Applied Theatre

Hello viewers! Today we shall explore the numerous ways through which theatre has proven to be
instrumental in building a better society. Many theatre practitioners have explored different forms of
theatre for different purposes of social concerns, we study them all under the term Applied Theatre.
Theatre in education, development, youth theatre, disability theatre, museum theatre, reminiscence
theatre, and prison theatre are all examples of applied theatre.

Applied theatre has evolved alongside progressive radical people's movements in numerous parts of the
world. In many cases, the left-leaning ideology of previous movements influenced both the aesthetic
and pedagogic aims of applied theatre practice.

Various theatrical advancements have centered on the creation of new way to provide platforms for
interactions between actors and the audience. The purpose of participatory theatre is to develop actors
who are not only for the stage, but also for, in, and with the rest of the world. Forms of theatre and
performance that challenge or subvert political and social supremacies continue to inform the aesthetic
of applied theatre.

Applied theatre should be seen as part of a larger theatre movement that promotes empowerment. It
enables as Gatti argues, ‘the disinherited classes to create a theatre that reflected their concerns, not
through performances for them but with them’

Applied Drama (also known as Applied Theatre or Applied Performance) refers to theatrical methods
and innovation that move participants and audience members beyond standard theatre, frequently in
reaction to real-life situations. The piece is frequently performed in non-traditional theatre locations and
social settings, such as schools, jails, streets, and alternative educational institutions.

Applied Theatre is a broad term that encompasses a variety of styles and techniques.

Applied drama is a word that came into use near the end of the twentieth century to characterise drama
practice in educational, community, or therapeutic settings.

Judith Ackroyd approves the presence of these elements: "I have identified two features which I believe
to be central to our understanding of applied theatre; an intention to generate change (of awareness,
attitude, behavior, etc.) and the participation of the audience."

Scripted or unscripted applied drama is possible. Some practitioners focus solely on improvisation, but
others offer a range of artistic approaches, such as constructing scripted plays, devised performances, or
indigenous forms of cultural performance, sometimes mixed with new means of digital communication.

Let us now discuss some fields which are associated with Applied Drama

Playback Theatre

Playback Theatre involves audience or group members telling stories from their lives and viewing them
as enacted by actors improvising. It can also be used in conjunction with Narrative Therapy. Playback
Theatre is a kind of improvisational practice which was created by Jonathan Fox. In this form, the
members of the audience are asked to tell stories from their own lives and then these stories are
enacted on the spot. The way is it presented or enacted is designed keeping in mind the message of the
Storyteller and how it is worthy of being told. Playback theatre is created through a distinctive alliance
between performers and audience. Imagine you go to watch a play and you choose a story from your
own life and then choose who plays which role for you and then witness the same old instance replayed
in front of your eyes with artistic insight and precision.

Playback Theatre unlike traditional forms, is not didactic in nature. It refrains from focusing on specific
moral issues, rather it relies on spontaneity, creativity, compassion towards the teller and his unique
story. These stories may be lighthearted and humorous, or inspirational or some may even be highly
disturbing. Playback Theatre provides everyone with an opportunity to share the stories which are
important to them, stories from their past, present and/or future stories, often primarily for therapeutic
purposes. Due to this function of playback theatre, it is performed in prisons, mental health institutions,
nursing homes, schools and other places where people with trauma or emotional disturbance are found.

Drama in Health Education

Drama in healthcare is drama that is created in a medical setting with the goal of rehabilitation. The goal
of this type of Applied Drama is to use theatre to educate, engage, and inspire healing in medical
professionals, patients, and the general public. Theatre and drama in healthcare are geared toward
raising public awareness about health and enhancing people's health and lifespan, regardless of their
socioeconomic status. This type of drama is frequently used to teach people about essential health
topics like healthy diet, sorrow and loss, exercise, and sexual assault prevention. Using actors to role-
play health issues to train healthcare personnel, producing plays focusing on primary prevention, and
leading drama workshops for patients are just a few examples.

Drama Therapy

The North American Drama Therapy Association defines the therapy as “an active, experiential approach
to facilitating change. Through storytelling, projective play, purposeful improvisation, and performance,
participants are invited to rehearse desired behaviors, practice being in a relationship, expand and find
flexibility between different roles of their lives, and perform the change they wish to be and see in the
world.” Drama therapy is the application of dramatic techniques and methods to help people grow and
improve their mental health. Drama therapy is a treatment strategy in which people in therapy use a
theatrical platform to express their emotions, solve difficulties, and attain therapeutic goals.

