Learning Through Theatre

The Changing Face of Theatre in Education

Anthony Jackson, Chris Vine, Anthony Jackson, Chris Vine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136300271
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

In the two decades since the publication of the second edition, Learning Through Theatre has further established itself as an indispensable resource for scholars, practitioners and educators interested in the complex interrelations between teaching and learning, the performing arts, and society at large. Theatre in Education (TIE) has consistently been at the cutting edge of the ever-growing field of Applied Theatre; this comprehensively revised new edition makes an international case for why, and how, it will continue to shape ways in which the participatory arts contribute to the learning of young people (and increasingly, adults) in the 21st century.

Drawing on the experiences and insights of theorists and practitioners from across the world, Learning Through Theatre shows how theatre can, and does, promote:

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• participatory engagement;

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• the use of innovative theatrical form;

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• work with young people and adults in a range of educational settings; and

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• social and personal change.

Now transatlantically edited by Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine, Learning Through Theatre offers exhilarating new reflections on the book's original aim: to define, describe and debate the salient features, and wider political context, of one of the most important – and radical – developments in contemporary theatre.

Part I

Identifying Theatre in Education

Introduction

This section is about histories, developments and definitions. The aim here is, first, to provide an overview of TIE as it has evolved in Britain, identifying some of the key shifts in its development, and, second, to offer a more explorative and reflective account of the nature of TIE and TIE-related practice.

In ‘Education or Theatre?’ (a revised and expanded version of the 1993 essay), Jackson traces in outline the history of the TIE movement in Britain, from its emergence in 1965 to the present, and relates its uneven growth and precarious existence to the perennial problems of how it has been both perceived and funded. The British experience has been seminal, providing a model which has been followed in many other countries, and suggesting interesting parallels and points of contrast with practice elsewhere with roots in different cultural, educational and political contexts. It therefore aims to set the scene for, and anticipates some of the themes that will emerge in, many of the subsequent chapters. It may also, perhaps, offer pointers to recurring challenges in the future.

Chris Cooper’s chapter is a response to, and a contemporary rethinking of, Gavin Bolton’s essay in the second edition, ‘Drama in Education and TIE – a comparison’. As Cooper argues, Bolton, an internationally known theorist and practitioner of educational drama, has had a major and continuing impact upon the thinking and practice of many TIE teams; here, Cooper examines Bolton’s legacy and uses it as a starting point for reflecting on the current state of TIE and DIE and the principles that might drive the work forward in the new century.

Chris Vine’s chapter on the influence Boal’s work has had on TIE – again a reworking of his 1993 chapter – considers not only the ways in which that practice was necessarily adapted to British contexts in the 1980s and 1990s but the questions it raises about the function and purpose of TIE in the present. Vine was one of the first to see the importance of Boal’s work for British TIE and, while director of Greenwich Young People’s Theatre, did much to promote and adapt Boal’s theory and practice. Here he assesses not only Boal’s influence but, just as importantly, those areas of difference between Boal’s practice and that of many TIE companies.

While no simple watertight definition of TIE is possible, or desirable, it is hoped that these chapters will provide the reader with some useful orientation points in the process of understanding the background to TIE, the routes by which it emerged and changed, and some of the theoretical implications. The later chapters will, in various ways, put more flesh on the bones. Although the focus here is primarily upon the British experience, the parallels, connections and differences with TIE experience elsewhere will, we believe, quickly emerge.

1

Education or Theatre?

The development of TIE in Britain

Anthony Jackson

The story of the development of TIE in Britain is one that oscillates between surges of enthusiasm and rapid growth at one extreme and periods of cutbacks, gloom and despondency at the other, intermixed with phases of rediscovery, reinvention and experiment. The trajectory has of course never been even or free of anxiety: struggle for survival has rarely been far from its practitioners’ minds. TIE is indeed one of theatre’s most vital yet most vulnerable forms. At the time of writing, in 2012, it is undergoing yet another episode of challenge, this time one that might be described as a search for redefinition against a backdrop of much broader ‘applied theatre’ practice. Yet, as I surmised in 1993, when TIE faced a severe threat from the ramifications of the most radical shake-up of the education system for fifty years, ‘survive it will even if in different shapes and more varied and more fluid permutations’ (Jackson 1993: 17). Just as a number of TIE teams fell prey to the economic axe wielded by beleaguered repertory companies or education authorities and as some discussed the imminent demise of TIE in Britain, so new companies formed (if with different briefs and even less secure futures) and interest in TIE across the world was increasing (not always modelled on the British pattern). Why this bumpy ride? Why has TIE’s place within our cultural and educational infrastructure been so insecure? Why, on the other hand, despite predictions of terminal decline, does it still continue to resonate and influence contemporary practice?

