Theatre for Development

Theatre for Development (TfD) means live performance, or theater used as a development tool—as in international development. TfD encompasses the following in-person activities, with people before an audience:

Theater for development can also be defined as a progression from less interactive theatre forms to a more dialogical process, where theatre is practiced with the people or by the people as a way of empowering communities, listening to their concerns, and then encouraging them to voice and solve their own problems.

For Kabaso Sydney (2013) as reflected in "Theatre for Development in Zambia" is defined as "modes of theatre whose objective is to disseminate messages, or to conscientize communities about their objective social political situation" (1993:48). And Penina Mlama, referring to the enterprise as Popular Theatre, describes its aims briefly as follows: …it aims to make the people not only aware of but also active participants in the development process by expressing their viewpoints and acting to better their conditions. Popular theatre is intended to empower the common man with a critical consciousness crucial to the struggle against the forces responsible for his poverty. (1991:67)

Theatre for Development can be a kind of participatory theatre, that encourages improvisation and audience members to take roles in the performance, or can be fully scripted and staged, with the audience observing. Many TfD productions are a mix of the two. "Theatre of the Oppressed" (TO), a technique created by Augusto Boal is a form of community-based theatre.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations and initiatives have used theatre as a development tool: for education or propaganda, as therapy, as a participatory tool, or as an exploratory tool in development. An account of an early use of TfD is the thesis Theater as a Means of Moral Education and Socialization in the Development of Nauvoo, Illinois, 1839-1845, which recounts how theater was used to promote ideological and civil development in a religious community in the US (Hurd 2004).

In usual performances there are actors on stage and spectators who watch the play. With ‘usual plays’ it is meant the Eurocentric way that was long seen as the only ‘right’ way to do theatre all over the world, especially by the former European rulers of colonized countries. In e.g. African or Asian countries different forms of theatre were and still are very common in the sense of bringing information to the people in an oral way. Thus, different theatre traditions developed worldwide and re-lived in colonized countries after independence, whilst in rural areas they were even common during colonization. By now these times are over, and development communication got a very important topic, thus it seems perfect to make up still living traditions through participative theatre methods. First of all it is very important for actors and organisers of the performance or TfD-project to get to know the society and the problems people face. Therefore, the play that is going to be performed and worked with has to be developed with local people, who know cultural behaviors and social problems of the society. Moreover, it is very helpful to have local authority persons and opinion leaders in the team of a TfD-project, whom the regional society listens to and trusts. In this way it is even possible to take advantage of the knowledge that locals have about best dates for performances or even to advertise for the ongoing TfD-performance.

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Wikipedia