Theater Workshop Gives Children of Military a Voice
College of Human Ecology Press Release
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
A dozen middle-school students take the stage this month, performing a play they created on a topic they know well: children of military families.
“Serving at Home” centers on Chloe, a teenage girl whose mother gets deployed. It also features Chloe’s younger sister and grandfather, creating a multi-generational focus. The play builds on the problems the family faces and the eventual breaking point.
The interactive theater workshop is the work of the School of Family Studies and Human Services, the Department of Speech Communication, Theater and Dance and members of the Manhattan community.
Giving youth a voice
“This project was done with great care,” said Sally Bailey, associate professor of speech communication, theater and dance.
“It has a strong but authentic message,” added Elaine Johannes, assistant professor of family studies and human services and Extension specialist in youth development.
Johannes and Bailey worked with Alissa Duncan, Registered Drama Therapist, to build the workshop.
Duncan, who has a master’s degree from K-State in drama therapy, said she wanted to create a script that got the thoughts of the kids across without sounding artificial.
The adolescents who volunteered for the workshop discussed the cycle of deployment — pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment. “They talked about the feelings they had and the issues they faced during these times. We brainstormed and improvised different scenes and eventually put those into a kind of order. This ended up becoming the basis for the play,” Duncan said.
Telling the truth
The resulting script is beautiful and the relationships are very real, Bailey said.
“The play shows adolescent anger, typical adolescent immaturity and much family love,” she added. “It’s not often that people who are going through an experience are asked to reflect on it, especially in an artistic medium.”
Johannes said she has been stunned by the way the interactive theater project has allowed the students to open up and have a voice. “It allows the children to express their emotions in a safe and creative way,” she said.
Topic seldom explored through art
“Through this process, I’ve learned that the family side of war isn’t something that’s really been explored in literature,” Bailey said. “For thousands of years, only the glory part of a soldier’s experience was explored and only recently has the traumatic side of that experience been explored. But, the family has usually been left out.”
After seeing the play and receiving feedback through the discussion, military, family development and community-action experts will brainstorm about what the community can do to aid the families, Johannes said.
Eventually, the project members will create a guide to serve as a resource that other communities could use when creating an interactive
theater group.
“I see this as a springboard for doing this work nationally. It is unique that we are tackling this difficult issue,” she said.
May stagings and sponsors
Performances are at 7:30 p.m. May 16 and 17 at the Manhattan Arts Center, 1520 Poyntz Ave. Bailey will lead discussion after the performances.
The play is free, but seating is limited and some content may not be appropriate for young children. More information is available by calling 785-532-1905 or 785-532-7720.
A National 4-H Headquarters/USDA and Army Child and Youth Services grant funded the Speak Out for Military Kids Interactive Theater project, part of K-State’s Operation Military Kids program that helps military-connected youth cope with the stress that often comes with dealing with a military relative who is deployed. Bronwyn Fees, associate professor, and Deb Sellers, assistant professor, also are members of the state project team.
Barrier-Free Theater book published
Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010
DRAMA THERAPIST’S NEW BOOK PROMOTES BARRIER-FREE THEATER
MANHATTAN — Sally Bailey, associate professor and director of the drama therapy program at Kansas State University, recently had her third book, “Barrier-Free Theatre,” published by Idyll Arbor. In the book Bailey shares her ideas, tips and anecdotes about making theater accessible to children and adults with disabilities. “If you do theater, but know nothing about disabilities, you’ll learn about them,” Bailey said. “If you know about disabilities, but not about how to facilitate drama, you’ll learn about that. I wanted to give all the building blocks so that people can take what they need. If you have no building blocks, with this book you have a whole kit.”
Bailey was first exposed to drama therapy and learned about accommodating people with disabilities when she worked for various arts programs in Washington, D.C. After becoming a registered drama therapist, she used her skills while working with recovering drug addicts at the rehabilitation facility Second Genesis, and with people with disabilities at Imagination Stage, a nonprofit arts center. She moved to Manhattan to head up K-State’s drama therapy master’s program in 1999. She also is the director of the Manhattan Parks and Recreation’s barrier-free theater. “By chance, one of the families whose children I had worked with in the D.C. area had moved to Manhattan and had talked the parks and rec department into creating a barrier-free program,” Bailey said. “They believed it was so important that every town should have one.”
