For GCSE and A level Drama students. Choose a local issue, and devise a short piece of political theatre about it.
Students usually meet political theatre by studying someone else’s. In this workshop they make their own.
Theatre for Democracy has run for over twenty years with young people, residents and councils across England and Wales. Groups pick an issue that matters to them, turn it into performance, and show it to an audience that includes the people who make decisions about it. The performance gives the argument a physical life, and the audience has to respond to it.
Your students go through a short version of that process. They choose the issue, devise the scenes and decide what the audience needs to see.
In My Town turns what students notice about where they live into a choral poem, and then into an issue worth arguing about.
Still images and short scenes show where the tension actually sits.
Cracking the Claims and The Argument Engine separate what students feel from what they can support.
An Action Lab puts three characters with different, defensible goals in one room, and the group plays the conflict out instead of solving it.
Groups perform short devised pieces. On a full day, to an invited audience: a head, a governor, a local councillor.
Listening, building on offers, side-coaching each other, and disagreeing inside a company without falling out. It also counts towards the civic strand of enrichment.
Year 10 to 13 Drama and Theatre students. It also works for youth theatres, student councils and student voice groups.
| Format | Fee |
|---|---|
| Half-day workshop (one group, up to 30) | from £400 |
| Full-day workshop with sharing (one group, up to 30) | from £600 |
Staff are welcome to take part, and a staff twilight can be added on the same visit. Delivered in your school, anywhere in the UK. Travel charged at cost. Prices exclude VAT.
Drama games for statutory primary citizenship, for teachers who have never taught it.
How to let students argue about real politics and stay inside impartiality guidance.
Four practical principles for discussions that won’t start, won’t stop, or turn personal.