The Geese Theatre Handbook

Explains the thinking behind the Geese Theatre Company's approach to applied drama with offenders and people at risk of offending, including young people. It also contains over 100 exercises with explanations, instructions, and suggestions to help practitioners develop their own style and approach. The materials can be readily adapted to other settings including conflict resolution, restorative justice and interpersonal skills training.

Explains the thinking behind the company's approach to applied drama with offenders and people at risk of offending, including young people. Contains 100+ exercises with explanations, instructions and suggestions.

A play in two Acts with an Introduction by the author. The story of John 'Babbacombe' Lee is one of the most bizarre in English criminal history. Lee is the only person to have been reprieved by a Home Secretary after standing on a gallows trap which failed to open. This happened at Exeter Prison in 1885 when the notoriously inept public hangman James Berry gave up after three abortive attempts. Lee spent 22 years in prison before being released. On retirement, Berry from Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, who carried out 134 executions, was the first executioner to write about his experiences in My Experiences As An Executioner. His resulting celebrity led to him taking to the boards, spinning gruesome tales of his former trade and showing audiences his dark souvenirs. Michael Crowley's imaginative play is set in a down-at-heel northern music hall where the proprietor is bent on reviving the venue's glory days by persuading the now released Lee to team up with Berry in a double act. Did John Lee commit the murder for which he was due to hang? Did poetic justice intervene on that fateful day in Exeter to prevent a miscarriage of justice? Will Lee stand on the scaffold once again with the noose around his neck, on stage and for the paying public? And will the truth come out or not as Lee begins to confide in the woman designated as leading lady during rehearsals? 'The Man They Couldn't Hang' by prison writer in residence Michael Crowley is an ideal vehicle for raising issues of crime and punishment. It will be particularly useful for drama groups in and out of prison, and tutors or group leaders seeking innovative ways of involving those they work with in issues of criminal justice and crime and punishment. The play is also suitable for full-scale drama productions.

The Applied Theatre Reader is the first book to bring together new case studies of practice by leading practitioners and academics in the field and beyond, with classic source texts from writers such as Noam Chomsky, bell hooks, Mikhail Bakhtin, Augusto Boal, and Chantal Mouffe. This book divides the field into key themes, inviting critical interrogation of issues in applied theatre whilst also acknowledging the multi-disciplinary nature of its subject. It crosses fields such as: theatre in educational settings prison theatre community performance theatre in conflict resolution and reconciliation interventionist theatre theatre for development. This collection of critical thought and practice is essential to those studying or participating in the performing arts as a means for positive change.

At age 14, author Justin Rollins went from being a bullied child to the leader of The Warriorz, a group of London street kids involved in graffiti tagging and other crimes, including a series of violent encounters. Eventually given a substantial custodial sentence for an attack with a meat cleaver in the London Underground, Rollins became determined to steer other young people away from such a life. The Lost Boyz tells the story of Rollins' descent into a form of madness, in which self-destruction, anger, wanton behavior, and fear reside at the core. Never has a book taken the reader so far inside the minds of troubled youths who gradually realize that there is no easy escape from their chaotic lifestyle. Their need - to gain respect from and stay credible with each other - stems from offending, alienation, living on the margins of society, and crazy behavior, all of which serve as barriers to rejoining the normal world and going straight. The book contains countless lessons for young

This book examines the history, ethics, and intentions of staging personal stories and offers theatre makers detailed guidance and a practical model to support safe, ethical practice. Contemporary theatre has crossed boldly into therapeutic terrain and is now the site of radical self-exposure. Performances that would once have seemed shockingly personal and exposing have become commonplace, as people reveal their personal stories to audiences with ever-increasing candor. This has prompted the need for a robust and pragmatic framework for safe, ethical practice in mainstream and applied theatre. In order to promote a wider range of ethical risk-taking where practitioners negotiate blurred boundaries in safe and artistically creative ways, this book draws on relevant theory and practice from theatre and performance studies, psychodrama and attachment narrative therapy and provides detailed guidance supporting best practice in the theatre of personal stories. The guidance is structured within a four-part framework focused on history, ethics, praxis, and intentions. This includes a newly developed model for safe practice, called the Drama Spiral. The book is for theatre makers in mainstream and applied theatre, educators, students, researchers, drama therapists, psychodramatists, autobiographical performers, and the people who support them.

Building on Robert J. Landy's seminal text, Handbook of Educational Drama and Theatre, Landy and Montgomery revisit this richly diverse and ever-changing field, identifying some of the best international practices in Applied Drama and Theatre. Through interviews with leading practitioners and educators such as Dorothy Heathcote, Jan Cohen Cruz, James Thompson, and Johnny Saldaña, the authors lucidly present the key concepts, theories and reflective praxis of Applied Drama and Theatre. As they discuss the changes brought about by practitioners in venues such as schools, community centres, village squares and prisons, Landy and Montgomery explore the field's ability to make meaning of a vast range of personal and social issues through the application of drama and theatre.

An explanation of the way in which the study of art can act as a trigger for change in prisoners. This stimulating work is based on conversations with artists - including people in prison or who were once imprisoned. It charts the importance of creative activity as an instrument of personal change. As the author is compelled to say: Individuals can, and do, change. If there is a message in these stories, this is it: we need to listen, understand and act upon it. The physical walls around prisons must not become mental walls keeping us from understanding the worlds of those within. We are all members of the society that builds the prison walls.