St. Mary's University College Interactive Touch Tag Radio Programme

As I firmly believe that some of the best ideas are stolen, I am not ashamed to admit that I have lifted the latest project that the Third Year Applied Theatre students have embarked upon directly from Theatre for a Change. I hope that this imitation is a complement to the pioneers at TfaC who devised this programme from scratch.

We will endeavour to produce a piece of interactive touch tag theatre for the radio which is to be broadcast on the 27th of February on SMUC internet radio. One key aspect of this sort of theatre is that the subject matter must of of great importance to the audience. As in all forms of interactive theatre, a needs assessment must be conducted to make sure that the subject matter will resonate with the audiences.

This can be a simple as devising the piece with members of the chosen audience [as we have done with this piece, we are using university college students which we hope will reflect the wider concerns of the audiences who are listening].

Touch tag theatre - as I have blogged about in the past - differs from the better know forum theatre in that there are multiple protagonists and the goal is to achieve a balance on the stage rather than have the protagonist 'win' over her adversaries.

To that end, we have begun to carefully construct a script where all actors can be replaced in order to achieve a balance in the relationship. We are looking at the theme of 'Gender Equality' which is a hot topic in university once you do a bit of digging past the niceties.

I greatly enjoy watching my students wrestle with this subject matter represented on the stage. Once we get past the nervous laughs, the giggling and the mock disbelief that such unequal relationships exist, we begin to pinch the muscle of a problem that exists in our culture - that of miscommunication, media and hormones - that is often not recognized or valued.

There is a certain amount of belief that men & women have a pretty equal relationship between each other in the UK. But after having viewed several touch tag theatre pieces on 'gender equality' I see that young people in universities are just as confused and purposefully obfuscated with each other. Here in the UK, we have a rising pregnancy rate and a rising HIV rate. After watching these pieces, I begin to see why this might be happening.