Applied Theatre Beyond Borders

From Executive Director Dale Savidge -

I had the pleasure of working with 15 people in San Juan, Puerto Rico the week of July 10^th in a variety of applied theatre techniques. The purpose of the 3 day workshop was twofold: to teach them a few interactive theatre styles so that they might consider further training and to lead them in the exercises for their own personal benefit.

We did not begin as a homogenous group; 3 of us were from North America and the Puerto Ricans were teachers, counselors, pastors, students, actors, and dancers – some worked multiple jobs. What we did share was a love of theatre and a desire to use theatre in service to people. We were highly motivated and it took very little warm up on the first day to begin relating at a very deep level.

We tried sociodrama, role playing, bibliodrama and forum theatre. We used our own stories and stories from literature. We improvised for fun, and we improvised as a means of exploring psychological and cultural issues. We discovered topics we all cared about and we spent time enacting our explorations through imaging, scene building, forums and role playing. It was an exhilarating few days.

I was impressed by how easily theatre translates across cultures, even languages. Our interpreters were busy on day one (Spanish to English and vice versa), but as we grew accustomed to each other less of the workshop needed to be translated, because I became less verbal and also because we were communicating in ways that did not rely on words. We shared ideas, feelings and Puerto Rican cuisine. We discovered we had more in common than we had initially thought.

These days strengthened my belief in the power of theatre to unify, challenge, and change people. And it wasn’t that we set out to change each other – we each, in our own way, were being changed through our interactions with each other and through the experience of reliving our personal stories. The Applied Theatre Center is committed to extending these experiences to communities which will benefit in similar ways.

Applied Theatre for the First Time

Today's blog is from friend of Marketing Director Katy Beth Cassell and educator Mallory Morris. Mallory is a theatre educator, actress, and director. She served as education resident at Long Wharf Theatre for the 2010-2011 season. She has also taught at Seattle Children's Theatre, South Carolina Children's Theatre, and the Warehouse Theatre. This blog is about her first experience with applied theatre through a workshop she attended led by Tim Webb from Oily Cart, a British theatre company that works entirely with children with disabilities, at the One Theatre World conference. Read how Tim's workshop introduced her to how she can use applied theatre techniques in her teaching.

As I walked in to the “Theatre for Complex Disabilities and the Autism Spectrum” workshop with Tim Webb at One Theatre World this past May, I had no idea what I was in for. I had switched from thinking I could apply this information in my classrooms more easily than baby theatre, to lamenting my choice and pining for the baby theatre workshop instead, to complete skepticism on how I could possibly use techniques for students with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties with my students…especially without the budget that the Oily Cart Company has behind them.  In two years of working in various classrooms across the country, I had worked with children with mild autism or Asperger’s Syndrome  but never taught anyone with profound learning disabilities. How was this workshop going to benefit me and my teaching? What had I signed up for?

Tim Webb, a quirky British man, captured my attention and my imagination. He told us that Oily Cart created theatre without a fourth wall—theatre that engaged their audience in a welcoming environment that made them feel safe to explore. As a performer in an Oily Cart production, you look at the audience much more than the audience looks at you, creating a three way dialogue with the students, their carers and the performers. This constant checking in is vital when performing for an audience that does not display the expected behavior, ensuring a feeling of comfort and safety as well as the most engaging experience possible. Perhaps most importantly, Oily Cart shows incorporates all five senses, remembering to go beyond just seeing and hearing. The power of touch becomes incredibly important in Oily Cart productions, primary examples being the use of bubbles or heat in many of their shows. Trampolines, pools and specially designed flying chairs are also wonderful tools for bringing PMLD students out of their shells, providing muscle change and heightened awareness. These physical shifts can spark a mental shift.  

