Making and Creating Documentary Theatre was a zoom Professional Learning event that offered a great opportunity for educators to gain an understanding of the creative work of artist Roslyn Oades. Roslyn’s innovative work in the area of headphone verbatim and audio-driven performance projects provided an insight into her documentary theatre process.
Roslyn discussed her collaborative work with Windmill Artistic Director Rosemary Myers, Resident Designer Jonathon Oxlade and Fleur Elise Noble on Windmill’s upcoming production of Creation Creation for the Dream Big Children’s Festival. Creation Creation involved interviewing 50 people between the ages of 4 and 102 to ask them what big mystery they would like an answer to and asks them to attempt to answer these big questions. Roslyn conducted the interviews and expertly weaved the audio from these together to create a 50-minute soundtrack to the show to which the actors on stage react to the audio through a mix of performance and visual art. Roslyn calls this type of work ‘documentary theatre’.
The workshop lead participants through a discussion with Roslyn about documentary theatre. Participants asked in-depth questions and also shared projects that highlighted interesting work around local stories within school sites and communities.
Roslyn offered suggestions about integrating documentary theatre into the classroom and what it might look like. Participants also had takeaway resources in the form of a study guide to integrate into a variety of classroom settings.
Learning participants identified when they registered that they wanted to experience included:
New skills and understanding.
learning techniques and process from an artist and theatre-maker.
knowledge about documentary theatre
Activities to implement into teaching documentary theatre for senior students
Resources to structure students finding materials for documentary theatre
New ideas for Extra-curricular drama
New Skills and knowledge about Documentary Theatre from a theatre-maker
Insight into documentary theatre and it's connection to SACE.
Stage 2 students are doing documentary theatre for AT2 skills task.
New ideas
Information and learning
I just want to keep my professional learning fresh and current
Looking at putting on a community production to celebrate our lighthouse turning 150
Personal insight into process of documentary theatre
Ideas for year 7 and year 8 arts.
