This thesis is an examination of rehearsal processes and aesthetic outcomes in community theatre practice. It is a qualitative study, focusing on a community theatre project in a small outer suburban primary school near Melbourne, Australia. The researcher is a highly involved reflective practitioner, taking on the multiple roles of researcher, community artist and community member. / At the heart of the thesis is a novella embodying a range of perspectives and experiences from the case study. / The study began with the questions: how is it possible for a community theatre project to satisfy the participants’ artistic and community needs and what are the factors which contribute to the achievement of these ends? The tension between the contrasting needs and experiences of different participants, ranging from theatrically trained artistic facilitators to the children who struggle to be heard, to the parents looking to connect with the school community, informed the study. The inevitable challenges and difficulties of the fieldwork propelled the study into a wider exploration of questions of community participation in the arts as a means of individual and collective expression and as an experience of cultural democracy. / Drawing on an extensive review of theoretical foundations underpinning the practice of community theatre, and a review of practice itself (both the researcher’s own and a range of exemplars), the study proposes an analysis of the key stages of development of community theatre practice. / This analysis has been synthesised into a Community Theatre Matrix. At the core of the matrix is the notion that collective community art-making takes place within an Engaged Space, where key elements of Artistry, Agency, Pedagogy, Pragmatics and Critical Reflection shape and inform the practice. Those who choose to participate in the collective art-making process become a temporary community of art-makers. / This Engaged Space is based on the conceptualisation of a ‘community aesthetic’ - participants engage in collective art-making processes predicated on an invitation to aesthetic and social engagement. Such a space is charged with the potential for a politicising experience as well as a community one. This new understanding is framed by an appreciation of the interplay between artistic invention (and intervention) and pedagogy. In order to give voice to the silent community, the artist employs the tools of emancipatory pedagogy along with modernist and post-modernist theatre understandings. / The thesis concludes with the proposition that community theatre offers individuals and communities the possibility of a shared experience of art-making and the social and artistic possibilities associated with ‘giving voice and being heard’.