Interactive Theatre

Sketches draw the audience into the scene with a mix of comedy, drama and occasionally music, and are designed to portray the complexities and challenges of everyday classroom situations.  Following each sketch, the audience dialogues with the actors, who stay in character.  A trained facilitator guides the discussion and provides professional expertise and research-based information about the topic at hand.  After the dialogue, the characters often repeat the sketch, incorporating audience members’ suggested changes.

Theatre for U-M ADVANCE/NSF

The U-M ADVANCE Project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the purpose of improving the hiring, retention and institutional climate for women faculty in the sciences and engineering. ADVANCE has commissioned sketches on these topics from the CRLT Players. Sketches concern topics such as mentoring, faculty hiring, and the tenure decision process. All U-M ADVANCE sketches are interactive. Following each sketch, the audience dialogues with the actors, who stay in character. A trained facilitator guides the discussion and provides professional expertise and research-based information about the topic at hand.

Traditional Theatre Productions

The CRLT Players Theatre Program uses traditional (non-interactive) theatre to engage audiences and spark lively, post-performance dialogues among audience members.  Based on interviews and focus groups, these performances bring to life the unspoken assumptions, motivations, and feelings of students and faculty around issues of teaching, learning and diversity.

Forum Theatre

Forum Theatre Workshops allow instructors to identify and strategize about challenges they face in the classroom.  Drawing from their own experience, attendees take turns stepping into the role of the instructor or main character, each trying a different approach to the problem.  The variety of strategies taken by the attendees reveals multiple perspectives on the issues in a dynamic and enjoyable way.