Training Corporate Bodies

In the global corporate world, dramatic techniques adapted from theatre for social change repertories provide tools for workplace empowerment. In corporate India, theatre training teaches employees to conform to implicit workplace codes of bodily conduct. Overlaps between managerial strategies and tactics of workshop participants reveal that corporate theatre engineers moments of human expression that exceed human capital formation.

Brechtian Methodology in Wise’s The Sound of Music: Insights into Theatre in Education

Methods are problem solving devices for the benefit of education in society. When a method assumes regimental fixations, society suffers hackneyed bouts of limitation and contention necessitating flux. This paper examines issues of regimentalism as they affect society in Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music, and the staccato notes of change inevitably mobilizing a Brechtian methodological reading amplifying social change, in a Theatre in Education performance. Bertolt Brecht (1898-1965), accomplished German director, playwright and theorist, mobilized theatre for social change by setting up Marxist dialectics in pursuit of retrenchment of total empathy; giving free reign to critical consciousness in theatrical productions. This paper has investigated analytically, the representations of this Brechtian methodology in The Sound of Music with the manifest result that the experiment in the movie has produced a healthier and better organized society than the German regimental machine. Key Words: Education, Theatre in Education, Brecht, Alienation Effect, Social Change, Family, Critical, Learning and Socialization

Audience Engagement in Theatre for Social Change

This report from the field describes some of the author’s methods of audience engagement as a means of social engagement, discussing the implications for practice. The report invites dialogue with the reader about the usefulness of audience engagement and ways it can be manifested before, during and after performance. Theatre is a vibrant and valuable tool for sparking dialogue and inspiring action around challenging social topics. Audiences who are engaged in the process of the performance beyond the standard role of passive spectator are more likely to be motivated to deliverable endeavors post performance. This report from the field offers four brief case studies as examples of audience engagement and includes pragmatic techniques for using theatre as a vehicle for personal and social change through audience engagement. It explores how artists can galvanize and empower audiences by creating experiential communities pre, during, and post-show. Drawing upon examples from high-quality international theatre projects written and directed by the author, the essay investigates and describes the work of The H.E.A.T. Collective including My Heart is in the East (U.S., U.K. and Europe), The FEAR Project (produced in the US, India and Czech Republic), Emma Goldman Day (U.S.).

KERANGKA PERLAKSANAAN TEATER FORUM SEBAGAI MEDIUM LUAHAN EMOSI REMAJA MELAYU SECARA TERKAWAL DAN SELAMAT

Teater Forum adalah sejenis terapi sosial di mana penonton tidak hanya menonton permainan tetapi juga digalakkan untuk mengambil bahagian dan memberikan idea-idea dan penyelesaian kepada masalah. Teater Forum boleh memberi peluang kepada remaja untuk bercakap untuk diri mereka sendiri, menyuarakan emosi dan perasaan mereka dengan cara yang betul dan selamat dan pada masa yang sama memberi alternatif dan penyelesaian kepada masalah mereka. Teater Forum telah berjaya dilakukan di negara-negara Eropah di bawah nama `Power Play’,`Therapy Play’, `Theatre of Revolution’ dan ‘Teater Forum untuk Perubahan Sosial’. Untuk mengesahkan keberkesanan pendekatan yang disesuaikan, bengkel bersama remaja bermasalah di dua pusat pemulihan dikenali sebagai Sekolah Tunas Bakti (STB) telah dijalankan. Dapatan daripada kedua-dua bengkel telah dikaji dan dianalisis dan diikuti dengan pendekatan yang sesuai untuk konteks Malaysia. Hasilnya akan menyediakan model bagi rakyat Malaysia yang berminat untuk mengaplikasi teknik pada masa depan. Forum Theater is a kind of social therapy where people are not just watching the game, but are also encouraged to participate in the game and provide ideas and solutions to the problems. Forum Theater can provide the opportunity for the adolescents to speak for themselves, voice their emotions and feelings in a proper and safe way, and at the same time give alternatives and solutions to their problems. Forum Theater has been successfully perfomed in European countries under the names of ‘Power Play’, ‘Theatre of Revolution’ and ‘Theatre for Social Change’. To implement the approach in Malaysia, some modifi cations and adjustments were made by adapting several other therapeutic approaches such as Psychodrama and Playback Theatre. To verify the eff ectiveness of the adopted approach, workshops with the troubled adolscents in two rehabilitation centres known as Tunas Bakti Schools (STB) were conducted. Results from these two workshops were studied and analyzed, and a new adapted approach appropriate for the Malaysian context has been constructed. The outcome will provide a model for Malaysians who are interested in applying the technique in future.