In this article, we consider the aesthetic, political and pedagogical strengths of a verbatim theatre performance, "The Middle Place" by Project: Humanity, a play that explores the experiences of shelter youth in Toronto, Canada. This ethnographic study moved from drama classrooms into theatres and charted audience responses to the production, its…

This article is based upon research into a participatory Theatre in Education (TiE) programme that toured the West Midlands in 2009, funded by the UK's PREVENT initiative intended to counter the radicalisation of young British nationals by extremist political groups. The article provides a summary of the TiE programme and then presents…

Both theatre artists and educators believe the theatre has many advantages as a vehicle for the promotion of social and political issues. This study examines how the Israeli theatre represents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and promotes peace and tolerance among young people. The study, conducted between the years 2005 and 2007, included 26…

With this issue, "RiDE" continues its new occasional series of short informational pieces on archives in the field of drama and theatre education and applied theatre and performance. Each instalment includes summaries of one or more collections of significant material in the field. Over time this will build into a readily accessible directory of…

Much of the discussion about the incorporation of technologies and mediatised components into performance has focused on the concept of "liveness." This often leads to competing claims about the relative power of live versus mediatised performance and is not necessarily helpful for understanding the scope of opportunities now available for drama…

"Theatre Applications" was an international conference convened by the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, in April 2010. Framed by the subheading "Performance with a purpose", the call for papers invited contributors to consider how theatre making in different settings can "make a difference" to those who inhabit the social contexts that…

This paper draws on my own recent experience of local artistic engagement with the British government's counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent(ing Violent Extremism). "Not in My Name" uses verbatim theatre techniques to negotiate dialogue within and across communities around a controversial agenda, and has received national acclaim for its innovative…

This essay considers the performance context and aesthetics of "Journey Woman", a play devised to initiate a week-long rehabilitative groupwork programme for female prisoners. Although Geese Theatre UK are one of the country's longest-established companies specialising in drama work within the criminal justice sector, this 2006 piece is their…

In July 1999, the Wedding Community Play was performed in Belfast. A much-celebrated event at the time, the Wedding Play took audiences into private houses inside Loyalist and Republican estates, then on to a public venue for the performance of a cross-community wedding. Gerri Moriarty has already written about some of the difficulties encountered…

In the autumn of 2007 and spring of 2008 the author performed an adapted version of Dario Fo and Franca Rame's one-woman play "Peace Mom" (retitled for Canadian audiences as "Peace Mum") about American mother and peace activist Cindy Sheehan. The play was performed for University of Victoria Applied Theatre students and also in a number of…

In recent decades a number of Australian artists and teacher/artists have given serious attention to the creation of performance forms and performance engagement models that respect children's intelligence, engage with themes of relevance, avoid the cliches of children's theatre whilst connecting both sincerely and playfully with current…

The post-modern curriculum, drawing on chaos and complexity theory, recognises the realities of a world in flux and posits that the teacher and the class are always teetering "in the midst" of chaos, "not linked by chains of causality but [by] layers of meaning, recursive dynamics, non-linear effects and chance" (Osberg 2008, viii). The phenomenon…

Testimony typically privileges singular subjectivity; as a means of representing psychological trauma, it is thought to bear witness to an individual's unique experience. This essay interrogates the question of singular subjectivity, arguing that a community can be the nexus around which witnesses "gather" the human and historiographical…

This essay analyses "Through the Wire", an Australian verbatim play by and about asylum seekers, in order to investigate both the figure of the performing witness and the function of performing witness in and through theatre. It suggests that while the characters, actors and spectators involved in the play are all "performing witness(es)", how…

The site of the performance is largely a cultural expression defining the physical surroundings and conditions in which the audience and performers interact. Similarly, the character of the theatrical occasion is often shaped by the place designated for the event. In contemporary practice and discourse, the concept of theatre has widened, giving…