Theatre as Pedagogy, Act 1
Victoria Rue is a professor, author, playwright, theatre director and workshop leader, and Roman Catholic womanpriest. She has taught at San Jose State University from 2004 to the present in Comparative Religious Studies and Women’s Studies. In the Fall of 2018 she will be at Dar Al Calamar University College in Arts and Culture (http://www.daralkalima.edu.ps/en) Palestine as a Fulbright Scholar. For Rue learning is an encounter with the self and others, and theatre is a way to engage the whole person in critical thinking and engaging stories. She uses theatre as a way to teach cooperation, community building and somatic learning (embodied pedagogy). Through theatre games, improvisation, writing exercises, and the performance of plays, Rue creates learning communities that explore new possibilities for social change. Her work addresses issues such as HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, lgbtq issues, and homeless youth. With Augusto Boal, Rue sees “theatre as rehearsal for revolution.” According to Rue: “Theatre is an arena in which we can dream what we want in our society.” Her book, Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies (Pilgrim Press, 2005) has both theory and practical examples of her pedagogy and theatre work. For more information see her website: www.victoriarue.com. In Part One, Victoria talks about her theatre background and the major influences on her work.
Theatre as Pedagogy, Act 2
In the second half of our conversation Victoria Rue talks about the importance of theatre in the classroom as a way to break out of the ruts and old habits of traditional teaching. She offers suggestions for tools on the journey, as well as stories of her own experiences of transformative teaching and learning with students. Rue, like Marc Weinblatt in the previous podcast in July, calls attention to theatre as a necessary pedagogical method for social justice education.
