Applied Theatre and Drama refers to theatre techniques used as an active learning tool in academic, community, and corporate settings. It also generally applies to social justice theater work.
Applied Theatre can help teachers stimulate students’ creative thinking, intercultural competencies, and other needed skills for the 21st century.
We provide a focus for interdisciplinary investigation. Want to discuss a potential theatre application in your own field? Please contact Suzanne Burgoyne burgoynes@missouri.edu
Our Mission
The Center for Applied Theatre and Drama Research works to practice, research, and advocate for the use of theatre techniques as active learning methods for non-theatre disciplines and social justice issues.
We welcome interested individuals and groups to join us on this adventure.
What We Do
U.S. educational systems still largely emulate the factory model developed for the industrial age. Universities are teaching students for the past, not the future. Active learning techniques have proven more beneficial than lecture, yet the lectures drone on. Theater based teaching techniques can break this old model.
Actors, directors, designers learn by doing, not just listening. As theatre artists and teachers, we have developed exercises through which students make discoveries about the world and themselves. We have researched the use of theater techniques in teaching creativity, communicating science, and appreciating diversity. Theatre practice brings mind, body, and feelings together to make learning meaningful.