Bailey’s new book is nearly a decade in the making. She said publishers could not understand who the audience was, but she knows that since 20 percent of people have some kind of disability, the audience is definitely there. “Drama can really level the playing field and allow many different people to work together,” Bailey said. “In the theater all people can express themselves and be creative as equals. Drama can be a part of more people’s lives if directors and teachers know how to include everyone.”
Ideas for Inclusive Playwriting
Think in terms of the strengths and talents of your actors – what do they do best?
INCORPORATE THEIR STRENGTHS AND INTERESTS INTO THE SCRIPT.
Think of ways to SIDE-STEP the WEAKNESSES of your actors.
- You can do this by not giving actors action or lines that you know would be difficult for them.
- Incorporate other actors into the scene who can help them (see ideas below).
CAST the play before you begin to write so you can pair up people who can help each other in different ways during the course of the play.
INCORPORATE SPECIAL TALENTS: - Playing an instrument,
- Dancing,
- Singing,
- Pantomime,
- Juggling,
- Magic Tricks,
- Telling jokes,
- Howling like a werewolf,
- Puppetry,
- Pratfalls, etc.
INCORPORATE wheelchairs and other devices into the play so there is a reason for the devices to be onstage: - Thrones,
- Carriages,
- Royal litters,
- Haywagons,
- Ambulances,
- Trucks,
- Cabs, etc.
• On the other hand, you don’t HAVE to have a rationale or excuse for a character to be in a wheelchair or to have another obvious disability – you can have that just be part of that character that is not even remarked upon in the play.
• Don’t let a device or a disability stop a character from doing what he or she needs to do in the play. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
IF A LINE IS DIFFICULT TO SAY, rewrite it:
- Use different words
- Change the order of the phrases
- Shorten the line
USING MEMORIZATION STRENGTHS:
• Use the natural speaking rhythms, phrasing, and vocabulary of your actors, especially if the script is based on their improvisations. If the lines are already in their words, speech, and thought patterns, they will be easier for actors to speak and remember.
• If you have an actor who is a good memorizer, have him or her ask questions in a scene to an actor who is not as good at memorization. It is easier to remember the answer to a question (especially since you know the answer from the script) than it is to remember a question.
• However, don’t have characters answer just “yes” or “no,” as they may become confused about which answer to say. Have answers be with specific Who, What, Where, and When information that relates clearly to the story and which can be more easily remembered.
• An actor who is a good memorizer can also handle the part of someone in authority, who gives orders.
• If an actor has a joke – make sure he/she understands the humor/meaning behind it, or he won’t be able to remember it.
• Incorporate reminders for actions and lines into the dialogue of actors who can memorize – make sure those reminders are phrased in positive terms. An actor with a cognitive disability will do what he or she is told to do, but can become confused if the hint is phrased in a negative way (For example, if you want an actor to go into a cave, a hint from another actor like, “Don’t go in there!” probably will be taken as a direction to not go in!).
If a line is phrased indirectly (“I wonder where we should go next?”) the actor being cued won’t be helped…because there is no hint in the line.
• Use a live or recorded narrator to structure the scene.
• Use music and/or sound effects to remind characters about entrances or exits or cue changes in the action within a scene.
• Incorporate video or film into your play. These scenes won’t have to be memorized. And they can be filmed as many times as you need in rehearsal until they are just right.
SIDESTEPPING problems with MEMORIZATION:
• A character like a TV interviewer, talk show host, doctor, or detective can have a clipboard of notes that can be referred to for the questions they might have to ask other characters. It looks realistic to incorporate the lines written on those props.
• Create groups of characters who work together onstage with at least one actor involved who has a good sense of direction and memorization. Everyone else can follow along and do their appropriate lines and actions if they have someone reliable to follow.
