Exploring Issues of Justice Through Theatre Mini-Course

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The Exploring Issues of Justice Through Theatre Mini-Course explores and utilizes theatre practices and techniques to facilitate embodied, liberatory learning. This workshop is not just for theatre educators; in fact, teachers in other disciplines are encouraged to take this mini-course to reflect on meaningful integration. 

What You Will Learn:

Lesson 1: Why Theatre? 

• Lesson 1 invites participants to engage with theatre as a frame and tool for liberatory teaching and learning. We will review some theatre history and foundational vocabulary.

Lesson 2: What Is Theatre of the Oppressed?

• Theatre can be protest. Lesson 2 dives into Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed as a popular community-based education and political, therapeutic art form. Themes of the “spect-actor,” and the Joker will be explored.

Lesson 3: Ethnodrama

• Theatre can be research. Lesson 3 explores the genre of ethnodrama, looking specifically at the verbatim form developed by Anna Deavere Smith.

Lesson 4: On Performance and Performativity

• Performance is complex. Lesson 4 complicates the idea of performance.  Is performance inherently superficial?

Lesson 5: Theatre Integration Across the Curriculum

• Theatre can be science and history and English and PE and more. Lesson 5 shares some specific examples of drama and theatre across the curriculum and beyond.

Bibliography and Resources: 

• Participants will receive a mix of texts and resources recommended for future work. 

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About the Instructor:

 Emily Schorr Lesnick (she/her) is a white facilitator and theater maker in Seattle, WA (Duwamish land). She has worked in independent schools as a teacher, student advocate, and administrator, for over 10 years. Emily's training is in educational theater and cultural studies. She is a member of GLSEN's Educator Advisory Committee and a co-creator of How We GLOW, a piece of interview theater exploring lgbtq+ youth identity that has been performed across the country and world. Emily’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, NBC News, Parent Map Magazine, ArtsPraxis Magazine, The Huffington Post, and NAIS Magazine and Blog. With Mary Padden, she co-curates an anti-racist accountability email protocol with hundreds of recipients, moving from optical allyship to ongoing co-liberation. She also offers courses on Anti-Racist SEL and White Anti-Racist Accountability and Unit Plans through The Institute for Anti-Racist Education.