Drama and theatre have traditionally been dynamic forces in education in England. This study researched drama and theatre in higher and further education at six institutions in England for the purpose of developing the history and current conditions.

This MFA thesis document investigates the experience of teachers participating in a trainer of trainers (TOT) professional development model in drama-based instruction in K-12 schools. This document explores a two-phase research study in which teachers attended an Advanced Summer Institute and then took on the role of teacher trainer in their school context. The mixed-methods study uses narrative thematic analysis of interview data as well as quantitative scales to describe the experiences of the drama-based instruction teacher trainers. Throughout, this document argues for more effective, sustainable professional development practices that draw on the instructional knowledge of teachers. The findings suggest organizational support largely determines the amount of participation of teacher trainers in their school context. The document concludes with a discussion of how to better support teachers as teacher trainers on their campuses as part of a larger effort to build capacity and sustain ongoing drama-based instructional practice in K-12th grade schools. / text

I have seen a trend in the teaching of technical theatre towards a more practical and less theoretical education. This has brought about a change in viewpoint by professional technicians, as well as students, in regards to an academic degree. Due to this change and the rise of student debt, the impulse has been to encourage going directly into the field and learning the craft there instead of spending four years in an academic institution. There has also been increased pressure on theatre departments to produce larger and more involved shows; both to draw in new students and to justify budgets for productions, particularly musicals. This has led to a greater rate of burnout for graduating students who have spent less time in actual classes than in working on productions. In studying and working in the academic environment I have made insights into ways in which these problems may be alleviated and academic training can remain relevant to the demands of the professional world.

The purpose of my study was to discover the most performed plays in Southern Arizona high schools, the teachers' considerations when choosing these scripts, and the implications these scripts have for the adolescent student. The first two sets of data were collected from a questionnaire sent to 33 high school theatre educators in Southern Arizona. I created a list of the full-length plays/musicals and a list of what teachers felt were the most important considerations for script selection. I analyzed the four most performed scripts, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Our Town, Once Upon a Mattress, and Footloose, and discovered four prominent themes (the future, adolescent love, power, and image) and discussed the implications they have on the adolescent actor.

Educators and researchers have long discussed methods for improving student achievement in the social studies and history. Research on student attitudes reveals that the social studies suffers from a lack of interest among students. Common complaints among students are that the subject is tedious, does not relate to their lives, is not particularly useful for their future careers, is repetitive, or that it is simply boring (Schug et al., 1982}. Even when students recognize the utilitarian value of skills they learn from social studies/ history, they rarely express an interest in the subject (Chiodo, 2004). After reviewing the body of literature on student attitudes towards the social studies, Shaughnessy and Haladyna (1985} concluded, "most students in the United States, at all grade levels, find social studies to be one of the least interesting, most irrelevant subjects in the school curriculum" (p. 694). Russel and Waters (2010) linked these attitudes to the prevalence of passive learning (lecture, worksheets and other busy work, and rote memorization) within contemporary social studies classrooms. Studies examining social studies/ history education suggest that pedagogical techniques from drama/ theatre may be effective at teaching these subjects by helping students actively engage with and retain material. Drama-based strategies can be particularly effective in improving student reading skills (Rose et al., 2000). By strengthening such basic skills, drama/ theatre helps support student achievement in social studies/ history. Teaching strategies that utilize historical narrative have been shown to get students to effectively engage with and improve their understanding of social studies content (Downey et al, 1991; Brophy et al., 1991). Drama can act as a form of historical narrative and be particularly effective at reaching students (Otten et al., 2004; Jackson et al., 2005). Drama-integration methods also complement the social studies curriculum by being well suited for multicultural education practices, cross-curricular learning, and the investigation of social justice issues (Gay & Hanley, 1999; Fautely & Savage, 2011; Lement & Dunakin, 2005}.

