Narrative Justice Playmaking: A toolkit for transformative theatre

This dissertation research focuses on post-colonial storytelling practice, theorizing a framework I call Narrative Justice Playmaking which addresses the research question: How can and do theatre practitioners tell stories of ongoing traumatic subject matter in ways that are not just trauma- informed, but capable of generating social justice? To answer this question I engage in interdisciplinary research across Theatre and Performance Studies, Post-colonial Studies, Caribbean Studies, Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, English, Memory Studies, and Disability Studies. I explore how storytelling impacts people’s lives, realities, and experiences, and unpack the ways in which story collection and dissemination can both do and ameliorate harm. Further, I theorize on what it means to do the work of social justice within a performance, and generate a handbook for those interested in creating theatre and other art forms with the purpose of generating social transformation. This research spotlights storytelling methods, practices and histories from the primarily Caribbean, and secondarily the North American African diaspora, as blueprints that can be followed across the post-colonial world. As a researcher and practitioner, I hold the feminist theoretical framework that no one person is objective, and, as a storyteller and researcher in the humanities, with a focus on social justice, I firmly hold that truth is personal, subjective, and incomplete. This dissertation charts through my practice-as-research of a production and a new play script, both which strive to do the work of social justice.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• DeRoy, Timmia Hearn

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Heffner-Hayes, Michelle

• Theater
• Decolonial Theatre
• Jouvay Popular Theatre Process
• Narrative Justice Storytelling
• Practice-as-Research
• Social Justice Theatre
• Trauma Informed Theatre

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:19108

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/38812