Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper discusses the researched benefits of using interactive theatre to decrease sexual assault and victim blaming, as well as increase dialogue about these two issues in higher education. The Texas Woman’s University Interactive Theatre Troupe was founded to 2015 to increase dialogue about a number of pertinent social issues. The troupe devised an interactive theatre script entitled, Welcome to College, to tackle the prevalence of sexual assault and victim blaming on college campuses through research, improvisation and devising techniques. The script consists of a short, traditional theatre piece, followed by a question and answer portion between the characters and audience, followed finally by the interactive portion where members of the audience are able to enter the scene to try to solve the inherent issues in the script. The script was performed for a number of college students in disparate courses. Students who witnessed the performance were given a pre- and post-performance questionnaire (mixed-methods), followed by the opportunity to participate in one of two focus groups. The results from the study, which were positive in nature, will be presented at the conference, as well as information about interactive theatre script creation and lessons learned through the facilitation and research process.