Theatre in Education and Community
Domain 5 tests drama as pedagogy and community practice: creative drama, process drama, theatre in education (TIE), applied theatre, and ethical facilitation.
Core approaches
- Creative drama: improvisational, process-centered play for young people; no audience required.
- Process drama: a sustained fictional world built through pre-text, teacher-in-role, mantle of the expert, and reflection.
- TIE: a touring company uses theatre and workshop to explore a curriculum or social issue with students.
- Applied theatre: theatre made with/for communities, including forum, playback, and theatre for development.
- Forum theatre (Boal): spectators become spect-actors and test interventions in an oppressive scene.
- Playback theatre: audience members tell stories; performers play them back.
- Drama across the curriculum: role play, tableaux, hot-seating, and writing-in-role to explore content.
Facilitation rules
Establish a drama contract for safety and consent; use aesthetic distance so participants can engage without disclosure; negotiate boundaries; debrief in and out of role. Assessment should examine collaboration, inquiry, and reflection, not only performance polish. Community practice prioritizes access, cultural responsiveness, and co-authorship; facilitators adapt language, sensory demands, and venue. Ethical facilitation requires consent, confidentiality, and clear routes to support when material is sensitive.
Worked example
A class studies water rights. Pre-text: a letter from a fictional mayor. Teacher-in-role: the mayor asks students, in role as residents, to propose a plan. Groups create tableaux of stakeholders, then hot-seat a farmer and a developer. Reflection asks what evidence changed their views. Reasoning: the drama frames inquiry; teacher-in-role invites response without pretending the teacher is not an adult; tableaux make ideas visible; reflection converts experience into learning.
Traps that cost marks
- Defining TIE as a school play with a moral.
- Treating teacher-in-role as losing classroom authority.
- Using forum theatre without a trained facilitator or consent.
- Confusing process drama with a scripted performance.
- Assessing only acting skill in a process-based lesson.