CALL FOR PAPERS
Susan Haedicke and Tobin Nellhaus are planning a book entitled City Play Grounds: International Perspectives on Urban Community-Based Theater. They are looking for descriptions of theater projects in urban settings (A second projected volume will focus on rural projects) which empower communities.Many theater groups work with specific populations, carrying specific messages through plays, short scenes done in Forum Theater style, or workshops using creative dramatics techniques. Many groups overlap considerably in interest areas; especially working with youth, most groups have developed programs in nearly all areas of concern.
Groups are listed by ISSUE FOCUS AREAS:
AIDS
The Adolescent Theater Network
in New York City provided a gathering place for 25 groups which focused on AIDS education for young people. Coordinated through Mt. Sinai Hospital's AIDS and Adolescents Network, the groups met regularly for information exchange and put on an annual festival to showcase their work. Although no longer active, the groups are a virtual Who's Who of arts and activism; many are involved in other youth issues.
Sinai Teen Arts Resources (S.T.A.R.),
headed by Dr. Sydelle Berlin, remains committed and active on this issue and can provide information about other groups. A film about their work Sex and Other Matters of Life and Death is available through Cinema Guild 1-800-723-5522
STAR Phone: (212)241-4399
The Fulton Opera House and the
Pennsylvania Coalition for Arts in Education
have collaborated on a participatory theater experience entitled ALL IT TAKES.... Using a Theater-in-education format, the play involves scripted sections, freezes, and participatory elements. This production has toured Pennsylvania for the past three years and has won awards for its innovative use of the arts in education.Contact:
Barry Kornhauser, Director
Fulton Opera House
12 North Prince St
PO Box 1865
Lancaster PA 17608-1865
Phone: (717)394-7133 FAX (717)397-3780
The Alliance Theater Company
of Atlanta,GA, has developed a touring children's play entitled LET'S TALK ABOUT AIDS.
Visit their home page.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
HALFWAY THERE,
a production by Periwinkle Theater for Young Audiences, has been touring for ten years. Composed using the words and poetry of youngsters being treated for drug addiction, this nationally recognized play is a model of a succesful effort by a professional theater company to help youngsters confront the realities of addiction.Contact:
Periwinkle Theater for Young Audiences
19 Clinton Ave. Monticello NY 12701
Phone: (914)794-1666
STOP-GAP
is a theater company in Southern California which tours programs for classrooms and youth groups which address many critical issues. In the area of substance abuse, these include: NOT GUILTY, coping with alcoholism in the home for grades 4 through 6, FEELING NO PAIN and UNDER PRESSURE, substance abuse prevention and family relationships for grades 5 through 12. Other offerings focus on conflict resolution, date rape, and HIV/AIDS awareness.Contact:
Stop-Gap
1570 Brookhollow Drive
Santa Ana CA 92705
Phone: (714) 979-7061 FAX (714)979-7065
The IMPROBABLE PLAYERS
of metropolitan Boston is a professional group of recovering addicts and alcoholics who do a series of plays about abuse issues. They also offer role-playing workshops.
HOMELESSNESS
THE LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department)
has been working in the area of Arts and the Homeless for many years. Since 1985 LAPD has offered free performance workshops and street shows for the Skid Row Community. LAPD performs in theater and artspaces across LA and the USA Their mission is to create powerful performance work that educates audiences about the reality of street life and develops the artistic and leadership skills of homeless people.LAPD offered a workshop entitled Change Exchange, described as an intensive workshop in implementing community based arts programs, from June 3-21, 1996.
John Malpede, Artistic Director
Los Angeles Poverty Department
PO Box 26190
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Phone: (213)413-1077
Seattle Public Theater
conducted a week-long Theater of Liberation intensive workshop/performance with street youth from the Seattle WA area in January 1996. This Boal-based group has worked with street youth on many previous occasions, creating works such as Come Step In My Shoes and The Children of Tomorrow, which was performed at the 1992 Seattle Fringe Theater Festival, toured locally for several months, and was featured on local television. Reach them through the Theater of the Oppressed section of this guide
HOPE IS VITAL,
based in Washington,DC, has done much work with youth issues using Boal techniques, including work in homeless settings. See their listing on the Theater of the Oppressed page.
GENDER ISSUES
BOTH SIDES NOW:
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. A collaboration of Illusion Theater and the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi, Both Sides Now is a theater presentation that portrays the serious impact of sexual harassment on employees and an organization.Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi
2800 LaSalle Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55402-9647
(612)349-8500
1-800-553-9910
Illusion Theater
of Minneapolis, is a play dealing with harassment and violence prevention, providing positice alternatives to post-secondary students.The play covers the following issues:
Media messages and social attitudes about violence, gender and sex Sexual harassment: boy to girl, girl to boy Group Harassment Acquaintance rape and support for survivors Stalking and stalking laws Stereotypes Positive alternatives to violence Respect as a core value for individuals, schools, and communities
NYU's Creative Arts Team (CAT)
has a Conflict Resolution Through Drama program which utilizes performance, workshops, participatory drama, and videotapes to enhance decision-making skills of junior and senior High "at risk" populations.
