The term 'applied drama' and 'applied theatre' gained currency during the 1990s, finding particular favour with academics, theatre practitioners and policy-makers who have used them as a kind of shorthand to describe forms of dramatic activity that primarily exist outside conventional mainstream theatre institutions, and which are specifically intended to benefit individuals, communities and societies.
Included in the portmanteau of applied drama/theatre are practices as diverse as, for example, drama education and theatre in education, theatre in health education, theatre for development, theatre in prisons, community theatre, heritage theatre and reminiscence theatre.
Each of these forms of theatre has its own theories, debates and highly specialised practices which often are rather different from one another. They also draw on research in different branches of philosophy and the social sciences, notably cultural studies, cultural geography, education, psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as contributing to research in drama, theatre and performance studies.
In other words, applied drama and theatre are interdisciplinary and hybrid practices.
Drama practitioners have been working in educational, therapeutic and community settings for many years, but the emergence of the terms 'applied drama', 'applied theatre', and sometimes 'applied performance' signals a renewed interest in the professionalisation of these fields and in reviewing common theoretical and political concerns which accompany their various practices.
Because applied drama and applied theatre are relatively new terms, there is no real consensus about how they are used. Descriptions of higher education courses in applied drama and theatre reveal different inflections and interpretations. The Central School of Speech and Drama in London describes the practice of applied theatre as 'intervention, communication, development, empowerment and expression when working with individuals or specific communities.'
This tone is echoed by the Drama Department at the University of Manchester, where there is a further emphasis on the politics of space and dispossession in their commitment to apply theatre to 'non-traditional spaces and marginalised communities'.
In Australia, the international online journal Applied Theatre Researcher is more politically eclectic, describing applied theatre as 'theatre and drama in nontraditional contexts-theatre in the community, theatre in lifelong education and learning'.
The New Zealand Ministry of Education is more policydriven, claiming that applied theatre is 'part of the wider discipline of Drama in Education' and that it involves work 'in business, corporate and community settings'.
What is evident here is not only the different values and aspirations of the institutions and practitioners involved in applied drama but the wide range of dramatic practices with which they are accompanied.
One of the common features of these many different facets of applied drama-theatre is, as Judith Ackroyd has pointed out, its intentionality-specifically an aspiration to use drama to improve the lives of individuals and create better societies.
Ackroyd, who includes both process-oriented and performance practices in her description of applied theatre, helpfully sums up the common beliefs of many different practitioners in the field.
From which year, applied drama and applied theatre gained currency?
