Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Unmuted: A Digital Dilemma Inspired By Forum Theatre, Akhila Khanna

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

This report describes the purpose, process and reflections of a Forum Theatre video project, titled Unmuted, created to investigate the increased online harassment faced by women during the pandemic. Led by an arts and community education based initiative in New Delhi, India - Rang Karwan - and supported by the 25 x 25 Initiative by India Foundation for the Arts grant, Unmuted included a series of surveys and Forum scenes that were screen-recorded and distributed among 100+ digital spect-actors across the country. This report by Akhila, one of the facilitators of the project, will evaluate the 9-month-long rehearsal and research …

Exploring Online Participatory Theatre During Covid-19: Reflections On Adapting, Delivering, And Evaluating Student-Led Theatre For Health Workshops, Jeffrey Pufahl, Emmanuelle Crider, Kelviyana Walker

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the higher education community to quickly shift and adapt courses to the online environment. While traditional theatre programs struggled, the flexible nature of applied theatre created the space for students and instructors to explore and adapt existing forms, such as Forum Theatre and Sociodrama, and create engaging online workshops for the public. Over the course of 2020-21, students in the University of Florida’s Applied Theatre for Health program developed, delivered, and evaluated online health and wellness workshops for the public. This report focuses on two such projects: 1) a workshop on female reproductive health, and 2) …

Collective Beauty, Grace And Care Against Isolation, Mistrust And Lack Of Utopia:" Neoliberalism In Social Justice Theatre Work, Joschka Köck

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

Aeport on three recent global online exchanges focusing on neoliberalism in social justice theatre work that represent an amazing example of the circular thinking and complex processes happening in truly dialogic group settings that can be faciliated through TO and PO

Theater Of The Oppressed And Labor Organizing: Possibilities And Limitations, Jasmin Cardenas

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

A reflective essay to document the use of Theater of the Oppressed (TO) for labor organizing with a workers rights group in the Chicago area. Participants were working people from across Chicago’s Latinx immigrant community and previously incarcerated returning citizens, mainly temporary staffing workers who had never performed before. This essay attempts to document the collaboration between an independent artist and an organization and highlight some limitations and possibilities of using TO for labor organizing.

Image Theatre As A Conduit For Academic Research, Felicia Owusu-Ansah

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

In the last few decades Africa has seen an upsurge of the use of applied theatre in addressing individual and community issues in diverse paradigms. However, fewer studies have examined its potential beyond sensitisation, awareness creation campaigns and general education through playlets and post-performance discussion. This paper discusses how some aspects of applied theatre were used for data gathering in academic research in connection with Irregular Migration in Ghana. I base the discussion on how I used Applied Theatre, specifically, Augusto Boal’s Image works on the platform of Testimonial Theatre as an investigation tool in academic research. It also shows …

Leveraging Standardized Testing To Transform Curriculum Through Arts Integration: Effects Of Shadow Puppet Theater On Reading Fluency Among Elementary School Students, Nancy B. Parent

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

This paper presents findings from a reading fluency study conducted by Flock Theatre (Connecticut Higher Order Thinking Schools Teaching Artists) on the effects of a shadow puppet theater program in an elementary school setting. Data collected in this study show an increase in fluency scores among students who perform as narrators in the program. This paper highlights the role of teaching artists in leveraging standardized assessments to transform curricula and student learning through arts integration. Positionality of teaching artists, classroom teachers, and my role as a social scientist in this context is considered, as well as a discussion of the …

Augusto Boal's Joker And Pedagogy Of Freedom, Hamze Aleepayam

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

This text was a report on the Pedagogic project to apply the techniques of Boal's Joker to teach basic Farsi reading and writing to war-torn labor children, those who are deprived of the right to education. They learned to read and write well and wrote about their experiences of war, labor, childhood, fears, happiness, etc..., and its impact on their lives.

Taking Youth Voices Seriously: Theatre, Storytelling, And Empowerment With Refugee Youth In Memphis, Tn, Taylor St. John

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

This project report documents the most recent play-turned-podcast in a multi-year partnership between the Orpheum Theatre Group and the Refugee Empowerment Program in Memphis, TN. Youth from the program have been engaging in From Where I Stand, a theatrical storytelling program that weaves first-person narratives into theatrical performances that are presented for the community. While our third performance entitled, Refugee Portraits, was postponed due to the pandemic, it was given new life in the form of a podcast. This report will explore the process of creating the live theatrical performance, pivoting that performance to a podcast, and reflect on …

Editor’S Introduction To The 6th Issue Of The Pto Journal, Mark Weinberg

Spect-actor: A Journal of Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed

This brief letter provides an introduction to my final issue as editor of the PTO Journal.