Headlines Theater of British Columbia has presented a series of workshops on racism in October and November 1995. See their listing under Theater of the Oppressed.
INTERGROUP VIOLENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Mark Hall Amitin,
representing World of Culture for Performing Arts, Inc., has been working in Gaza with Israelis and Palestinians to create a production entitled The Dispossessed, examining a century of Palestinian history with an epilogue on peace. The play will be performed in Gaza and West Bank cities in 1996, will tour Europe, and be available for touring in the US in Fall 1996. Amitin is also available for a lecture with video program. Contact him atWorld of Culture and Performance
463 West St., Suite 509
New York, NY 10014
(212)463-0723
Venture Theater
company in England has a fine description of a Theater in Education-based workshop about Human Rights issues--ready to replicate! They work in other Youth education activities as well.
Stages of Imagination,
a Philadelphia-based professional theater group has a number of plays available for touring on tolerance, reducing intergroup tension, and other issues for young people.
Visit their Web Site
CITY AT PEACE
Using techniques of the performing arts, City at Peace works with young people from diverse backgrounds to develop the skills to cope with growing up in an urban society. An outgrowth of a succesful cross-cultural project, PEACE CHILD (which brought together Soviet and American young people during the Cold War), the organization is represented in many cities around the US. The Washington DC group will have a performance featuring 100 teenagers from metro DC on Thursday, November 14, 1996 at 8:00PM at Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington University campus
CITY AT PEACE
3305 8th St., NE, Studio A
Washington DC 20017
Phone: (202)529-2828 Fax: (202)529-1654
Armand Volkas
of California has done extensive work with the adult children of German Nazis and the children of Holocaust Survivors, and other groups with historical conflicts, sometimes in Sociodrama workshops, sometimes resulting in production.Sonja Kuftinec
has done theater workshops in Bosnia and Croatia with interethnic groups.
Her e-mail address is skuftin@calstatela.edu
HEALTH ISSUES
The HMO Kaiser-Permanente
has an Educational Theater Programs division which produces health education theater for youth in seven areas across the US (Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, DC, California, and Hawaii), employing over 100 actors nationally in free community service plays with such titles as:
- Professor Bodywise (K-4--Healthy lifestyle choices)
- Raves (5-6--Conflict management)
- Nightmare on Puberty Street (pre-teens, teens-Puberty issues)
FAMILY LIFE
Family
by Illusion Theater uses songs and scenes to explore ways to strengthen our families, prevent violence, and open lines of communication. The show is designed for a multi-generational audience: family and community audiences are encouraged to attend. The play celebrates the varied definitions of "family" in today's society and examines the values learned in families.Scenes address:
- Respect for each generation
- Single parent issues
- Substance abuse
- Divorced families
- Gender differences
- Importance of expressing emotions
- Healthy communication
- Celebrating family
- Respect as a core value for individuals and communities
For contact information, click here
Family Life Theater,
a forum for Conflict Resolution, is an educational training and improvisational theater company founded in 1973 to help people deal with social, health, and family issues. Through its unique blend of sociodrama, role playing, and improvisational theater, the group has reached out to thousands of people in live performances, including the highly acclaimed off-Broadway production of Inside Out--a view of teenage life.They offer Performances, Student Workshops, Staff Training Workshops, and help with formation of "in-house" companies for human service agencies.Contact:
Family Life Theater Programs
Co-Directors Wilfredo Medina and Irene Diamant
178 E. 80, Suite 5a
New York, NY 10021
Phone: (212)628-5347
Australia's Contact Youth Theater
works in many of these areas. They have done cultural development work with disadvantaged youth communities, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, disabled, remote area, long-term unemployed, and young people in detention. Their young-person designed Website Perfect Strangers is now open, with vivid information about youth activities Down Under, including descriptions, photos and director's notes from productions with young people in three venues: Contact, in Brisbane; Corrugated Iron Youth Theater, in Darwin, and Yirra Yaakin, in Perth.Contact information:
Michael Doneman
Phone: 07 3216 1399
Brisbane Australia
E-mail: contact@odyssey.com.au
Headlines Theater of Vancouver
has done workshops on Family Violence, cosponsored by Native Families in Crisis.
See listings under Theater of the Oppressed.
TOP
CAMPUS ISSUES
Gestic Theater of Chicago
uses a forum theater approach (Scene and talkback) to address campus issues such as homophobia, date rape, sexual harassment, gender communication styles, substance abuse and AIDS prevention.
DIFFERING ABILITIES
The Kids on the Block
is a nation-wide organization which offers puppet programs on a wide variety of ability issues. Using Bunraku size puppets, the scripted introductions present the realities of living with variousconditions for easing mainstreaming in elementary and secondary classrooms. Question and answer periods between students and puppets then provide a safe way for young people to ask questions and air feelings about differences.
A recent brochure lists programs on the following conditions:
Cerebral Palsy Mental Retardation Spina Bifida Blindness Hearing Impairment Prostheses Epilepsy Diabetes Autism Hansen's Disease Leukemia Asthma Arthritis Severe Burns and many others. Over 700 community-based groups are operating Kids on the Block programs around the US.
