Many youth struggle to determine their role and cope with overwhelming emotions and imaginative dystopias around combatting climate catastrophe and capitalist greed. In this time when many marginalised youth feel assured of immediate and distant threat, it is vital for applied theatre practitioners and educators to nurture critical hope as a means…

Every year since 2007, the Globe Theatre has run the "Playing Shakespeare" project, largely funded by Deutsche Bank. This has three main components: school-based workshops, CPD sessions for teachers and free performances for school students. From 2014 to 2016, we were commissioned to evaluate this project. In what follows, we reflect on…

The aim of this study is to examine and determine the extent to which educational drama, as an innovative teaching approach, can cultivate critical thinking of students in primary school. Based on the principles of educational drama, 15 theatrical workshops were designed in relation with and corresponding to the culture and interests of the…

This case study draws on some experiments I have been doing in the use of dice in the ideas generation phase of a creative project. It draws on workshops I have run with creative technology students at Goldsmiths, with a range of adults at the Counterplay Conference in Aarhus (Denmark) and the Playful Learning Conference at Manchester Metropolitan…

This paper explores the design of virtual and physical learning spaces developed for students of drama and theatre studies. What can we learn from the traditional drama workshop that will inform the design of drama and theatre spaces created in technology-mediated learning environments? The authors examine four examples of spaces created for…

Effective communication skills are considered essential to a physician's professional competence. Thus, Finnish medical schools include communication skills training in their curricula. Today it is essential to ensure that students graduate with the interpersonal communication competence (ICC) necessary to succeed in their profession. Experiential…

This article arose out of my involvement in an undergraduate drama module at the School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, where I made use of workshop theatre methodologies to explore how second-year drama students construct knowledge and develop sociocultural understandings of critical issues in society. The workshop theatre project…

The Young Playwrights' Festival is a project of the Dramatists Guild, New York City, for young writers aged 8-18. This article discusses the Festival of 10 plays written by children and presented professionally at New York City's Circle Rep Theatre and the playwriting workshops for children taught by project director Gerald Chapman. (PD)

Describes three exercises used at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in workshops for students and teachers to get participants on their feet, speaking Shakespeare's language, giving them a kinesthetic experience Shakespeare, and deepening their intellectual appreciation of the language. (SR)

Claudia Klein Felske, a high school English teacher, has created a vital dramatic experience in the classroom with the help of a guest workshop leader. The three activities, such as how to read William Shakespeare, Metaphor Theater and character cacophony, which helped students to experience the intensity of language and discover ramifications of…

Presents a book excerpt that introduces the author's "Hope Is Vital" program and methods. Shares his vision and methods for creating performance workshops that actively investigate social concerns. Considers a series of gradually intensifying exercises leading from fun warm-ups to image-building bridge activities. (SC)

Describes some exploratory and discovery methods which capture interest, stimulate curiosity, and kindle enthusiasm of students as they approach Shakespeare and decide how it should be acted, interpreted, and staged. (SR)

This paper will make a critical comparison between the stages of the Hero's Journey as presented by Christopher Vogler and the taxonomy of personal engagement as articulated by Educational Drama theorists. Both Vogler's journey and the taxonomy describe how a person travels from one world into another and back again, combining the two results in a…

Fourteen brief articles deal with training actors to use their bodies effectively on stage. The articles discuss the following topics: the concept of succession-sequential movement (movement that passes through the body joint by joint); learning physical action through staged fight sequences; techniques of empty-handed combat; protecting students…