Community theatre
Community theatre
The term is a broad one, used in a variety of senses, but basically refers to performances made by, with, and for a particular community. , and the products are often driven by socio-political and educational imperatives, stressing its use to involve and address performers and audiences alienated by, or disenfranchised from, the conventional amateur and commercial theatre, and often with an emphasis on devised or improvised work, deriving from, based on and addressing the problems, needs and issues that pertain in that particular community.
The concept emerged as an integral part of the radical theatre movements in the 1960s, when theatre was in an attempt to attract a wider and more disparate audience and to createa forum in which subjects ignored by mainstream drama could be debated.
The concept is to be distingusihed form convenional amateur theatre, though participants could include ordinary citizens, as well as Amateur, Semi- Professional or Professional actors, facilitators, choreographers, directors and so on.
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_theatre
Community Theatre in South Africa
Community theatre became a widely used term in the 1980-2000 period, but one which has never been satisfactorily defined (see Community Theatre above). In South Africa the term is used in a range of meaning stretching from something approximating the older concept of amateur theatre (i.e. local theatre lovers who do plays for a hobby) to socio-politically committed organisations (often NGO’s) intent on involving and conscientizing the particular community. This range exists not only in the vocabulary of the critics and scholars, but in that of the practitioners themselves. Under the new legislation and practices following on the 1996 White Paper on Arts Culture and Heritage, the latter definition of a community theatre as one which has an educational and social obligations within particular communities (and thus has access to earmarked funding for these purposes), has gained credence and is argued strongly by a number of practitioners and critics. (Cf Kruger, 1999). However, much of the argument seems to be negative, divisive and oppositional, tending to define it by attacking the shortcomings of amateur, professional, art, serious, etc forms of theatre, rather than indicating in what way community theatre is a distinctive form in itself (if there is indeed a single defineable entity one might designate “community theatre”). Given the shape of the theatrical system from the 1990’s onward, with its base in non-conventional venues, eclectic performance forms and festivcal circuit, such nitpicking appears a little gratuitous, and for the general public the distinctions are far less clear and make little difference to what they go to see and support. * EXPAND
See also
Amateur Theatre in South Africa
Community Theatre for Development Trust
South African National Community Theatre Association
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