• In rehearsals encourage actors to improvise if they forget a line and to help fellow actors remember lines through asking them appropriate questions in character. Let them practice so they will be ready if it happens in performance.
SIDESTEPPING problems with actors who are NOT CLEAR SPEAKERS:
• Have another character repeat the line incredulously, pretending they understood what was said.
“I didn’t do it!”
“You didn’t do it? How do you expect me to believe that?”
or…more subtly…
“You expect me to believe that you didn’t do it?”
“I went to the store”
“Yes, I know you went to the store, but what did you buy there?”
• Have the actor who does not speak clearly play a foreign character who nobody in the play understands or play someone who always mutters under their breath. (Example: Swen Swenson, the Swedish cinematographer, has been hired because of his movie making talents, but he speaks no English. That’s ok because all he needs to understand to do his job is “Action” and “Cut.”)
There could be a legitimate reason why a character can’t speak. For instance:
- She is a professional mime,
- He has laryngitis because he yelled too loudly at the football game,
- She’s taken a vow of silence for religious reasons,
- He is refusing to speak because he is angry,
- Her voice was stolen by an evil wizard.
SIDESTEPPING problems with actors who CAN’T REMEMBER BLOCKING:
• Have the character teamed with a duo or trio of others who can remember blocking.
• Cast the actor a character who is a ruler or rich person who needs a personal assistant to be at his beck and call. (The personal assistant can be an actor who knows what to do and where to go and will be the one who is really in control, but will not look like it).
Acting for Fun: Drama with Older Adults
I was inspired by Gene Cohen’s longitudinal study on Creativity and Aging (Cohen, 2006), which showed improved physical, mental, and emotional functioning in elders who participated in weekly arts activities over the course of three years in three different American cities. Continue reading “Acting for Fun: Drama with Older Adults”
What is Drama Therapy?
Drama therapy applies techniques from theatre to the process of psychotherapeutic healing. Beginning in the early 20th-century drama was used by occupational therapists in hospitals and by social workers in community programs to teach clients social and emotional skills through performing in plays. Later in the 70s, these techniques were integrated with improvisation and process drama methods as the field emerged as a separate profession.
The focus in drama therapy is on helping individuals grow and heal by taking on and practicing new roles, creating new stories, and rehearsing new behaviors which can later be implemented in real life. Drama therapists have extended their applications beyond clinical contexts to enrich the lives of at-risk individuals, prevent problems, and enhance wellness of healthy people.
Drama and therapy have been natural partners for at least the last 350 centuries. Archeological evidence suggests that early humans began to make art – paintings, sculpture, music, dance, and drama – between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago at the same time they became capable of symbolic, metaphoric thought. From those early times, drama was incorporated into healing, religion, and the communication of culture from one generation to the next. That the arts have been connected to healing and meaning-making since their origins, shows how vitally important they are to health and civilization. In fact, research by Gene Cohen et al. (2005), James Pennebaker (1995), Helga and Tony Noice et al. (1999, 2004, 2008), and others are proving that participation in drama and the other arts enhances physical and mental health.
Drama and psychology are both the study of human behavior: you could say they are two sides of the same coin. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect, acknowledges this when he says, “Drama, psychology, and therapy share a basic goal of trying to find what is essential about human nature and try to use that knowledge to improve the quality of individual and collective life. When drama is good, it transmits knowledge about what is essential about people and between people” (Zimbardo, 1986). Psychology studies thoughts, emotions, and behavior; drama actively analyzes and presents the thoughts, emotions and behavior of characters for an audience to see and understand. Much of dramatic literature addresses the psychological, social, and cultural conditions of humanity and, thus, serves as a natural vehicle for actually helping real people more consciously address their problems.
Just as psychotherapy uses talking to treat clients who have difficulties with their thoughts, emotions and behavior, drama therapy uses informal drama processes (games, improvisation, storytelling, role play) and products (puppets, masks, plays/performances) to help clients understand their thoughts and emotions better or to improve their behavior. However, unlike most types of therapy which rely purely on talking, drama therapy relies on taking action. This creates for the client an embodied, concrete experience of the issues being explored, making them easier to understand and change.