A Lie Of The Mind, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2021-2022 Season Production

Sam Shepherd, a mastermind of dark humor and powerful drama, out does himself with this story of two dysfunctional families joined by marriage in the American West, each trying to hold on to the ideal picture of stability without ever having experienced it. Jake believes he may have killed his wife, Beth, during a domestic dispute and, to calm his concerns, his brother Frankie attempts to get the real story by traveling to Beth’s family home in Montana. While he is relieved to see Beth alive, though severely injured from the incident, Frankie is suddenly entangled in a bizarre familial …

Program: Laced, University Of Dayton, Teejai Dorsey

Dance and Theater Programs

by Sam Mueller

The Kilroys List 2020, selected play

October 20-23, 2021

Fitz Hall’s Black Box Theatre & Live-Streamed

The night after a queer bar outside of Tampa, Florida is vandalized, three twenty-something bartenders gather to grieve, rage, and above all, piece together the events of the night before. Fiery and poetic, Laced ferociously celebrates the spaces in which we find our truest selves. In a time of renewed culture wars against queer youth, this play centers the voices of those intersectional identities we should be listening to now.

Cabaret

Theatre Programs

No abstract provided.

The Eye Is The First Circle, Office Of Arts + Cultural Programming, Peak Performances At Montclair State University

2021-2022 Join Us in Engaging with the Imaginations of Unparalleled Visionaries

With The Eye is the First Circle, Simone Dinnerstein ventures into bold interdisciplinary artistic territory in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett. Conceived, directed, and performed by Dinnerstein, this dynamic production deconstructs and collages elements from two iconic works of art-her father Simon Dinnerstein’s The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata no.2 (Concord). The Fulbright Triptych places a family portrait (including an infant Simone) within the tradition of medieval altar paintings, against a wall teeming with art historical references, and the Concord Sonata expresses the imaginative and natural world of the Transcendentalists through an …

Representation Of Terror And Terrorism In Two Arab Films: Paradise Now (2005) By Hany Abu-Assad And Horses Of God (2012) By Nabil Ayouch, Mustapha Hamil

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Middle Eastern violence and terrorism are not novel subjects in world cinema, especially American cinema. The Arab or Muslim other in these films is always presented as someone who epitomises a culture of violence, directed mostly against innocent civilians. Against the backdrop of Hollywood’s stereotypical representation of Middle-Easterners as advocate of indiscriminate terror and terrorism, Arab filmmakers have turned in recent years to the representation of terror and religious extremism. Paradise Now (Abu Assad 2005) and Horses of God (Ayouch 2012) address the controversial issue of suicide bombing with the same motivation: to examine the choice of suicide bombing within …

Resisting Pacification: Locating Tension In G'Ebinyo Ogbowei's Poetry, Niyi Akingbe, Paul Ayodele Onanuga

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Where Are The Women?: An Ecofeminist Reading Of William Golding’S Lord Of The Flies, Hawk Chang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The absence of female characters and their voices in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) has been previously examined. On the surface, this fiction focuses on the struggle and survival of a group of boys who are left alone on a Pacific island against the background of nuclear warfare. The only presence of women in the story seems to be the aunt via a boy’s narration. However, when approaching the fiction through the lens of ecofeminism, we can find a range of feminized entities which are metaphorically embodied in the natural surroundings of the secluded island. The boys’ interactions …

‘Convicted Of Patricide?’: Robert Frost’S Nationalism In The Eyes Of Contemporary Arab-American Women Writers, Eman K. Mukattash

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Given the culturally expansive nature of the American literary tradition of today, the question of the relevance of Robert Frost’s poetry to the poetry of contemporary Arab-American women writers is an issue worth digging into. Writing almost one hundred years ago does not make Frost’s poetry out of date. Frost’s poetry is as relevant to today’s America as it has been to the America of his days. And this can be ascribed to the multiplicity of perspectives he presents in his poetry as he examines crucial questions lying at the core of America’s “grand narrative of national development.” (Westover 2004: …

Tartuffe By Molière

Theatre Programs

No abstract provided.

Integrating Dance And Language Education: A Pedagogical Epiphany, Nan Zhang, Jane Southcott, Maria Gindidis

The Qualitative Report

Dance fulfils several educational purposes, particularly in the context of second language teaching and learning. Nevertheless, challenges to implementing dance as an approach to teach and learn a second language do exist. For teachers, it is essential to develop varied pedagogical approaches to suit different student cohorts. But it is not reasonable to expect that every language teacher is a born expert and connoisseur of dance or every dance teacher a born expert and connoisseur of the target language. Moreover, we have not seen studies focus on the development of the pedagogy of using dance as an approach for teaching …

The Conscience Of Little Women: Beth's Epic, Mcewen Baker

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

From its conception, and through countless retellings, there is no doubt that Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is an American classic that has stood the test of time. Kate Hamill’s stage adaptation affirms and extends this legacy; the playwright adopts a contemporary feminist approach that defies gender norms and exclusivity in casting and encourages an actor-centered approach. This essay explains the importance of this adaptation and its influence on my portrayal of Beth March in Belmont University’s Fall 2021 production. It touches on the often overlooked significance of the second youngest sister as well as how my personal battle with …