Participating in Community Theatre Partnerships: Evaluating Community, Creativity and Wellbeing

This thesis investigates the problem of how to holistically evaluate participation in community theatre partnerships. As a former community theatre practitioner, I was invited by theatre companies to investigate an adaptable framework for evaluation that could take the following into consideration: making space for holistic and individual responses from participants whilst providing a consistent approach that would be meaningful to different stakeholders.

This framework would therefore have a two-fold function. Firstly, community theatre companies would be able to evaluate their own practices and decision making with respect to how these could benefit their participants through enabling an equitable and agentic space to develop their creative identities. Secondly, data could be used to better communicate the value of the work to a range of stakeholders such as partner organisations. trustees and funding bodies.

Focusing on the benefits of participation locates this research within the current conversation around arts and health, where its purpose is to make a case for participating in drama within the provision of community-based arts. It will be argued that drama is adept at building communities by unpacking how lived experiences can be made into art and reconsidered and revalued through encounters with other actors. The research findings show improved wellbeing is a consequence of building social bonds through drama. Case studies of partnerships between theatre companies and community organisations, where participants were invited to join a project that would end with a performance in a theatre, were used to investigate issues of process and performance, instrumentalism and agency, and ethics and aesthetics.

The research was driven by the participants' own accounts of the benefits of taking part, which built a rich picture of participation, where the analytical categories for the qualitative research were co-constructed with the study participants throughout a longitudinal interview process, which revealed both positive and problematic aspects of participation. The results of their data focused on community building, creativity and health benefits. These results were then supported by literature on arts and health, theories of social representation, creativity, and aesthetics, to provide an in-depth discussion leading to an appraisal of the benefits of participating in community theatre.