Finding your voice : a collaborative, dialogic ethnographic playmaking process offering middle school girls a space to consider the multifaceted views of leadership

textThis thesis examines the transformative potential of applied theatre, specifically through a study of the playmaking process, and the embodiment and performance of stories, as a tool for middle school girls to articulate ideas about and personalize the notion of leadership. This study documents the theory and practitioners who informed my work in the creation and implementation of an applied theatre program piloted in the fall of 2009. Through a process of qualitative, reflective practitioner research, I examined the participants’ perceptions of, and relationship to, leadership throughout the project, while simultaneously analyzing my own changing perceptions of what it means to lead and facilitate an applied theatre process and performance. The resulting discussion offers a need for a balance between the process and the product in applied theatre, and most importantly the need for practitioners to continuously reexamine their intentions and practices throughout an applied theatre project.Theatre and Danc