiscourses and ‘joint voice’ in Finnish multi-ethnic inclusive theater

Abstract This article explores the characterological metadiscourses through which characters, or figures of personhood, become modeled, evaluated, and enacted during a multi-ethnic, community-inclusive theater project that aims to make the group's ‘joint voice’ heard on stage and in society. Based on ethnographic data and discourse-analytical methods, the article examines two modes of characterological metadiscourse that contribute to the construction of an ‘alternative’ discursive space that allows the group to reflect on and to experiment with everyday social interactions. First, the article analyzes writing and conversation tasks that deal with experiences of ethnicization and inequality. Second, the article analyzes exercises in acting techniques, in which the focus turns to universal characterological dimensions, enabling each participant to participate in the joint voice as an equal performer. The analyses illuminate a local strategy of managing multi-ethnic relations and committing to ideals of solidarity and egalitarianism with the purpose of collective social action. (Voice, entextualization, interdiscursivity, ethnicity, raciolinguistics, theater)*

BENEFITS OF DRAMA-BASED ACTIVITIES FOR PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILLS DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

The ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine has disrupted education, affecting both students and teachers. Despite numerous challenges, the country continues to pursue its educational reform. This paper investigates the role of drama-based activities in developing public speaking skills of high school students. The literature review emphasizes the need for innovative teaching methods in the face of educational reform. Empirical studies analyzed showcase positive impact of drama-based activities on speaking skills development of high school students worldwide. To contextualize the research within Ukrainian educational policy, the study defines key terms such as "drama," "dramatization", ”drama-based activities”, and "public speaking" in the foreign language learning context. The study defines dramatization as the interaction of a teacher and students in drama games, role plays, improvisations, simulations and theatre projects aimed at forming the students’ communicative competence. Public speaking is positioned as a crucial component of broader communicative competence, as outlined in educational standards. The paper proposes pedagogical implications for integrating drama-based activities into language lessons, elective courses, and extracurricular activities at the upper-secondary level. The synthesis of research findings reveals three overarching categories of benefits of drama-based activities for public speaking skills development of high school students: language learning, personal, and social. Improved pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar skills, increased engagement, creativity, and enhanced interpersonal skills are reported outcomes. The study concludes with a call for further research, particularly exploring the integration of technology, including artificial intelligence, to enhance public speaking of high school students.

Young people, place-based stigma and resistance: A case study of Glasgow’s East End

This article analyses working-class young people’s perceptions of and resistance to place-based stigma, through a case study of a youth-led theatre project in the East End of Glasgow, UK. The impact of stigma on working-class communities is well-established; through the effects of poverty and inequality people and places are stigmatised. Although existing literature emphasises that we must recognise how working-class people construct alternative narratives, there is limited evidence on how people in neighbourhoods with high levels of poverty manage and resist stigma. There is a dearth of research on young people’s resistance to stigma. This qualitative study found promising signs of young people’s agency to resist place-based stigma by constructing alternative narratives. Through creative work, young people were able to convey powerful messages around poverty-related issues, making visible the effects of poverty on individuals and communities and encouraging empathy and understanding. However, it was also evident that individualistic understandings of poverty are so powerfully ingrained that these alternative narratives stopped short of an explicit recognition of structural causes of poverty. This article argues that viewing resistance as a process helps to identify possibilities for supporting young people to further develop critical consciousness, to confront stigmatising discourses in a way that exposes power relations, and to generate activism.

INCLUSION OF THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CHILDREN’S AUDIENCE IN THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CULTURAL OFFER

In the article, the author examines the element of feedback in the field of cultural consumption by the children's audience, which is specifically characterized by the adult groups involved (parents, teachers, professional creators of cultural offerings). The need and importance of including of experience of children’s audience is justified by the discrepancy between children's and adult knowledges. What are the possibilities there to integrate the feedback elements of the children's audience into a creation if cultural products? The study examines a case study of involving children’s personal experience in the creation of special digital theatre project “TAG” made by the theatre company KVADRIFRONS.

"It will always be Temporary": A qualitative study of Syrian young adults expressing histories of collective violence and forced displacement in participatory theatre.

Given the increased prevalence of mental health problems in Syrian refugee communities, there have been efforts to develop adequate mental health care for their well-being. Herein, clinical literature is increasingly emphasizing the importance of locating refugees' healing at the nexus of personal and social realities, understanding the process of trauma narration within social restorative spaces of witnessing and communal support. Alongside this debate, there is growing interest in the relevance of participatory theatre for refugees. This innovative approach understands how voicing narratives of life histories within a broader social sphere may support personal and socio-political transformation. In this article, we aim to further the understanding of participatory theatre's relevance to these issues, focusing on the reparative dimensions of trauma narration. Based on a case study of a theatre project with Syrian young adults resettled in Belgium, we explore the different ways participants expressed experiences of collective violence and displacement in dialogue with each other, their diasporic and home communities, and their host society, and consider how these processes relate to their construction and meaning and coping with trauma. In a final section, we discuss the implications of our findings, raising questions about the value of participatory theatre as a reparative space and outlining suggestions to introduce and mobilize reparative modes of trauma narration in therapeutic practices in refugee trauma care.

Re-membering pedagogy: reclaiming Hmong heritage and belonging within a youth theater program

ABSTRACT This article draws on ethnographic research to explore the re-membering pedagogy of Hmong immigrant educators. It explicates the ways in which the work of Hmong immigrant educators within a theater project recenters Hmong ethnicity, reveals marginalization, and re-affirms family. Our study significantly advances an understanding of re-membering pedagogy through an analysis of a program within a co-ethnic, community-based organization as a site of re-membering that reclaims and recalls ethnic heritage and belonging.