http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75075 2026-04-11T04:29:17Z 2026-04-11T04:29:17Z Dixon, Saharra L. Gundersen, Anna Holiman, Mary http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75281 2025-08-28T19:22:40Z 2020-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The #StayHome Project: Exploring Community Needs and Resiliency through Virtual, Participatory Theatre during COVID-19 Authors: Dixon, Saharra L.; Gundersen, Anna; Holiman, Mary Abstract: Health Educator and Community-engaged Theatre Artist Saharra Dixon led a virtual 3-month community-based participatory research theatre process with co-investigators Niloofar Alishahi LCAT, Trevor Catalano, Anna Gundersen, Mary Holiman, Adam Stevens RDT, Emari Vieira-Gunn, and Susan Yakoub exploring the concept of home and community during state-mandated Stay-At-Home orders for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Emphasis was placed on under-standing the health crisis’ impact on quality of life, human connectedness, and available resources. The process aimed to identify systematic failures in the United States’ pandemic response, while simultaneously advocating for change to improve individual, community, and governmental response in the future. The process culminated in The #StayHome Project, an ethnodrama devised from community interviews and fieldnotes. Using our play as reference, this paper will explore theatre’s ability to help communities process collective trauma, build resiliency, and facilitate dialogue around politics and what it means to return to a “new normal”. We will discuss our drama process and how we were able to adapt virtually. Lastly, we challenge theatre practitioners and health professionals to explore theatre through a wellness-based lens and use arts-based inquiry to further connect with different populations.

2020-12-01T00:00:00Z Cook, Chris Shigematsu, Tetsuro Belliveau, George http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75280 2025-08-28T19:21:30Z 2020-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Teaching Research-based Theatre Online: A Narrative of Practice Authors: Cook, Chris; Shigematsu, Tetsuro; Belliveau, George Abstract: For the last twelve years, students at the University of British Columbia could take a course in Research-based Theatre, a research methodology that transforms data into dramatic performances. Previously, this course has only ever been conducted in-person, but due to COVID-19, the course was offered online for the first time. This narrative of practice explores the authors’ experience of translating the course into a virtual form. Throughout their experience of teaching Research-based Theatre over Zoom, the authors returned to fundamental questions: What teaching practices endure in the online Research-based Theatre classroom, and what new ways practices were fostered through our emerging partnership with technology?

2020-12-01T00:00:00Z Moyo, Cletus Sibanda, Nkululeko http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75279 2025-08-28T19:20:17Z 2020-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Challenges in Teaching and Learning in Practical Theatre Courses during the COVID-19 Lockdown at Lupane State University Authors: Moyo, Cletus; Sibanda, Nkululeko Abstract: This research discusses the challenges faced by Theatre Arts lecturers and students at Lupane State University (LSU) during the COVID-19 induced lockdown which forced the university to suspend face to face classes. On the 25th of March 2020, Lupane State University, like all other Zimbabwean universities, was forced to close abruptly in response to the government declared total lockdown restrictive measures. The abrupt nurture of closing created challenges for lecturers and students, chief among them lack of preparedness to transition to online learning, unavailability of online teaching and learning material as well as lack of connectivity. Yet, students taking theatre courses needed to continue learning. We discuss the deployment of blended learning and its impact on the teaching and learning of practical theatre courses at LSU. We also examine how students (performers and audience) struggled to adapt to the new normal of performing to a smaller audience of invited guests and social distancing during performances against an interactive and social performance tradition.

2020-12-01T00:00:00Z Jemal, Alexis O’Rourke, Brennan Lopez, Tabatha R. Hipscher, Jenny http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75278 2025-08-28T19:19:23Z 2020-12-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Pandemic Lessons Authors: Jemal, Alexis; O’Rourke, Brennan; Lopez, Tabatha R.; Hipscher, Jenny Abstract: In the middle of a graduate cohort’s spring semester of an Applied Theatre program at CUNY School of Professional Studies, a global pandemic crisis catapulted artist-educators into digital space outside the realms and scope of their field and practice. Previously, the learned techniques students used to devise original, participatory and participant-centered theatre required in-person participation. Most devising techniques invite use of the whole body, touch, and movement, or at least being able to see more than the person’s head in a square. In response to the global pandemic, the MA program in applied theatre switched from in-person learning to a virtual platform for distance learning. These unforeseen circumstances created a situation in which students simultaneously learned about Theatre in Education (TIE) and remote devising for TIE. Course instructors formulated techniques to explore the strengths of virtual space and minimize the challenges of remotely crafting a TIE piece for virtual implementation. The pandemic disrupted in-person fieldwork experience, but the innovative techniques for remote play-building and collaborative devising of original works of theatre allowed one student-company to facilitate a virtual fieldwork experience within a field simulation class for Master’s Social Work students whose field placements were also disrupted by the pandemic. Virtual applied theatre in social work education used innovative strategies to stimulate dialogue, interaction and change. Despite the pandemic’s upheaval, this paper details how a group of four students successfully adapted applied theatre education, collaborative devising, and remote fieldwork implementation under pandemic conditions.

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