Theatre and Bullying: A Useful Tool for Increasing Awareness About Bullying and Victimization

Theatre has been used in a variety of ways over the last few decades as a strategy to address bullying in school settings. Common approaches typically include:

• Teachers using role-playing activities (in conjunction with anti-bullying programs)
• Artists in schools
• School productions
• Visiting theatre productions.

In my experience, the latter seems to be the most common. Here, professional companies or other social justice oriented groups present dramatic plays that expose bullying issues to school-aged students. These plays vary in production value and content, yet most depict the negative consequences of bullying. Nonetheless, the plays that also illustrate strategies to address bullying tend to be more beneficial in promoting healthier relationships, in that they offer ways for children to either prevent or cope with bullying.

The Goal of Using Drama in School

The primary goal of using drama in schools is to help students better understand themselves and the world they live in (1). Teaching improvisation and role playing helps students

• develop emotional (as well as cognitive) intelligence,
• negotiating skills,
• and the ability to transfer ideas to a new situation (2).

Drama is unique because it allows participants to imagine without having to live with the consequences of their imaginative actions (3). Therefore, it provides a safe approach to learning, and “creates a distance between individuals and their real-life situations through the characters and situations being enacted (4)”.

By the same token, as drama activities unfold, the line between what is being symbolically represented and the so-called real life experiences begins to blur. Neelands suggests that “the fictional situation and characters become more and more recognizable to the creators of the drama, and the relationships begin to form between what is happening in the drama and what happens in the outside world (5).” Drama allows and encourages participants to shift positions, to represent multiple perspectives and points of view. Ultimately, the dramatic activities enable participants to experience vicariously that which the other may be living through (6).

Activities Help Students Unpack the Issues around Bullying

Beyond the content of dramatic plays, pre- and post- activities are crucial in helping students unpack the issues and discuss strategies to address, and hopefully diminish, bullying. Most touring troupes develop lesson plans related to their production so that teachers can further explore the issue (i.e., bullying, conflict) with their students (see www.respect2all.org). Schools should include parents in the process, so that parents can play a significant role by debriefing with their children. Tapping into resources offered by theatre companies and encouraging discussions in the classroom and at home are a vital part of generalizing the learning that the plays spark.

An Example of Practical Research

I developed a research model to examine the effects of viewing an anti-bullying play, You Didn't Do Anything! on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The goal was to deepen the theatre experience for school-aged students by watching the play and to create pre and post-production activities. Prior to seeing the 30-minute anti-bullying play,1 students actively participated in a 30-minute workshop in their classrooms.2 For example, we looked at props that were used in the play and asked the students in small groups to find relationships and connections between such pieces and possible characters in a bullying situation. Then, in small groups, volunteers were asked to show, through frozen body images, how some of these characters might come into conflict. Students often commented on how the pre-activities encouraged them to pay close attention to the play because they recognized various objects in the live production and compared the conflict scenarios they created prior to seeing the show (7).