A meditation on drama practice from an artist in Canada. My university students are preoccupied with damage and trauma. There are paralyzing obstacles to working across differences that were useful for a time but no longer serve a robust solidarity. The stories we collect, tell and re-tell ourselves to prepare for a 'never again' are stifled if…

The current heightened sensitivity around history, colonisation and the aftermath of the socio-political and cultural ethos of the world can create in many people the fear of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. This fear can affect the ability to imagine and play in certain learning settings, especially in devising performances, socially…

This article examines the creation and reception of "The Stream You Step In," a digital series co-produced by Outside the March for University of Windsor students and performed live over Zoom in 2020. While Zoom is assumed to be a care-less medium, we argue that it offers new, altered modes of caring through its disruption of boundaries…

As neoliberalism infiltrates the foundations of education and arts-based practices, the authors of this article propose an applied theatre approach, based on the celebration of people who feel marginalised, to defy the notions of individualistic, self-centred, and out-put oriented goals that impact how students engage with and view the arts in…

Ryerson University theatre professor Natalie Alvarez is currently helming a large, interdisciplinary team in southern Ontario that is testing the power of Forum Theatre to build better, more responsive scenarios for police officer training in de-escalation and mental crisis response. In this interview, Alvarez sits down with issue editor Kim Solga…

Could targeted inclusion initiatives press Canada's professional theatre community to tap the vast reserve of disabled people disenfranchised by its current practices? In 2015/2016, several long-standing professional institutions dedicated to fostering Canadian theatre joined with Canadian disability theatre artists in order to mark and understand…

This article describes the process of using an ethnodrama while working with older adults learning English as an additional language. By examining a 4-month-long period of Seniors Drama Club, created to offer theatre-based language learning experiences for Vancouver's immigrant senior population, the authors draw attention to the complex learning…

Personal stories have been utilised in a variety of ways in Applied Theatre practices. The author problematises their use when the teller's safety is at stake within a given context. Inspired by neuro-anatomist Jill Bolte-Taylor's process of enlightenment through observing her stroke from the inside out, the author uses her personal experience of…

In this article, we take a strength-based approach to understand how applied theatre as a vehicle provides opportunities for embodied voices to have a positive influence on the well-being, and attitudes to health, of young people who have been "pushed" to the margins. We begin by explaining the concepts of well-being, embodiment and…

In this article, we consider the aesthetic, political and pedagogical strengths of a verbatim theatre performance, "The Middle Place" by Project: Humanity, a play that explores the experiences of shelter youth in Toronto, Canada. This ethnographic study moved from drama classrooms into theatres and charted audience responses to the…

Reading engagement is like a puzzle consisting of many pieces to emplace for successful engagement to occur. The author, a French Immersion teacher/researcher, found that many of her grade one reluctant readers--those students who could read but chose not to--approached reading with some pieces of the puzzle. They had strategies and knowledge but…

This "Note from the Field" provides an overview of what is happening in Kindergarten to University drama and theatre education across Canada. In addition to this snapshot I offer some considerations for extending this discipline and its potential impact on curriculum, policy and practice.

This article describes an investigation of three Year I secondary school drama classrooms in one Ontario, Canada, school district. The study adopted a mixed-method approach, using questionnaires and audiotaped interviews to illuminate aspects of the contexts and cultures, processes and products of Year I drama. Although course offerings across…

This paper shares the outcomes derived from research conducted with the participants of an interdisciplinary workshop entitled "The Drama in School Leadership" that employs applied drama processes and analysis in order to understand educational ethics. Participants explore high-stakes scenarios in school leadership by taking on roles in…

The following dramatized classroom scenario depicts a teacher struggling with the nature of an inclusive learning environment, with instructional leadership and supervision of instruction as the theoretical and practical backdrop. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the use of a TAR (theatre as representation) case study can be used…