Applied Theatre Research - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2015

This article was originally presented as a keynote in the form of a performance poem at Evolve 2014, the Drama Australia national conference held in Hobart, Tasmania on 4 October, and subsequently revised for publication. It explores the relationship between drama, stories, time and place. We (the editors) offer it without a formal abstract since it expresses many ideas, imaginings and feelings interwoven poetically rather than in the structural form more usual in academic journals.

Poor rates of school completion combined with high rates of imprisonment mean that at least half the Indigenous young people in Australia are under-achieving, and are at risk of a future characterized by extreme disadvantage and disconnection from the mainstream. This research stemmed from an invitation from Indigenous elders to a non-Indigenous teaching artist experienced in intercultural drama and theatre, and began with a broad concern about how to reconnect disaffected Indigenous youth with education. Immersed in a new and unfamiliar cultural, social, political and environmental context, I developed a deeper understanding of Indigenous perspectives on partnerships, relationships and cultural safety, facilitated by the young people’s participation and the involvement of elders in three applied theatre projects. I found it necessary to adapt my approach to incorporate the making of short films as a medium of storytelling and as an initiative of the young people.

Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey (TEGV) was founded with the aim of supporting the primary education provided by the government. One of the main objectives of TEGV is to create and implement educational programmes and extracurricular activities for socially/economically disadvantaged children, so they can acquire skills, knowledge and attitudes to support their development while learning to resist any kind of discrimination. In 2003, considering the aims of the foundation and the outcomes of the drama education, a collaboration was established between TEGV and Oluşum Drama Institute (ODI). A ten-week drama programme was developed with the aim of helping children to acquire basic personal skills such as self-confidence, empathy, self-development and creativity. This ongoing programme is being assessed at the end of every term, and revision is being conducted according to the results and the feedback. The results gathered from different locations reveal that the drama programme is successfully reaching its goals.

Theatre, with its borderline praxis between entertainment and reflection, offers a precious opportunity to deliver difficult scientific or social issues within scientific dilemmas to all kinds of target groups, such as youngsters. But what makes Science Theatre an obvious choice for communicating natural science issues and dilemmas? What lies beneath this label? Is this concept at all new? The research agenda of the present article is centred on exploring the multifaceted phenomenon of Science Theatre. As a unifying device, we propose to approach Science Theatre from the point of view of communication theory. This allows us to transform the amorphous matter of the wide variety of Science Theatre performances into analytically manageable prototypes, as well as providing a robust base for exploring the affordances of different types of Science Theatre.

This article examines the delivery of a theatre initiative with child audiences in a hospital context. It reports on a mixed-method evaluation of a bedside site-specific performance at high-risk wards based in a Children’s Hospital, NHS Trust in England. It acknowledges the circumstances of the children and the conditions of the location, and examines the potential of supporting children during their stay in hospital through entertainment and relaxation. The article discusses the experiences of those who participated in the performance, including children, parents and guardians. It discusses the experience of taking theatre into health care, and the strengths and challenges of using a hospital space as a ‘stage’. It concludes that a synergy between the artist and the child is important to this type of intervention, seeking to provide children with both entertainment and relaxation as an important strategy for their well-being in hospital.

James Thompson’s 2004 article ‘Digging Up Stories’ suggests Theatre for Development’s focus has mostly been on epistemic concerns. Projects emphasize participants learning techniques or exercises to be applied in various contexts. Thompson proposes Theatre for Development should draw back from epistemic concerns to work with the ontic concerns of communities. In light of Thompson’s analysis, I can see my time-planning process and performance have placed ontic considerations as primary and epistemic concerns as secondary. Working as assistant director of GeriActors and Friends (G&F), an intergenerational theatre company based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and while consulting towards the creation of an intergenerational theatre company in Tamil Nadu, India, I have employed playfulness as the primary state of being for the theatrical processes. Playfulness can be utilized in intergenerational theatre and Theatre for Development projects to embrace Thompson’s proposed focus on the ontic approach.

Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre, edited by Norma Bowles and Daniel-Raymond Nadon (2013) Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 328 pp. ISBN 0 8093 3238 8, p/bk, $35.00.

‘We’re People Who Do Shows’: Back to Back Theatre – Performance Politics Visibility, edited by Helena Grehan and Peter Eckersall (2013) Aberystwyth: Performance Research Books, ISBN 9 7819 0649 9037, 288 pp., p/bk, $86

Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change by Dani Snyder-Young (2013) Palgrave Macmillan, New York, ISBN 9 7811 3729 3022, Ebook, US$78.85