The history and sustainability of TIE are of course inextricably tied up with how it is and has been funded – which in turn reflects uneasy philosophical tensions and debates about the function and purpose of the arts in education more generally. This may seem axiomatic but it applies more closely to TIE than to any other form of theatre practice. TIE tends to be labour intensive: at its most effective, and certainly in its ‘classic’ form (of which more later), it usually operates with one or at most two classes of children at a time (i.e. between thirty and sixty) since a close rapport and interaction with its audience are central to the experience. Even when circumstances demand performances to larger audiences, the attempt is normally made to involve them actively at some point and in some way. Moreover, its audiences are not, and more important should not be, required to pay for the service it provides. Its raison d’être lies in its function, first, as a method of education and therefore with a justifiable claim to be seen as an educational resource within the school system, and, second, as an art form in its own right but one that is peculiarly suited to its specific audience and age range. However, to say that TIE is an educational resource and therefore belongs in schools and other educational settings is not to say that TIE should be wholly funded and controlled by a local education authority (LEA), let alone by central government. Direct funding and oversight by an LEA has occasionally been the most appropriate arrangement but not always – and historically TIE teams have cherished the strong degree of independence from the school system which is reflected in and reinforced by their funding from more than one source. As David Pammenter argued in the 1993 edition of this book (Pammenter 1993: 55–56), it is significant that TIE was born and nurtured in the theatre. And its characteristic contribution to school-based education does perhaps derive from its roots outside the system.

Early developments: the first phase

TIE emerged from the new thinking and atmosphere of experiment that characterised the British theatre of the mid-1960s, and from the developments in educational drama in schools that were taking place at the same time. Beginning first as a project of the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in 1965, TIE quickly took shape as a unique method of expanding the role of theatre companies who sought to develop proactive relationships with the broader community.¹ At Coventry, the unit of four ‘actor-teachers’, funded jointly by the theatre and the city, and touring schools with programmes of work that embraced both performance and drama ‘workshop’, set a pattern that was soon followed by theatres in Bolton, Edinburgh, Greenwich, Leeds, and Watford. Before long there were companies offering regular TIE performances in rural and metropolitan communities across the country. They quickly proved themselves to be a valuable educational resource, and the participation format, designed for class-size rather than auditorium-size groups, became from the start the key identifying feature of TIE, clearly distinguishing it from more conventional children’s theatre. The format also reflected a philosophical as well as an educational stance. ‘Theatre for social change’ rather than ‘Building audiences for the future’ was the way that most practitioners preferred to see their work, allying themselves with – and often in the vanguard of – the progressive movements in both theatre and education.

From its inception, and until the mid-1990s, TIE has generally relied upon two main sources for its income: (1) the Arts Council (including the Regional Arts Boards who for several decades took on devolved responsibility for funding arts work of a specifically local or regional kind); and (2) the Local Authorities, especially (though not necessarily) LEAs. Thus at Coventry the money for the first project came from a specific allocation of funds from the city authorities supplemented by money from the Arts Council via the theatre’s board of management. This was a pattern that seemed to work well and, with some modifications, was applied to companies formed elsewhere during the following few years. Being based at a theatre, the TIE company was able both to make use of the theatre’s resources (stage management, set and props construction, and so on) and to establish for itself a healthy measure of independence, organisationally, from the education authority. On the other hand, as a separate department of the theatre with funds earmarked for work in local schools, it was afforded the opportunity to build up close liaison with the schools themselves – aided by the appointment of personnel whose background was at least in part in education. When many of the early members of the Coventry company left to set up new companies in Bolton (Roger Chapman and Cora Williams), Edinburgh (Gordon Wiseman) and, later, Leeds (Roger Chapman again) and Nottingham (Sue Birtwhistle), not surprisingly it was the Coventry model on which those companies were based. The only main difference was that in some cases revenue came from the LEA rather than direct from the authority itself. The establishment of those first companies, funded on a similar basis in each case, constitutes in effect the first phase of TIE’s development. Accompanying those pioneering ventures was a significant shift in the policy of the Arts Council towards theatre for young people.

