Poster Art above by Barbara Clayden

Power Play (including Forum Theatre)
(5 - 6 days)

A POWER PLAY incorporates either Rainbow of Desire or Cops in the Head and Image Theatre to explore issues and create community-specific theatre. The end product is an audience-interactive Forum Theatre event.

Through various theatre games and exercises a POWER PLAY builds trust and understanding within the workshop group. To a large extent these games and exercises are non-verbal. Using Image Theatre we ask participants to look into moments of oppression in their own lives. Sometimes this exploration has a specific focus (violence, racism, gender roles, etc.) and sometimes it is left open for the workshop group to decide. The participants make their play(s) about issues they have identified as most important to them and their community. We do not tell them what to say or what to make their
play(s) about. They are the experts in their own lives -- we provide investigative theatre tools. The participants do the work, empowering themselves and finding both an individual and group voice in the process--often identifying issues that restrict the development of both themselves as individuals and the community as a whole.

Participants also learn some basic acting skills for the Forum Theatre (audience interactive) event which takes place at the end of the workshop.

Forum Theatre is a unique type of participatory theatre. The play that develops out of the workshop is usually quite short -- perhaps 5 - 10 minutes in duration. It is run once, all the way through, so the audience can see the situation and the problems presented. The play builds to a crisis and stops there, offering no solutions. The play is then run again, with audience members able to "freeze" the action at any point where they see an incident of oppression, or a problem. An audience member yells
"stop!", comes into the playing area, replaces the character s/he sees as being oppressed, and tries out his/her idea. We call this an 'intervention'. The Forum Theatre event is vibrant and empowering for all concerned. It is, ideally, 2 - 21/2 hours long.

"Now I understand why theatre fundamentally exists and what it can do. Communication for a reason--to help, heal, and activate people. Thank you for revealing that to me."
(From a letter from Karen Rose, audience member at OUT OF THE SILENCE Forum)

"I was inspired and moved and ultimately I was changed by the (Forum Theatre) evening."
(From a letter from Dorothy Dittrich, audience member at a Street Youth Forum)

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