Forum Theatre to hold 'Empowerment in Action' workshop

CAIRO – 18 October 2017: Forum Theatre in Zamalek will be holding a workshop titled "Empowerment in Action" on Friday, October 27.

“Empowerment in Action” is based on the Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal’s "Spec-tator" concept, which features the audience in a theater performance directly stopping a play to suggest what the characters should do next. Boal believed that audiences could participate within a play by offering solutions rather than being passive to what the actors/writers carried out on stage. This enabled audiences to take on the roles themselves, and consider what they would do to solve these issues.

The workshop will feature discussions on how this method of audience participation can help bridge the gap between theatre and personal lives, based on Boal’s theatrical concept titled "Theatre of the Oppressed," where theatre is used as a rehearsal for social change, and tools are provided to explore collective class struggles.