Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed has been the basis for radical performance techniques practiced around the world. Widely a staple for theatre performance syllabi, it also has an innovative application for the social work classroom. This article designates Boal's four stages of his poetics of the oppressed and concomitant theatrical…

Virtual environments have the potential to be an important teaching tool for emotionally sensitive issues capable of producing a sense of presence, perspective-taking and introspection in users in a risk-free, rapid feedback experience. In designing such experiences, it is essential that users are regularly engaged in a collaborative design…

What happens when one controversial text meets another in performance? How do diverse audiences from rural and metropolitan areas respond to powerful yet provocative material? The Kennesaw State University Department of Theatre and Performance Studies sought to answer these questions with "Splittin' the Raft," a dramatic adaptation of…

Engaging and exciting students about the environment remains a challenge in contemporary society, even while objective measures show the rapid state of the world's environment declining. To illuminate the integration of drama and environmental education as a means of engaging students in environmental issues, the work of performance companies…

This selection of the seminal texts of Jonothan Neelands is essential reading for everyone involved in drama education. It showcases the classroom participatory democracy through ensemble based theatre education which Neelands developed over 25 years. Readers will find: (1) Neelands' development in the 1980s of the conventions approach which made…

This project/report worked with three early childhood education centres who have adopted the Reggio Emilia philosophy of educational practice. Each centre works with children and parents in close collaboration and all the staff and centre management are committed to the project. The aim of this project was to work with each centre in developing…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of popular theatre (PT) as a pedagogical tool around which a community service learning (CSL) senior undergraduate course was oriented, specifically assessing the university student learning experience from this work relative to PT processes and CSL objectives. Design/methodology/approach:…

There is increasing concern over disengagement of teacher candidates during on-campus periods of pre-service programs due to the perceived disconnect between educational theory and practice. In response, teacher education has been called to engage candidates in praxis through authentic learning. In this paper, we bring together the fields of…

Presents a rehearsal plan that not only keeps everyone on task but also produces stronger scenes. Suggests techniques such as: reading to the wall (suggests having no audience), sit in a circle (recite lines simultaneously), present a teaser, and blocking (find lines where the actors should move). Outlines a rehearsal worksheet. (SC)

Support for reflective practice (Dewey, 1910; Schon, 1983) as a way of reviewing, articulating and informing practice, is well-established within teacher education and research, though there is still much to learn from the individual experience of the practitioner who grapples with the reflective process. This paper highlights the deliberations of…

Teachers who want to involve their pupils in classroom drama need to be aware of the necessary conditions for dramatic engagement. In this article we seek to identify four conditions for the preparation of successful drama, and support our argument with reference to Shakespearean drama. The conditions are identified as: agreement by the…

O Frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Children improvise and Practice a variety of skills through story theater. (Editor)

Discusses the rules for two theater games that train students to focus on objectives: (1) Time Bomb, in which students must maintain eye contact with the instructor, or the instructor will "blow up"; (2) Red Light, Green Light, which may be used with younger students--the object is to tag the person who is "it." (PA)

Describes an activity designed to get beginning drama students to work with other classmates and to get students up in front of a class in a group situation. (MH)

This (London) group teaches English by presenting short humorous skits, in which a language problem is unobtrusively presented. Afterwards the audience repeats the pattern(s), which a member of the group pronounces for them. At the end of each unit, a rousing song is sung, with all joining in the refrain. (IFS/WGA)