Applied Theatre: Ethics explores what it means for applied theatre practice to be conducted in an ethical way and examines how this affects the work done with communities and participants. It considers how practitioners can balance aesthetics and ethics when creating performance, particularly with relatively inexperienced and often vulnerable groups of people who are being asked to both tell and stage their stories. The two sections bring together theoretical and practical ways for theatre-makers to examine the ethics of their applied theatre projects.
Part One offers an overview of critical debates and the editors' reflections on their own practice. It introduces readers to ethics in applied theatre, informed by the thinking of philosophers, scholarly literature and the editors' own experience, including Indigenous perspectives on ethics and theatre. For applied theatre practitioners, it provides recommendations for community-based ethical approaches working with principles of voice, agency, care, service, collaboration, presence, relationality and reciprocity.
Part Two presents a range of international case studies that explore how the theories and issues are worked out in a variety of diverse practices. It considers ethics from varying critical perspectives and contexts, including projects in Greece, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and Canada. Covering work with participants of many ages, the case studies include the work of a professional dance theatre company working with people in substance abuse recovery in the UK, interactive drama used in an educational context in Nigeria, and the complexities around an applied theatre project on race in the US.
Balfour, Michael: - Michael Balfour is Head of School and Professor of Theatre and Performance at University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Michael's research explores applied theatre and performance work in a range of social contexts. Michael has authored or edited 8 books, and over 50 book chapters and academic journal articles. His most recent publications include Performing Arts in Prisons: Creative Perspectives (2019), and Applied Theatre: Understanding Change (2018) with Kelly Freebody, Michael Anderson and Michael Finneran. He is the series editor of the Methuen Drama applied theatre book series, that brings together leading international scholars to engage with and advance key themes in the field of applied theatre.
Prendergast, Monica: - Dr. Monica Prendergast is Professor of Drama/Theatre Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Victoria in Canada. Her research interests are drama-based curriculum and pedagogy, applied drama/theatre, and arts-based research. Monica's books include Applied Theatre, Applied Drama, Teaching Spectatorship, Staging the Not-yet, Drama, Theatre and Performance Education in Canada, and Web of Performance. She has co-edited and co-authored two international award-winning textbooks: Applied Theatre (2010/2016, 2nd edition) and Applied Drama (2013). These books have been adopted as course texts in applied theatre programs in many countries worldwide. Ethics is the subject of a chapter in Applied Theatre and is woven throughout the drama structures included in Applied Drama.
Preston, Sheila: - Sheila Preston is Head of Performing Arts at the University of East London, UK. Previously she was a senior lecturer in Applied Theatre at the Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. She co-edited with Tim Prentki The Applied Theatre Reader (Routledge, 2009).
Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten: - Dr. Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta is Assistant Professor of Applied Theatre in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria in Canada. Her research interests are theatre in war and (post)-conflict zones, theatre in developing settings, indigenous theatre, and more specifically the meaning of language revitalization, global economics, aesthetics, social justice and human rights within the field of applied theatre. Kirsten has published articles in Research in Drama Education and chapters in a variety of theatre publications. Her research has been supported by different scholarships, including SSHRC's Partnership Development Grant; SSHRC's Insight Development Grant; and the Prince Bernhard Scholarship for excellent research capacities, which is administered under the auspices of His Royal Highness Prince Carlos de Bourbon de Parma. She has published a variety of chapters and articles.
