A Note from the Editor

The impetus for this special issue of Theatre Topics—Theatre and/as Education—emerged from the disciplinary divides between theatre and education that I saw in my home institution, and in the fields of theatre and performance studies more generally.¹ Conversely, it also arose from the preponderance of other fields that have invoked theatre or performance as a pedagogical tool or method of study across the disciplines. This special issue of TT attempts, among other things, to acknowledge, locate, and challenge some of these divides, as well as to record some of the excellent interdisciplinary work that is being done with theatre pedagogy and (here, we may fill in the blank with any one of the contributions to follow) math, cognitive science, hip hop, religion, or activism.

To find the reasons for these divides, we must look no further than the cultural histories and present-day realities of ATHE and its two sponsored journals, TT and Theatre Journal. ATHE was founded in 1986 out of the ashes of the American Theatre Association (ATA). What was lost in this shift of name and institutional focus was a wide array of varying types of theatre (such as military theatre) and the communities who worked to create such genres, notably theatre educators for K-12 students. Instead, ATHE’s core membership was initiated from those who worked in higher education, but who, ironically, did not focus on theatre education as a topic of inquiry. The American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) was founded in 1987 (also partially due to the dissolution of ATA), and the two organizations grew along separate disciplinary paths over the ensuing decades.²

As Matt Omasta and Drew Chappell note in the essay that begins this special issue, such divides among theatre studies, performance studies, and theatre education exist disciplinarily, nationally, and in various other institutions beyond ATHE. Indeed, as they argue in their important contribution, “minor differences” create “major impacts” regarding who is published where and what type of content is given value in the field of theatre and performance (185). Their critiques of the implicit biases against theatre education among scholars of theatre and performance studies resonate for me both personally and at a professional level. At New York University—the location of not only a pioneering Department of Performance Studies, but also one of the only PhD programs in educational theatre—differing departments exist in differing schools; the faculty are charged by different deans, do differing kinds of research, and rarely engage in cross-departmental collaborations.

TJ, which was renamed from its earlier moniker Educational Theatre in 1979, established itself in contrast to its earlier title and subsequently moved away from including pedagogy as a relevant topic of inquiry. TT was founded in 1990, partially in response to this dearth of writing on pedagogy in its sibling ATHE-sponsored journal. However, due to the split that had already occurred institutionally with the shift away from ATA, TT has continued to have its own blind spot regarding Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA).

It is thus my pleasure that Roxanne Schroeder-Arce’s essay, “Seeking Culturally Responsive Pedagogical Practice: Teaching as Ally across Identity Markers in the University Setting,” is one of the first essays that TT has published on TYA. This contribution presents a timely response to Omasta and Chappell’s challenge to the journal to publish just this type of content. A fascinating account of a case study of And Then Came Tango, wherein a theatrical tour was banned due to homosexual content, Schroeder-Arce asks extremely insightful and nuanced questions of how we must position ourselves as allies to those in our classrooms who may not share our identity markers.

In her essay “Classroom Cons and Assigning Activism: Ethical Issues in Relational Pedagogy,” Kristin Hunt points to the ways that performance and performative theory can bring novel questions and approaches to a more traditional classroom setting. This important work of using performance as a methodological tool within a reframing of our teaching techniques is also engaged in deep ways by Jane Barnette in “Embracing the ‘Foggy Place’ of Theatre History: the Chautauqua/Colloquia...