Because there are so many forms that drama, drama therapy is a very broad field, including many different approaches and techniques. This allows the drama therapist to intentionally adjust to the right emotional distance needed by the client, based on the client’s goals and needs in the moment. The metaphor I like to use is to say there is a big “Drama Therapy Pie,” which can be cut into many smaller slices. The slices of the pie below represent only a few of the more well-known drama therapy approaches in order to provide a general idea of the variety available; it is not exhaustive.
Within the pie are two different directional continuums. The up to down continuum ranges from fictional enactments to ones which are more true-to-life. Fictional work (drama games, improvisation, role play, Sociodrama, Developmental Transformations, rituals, masks, puppets, and some types of performance) allows clients to pretend to be characters different from themselves. This can expand their role repertoires (the number of types of roles that can be accessed for use in real life) or can allow clients to explore a similar role to those they usually play under the guise of “not-me-but-someone-like-me.” Non-fictional work (Psychodrama, Playback Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, ethnodrama, and autobiographical performance) allow clients to explore their lives directly. Clients need to have good ego strength to be able to do non-fiction work.
The left to right continuum ranges from presentational enactments (presented for an audience) to process-oriented ones (done just for the group). Methods like Playback Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, and the performance of plays are presentation, while methods like drama games, improvisation, role play, Developmental Transformations, Sociodrama, and Psychodrama are process-oriented. Other methods, such as puppets, masks, rituals, can be used as part of performance or as process techniques within a therapy session.
Imagine that underneath the pie is a plate. That plate represents Renee Emunah’s Five Phase Model of Drama Therapy (1994), which guides the growth and process of a drama group from the time they start as complete strangers to the time they end their work together. Different phases pull activities from different slices of the pie.
Drama therapy is primarily conducted in groups, although there are practitioners who use it in individual, couples, or family practice. Drama therapy can be found in a wide variety of settings, used with many kinds of clients. Most clients who benefit from talk therapy can benefit from drama therapy and some populations who have difficulty verbalizing, like individuals with autistic spectrum disorders or people recovering from trauma respond well to drama therapy, too.
For some populations, the action methods of drama therapy are more effective. Recovering substance abusers are notorious for being disconnected from their feelings, for making up endless excuses (called rationalizations) for their behavior, and for “being in denial” about their addiction and addictive behaviors. Drama therapy bypasses the excuses and denial, getting right to the maladaptive behavior. Other types of groups — for instance, nonverbal clients or children – who aren’t good candidates for verbal therapy – can often participate successfully in drama, because they can show, rather than tell, how they feel.
Depending on the goals and needs of the client, the drama therapist chooses a method (or several) that will achieve the desired combination of understanding, emotional release, and learning of new behavior.
See Key Principles and Applications for more.
© Copyright Sally D. Bailey, Registered Drama Therapist. All Rights Reserved.
Social & Recreational Settings
One of my first drama therapy jobs was to create an arts access program for children with special needs at a non-profit community arts center in suburban Maryland. I integrated students with disabilities into regular drama classes and productions by helping teachers identify ways to make adaptations and accommodations that leveled the playing field. I created programming in special education classrooms for teaching social skills, self-expression, or an aspect of the curriculum. Theatre companies comprised of adolescent actors with and without disabilities created original plays dramatizing their own ideas. Some of this work could be categorized as educational drama, some as therapeutic drama, some as drama therapy, some mixed them all together.
The performing troupes were originally designed to be venues for disabled actors to explore issues of difference and to provide awareness education to non-disabled audiences. However, my actors had different ideas. They told me right off that they were sick of thinking about their disabilities because they had to deal with them “24-7.” They wanted to explore issues that were universal to adolescents like rebellion, responsibility, growing up, falling in love, being rejected, friendship and family. We created many plays together through improvisation. Each play became a metaphor for exploring their struggles, allowing them to fictionally explore and express their concerns, hopes, and dreams. Each rehearsal process became a laboratory for the development of better social skills, flexibility, responsibility, self-discipline, communication abilities, and the development of higher self-esteem.