After taking us through several presentations, Tim turned the reins over to us, challenging the workshop participants to create a short piece of theatre that would engage the five senses and use the Oily Cart techniques we had learned about earlier. This segment of the workshop was my favorite part because it enabled me to break open a new set of tools and challenge my own creativity to think beyond regular theatrical practices: I did not have a general audience to entertain, rather I had to design a production for a very specific audience. Some groups re-imagined familiar fairy tales (like The Three Little Pigs that explored each house the pigs built and the experience of being blown down), while others created original pieces (like an outdoor adventure with Mother Nature through the changing seasons). It was certainly a new way of thinking about theatre…and one that excited me for the future.  I had never considered working in applied theatre, and I am still unsure of how supported this type of theatre would be in the United States (Oily Cart is subsidized in large part by the government). If given the opportunity and resources, I would love to create theatre for this particular audience that so clearly benefits from the experience they probably do not receive elsewhere. Just watch clips of audience reactions during an Oily Cart production. They prove the power of theatre over and over again.

Perhaps I would not produce theatre for these special students on the scale that Oily Cart Company did, but I could apply the basic concepts of sensory and experiential theatre to all teaching that I did. Wasn’t engaging my students in theatre the primary goal of my classes? Once my outlook shifted, I realized that yes, this workshop primarily focused on “Theatre for Complex Disabilities and the Autism Spectrum,” but my teaching  could learn something from how these special needs students engaged in theatre.

What are YOU doing?

From Marketing Director, Katy Beth Cassell -
In The New York Times today, there was a great article titled "A Safety Valve for Inmates, the Arts, Fades In California" (There is a link to this article on our Facebook page!) The article discussed the ways in which theatre and theatre organizations, such as the actor Tim Robbins' The Actor's Gang, truly make a difference in the lives of prisoners by sharing their art, sharing their passion, and sharing their time.

This article raised the question in my mind - what are YOU doing? What am I doing to share my art? To take theatre out of the performance hall and into marginalized communities?

My answer - I'm working for the Applied Theatre Center.
I became interested in applied theatre my sophomore year of college. At a state conference in South Carolina, I watched a documentary about a theatrical troupe from Rock Hill, South Carolina, called the Merry Pranksters.The Merry Pranksters are actors and actress with special needs and disabilities. They perform an original production each spring, and each actor and actress learns more than their lines - they learn that they have a unique gift and ability that they can share while developing social skills and confidence. The goal of the Merry Pranksters is to encourage other agencies to explore the use of theatre and drama and its benefits for those with disabilities.

Members of the troupe spoke after the documentary was broadcast and it immediately peaked my interest in the many ways that theatre can impact various communities.

Five years later, I'm still working hard to spread the word about applied theatre and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to work for the Applied Theatre Center. If you do not know, the Applied Theatre Center was started as a challenge to Executive Director Dale Savidge by a mother of an autistic son. She believed in the potential of theatre to aid her son in his social skills development and asked Dale to explore the possibilities. He, along with many others, quickly became convinced that theatre was a poweful tool in addressing the needs of those on the autism spectrum. His initial research blossomed into that of applied theatre in general because of the many strands connecting the applied theatre disciplines and the commonality of needs across people groups served by applied theatre.

People have needs, and some of those needs may be addressed by various forms of applied theatre. Applied theatre does not lecture people about the solutions to their needs, it engages them in exploring their needs and finding solutions through that exploration. Theatre is alive, and living is a lot like doing theatre. Theatre is a unique experience for living (and reliving) our lives and in that process experiencing growth into our full potential to live productively and happily in the world.

ATC is unique because it offers the only conference of its kind. While there are specific applied theatre conferences, such as those dealing with Playback theatre, improvisation, and Theatre of the Oppressed, the Applied Theatre Center produces a conference that addresses ALL of these in one setting. The ATC conference aims to provide specific training (in discipline tracks) but also allows for interaction between the various AT disciplines.

So, this is what we are doing. If you are asking yourself, "how can I get involved? How can I use my theatre to impact a certain community" or even "how could I bring theatre into the social work that I already do?" I would encourage you to look into our conference, June 28-30, 2012. We are very excited about the track leaders we are bringing in, but we are also excited to add an "applied theatre in action" component and take what we learn into the community of Greenville, SC, at the end of the conference. We will continue to post updates on our website and on this blog, and we all look forward to putting applied theatre in action with you soon.