Busby, Selina and McNamara, Catherine (2013) A Theatre for Social Justice Project in the UK. In: Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre. Theater in the Americas . Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, pp. 174-185. ISBN 9780809332380

Abstract

This essay explores a collaborative Theatre for Social Justice project that took place in London, United Kingdom, in 2008 and involved fifty participants. The key question we ask is, What are the key challenges when bringing student and community participants together to create theatre? We will start by outlining the nature of the international collaboration and then will unpack some of the tensions that emerged during the process of making a play and in relation to the play as product of the process. We will conclude by considering to what extent we were successful in creating quality art and effective theatre, playfully questioning whether this project was a creative success or a site of carnage.