Making Connections, a play about a video dating service, provided opportunities to explore appropriate dating behavior, first impressions, and unfair assumptions. During our improvisations, we explored all the WRONG ways to behave on a date and all the right ways. We practiced what information is appropriate to reveal to someone you just met and what is inappropriate. We role-played anxious, overprotective parents waiting for their daughter to come home from a date and laid-back, gentle ones. In the play that resulted, one couple arranges to go on a date based on viewing each other’s video interviews, but the girl doesn’t reveal that she uses a wheelchair until they meet outside the restaurant. She wants to be chosen for her personality, not rejected on the basis of her disability. Her date has to get past his expectations of what he thought she would be like. Another girl chooses a guy who, unbeknownst to her, turns out to be a foot shorter than she is. At first, she is horrified, but later learns that he’s a wonderful person, no matter what his height.
Making Connections was later turned into an educational video for the purpose of modeling social and dating behavior to young people with disabilities and their parents. It won Honorable Mention in several video/film competitions, was shown on WETA, the PBS station in Washington, DC, and for many years was marketed by Choices, Inc., a non-profit that sponsors educational videos for people with developmental disabilities. In the course of this adventure, the actors got to “film on location” and learned about acting “in the movies.” They had a chance to share their ideas and what they learned during our rehearsal process with a much larger audience. Self-esteem sky-rocketed when people who saw them on TV came up to tell them how wonderful their “movie” was and to ask for their autographs!
Parents report that the dramatic experiences their young people had in our performing companies helped them develop a greater level of independence, responsibility, and self-discipline than their peers who didn’t participate in drama. Most of my former actors are now middle-aged adults holding down full-time jobs and living independently in apartments. One job coach at a school-to-work transition program confided he could always tell which of his clients had been actors of mine: they had more self-confidence, better communication skills, and the self-discipline necessary for succeeding in the world of work.
© Copyright Sally D. Bailey, Registered Drama Therapist. All Rights Reserved.
Corrections Settings
Correctional facilities (prisons, forensic units, and juvenile detention centers) offer long-term opportunities for work with clients, but within systems that more often are focused on punishment than therapeutic intervention. Therapists of all kinds express frustration at their attempts to create behavioral change in institutions of this kind. However, drama therapists love the challenge of working with these clients.
Brandon Brawner, RDT, worked for many years in San Francisco prisons using video techniques. Inmates created characters and stories that expressed their concerns about their personal struggles or group issues and enacted their concerns about their personal struggles on video. Some are highly fictional: in one short film, based on the television show Star Trek, a group of prisoners is transported to the USS Enterprise to get help with anger management skills from Captain Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew. Other films are psychodramatic: a prisoner acts out what his journey home might be like after his release and faces the temptations of “old friends” who want to entice him back into a life of crime. Brandon also worked with ex-convicts, helping them explore their struggles to “go straight” once they are released.
There is a drama therapy program currently being run by Barbara Wiebe, RDT, at the North Texas State Hospital forensic unit in Vernon, Texas, for clients who have committed crimes but have been found not competent to stand trial because of mental illness. These clients are manifestly dangerous to themselves and others. Drama groups at NTSH can meet as often as three times per week, developing basic social interaction skills and self-expression through movement and simple drama games. They use role play, masks, performance, and very simplified Playback Theatre to work on therapeutic issues relating to anger management, substance abuse, and coping mechanisms.
In Lebanon, Zeina Daccache, RDT-BCT has worked with men in Roumieh Prison (pictured at the top of this page) and with women in a women’s prison. 12 Angry Lebanese, the Documentary is a moving film of her work in Roumieh as she worked on a production of 12 Angry Men. She followed these up with other documentaries on the women’s prison, Scherazade in Baabda, with clients who were mentally ill and in prison (The Blue Inmates), and others. These documentaries have played in commercial houses and won a number of awards at international film festivals
© Copyright Sally D. Bailey, Registered Drama Therapist. All Rights Reserved.