1. Songs from “In the Heights”; aTony-AwardWinning Musical about life in
the barrios of NYC

2.  Political Activism
 Reflection of Natural and Cultural Identities
 Social Reform
 Helped Kick-start Community-Based Theatre
 Usually Interactive

4.  Augusto Boal
 Wanted to transform theatre from a monologue to a
dialogue between audience and actors (Boal believed a
dictatorship was similar to a monologue, and that
government, like the theatre, should be a dialogue.)
 1971
 Brazil
 Beginning Goal: To deal with local problems
 Originally called “Newspaper Theatre”

5.  Interactive
 “Difficultator” or “Joker”
 “Spec-actors”
 Over 200 Theatre Games
 Usually done outside, in public places
 Now being done in regular theatres as well
 Inspired by Brecht
 Began in Brazil, now all over the world

6.  “They are devised to help anyone to make a theatrical scene
using a piece of news from a newspaper, or from any other
written material, like reports of an political meeting, texts
from the Bible, from the Constitution of a country, the
Declaration of Human Rights, etc.”
 Re-enacting current events, etc.
 Cause revolution, spark curiosity, spread knowledge, etc.

7.  “Words are emptinesses that fill the emptiness (vacuum)
that exists between one human being and another. Words
are lines that we carve in the sand, sounds that we sculpt in
the air. We know the meaning of the word we pronounce,
because we fill it with our desires, ideas and feelings, but we
don’t know how that word is going to be heard by each
listener.”
 Participants engage in body positions in space individually or
in groups that reflect the “sculptors” feelings about a
situation or oppression.

8.  “Music is the organization of sound in time; plastic arts, the
organization of colors and lines in the space; theatre, the
organization of human actions in time and space. Theatre is a
representation and not a reproduction of social reality. “
 Begins with a rehearsed scene in which protagonist in a
situation of oppression fights against an antagonist and
then fails. “Spec-actors” are then invited on stage by the
“Joker” to deal with the problem in a different way, and the
scene is played out again. The audience and actors then
discuss the presented solution, and any other possible
solutions.

9.  Occurs after a Forum Session
 Audience and actors create a “Chamber” where they
proceed with a “law-making” session in which they approve
or disapprove the “Spec-actor’s” actions. Possible laws
associated with these events are developed. These laws are
then proposed to actual lawmakers where they can be
approved.
 Kind of like a “Civilian Senate”

10.  “To be a citizen does not mean merely to live in society, but to transform it. If
I transform the clay into a statue, I become a Sculptor; if I transform the
stones into a house, I become an architect; if I transform our society into
something better for us all, I become a citizen.”
 “INVISIBLE THEATRE is the penetration of fiction into reality and of reality
into fiction, which helps us to see how much fiction exists in reality, and how
much reality exists in fiction.”
 Goal: to spark debate, bring to light issues in the society that must be
confronted and solved
 A play that is performed in a public space without informing anyone that it is
a piece of fiction.
 Will never be violent

11. -”Cops in our Head”: inner oppression of emotions, an event, etc.
-A kind of psychotherapy in which a participant presents a situation that has
greatly affected them, and the “Spec-actors” act it out in physical gesture,
presenting both sides of the story
-Explores the conflicting emotions in all parties

12.  Luis Valdez
 1965 during the Delano Grape Strike
 “Farm workers’ Theatre”
 Originally performed on flatbed trucks in fields
 For and about the lives of migrant workers,
specifically those in the United Farm Workers
union
 Often reflected actual events in the lives of their
workers
 Performed by migrant workers
 Raised awareness and money for strikers

13.  “Actos” : Short satirical skits that portrayed
the struggles of the farm workers, improvised
with stock characters to reflect the
community in the audience
 “Mitos”: poetic, lyrical plays about Chicano
life

14.  Became a production company in 1980
 Critical acclaim enabled Valdez to write Zoot
Suit –play based on the actual riots in Los
Angeles
 Beginning of the “Chicano Theatre”
movement in the U.S.
 Still around today

15.  Inspired by Cuba’s Teatro Escambray that used
propaganda and participatory techniques to
help get peasants ready for the
collectivization planned by the regime
 Goal of applying socialist politics to
community development
 Began in Mexico, but spread all over Central
and South America
 Critique of government, social change,
theatre of revolution

16.  Drew from Brecht theatre and politics (Including
the work of Boal!)
 Many of the same actors/directors worked in
different nation-states because they were often
exiled for speaking out against government
 Funding from international NGOs
 Conducted research on social and economic
conditions of their audiences
 Wanted as much audience feedback as possible

17. -Derives ideas from Nuevo Teatro Popular and
other theatres like it
-About dialogue between artist and spectator
-However, it grows out of a commitment to a
community or social group rather than
revolutionary action
-Empowers some groups, while
ignoring/limiting others
-Example: Play about problems in Houston;
written for and about the culture here