This article considers Bolton based community drama group, Melodramatics, and the ways in which their practice helps illuminate forms of relational activity that confront the nihilism of the resilient subject. If we accept resilience as a normative force that restricts the ability of the political subject to 'become otherwise', we are invited to…

This article examines how performance-oriented arts practice with members of socially marginalised communities can be harnessed as a mode of grassroots civic participation, one that can transgress the expected norms of public communication that render some stories and speakers legitimate, and some not. The article will offer an analysis of a…

This literature review highlights the utility of identifying early childhood adversities through dramatic play and theater arts. Understanding the impact of early childhood education, our focus included beneficial, qualitative observations of the positive therapeutic outcomes when participating in theater arts activities. We chose to search these…

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…

Community members and staff at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Learning Exchange collectively created a theatre piece, based on stories from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES), entitled "Voices UP!" This article examines the impact this project had on four DTES community members who took part in the collective creation…

Theater arts encompass unique art forms comprising highly developed pedagogical applications apart from theater as performance. Specifically, the use of drama as a learning medium, referred to in the field as "process drama", is most emphatically applicable to the education of young children. Young children actively gain skills 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…

Theatre for Development (TfD) is a special kind of Theatre practice that creates a platform for members of a specific community to respond to, and actively participate in issues relating to their social development through an engaging process of play and acting. The sole essence of this form of theatre is to sensitize, radicalize and conscientize…

On 6 February 2008, a deliberative theatre experiment was held at the National Archives of Quebec. Inspired by the democratic virtues of public deliberation but preoccupied with its blind spots, Forum Theatre was used to initiate discussion about the social tensions between the homeless and other dwellers of public space in downtown Montreal.…

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…

In the autumn of 2007 and spring of 2008 the author performed an adapted version of Dario Fo and Franca Rame's one-woman play "Peace Mom" (retitled for Canadian audiences as "Peace Mum") about American mother and peace activist Cindy Sheehan. The play was performed for University of Victoria Applied Theatre students and also in a number of…

In July 1999, the Wedding Community Play was performed in Belfast. A much-celebrated event at the time, the Wedding Play took audiences into private houses inside Loyalist and Republican estates, then on to a public venue for the performance of a cross-community wedding. Gerri Moriarty has already written about some of the difficulties encountered…

The Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah (the Blahs) have been working in youth centres since 1985 and over that time the Blahs have experimented with ways to make theatre for young people in this environment. A youth centre can be a hostile place to take a piece of theatre. Many of the youth centres the Blahs have visited have been in areas of social…

This paper describes a high school theatre program's project in which Anna Deavere Smith's documentary theatre work serves as the foundation for play-building for students. Research in theatre arts supports the use of play-building as a way to explore major themes of relevance to students. However, there is little research addressing documentary…

This article juxtaposes the recent work of Peter Brook with a Bristol-based mental health service-user collective--Stepping Out Theatre Company. Informed by field-work with the company, this chapter explores the aesthetic and political relationship between professional, experimental theatre work and community-based performance practice. Drawing…