I am preparing for the 1-afternoon workshop for theater students. To engage them in my project and experiment with theater as a social intervention. It will be challenging since I have no experience with teaching nor theater. But isn’t that the thing? We all don’t have the experience of a social conscience. And that is what I want to explore.
With these students I need to be specific, a director, strict and playful at the same time. Let them be the theater in the public space acting out their role. The one I am writing for them. I will need costumes of accessories of some sort. They have to make these simple attributes come to live.
The criticism the theater teachers gave me was- next to me having no experience and what the pedagogical value could be- that it is too much I want to do with these actors. It needs more background and introduction, they say. Time is ticking (away) in my project, but also in the world. If the whole world needs to be educated elaborately with loads of information, change will take forever. I think there is an easier way. It just needs to be found. Now I am wondering, cause I am of the opinion that it should be easier for creative people to relate to these global problems, but sometimes it seems to me that in this setting the ego gets even more ahead of us than in the non-creative scene. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am.
Important for me when working with theater is to be aware of who is reading and what has been read (which is part of the evaluation afterwards) . Step outside what is known. Define for myself what the design is in this social theater situation.
