From The Inside Out - Interactive Theater
What is Interactive Theater?
Interactive theater asks audience volunteers to help resolve issues presented in plays exploring issues of mental health. In the style of Theater of the Oppressed, short plays requiring problem solving (written mostly by people dealing with mental health issues) are performed first without interruption or solving any issues presented. When repeated, audience members stop scenes, replace characters they choose and act out solutions while the other performers improvise around them. Discussion follows each intervention. Interactive theater was developed by a Brazilian theater activist named Augusto Boal in the 1960s and is used around the world to explore social issues.
Why use interactive theater to talk about mental health?
The 1999 National Summit of Mental Health Consumers and Survivors developed consensus with 450 people around issues of greatest concern within the mental health movement and created future action plans. ‘Movement expansion/coalition-building’ and ‘training and education’ were the most common plan themes. The Stigma Plank suggested "counter(ing) the violence myth" and "to be effective, any educational initiative must focus on demonstrating that people who are diagnosed with mental illness are people first, with talents, skills and abilities”. As there is a trend toward mental health supports moving away from institutions and into the community, community discussions around mental health become even more important.
Interactive theater, like presentational theater, is a unique learning tool accessing and exploring feelings. This is helpful for addressing less tangible issues, such as discrimination. Interactive theater also encourages the recognition of oppression and offers practice in self-advocacy while seeing various perspectives played out within one situation. The Center for Accelerated Learning reminds us people remember 10% of what we read, 50% of what we hear and see, 70% of what we say or write and 90% of what we say as we do a thing.
Beyond building community and enhancing the effectiveness of the community’s response to mental health, the process facilitates recovery. The National Mental Health Association states peer support helps with recovery. Artistic Director Jeannie LaFrance adds “developing creativity can increase a person’s ability to negotiate difficult situations and see options” and the Arts Education Partnership states performing benefits self-esteem, reading ability, writing skills, comprehension, social development and ‘lasting attention to moral dilemmas’. Most importantly, even though the issues can be serious, we often have fun.
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503-267-5081 or cathyclemens@msn.com