Traditional Theatre Sketches
The CRLT Players Theatre Program also 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.
Teaching and Learning at U-M: Ka-Thump, Ka-Thump, Ka-Thump is based on interviews with six U-M Thurnau Professors. This dynamic, three-actor performance explores the complexities, joys, and struggles of teaching at U-M.
Stories from the Maize: Voices and Visions of Diversity is based on interviews with students, faculty, and administrators about their personal experiences and thoughts regarding diversity at the University. This compelling production raises questions about the meaning of diversity, the complexity of identity, and what it means to be responsible for institutional change.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.
