There is no one-size-fits-all way to keep pace with the changes affecting students and those who educate them. That’s why Joan Lazarus has gathered here the insights of hundreds of theater teachers and teaching artists on how they have responded to the shifting demands of theater education in today’s schools. She paints a portrait of active, dynamic professionals who build vibrant programs and confront challenges in a variety of ways—from inclusive, interactive lessons to comprehensive programs that address the impact of poverty, race, gender, and spirituality on students’ lives. In the process, she shows how real teachers bring about real change. An accessible and up-to-date guide to best practices in theater education, this expanded and revised edition encompasses new hands-on activities—drawn from the author’s in-depth interviews and research. "This is an accessible guide to contemporary theatre education practice in the United States. In seven chapters this book encompasses interviews from 140 drama teachers. This is one of its greatest strengths, we not only hear the voice of the author, who defines and analyses modern drama education practice with an intention to continually reinvent it; but also she shares the views of many professional colleagues from differing backgrounds." ― Dramatherapy "Lazarus is a veteran theatre educator and a leading voice in rethinking secondary school theatre education. . . . The wisdom in this book has great potential to make a huge impact on the training of North American secondary school theatre teachers, both new and experienced. " ― Theatre Research in Canada, on the first edition "This book should be put in the hands of every person who has the inclination and opportunity to make theatre with young people. It is a 'must-have' in theatre-training institutions." -- Julia Perlowski, Reba R. Robinson Outstanding Secondary School Drama Educator Joan Lazarus is professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, where she heads the BFA Theatre Studies Program and works with graduate students in youth theater, theater education, and related fields. Signs of Change New Directions in Theatre Education By Joan Lazarus Intellect Ltd Copyright © 2012 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-84150-629-6 Contents Foreword to the Revised and Amplified Edition by Lin Wright, Foreword to the First Edition by Jo Beth Gonzalez, Acknowledgements, Introduction: A Yearning for Change, Chapter 1: Signs of Change and the Need for Change, Chapter 2: Learner-Centered Practice, Chapter 3: Socially Responsible Practice, Chapter 4: Comprehensive Theatre Education, Chapter 5: Theatre Education Outside the Box, Chapter 6: Breaking the Mold: Best Practice in Theatre Teacher Education, Chapter 7: On the Frontier of Change: Visions for the Field, Works Cited, Index, CHAPTER 1 Signs of Change and the Need for Change The engaged voice must never be fixed and absolute but always changing, always evolving in dialogue with a world beyond itself. bell hooks The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them. Albert Einstein I think I have been writing this book my whole life. From as early as I can remember, I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to change the world, to make the world better. I also was enthralled by theatre and its power to capture and convey feelings and ideas as big and powerful as my feelings and ideas seemed to be. Now, years after I began teaching, I am still yearning for change in theatre and education. This book explores the convergence of a passion for teaching and a love of theatre as it bears upon the education of young people in middle school and high school. It is a collection of effective practices used by a small but growing number of veteran and novice educator-artists who are deeply committed to their work. Though the perspectives of professional theatre artists, administrators, students, scholars, and university theatre education professors are included, the voices in this book are primarily those of middle school and high school theatre teachers. Each of these professionals works at the intersection of artmaking and education, of process and product, of knowing and doing, of teaching and learning. They are in the business of bringing about change in the lives of individual students as well as in their schools and communities. They are pioneers evolving their practice of theatre education in their own frontiers of change, their classrooms. This book is but a glimpse at the imaginative, forward-looking work being undertaken by dynamic theatre teachers in urban, rural, and suburban settings throughout the country. I welcome you as another pioneer moving toward a new, or perhaps, recycled, practice of theatre education. It was really good to contemplate the positiv