FORUM THEATRE
Forum Theatre is an interactive, safe and engaging mechanism for exploring development issues and situations using scripted actors interacting with an audience.
By way of background and history Forum theatre has been around for a long time – having been developed in Brazil in the 1950s by an innovative and influential theatrical director and writer Augusto Boal. Boal developed the concept of “spect-actors’ and used the process of actor – audience interaction to deliver political theatre.
In Forum theatre - Participants watch a short, scripted play which has been written specifically to address particular issues within their organisation or team. Often it is used to address ‘difficult’ issues (ie equality and diversity in the workplace) – which can often be a sensitive subject– it has the potential to cause conflict and for some may be too uncomfortable to discuss in open debate.
The actors play out a scene. They work only from scripts that have been written by specialist Poisson Rouge script writers – who are not only professional writers and actors but are trained in both facilitation and people development.
Having played out the scene - the actors then stop the action and the facilitator offers the audience the opportunity to comment on what they have seen and suggest different approaches of handling that situation leading to different outcomes. There are a number of ways you can proceed, depending on the group and the situation you are working with:
- • members of the audience can take the place of an actor and try the scene again;
- • they can direct the actors to act differently, use different language, try a different attitude or any other way of resolving the situation;
- • the play may be restarted from this point so that the action moves forward;
- • the action can be replayed from the beginning with audience intervention;
- • a member of the audience can take the part of a character who has a different view from their own (as in perceptual empathy.)
- • the audience can interact individually or can break into groups to discuss what they have seen and jointly direct the actors towards a different outcome.
Forum theatre can be used to address many different scenarios:
- • difficult issues such as diversity (as mentioned above)
- • managing conflict
- • improving internal communications
- • developing more productive relationships
- • dealing or engaging with change
- • preparing for inspections
- • Giving and receiving feedback
- • Managing meetings
- • Carrying out staff reviews............. and so the list goes on
What Forum theatre does is to spark debate about new initiatives and is excellent at illustrating good and bad practices. Appropriate humour makes it all the more appealing and Forum theatre allows a safe distance that perhaps - role play does not.
When creating forum theatre you should be very clear about the point you want to make and the objectives you want to meet. A script should ideally reflect a real situation and can contain both overt and subtle messages about matters for discussion.
The role of the facilitator is key in keeping the action and reaction focused, the audience engaged and determining when to replay events or move forward.
For more information contact mark@poissonrouge.co.uk