This thesis interrogates the historical, philosophical, and existential implications of the Black Arts Movement and its major artists on the recurring themes of social injustice, Western hegemony, and the fight for aesthetic authenticity to reimagine fairy tales for the youth Black Aesthetic. As a personal reflection and foundational document for a larger project, this work weaves these implications through the practical application of the varied stages of program development for youth artists. This project also is a handbook that encompasses scholarly research, reflective analysis and anecdotal journal evidence. The subsequent chapters explore the theological and theatre pedagogical educational influences that informed the phases of inception through completion of the 2015 Courage Summer Workshop (a six-week devised theatre workshop for middle school students) to include its two-year program history, curriculum design, and weekly program overviews.

Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo investigar possíveis relações entre o conto de tradição oral e os jogos teatrais, com a intenção de contribuir para a reflexão de perspectivas do ensino de teatro. Apoiada na sistematização dos jogos teatrais, proposta por Viola Spolin, investiguei a utilização do jogo em um processo de montagem de uma peça, seguindo o caminho indicado no livro O jogo teatral no livro do diretor. Para tanto, realizei experimento com um grupo de jovens do Ensino Médio, de uma escola estadual, na cidade de São Paulo, no ano de 2001. Este trabalho foi baseado em pesquisas sobre o conto e o ensino de teatro, bem como na experiência realizada com o grupo de alunos. / This research intends to check possible relationships between oral traditional short stories and the theatre games, with the intention to contribute to the reflection of perspectives of acting learning. Based on the theatre games systematization, proposed by Viola Spolin, I did an investigation about the use of games to stage a play, following the instructions of the book The theatre games in the directors book. For that, I did an experiment with a young group from a state high school in São Paulo city, during the year 2001. This work was based on researches about short stories and acting learning as well with the experiment performed with the young group.

Essa tese apresenta a reflexão resultante de dois anos de pesquisa em campo junto a duas escolas da cidade de Uberlândia, em que estive focada na observação das experiências corporais de crianças, adolescentes e professores em interação em aulas de Teatro e em diferentes situações no contexto escolar. Uma perspectiva que entrelaça etnografia e fenomenologia conduziu os processos de observação e de escritura das descrições dos processos pedagógicos sobre os quais reflito. O enraizamento da investigação na noção de experiência corporal e de embodiment partiu especialmente da fenomenologia de Merleau-Ponty e das formulações do pesquisador Thomas Csordas, respectivamente. Tais noções foram férteis para dimensionar a compreensão das práticas teatrais na escola como experiências corporais frutos da intersubjetividade e intercorporalidade em que estamos imersos, como seres-no-mundo e num mundo cultural. As descrições dos processos acompanhados nas escolas partem dessas experiências intercorpóreas apontando para eixos estruturantes emergentes delas: corpo e espaço / corpo e matéria-materialidade; jogo e performatividade; derivas. Ao formulá-los, percebo outras emergências desde as experiências observadas: o embodiment como condição de existência e manifestação da complexidade da constituição dos corpos-pessoas de professores e estudantes; a abertura para as emergências como microconduta que pode orientar práticas do professor em ação na escola; a subversão dos vetores da interação como projeto político e pedagógico no campo das experiências estéticas de e desde os corpos. / This thesis presents the resulting reflection from two years of field research, which took place in two schools in the city of Uberlândia, and in which I\'ve been focused on observing the body experiences of children, teenagers and teachers while interacting in theater classes and in different situations of the school context. A perspective that entwines ethnography and phenomenology led the observation process as well as the writing of descriptions from the pedagogical processes which I reflect upon. The rooting of the investigation on the notion of corporeal experience and embodiment were inspired especially from Merleau-Ponty´s phenomenology and the formulations from the researcher Thomas Csordas, respectively. Such notions were fertile to scale the understanding of theatrical practices in school as body experiences born from the intersubjectivity and intercorporeality in which we are all immersed, as beingsin- world and a cultural world. The descriptions from the processes observed in the schools come from these intercorporeal experiences pointing to emerging structural axes: body and space / body and raw materiality; play and performativity; drifts. As I formulate them, I perceive other emergencies from the observed experiences: the embodiment as a condition of existence and manifestation of the complexity found in the bodies-people\'s constitution from teachers and students; opening for emergencies as microconduct - which can guide teacher´s practices in action at school; subversion of the interactional vectors as a political and pedagogical project in the field of aesthetic experiences of/and from the bodies.

