In the director’s chair

A strange phenomenon has taken hold of a number of south Yorkshire organisations in recent months. Managers and employees are suddenly taking on a more directorial stance and have, temporarily at least, become involved in the arts.

So what exactly is going on? ‘Forum theatre’ – that’s what.

This is not Gilbert and Sullivan with housing staff in top hats and tailcoats, but rather a form of theatre that enables the audience to stop the action of a play and direct what should happen next.

The tactic is being used in a project called Race to Train, which enables organisations to explore and discuss issues of race and diversity in a frank way within their workplaces.

The project is run by the Garnett Foundation, which specialises in using the performing arts to bring about benefits within the workplace. A number of south Yorkshire-based organisations are using forum theatre to look at race issues that affect their work environments.

Volunteers from the organisations work with writers and directors to talk about their experiences, which are then presented to an audience of employees in a play, entitled Crossing the line.

Following this, the audience is split into workshop groups where the issues raised in the play are investigated further through a series of mini plays, and general discussion.

What sets this type of project apart is that the story within the performance is based on real incidents and real people. The names and places are changed– and the aim of the project is not to apportion blame, but to highlight and explore the issues.

Director Michael Woodward says: “The play is written as a training vehicle and as such is deliberately designed to be provocative, expressing a number of messages from which you should be able to draw comfort, as well as some with which I expect you to disagree.”

The original partner organisations included Rotherham, Sheffield and Doncaster councils and South Yorkshire Housing Association.

South Yorkshire originally took part after hearing that the local police were commissioning a piece of community theatre, and wanted to use it as a centrepiece for organisations to come together and think about their corporate cultures.

While the association had worked with various organisations in the past it had never worked with the police, so the challenge of developing a community agenda with people with whom it would normally have little contact seemed too good to miss.

The other reason was to take the recommendations of the race and housing inquiry Challenge report a step further by confronting ingrained attitudes.

South Yorkshire chief executive Tony Stacey says: “The work in the report concentrates on process and action plans rather than the hearts and minds of an organisation. If you are not committed to make change happen, then any action plan you set up and the impact of any changes will be limited.”

Highlighting the 1990s phenomenon of focusing on processes and looking at guidance, Stacey believes that housing associations have generally failed in their obligations to implement equal opportunities. This is a chance for them to get the processes right.

Jayne Fraser, a Race to Train facilitator who also works for the RSL, says that the majority of delegates are key organisation members, such as managers, and the play offers them a chance to reflect on practices within their organisations.

She explained: “This is a foundation from which organisations have then got to decide their priorities. This begins to raise issues and gets people to evaluate how they take those issues forward.

“The idea is not to deliver bog-standard training; it’s participative, innovative and challenging. It doesn’t identify answers, it highlights problems.”

Sheffield Council had already embarked on an equality and diversity training strategy in its housing services division at the time Race to Train was being developed, so the focus was to “incorporate the project into the bigger strategy.”

The rest of the council’s programme will support the initiative and involve a number of partners, many of whom work with it to deliver services.

In line with this, the department, with its management and staff, is developing the way it delivers services in an equality programme that is likely to take two years to roll out.

Helen Rodger, personnel manager of housing services at the council, says: “It is really important to understand communities and that we can work with communities in developing and delivering services that are appropriate to them.

The advantage of this kind of theatre is that it creates scenarios within a familiar context, and this opens up the discussion.

Forum theatre may well prove to be the link between the Challenge report and the way in which its recommendations can be worked out ‘on the ground’.