Abstract
During fall 2020, under strict social distancing and masking orders, Redman and a group of nine college students at Purdue Fort Wayne embarked together on a community-based theatre project. Using a combination of playwriting exercises, oral history documentation practices, Boal Forum Theatre and Moreno Psycho Drama techniques, they created an original theatre piece based in part on the students’ lives. This workshop presents the processes and outcomes of that work, while also teaching workshop participants some of the techniques so that they may incorporate these practices into a rage of different learning environments from elementary and secondary education to higher education and adult learning programs. The group focused on enactment of life stories, in which the student actors improvised and wrote versions of oppressor/oppressed relationships they had experienced. They gained the power to present variations on the actual events through group analysis and application of Boal and Moreno techniques that invite multiple actors to play multiple variations and resolutions. The work was eventually drafted into a written play by adding filming, transcribing, and editing techniques to the collection of activities.
Presenters
Beverly RedmanDepartment Chair, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Department of Theatre, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
Community-Based Theatre, Radical Pedagogy, Processing Childhood Trauma, Oral History, Playwriting