The Arts Council

The Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB), and its successors Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales and the Scottish Arts Council, operate with funds from central government and exist mainly ‘to develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and practice of the arts’, and ‘to increase the accessibility of the arts to the public throughout Great Britain’ (ACGB 1986: 12). Given these objectives, it was something of an anomaly that until 1966 theatre for young people had been explicitly excluded from Arts Council support. The anomaly was recognised and corrected when, as a result of increasing pressure from many quarters, the Arts Council set up in 1965 a committee ‘to enquire into the present provision of theatre for children and young people in the widest terms, to make recommendations for future development and in particular to advise on the participation of the Arts Council in such work’ (ACGB 1967: 7). The opening paragraph of their 1966 report is worth quoting at some length for the clarity with which it sums up the difficulties faced in the mid-1960s and the interrelationship between the work done and its sources and level of revenue:

When the Arts Council originally elected, as a matter of policy, to exclude Children’s Theatre Companies from its circle of beneficiaries, it unconsciously set a pattern which has influenced the development of theatre for young people ever since. The amount of subsidy then available for distribution to the Arts generally was very small; here, it was felt, was a sphere in which the education authorities, national and local, might give sustenance and guidance. The result, however, has been a failure of responsibility, with help and patronage on a meagre basis and to no particular pattern. It is surprising that so much has been achieved … With some local education authorities, Drama suffers from old puritanical overtones. Music, Poetry, Literature, Art: all are ‘respectable’. The Drama is not quite yet – even in 1966. And in the ever growing number of enlightened quarters where it is accepted and welcomed, it is still too often regarded as a luxury and an ‘extra’ in children’s education and not, as this Committee believes it to be, a necessity.

(ibid.)

During the course of its enquiry the committee travelled to Coventry where ‘the unique Theatre in Education team of the Belgrade Theatre was presenting a programme’ (ibid.: 8) which ensured that TIE became included in the scope of enquiry. The conclusions and recommendations of the committee were many and wide-ranging. For the purpose of this brief survey the most significant was that financial help should be given both to enable the larger regional theatre companies to establish second companies to play specifically to young people and also to support recommended new young people’s theatre companies. The report was seminal: it was acted upon by the Arts Council and provided a major boost for those who saw the potential of TIE and for repertory theatres that would now be eligible for additional funds to provide young people’s theatre on a regular basis. Hence the developments at Bolton, Leeds, Edinburgh, Greenwich (all between 1968 and 1970), and before long Nottingham and Peterborough (1973) and Lancaster (1975). What the report did above all was assert in no uncertain terms the value of theatre work for young people, including TIE, and the paramount need to subsidise it if there were to be any hope of its flourishing, experimenting, developing and gaining the status it deserved. It also suggested strongly, though it could not insist, that LEAs should finance the work that was done on school premises and in school hours. Not a wholly unreasonable suggestion one might think. But this, the question of who should pay for TIE in schools, was a bone of contention that plagued the growth of TIE in many areas of the country, and the issue has continued to be a stumbling block ever since. At root, was this work education or theatre?

Responsibility for education provision in the regions and cities of Britain has generally lain with the LEAs – at least until the early 1990s, when, increasingly, powers and budgets were devolved to individual school governing bodies. Policy has varied considerably from one part of the country to the next and LEAs accordingly varied in the extent to which, if at all, they supported professional theatre in schools. The 1944 Education Act certainly empowered them to do so if they wished. There were still many, however, who expected the individual school to finance an incoming company (whether TIE or children’s theatre), either out of its own limited ‘capitation’ allowance or by requiring the children themselves to pay. Other authorities took a more enlightened and imaginative view and either allocated substantial funds to an independent or theatre-based company (as at Greenwich) or set up their own TIE or Drama in Education teams. The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) did both.

The second phase: the 1970s

It is perhaps from around 1971, with the formation of the Cockpit and Curtain TIE teams by ILEA, that one can see the emergence of a second ph...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• List of figures
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I Identifying Theatre in Education
• PART II Ways of working
• PART III Global perspectives
• PART IV TIE in the twenty-first century – issues and challenges
• Index