1st Edition

Applied Theatre and Gender Justice Imagination, Play, Movement

Edited By Lisa S. Brenner, Evelyn Diaz Cruz Copyright 2025
262 Pages 39 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

262 Pages 39 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

262 Pages 39 Color Illustrations
by Routledge

Applied Theatre and Gender Justice is a collection of essays highlighting the value and efficacy of using applied theatre to address gender in a broad range of settings, identifying challenges, and offering concrete best practices. This book amplifies and shares lessons from practitioners and scholars who use performance to create models of collective solidarity, building upon communities’... Read more

Part 1: Igniting Eco-activism 

1. Decolonizing the Conversation: Sustainable Development Performances in Egypt

Sarah Fahmy

2. Patnaik’s Cyco Theatre in India: Grassroots Environmental and Gender Activism

Pranab Kumar Mandal

3. Resisting Ecological Colonialism in the Niger Delta: Indigenous Women and the Beni Kamai Festival Theatre

Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah

Roundtable. Discussion with Lisa S. Brenner, Evelyn Diaz Cruz, Sarah Fahmy, Pranab Kumar Mandal, and Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah

Part 2: Inspiring Playful Interventions

4. Picking up the Sequins: Drag Storytime Performances, Applied Theatre, and Queer Joy

Zachary A. Dorsey

5. Facilitating Gender Awareness with First Drop Theatre: Applied Theatre in Indian Workplaces

Radhika Jain

6. Yassified Shakespeare: The Case for TikTok as Applied Theatre

Trevor Boffone and Danielle Rosvally

Roundtable. Discussion with Trevor Boffone, Lisa S. Brenner, Zachary A. Dorsey, Radhika Jain, and Danielle Rosvally

Part 3: Affecting Responses to Violence

7. Facilitating Afecto in Resistance to Violence: Patricia Ariza’s Work with Female Victims of Colombia’s Armed Conflict

Sarah Ashford Hart

8. Moving Women from the Margins to the Center of History: After/Life and the 1967 Detroit Rebellion

Kristin Horton with Lisa Biggs

9. No Seriously, Humor is Important

Soroya Rowley and Veronica Burgess

Roundtable. Discussion with Lisa Biggs, Lisa S. Brenner, Veronica Burgess, Sarah Ashford Hart, Kristin Horton, and Soroya Rowley

Part 4: Reclaiming Bodily Autonomy

10. The Billboard #TrustBlackWomen: Abortion as Self-Care

Natalie Y. Moore

11. Challenging Ableist Views of Motherhood: Mind The Gap’s Daughters of Fortune

Winter Phong

12. The Maternal Ground on Which I Stand: Developing A Solo Performance within the Harris Matriarchy

Aviva Neff

Roundtable. Discussion with Evelyn Diaz Cruz, Natalie Y. Moore, Aviva Helena Neff, and Winter Phong

Part 5: Affirming Identity with Youth

13. Negotiating Gender (in)Justice: The Politics of Visibility in the Performing Justice Project

Megan Alrutz, Laura Epperson, Jasmine Games, and Faith Hillis

14. Queering Playback Theatre

Alejandro Bastien-Olvera

15. ART Built on Trust and Solidarity: Creating Applied Theatre with Girls and Nonbinary Teens

Dana Edell, Kailyn Oates, and Kit Bothum

Roundtable. Discussion with Megan Alrutz, Alejandro Batien-Olvera, Evelyn Diaz Cruz, Dana Edell, Laura Epperson, Jasmine Games, Faith Hillis

Part 6: Expanding the Definitions

16. Performing Vulnerability, Voicing Resistance: Women’s Spoken Word Poetry in Trinidad and Tobago

Alyea Pierce

17. Tools for Equity and Collaboration

Nicole Perry

18. The Art of Genderbending: Fighting Hegemonic Gender Ideology with Chinese Martial Arts

DeVante Love

Roundtable. Discussion with Lisa S. Brenner, DeVante Love, Nicole Perry, and Alyea Pierce

Extending the Conversation: A Supplemental Roundtable. Discussion on workers’ rights, pregnant young people, and Black queer feminism with Quenna Lené Barrett, Jasmin Cardenas, and Alyssa Vera Ramos.

Biography

Lisa S. Brenner is a professor of theatre at Drew University, where she teaches dramaturgy, theatre history, and applied performance. Her theatre experience includes dramaturgy, devising, directing, and playwriting.

Evelyn Diaz Cruz is a professor of theatre at the University of San Diego, where she teaches playwriting, acting, theatre of diversity, and theatre and community. Her theatre experience includes playwriting, directing, and acting.