South African education is in crisis, which also presents an opportunity for innovation and experimentation. This paper describes and analyses one such pedagogical experiment with a combined class of Architecture and Applied Theatre students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. Students were taken through a critical…

This article discusses a long-term theatre project that I run with mental health care users and staff in a forensic psychiatric hospital in South Africa. I argue that the values underpinning the project align with those of Mad Studies, a field that is located as an emerging academic discipline within disability studies. The article seeks to…

Forum Theatre (FT), a participatory improvised theatre form, raises consciousness, enables debate and critical reflection, and encourages a democratic form of knowledge production that engages the audience in their own learning and unlearning. I used FT as a platform to understand how 15- to 18-year-old learners, in a co-educational school in the…

This paper reports on how participation in a secondary school musical production, within a life skills education programme, may contribute curricularly and pedagogically towards equipping learners for meaningful, successful living in a rapidly transforming society. Using the life skills curriculum for the subject Life Orientation, and employing…