Drama tends to promote excellent mental health due to the cathartic nature of dramatic artistic
expression. Drama therapy, on the other hand, entails more than just performing. Drama therapy, like
art, music, and dance therapy, uses the creative form as a springboard for more in-depth, meaningful
work with participants. Drama therapists help patients in therapy by leading them through a variety of
activities that allow them to act out scenes that symbolise how they want to live their life. Participants
may see changes in their behavior, emotional condition, personal growth, and skill adaption as a result
of drama therapy.

Drama therapy is based on a clinical technique that stimulates language, cognitive development, and
fosters resilience and is facilitated by qualified clinical drama therapist. Drama therapy arose from the
awareness that some life events and traumas are too painful to be addressed solely via verbal
discussion. Drama was a logical fit for a therapeutic framework since it used metaphor to describe
emotion. Play therapy's founders took use of the psychological safety and distance that drama provides.
Drama therapy allows a person to work through challenging emotional difficulties through both physical
and vocal expression in the framework of a safe therapeutic interaction.

It developed from Jacob L. Moreno's psychodrama, a therapeutic practice that uses guided theatrical
action to address difficulties and concerns. Nikolai Evreinov Vladimir, Bertholt Brecht, Sandor Ferenczi,
and Constantin Stanislavski were early drama therapy contributors. Other contributors, influenced by
role theory, analytical psychology, and creative arts therapies, moved the discipline from "theatre as
therapy" to "dramatic therapy."

Drama in Education

Drama in the classroom can help students better understand themselves and others. 'What is evident is
that there is no suitable pedagogical paradigm on offer for drama education,' says Kathleen Gallagher.
We are invited to make apparent our own subjectivities in the world evoked through character and play,
a world filled with symbolism and intricacy, a world where relationship to others and identity are in
dynamic and persistent interplay, as actors, in theatre pedagogy.'

Theatre in Education (TIE) began in the mid-1960s in the United Kingdom. TIE is "one of the two historic
foundations of applied theatre practice," according to Monica Prendergast and Juliana Saxton. TIE
usually involves a theatre troupe performing for children in an educational context (such as a school),
with interactive and performative elements.

Lynn Hoare describes TIE as a blend of "theatrical elements with interactive moments in which audience
participants (in or out of role) work with actor-teachers towards an educational or social goal, using the
tools of theatre in service of this goal." TIE seeks to edify young people in issues which are pertinent to
them and their communities, for example: bullying, violence, and peer conflict resolution. "TIE
companies have always been among the most socially conscious of theatre groups, consistently
choosing to examine issues they believe to be of direct relevance to the lives of the children with whom
they work."

"Theatre for Dialogue" (TFD) is comparatively a recent word describing a model which takes up methods
and theory from a variety of applied theatre practices such as TO and TIE. Spring Snyder clarifies that
"Theatre for Dialogue performances explore the intersection between theatre and education as a way to
investigate, reflect, provoke dialogue and serve as a rehearsal for reality without asking participants to
share their own personal experiences. Though Theatre for Dialogue is partially rooted in Boal’s Theatre
of the Oppressed’s forum structure, yet it is Theatre in Education (TIE) that more closely aligns with TFD.

Prison Theatre

Practitioners in prison theatre work with inmates in correctional facilities, jails, prisons, and detention
centres to explore theatre practice, which is generally done with the goal of education or rehabilitation.
Shakespeare in Shackles at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, for example, is a programme where
maximum security inmates’ study about and perform Shakespeare. The Performing Justice Project at the
University of Texas' Centre for Women and Gender Studies works with jailed female youth to teach
them about gender and racial justice while creating a play based on their personal experiences.
Theatre for development

TfD is a sort of community-based or participatory theatre that promotes civic discussion and
engagement.

Theatre for development can be a type of participatory theatre that fosters improvisation and
encourages audience members to engage in the performance, but it can also be entirely scripted and
staged with the audience merely watching. A lot of works are a mix of the two. The Theatre of the
Oppressed, an influential collection of dramatic styles founded by Augusto Boal in the 1970s, attempts
to promote social and political change through discourse and engagement between audience and
performer.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of organisations and initiatives have employed theatre as a development
tool, whether for education or propaganda, rehabilitation, participation, or development exploration.

