Forum Theater

In the context of economic collapse, regime change in the US, the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other political and social factors in play, this Forum Theater workshop will focus on the American Dream in its myriad aspects and as people are affected by its reality.

Exercises, games, and improvised scene work from the Theater of the Oppressed repertory developed by Brasilian director, popular educator and Workers Party activist Augusto Boal. Boal's interactive approach to theatrical expression emphasizes physical dialogs, non-verbal imagery, consensus-building and problem-solving processes, and techniques for developing awareness of both external and internalized forms of oppression.

An innovative approach to public forums, Forum Theater is rooted in the Brasilian popular education and culture movements of the 1950s and 1960s. It is designed for use in schools, community centers, trade unions, and political, solidarity and grassroots organizations. It is especially useful as an organizing tool in protest movements. Workshop participants (the actors) are asked to tell a story, taken from daily life, containing a political or social problem of difficult solution. A skit presenting that problem is improvised and presented. The original solution proposed by the protagonist must contain at least one social or political error. When the skit is over, the audience discusses the proposed solution, and then the scene is performed once more. But now, audience members are urged to intervene by stopping the action, coming on stage to replace actors, and enacting their own ideas. Thus, instead of remaining passive, the audience becomes active "spect-actors" who now create alternative solutions and control the dramatic action. The aim of the forum is not to find an ideal solution, but to invent new ways of confronting oppression. In Brasil and other parts of Latin America, as well as in India and Africa, Forum Theater has been used with peasant and worker "audiences" as training in labor and community organizing and participatory democracy.

This workshop is open to everyone.

While there is no formal application, PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Please register on line using the form to your right, or call TOPlab @ (212) 924-1858 (leave an email address) or email toplab@toplab.org.