When the Audience is Ourselves: From Intellectual Argument to Visceral Experience

This article reflects on a critical moment within a graduate course on using theatre for transformation. The course married critical readings and discussions on community and change-focused theatre with extensive simulations and other experiential opportunities in leading, creating and experiencing participant-based, activist theatre. One of these events, which engaged students with creating and performing participatory theatre, shook us up and led to some new understandings of how the use of theatre to study theatre can creep up and wallop one, making “education” highly personal, politicized and urgent. This event leads to a discussion of the values of personalizing education and creating “disturbance” as part of educational processes in all theatre classrooms. There are ethical considerations to reflect on, which challenge instructors and students, and possible implications for theatre classrooms that focus on acting and directing are considered.