There has been little research examining the balance between process and product in children’s arts education. In this study, Mantle of the Expert, the ‘drama in education’ approach of Dr. Dorothy Heathcote, MBE (1926-2011), has been explored as a method to create a non-scripted theatre performance with seven children between the ages of eight and ten years old.
The mental health crisis is thought to affect 10-20% of children and young people in the world (World Health Organization, 2019). It is clear that this is something that needs addressing in many ways, but importantly in schools.
This article is written about thirty years after a drama lesson which left an indelible mark on the writer. The lesson involved elements of Teacher-in-Role, Man in a Mess and Mantle of the Expert (Heathcote and Bolton 1996).
The utility of Shakespeare’s plays as a means to explore our present socio-economic system has long been acknowledged. As a Renaissance playwright located at the junction between feudalism and capitalism, Shakespeare was uniquely positioned to reflect upon the nascent market order. As a result, this book utilises six of his plays to assess the impact of neoliberalism on education. Drawing from examples of education policy from the UK and North America, it demonstrates that the alleged innovation of the market order is premised upon ideas that are rejected by Shakespeare, and it advocates Shakespeare’s humanism as a corrective to the failings of neoliberal education policy.
By Sophie Ward. Reviewed by Tom Harrison.
The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Performance brings together a selection of particularly memorable performances, beginning with Nell Gwyn in a 1668 staging of Secret Love, and moving chronologically towards the final performance of John Philip Kemble’s controversial adaptation of Thomas Otway’s Venice Presever’d in October 1795.
This volume contains a wealth of contextual materials, including contemporary reviews, portraits, advertisements, and cast lists. By privileging event over publication, this collection aims to encourage an understanding of performance that emphasises the immediacy – and changeability – of the theatrical repertoire during the long eighteenth century.
Edited by Daniel O’Quinn, Kristina Straub and Misty G Anderson. Reviewed by Trevor R. Griffiths.
Incapacity and Theatricality acknowledges the distinctive contribution to contemporary theatrical performance made by actors with intellectual disabilities. It presents a close examination of certain key theatrical performances across a variety of different media, including John Cassavetes’ 1963 social issues film A Child Is Waiting; the performance art collaboration between Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles; and the provocative pranksterism of Christoph Schlingensief’s talent show mockumentary FreakStars 3000.
Tracing a global path of performances, Incapacity and Theatricality offers an analysis of how actors with intellectual disabilities have emerged onto the main stage, and how their inclusion calls into question long-held assumptions about both theatre and intellectual disability. By Tony McCaffrey. Reviewed by Paul McNamara.
Urban theatre can be described as theatre made with or by those whose lives are marked by the urban landscape and its social limits and possibilities. At the heart of this text lies the question of how theatre can illuminate the urban and how theatre is illuminated by the urban. The city, like a play, is a space where everything adopts multiple meanings. It is an objective thought and a subjective experience, a charged and symbolic thing, as well as a real, material, lived reality.
Edited by Kathleen Gallagher and Jonothan Neelands. Reviewed by Nicola Abrahams.
Much has been written within the tradition of drama education and applied theatre around the premise that drama can be a force for change within both individual lives and society more broadly. However, little has been published in terms of charting the nature of this relationship. By combining theoretical, historical and practical perspectives, this book unpacks and explores drama’s intrinsically entwined relationship with society more comprehensively and critically.
By Kelly Freebody and Michael Finneran. Reviewed by Helen Murphy.
The aim of this article is to demonstrate how an intervention programme based on Drama education techniques can improve the critical thinking skills of students in the fifth grade of Primary school.
In this article I want to consider where we, as theatre educators and youth theatre professionals, place our bodies and with whom we build our affective ties.