The groups purchase the puppets and scripts from the National Office.Contact:
Christine Grogan, Marketing Director
Kids on the Block
9385-C Gerwig Lane
Columbia, MD 21046
(800)368-KIDS (5437)
Creative Alternatives of New York
works out of Mt. Sinai Hospital with a variety of special populations, using a mixture of drama therapy, psychiatry, and expressive therapy.
Oh, That Aladdin
is a show created by a drama therapist in Quebec, using actors with disabilities and handicaps.
COMMUNITY CHANGE and IDENTITY
Headlines Theater of Vancouver
will present a series of workshops in eleven First Nations communities in British Columbia to help community members cope with the legacy of Canada's Indian Residential School policy. See their announcement on the Theater of the Oppressed page.
Appalshop,
one of America's outstanding groups for rural arts, located in Kentucky, is an Applachian Arts and Education Institute with a long history of arts-based community empowerment. They sponsor the American Festival Project, a touring program which highlights diversity, and Roadside Theater, which encourages community story-telling.
Dan Rubin
of British Columbia has been involved in First Nations cultural work for over 20 years. He has developed a number of plays and musical pieces based on this work, and would like to assist others with collaborative grass roots theater.Contact:
Dan Rubin
Sm'algyax Language Curriculum Developer
School District 52 (Prince Rupert)
825 Conrad St.
Prince Rupert, BC, Canada
home phone: (604)624-3922
office phone: (604)627-1536
office fax (604)624-6572
e-mail: drubin@cln.etc.bc.ca
STAGEWORKS TOURING COMPANY
of New Jersey uses oral history to create works which engage the community as an active participant before the curtain goes up. They call their process Scripting the Community Voice, and use it in touring productions, community residencies, and arts in education.Contact:
Stageworks Touring Company
PO Box 922
Glassboro, NJ 08028
Phone: (609)256-4015 Fax: (609)256-4409
In many Southern World
development projects, theater is used as a form of popular education for village outreach. At a Theater-in-education conference at the Univ. of Exeter in England, held in April 1995, several presenters discussed their work in Africa. One such discussion focused on Women's Health Issues in rural Nigeria.Contact:
Dr. Oga Steve Abah
Department of English and Drama
Ahmadu Bello University
Samaru-Zaria, NIGERIA
ELDERS
Autumn Stages Theater Troupe
PO BOX 43296
Upper Montclair NJ 07043
Phone: (201)746-7710 or (201)746-5184New Jersey's first older adult lifestory theater-on-tour;
Expressed wisdoms of the long-lived through Creative Activity.
The director of Autumn Stages, Roz Wilder, has just published a book, Come, Step Into My Life: Life Drama with Youth and Elders New Plays-Books, Inc. (804)979-2777
The University of Nevada at Las Vegas
is sponsoring a Senior Theater USA Festival in January, 1997, with workshops devoted to Starting a Senior Adult Theater, Intergenerational Theater, Using Oral History, etc. Proposals for workshops and entries in a Senior Adult Theater Playwriting Contest are welcome at:The Department of Theater Arts
University of Nevada at Las Vegas,
Box 455036, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5036
Educational Playmakers, Inc.
of Atlanta, GA, creates scripts for groups working with elder issues, as well as other subjects. Their plays are the focus of workshops exploring significant community issues. Two of their plays, Up A Winding Stair and The Last Candle, focus on elders.Contact:
Charlee Lambert
809 Castle Falls Dr., NE
Atlanta GA 30329
Phone: (404)633-5023, Fax: (404)633-4990
e-mail ednajoe@aol.com
CORRECTIONS
Geese Theater
One of the best established of all groups working in prisons is Geese Theater, headed by John Bergman and Saul Hewish--with both guards and inmates.A chapter about their work can be found in the recently released Arts Approaches to Conflict (Jessica Kingsley Publishers (UK). An extensive video series about their work, An Introduction to Drama Therapy With Juvenile and Adult Sex Offenders, is available through:The Safer Society Press
PO Box 340, Brandon VT 05733-0340.The 5 hour video program costs $350.
Contact John Bergman
Geese Theater Co.
PO Box 203
East Swansey NH 03446
Phone: (603)358-0154
e-mail: MacFlap@aol.comSaul Hewish, Director
Geese Theater Company
220 Moseley Road
Highgate, Birmingham
B12 ODG, England
Phone: 021 446 4370
Jean Trounstine
of Middlesex Community College, MA, has directed plays in Framingham Women's Prison for the past ten years. She is preparing a manuscript about her work. She directs and creates adaptations of classic dramatic texts, performed by inmates for compound and family audiences. Some of her productions are: Merchant of Venice, Lysistrata, RapShrew (a rap musical version of Taming of the Shrew, and Madwomen of the Modular (an adaptation of The Madwoman of Chaillot).
Kathryn Wylie Marques
of CUNY's John Jay College is gathering material on this subject. She hopes to build up a videotape library of corrections-based theater.(Phone contact: (212) 237-8368) or e-mail: Kathywylie@aol.com
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