Forum Theatre Empowering Students to Speak, Act, and Know

Abstract

During the political turmoil of 1960s Brazil, theatre artist Augusto Boal created a new form of theatre to fight back against the oppressive government. Theatre of the Oppressed has now spread to almost every country in the world and has empowered many spect-actors (Boal‘s term for audience-turned-actors) to resist oppression. Boal‘s seminal text Theatre of the Oppressed opened the door to future expansions of Theatre of the Oppressed that combine drama therapy and politics with an already powerful arsenal of techniques. Combining this innovative methodology with education, I facilitated two Forum Theatre workshops at Warren Central High School and Warren East Middle in Bowling Green, Kentucky. I wanted to see if Boal‘s Forum Theatre could have a similar effect on middle and high school students as it did with Boal‘s accounts of villagers in Brazil. While Theatre of the Oppressed is becoming more widely known and being used in many different capacities, future practitioners will soon be forced to re-evaluate Boal‘s theories for the 21st century audience