This article details key findings from a longitudinal study conducted in collaboration with Kids Company, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The focus of this article is the role of the "teacher as witness" to the impact of a participatory theatre project with vulnerable young people. This research argues that the…

There is a recognised need for research that illuminates mutually beneficial connections among performance, ageing, disability theory, and praxis. One such project is the Memory Ensemble™, an improvisational theatre intervention for persons with early stage Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). This case study explores how the…

This article presents lessons from touring a show on pain with limited resources and in chronic pain. In 2014, I toured solo deaf-accessible poetry/art show "Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee" in various forms in the UK, Austria, and India. As an Indonesian woman with then-extreme chronic pain and fatigue, herein are lessons learned from…

This article examines a 10-year long series of annual short-term interventions with young people living in Dharavi (India) that has led to a number of public theatre events. The partnership offers a unique training experience to students from the UK in theatre facilitation, and a regular opportunity to participate in theatre for young people in…

This article is based upon research into a participatory Theatre in Education (TiE) programme that toured the West Midlands in 2009, funded by the UK's PREVENT initiative intended to counter the radicalisation of young British nationals by extremist political groups. The article provides a summary of the TiE programme and then presents…

This article examines an Applied Theatre project that was jointly launched by a black Baptist church and a reform synagogue in a US suburb to foster relationships among their members. The suburban community is quite segregated, so the emotional intimacy that develops between the members is striking. Equally significant, however, is the fact that…

This vignette presents the state of theatre in Education Kenya. The paper argues that though there are several theatre in education like practices, these have not been entrenched in the school curriculum. Theatre in Education finds expression and manifestations outside the mainstream school curriculum for instance in schools and colleges drama…

An artists' residency in a primary school in regional Victoria Australia staged a production of Shakespeare's "King Lear" in a local theatre. A qualitative, reflective practitioner research study into this project collected and analysed data from participating children and their community audience that gave some insight into their…

This article explores the aesthetics and ethics of participatory performance through "The Oh Fuck Moment" by Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe, a performance that aesthetically explores ethically troubling material and manipulation. Ethical criticism of participatory art in recent years has focused on the way the audience member is…

This paper explores an example of applied theatre and praxis learning in an Australian classroom with drama students aged 16-17 years which took the form of "real fiction" or social theatre monologue writing. It presents monologue responses from nine participants, altered by the researcher to protect identities and to tease out issues…

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…

Birmingham Rep, a leading producing theatre based in the UK's "second city", has historically had a complex relationship with the cultural priorities of its home city. In recent years, Birmingham City Council has faced multiple challenges represented by debt burden, government-imposed cuts in public funding, scandals linked to failing…

Following the devastating result of the May 2015 general election in the UK, the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home organised "Compassion is dissent: Manifesto Slam." It put out an open call for participants, asking them to bring a three-minute manifesto as means of admission to the event. Here, the Institute showcases…

"A Day, Across," performed by the CityVarsity School of Creative Arts at the Cape Town Fringe 2014, was a student production that investigated the link between the youth of South Africa and the centennial of the start of World War I. This paper presents a brief analysis of the rehearsal process as well as certain performance sequences in…

This paper discusses a project that used comedy workshops to explore the humour of autistic teenagers, focusing the discussion around three traits often -- and negatively -- associated with autism. The paper will then point to ways of rethinking these traits, and argue that doing so opens up a space for considering the aesthetics of comedy on the…