To start with a snapshot from the real world of applied theatre practice:
It is raining outside and the session takes place in a dark and otherwise deserted building on a cold winter night somewhere in Northern England. The region is known for economic and social deprivation, with high numbers of families supported by state benefits. In the room there is warmth, fun and creativity. Young people are visibly enjoying a weekly youth theatre session located in their community. They are devising a performance based on their favourite toys that they will later share with other groups from across the area. The young people focus their attention on the leader, a skilled worker who is conjuring up the two-hour, playful experience in an environment that feels safe and supported. She gathers them together for lively activities, then circulates around their given practical workshop tasks, adding comments, listening attentively, gently making personalised suggestions to each participant. We can note how she sensitively enables individual self-expression through drama activity for the young people who appear to flourish, gaining skills and confidence. Beyond this haven, many are not seen to fit in with peers or contribute much in the world. But here, they find a place where they are valued and can be creative. Such transformations (however temporary or small) are brought about by a worker with complex expertise that blends drama methods and theatre knowledge, group work approaches and, further, personal qualities that seem elusive, indescribable, almost magical. It is these ingredients that form the subject of the book. The woman described is highly skilled, reasonably paid but precariously employed on seasonal, part-time contracts. The particular challenges, techniques and approaches for this practitioner are explored in further detail in Chap. 6, and others who work with different groups are explored throughout the book. For now, this image provides an opening invitation to the world of the applied theatre artist.
This book addresses the rarely examined expertise of applied theatre artists, aiming to shed light on their particular skills and qualities. Applied theatre is a term that encompasses a wide range of community and participatory drama, theatre or performance activity, usually defined by social, personal or educational benefits. There are many diverse groups of people of all ages participating in this work, but the widespread activity within communities is not publicly visible or widely known. Awareness of the work of practitioners in applied theatre, as with the term itself, is comparatively slight and the impact on participants is more likely to be the subject of attention and research. This book aims to redress this lack of attention to these often highly skilled artists by analysing real-world examples of practice to define the nature of applied theatre expertise.
Typically, the role of applied theatre practitioner involves excellent knowledge of the art form, along with the ability to motivate and guide a group sensitively. Although the work is collaborative and mutually created, an applied theatre practitioner is often the sole professional and trained artist. They initiate and co-ordinate the drama, theatre or performance (terms often used interchangeably), improvise creatively, applying aesthetic judgement to the artistic processes and any performance product. Planning is balanced by the capacity to then facilitate inter-personal activity and make choices in the moment of practice, all informed by the potential benefits for participants. They understand the social, political or institutional contexts that often have differing agendas and principles, whilst negotiating ethical issues and the experience of individuals. Working with the enhanced expertise demanded by these factors involves greater responsibility for artists. This is a complex, fluid and ever-emergent role.
Because the experiences and outcomes of participants in community and participatory activity are what distinguishes applied theatre, the complex nature of artists leading the work—although obviously key to success—is rarely the focus. This book redresses the balance, placing the practitioner at the centre of the study in order to reflect on the value of applied theatre artist expertise. Proposing that the practitioner operates as more than just a theatre director or leader of workshop activity, the book examines detail of what equips them to respond to multiple demands when making decisions, particularly in the moment of practice.
Using a researcher-observer perspective in dialogue with real-world practitioner voices, new insights reveal the complex nature of the skills and qualities of this unique role. The book outlines a detailed vocabulary to describe what goes on for applied theatre practitioners in action with different groups, naming and analysing their expertise. To allow insight into the practical skills and qualities involved, subsequent chapters examine the work of artists through a series of case studies located in community projects: for women, mental health service users, refugees, those with a learning disability, old people in care and young people in school. The artists are framed in different roles to aid insights: as educators, an activist, a clown, in dialogue and in performance. Whilst recognising the importance of the participant experience, this book focuses on the artists through detailed analysis of incidents and workshop activity.
Applied theatre is an umbrella term, bringing together many different types of theatre, drama or performance that take place with community participants. Practitioners in this collection conform to a broad definition of applied theatre as work ‘for’ and ‘with’ communities (Prentki and Preston 2009: 10). In this work, the creative process for participants is prioritised as the main purpose (although not at the expense) of artistic activity or product. James Thompson discusses the diverse origins of the work: ‘All applied-theatre [sic] practitioners apply forms of theatre that are specific to their history, community and culture’ (2003: 16). And Baz Kershaw considers the little examined history of applied theatre and community performance, noting the many ‘cognate genres’ (2016: 17). This book looks at diverse contemporary practice to analyse artists in a range of settings in community, education, social and activist contexts. It aims to inform better understanding of how heritage and characteristics of diverse genres impact the skills, qualities and approaches of practitioner roles. The differing emphasis of practices under the umbrella has caused applied theatre artists (or, e.g. facilitators) to be variously named, and their nomenclature is discussed in this chapter. Whatever they are called, practitioners are revealed to share many common qualities and approaches, rooted in their response to the work, to the participants and to the context.
This book proposes ‘responsivity’ as a way of understanding the expertise of applied theatre practitioners. Responsivity offers a conceptual framework designed to aid understanding and analysis. The term indicates how practitioners have abilities that enable them to respond to the theatre participants (in anticipation and in the moment of the work) as well as enable them to be responsible to the group members and for their experience of the work. Responsivity foregrounds the participants as an ethical proposition. The practitioner operates at their most responsive when they are aware of participants’ experiences and how they can enable potential outcomes. However, the practitioners’ own response and being open to development is also a key component of their expertise; they share a focus on impact and change. The book identifies what enables practitioners to accommodate artistic concerns for the work alongside socially informed aims and beneficial educational, health or political objectives.
The concept of responsivity provides a common principle that brings together for examination many practitioners who work differently but all share the features of response. The book draws on an in-depth research project with a number of artists in different community settings in order to look at the role afresh. Enhanced by the artists’ own reflections, examples and activities are described in order to build an authentic and detailed picture of what a responsive artist looks like. Specific moments and issues in their practice are discussed by the practitioners’ voices as a new way to analyse their identity. The subjects of case study chapters are all experienced professionals operating in one area of UK (North East England). Indicative of some key specialisms under the umbrella, they sit within global currents of arts practice. We cannot hope to represent all practices in applied theatre, but the selection provides a useful range for this in-depth analysis. As real-life examples, they illustrate how seasoned artists tailor sophisticated experiences of performance activity and manage inter-personal exchange in the moment. We see how anticipation of activity is balanced with an ability to improvise creatively, and how aesthetic judgements are negotiated alongside awareness of ethical and political issues that underpin the social or institutional contexts. Concepts of empathy, reflection and dialogue inform analysis of the choices the practitioners make in practice and the ways they respond in the moment.
The etymological and thematic connections between responsivity and responsibility are signalled throughout this book as a conscious positioning of artists who operate in applied theatre. The proposal of responsivity recognises a current wider backdrop of global and economic debates about responsibility and a particularly precarious working location for artists in a neoliberal climate. These factors directly inform the particular sites of socially engaged practices that are explored throughout the case study chapters and underpin the framing of how we need to understand and analyse applied theatre artists.
As well as locating pragmatic strategies of the work, concepts of responsivity are used to develop a theoretical framework in the book that draws on themes such as empathy and dialogue to analyse and define the applied theatre practitioner. In the same way that applied theatre is necessarily an eclectic and hybrid form...