Essa tese apresenta a reflexão resultante de dois anos de pesquisa em campo junto a duas escolas da cidade de Uberlândia, em que estive focada na observação das experiências corporais de crianças, adolescentes e professores em interação em aulas de Teatro e em diferentes situações no contexto escolar. Uma perspectiva que entrelaça etnografia e fenomenologia conduziu os processos de observação e de escritura das descrições dos processos pedagógicos sobre os quais reflito. O enraizamento da investigação na noção de experiência corporal e de embodiment partiu especialmente da fenomenologia de Merleau-Ponty e das formulações do pesquisador Thomas Csordas, respectivamente. Tais noções foram férteis para dimensionar a compreensão das práticas teatrais na escola como experiências corporais frutos da intersubjetividade e intercorporalidade em que estamos imersos, como seres-no-mundo e num mundo cultural. As descrições dos processos acompanhados nas escolas partem dessas experiências intercorpóreas apontando para eixos estruturantes emergentes delas: corpo e espaço / corpo e matéria-materialidade; jogo e performatividade; derivas. Ao formulá-los, percebo outras emergências desde as experiências observadas: o embodiment como condição de existência e manifestação da complexidade da constituição dos corpos-pessoas de professores e estudantes; a abertura para as emergências como microconduta que pode orientar práticas do professor em ação na escola; a subversão dos vetores da interação como projeto político e pedagógico no campo das experiências estéticas de e desde os corpos. / This thesis presents the resulting reflection from two years of field research, which took place in two schools in the city of Uberlândia, and in which I\'ve been focused on observing the body experiences of children, teenagers and teachers while interacting in theater classes and in different situations of the school context. A perspective that entwines ethnography and phenomenology led the observation process as well as the writing of descriptions from the pedagogical processes which I reflect upon. The rooting of the investigation on the notion of corporeal experience and embodiment were inspired especially from Merleau-Ponty´s phenomenology and the formulations from the researcher Thomas Csordas, respectively. Such notions were fertile to scale the understanding of theatrical practices in school as body experiences born from the intersubjectivity and intercorporeality in which we are all immersed, as beingsin- world and a cultural world. The descriptions from the processes observed in the schools come from these intercorporeal experiences pointing to emerging structural axes: body and space / body and raw materiality; play and performativity; drifts. As I formulate them, I perceive other emergencies from the observed experiences: the embodiment as a condition of existence and manifestation of the complexity found in the bodies-people\'s constitution from teachers and students; opening for emergencies as microconduct - which can guide teacher´s practices in action at school; subversion of the interactional vectors as a political and pedagogical project in the field of aesthetic experiences of/and from the bodies.

Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo investigar possíveis relações entre o conto de tradição oral e os jogos teatrais, com a intenção de contribuir para a reflexão de perspectivas do ensino de teatro. Apoiada na sistematização dos jogos teatrais, proposta por Viola Spolin, investiguei a utilização do jogo em um processo de montagem de uma peça, seguindo o caminho indicado no livro O jogo teatral no livro do diretor. Para tanto, realizei experimento com um grupo de jovens do Ensino Médio, de uma escola estadual, na cidade de São Paulo, no ano de 2001. Este trabalho foi baseado em pesquisas sobre o conto e o ensino de teatro, bem como na experiência realizada com o grupo de alunos. / This research intends to check possible relationships between oral traditional short stories and the theatre games, with the intention to contribute to the reflection of perspectives of acting learning. Based on the theatre games systematization, proposed by Viola Spolin, I did an investigation about the use of games to stage a play, following the instructions of the book The theatre games in the directors book. For that, I did an experiment with a young group from a state high school in São Paulo city, during the year 2001. This work was based on researches about short stories and acting learning as well with the experiment performed with the young group.