Image Theatre:

As the name implies, Image Theatre is based on the creation and interpretation of images with the goal
of revealing social truths. The spoken word is replaced with an image created with the bodies of the
actors themselves. Feelings, situations, predicaments, or abstract ideas - all of this is communicated by
physical means, such as bodily posture, closeness, or a face expression. The actor may choose to build a
tableau with several pictures mixed together, showing the truth beneath all of human life's surface
activities. The physical theatre actor's language – figures and forms – is heavily used by image theatre
actors. Observers play an important role in this form of performance. They may make a contribution by
proposing which directions the actor should look and where the actor should stand, what gestures or
actions can convey what is required to be expressed, and in this way the entire group contributes to
creating an image or a collage of images, gives specific captions, and occasionally some members of the
group may choose to give a dialogue to some actor, and the entire process is improvisational and can
take any form, shape, movement, diaphragm, and so on. The frozen image may progressively begin to
come alive as each performer works toward his or her own desired path in one of the image theatre
techniques known as dynamization.

Forum Theatre:

The troupe presents a dramatised situation based on an instance of oppression in forum Theatre, with
the goal of eliciting an emotional response from the audience. An effective Forum Theatre piece instils
in the audience a strong desire for a more satisfying outcome, and audience members are urged to put
their desires into action onstage on the spot. Boal renamed the audience spect-actors to underscore the
process' active aspect. "Stop!" spect-actors may shout to enter the Forum dramatisation. The
performers will become immobile. The spect-actor enters the scene, takes the place of the protagonist,
and specifies exactly when the action should resume. The spect-actor then acts out how she or he would
react in such situation.

As spect-actors replace the protagonist or allied characters during the performance, the actors must
attempt to keep the impassioned integrity of their characters. If moved by a particular intervention,
their character’s mindset and actions will change direction. Otherwise, they must stay within the original
boundaries of their characters and situations: easy answers and quick fixes are never useful in
addressing complex community issues.
Invisible Theatre:

The emphasis is on building a society that is conscious and sensitive to the events of the society, as well
as a society that thinks, reacts, and proposes answers, in all of the processes under The Theatre of the
Oppressed. Another unique process or style of theatre originated with the concept of involving the
audience in the performance without them realising it was a process or theatre. Typically, a societal
topic that should worry the general public is chosen for this performance, and a setting connected to the
subject is created in such a subtle way that even passers-by are unaware that they are watching a
performance. The topic and the related happenings ignite the spontaneous response in the audience,
more so because it is ignited by some actors standing in the crowd as a part of the crowd and this is how
theatre becomes a means of transforming the old-style “monologue” of theatre into a dialogue between
audience, actors and stage.

The Rainbow of Desire

Desire's Rainbow This concept is based on the portrayal of each of our innate aspirations, as well as the
anxieties or concerns that prevent us from experiencing all of them. Rainbow is a metaphor for white
light falling on a prism and reflecting all colours. Similarly, in this process, the other members of the
group adopt one aspect of the protagonist's inner state and begin to act accordingly. Members of the
group show the anxieties that dominate our thoughts and prevent us from experiencing the different
"colours" of our aspirations and dreams. Everyone in the group shares one story of their choice, and the
group members immediately choose one that appeals to them. The protagonist then has a
confrontation with a real-life opponent as a result of the improvisation.

Legislative Theatre:

It is a form devised by Augusto Boal when he became a member of the Rio de Janeiro city council in
1997 with the goal of bringing theatre to the people in order to assist them express their concerns and
give suggestions to legislators on what the problem is and what legislation can be created to fix it. The
laypeople of the city may participate in the creation of thirteen successful laws using this technique,
earning Boal the moniker "transforming desired into laws." Boal had been politicising theatre in prior
processes, but with this process, he theatricalized politics.

Museum Theatre:

Museum theatre strives to bring emotion and value to the museum experience by employing theatrical
techniques. Cultural institutions such as historical sites, history museums, and science and industry
museums are more likely to use it. As with the other forms of applied drama, it can involve a variety of
theatrical techniques.

As you may have observed, all of these styles attempt to make theatre an experience for the audience,
an experience that may tap into their emotions and make them fully conscious and charged to act,
respond, or react wherever it is required. As a result, theatre will become increasingly valuable to
humanity. Hope this session was informative for you. Thanks for watching!