Street theatre is an important tool for educators and there are a few simple guidelines that can be followed to make it successful. These are discussed in the sections that follow.
What is Street Theatre?
People are busy. They have lives to lead. Only a select few will give up time to attend an educational event voluntarily. Most will want to be entertained.
And if that entertainment can come to them, so much the better. Street theatre is a generic term for all manner of performances conducted where people are - not only on the street or in the marketplace.
Performances can be short and impromptu, feeding off the interaction with the watching crowd, or they can be slightly extended and carefully scripted and rehearsed. But they always operate on the assumption that the audience can leave, and that at least some of the members of the audience may leave during the performance. It is up to the performers to get people's attention and then to keep it long enough to convey their message.
Find an Audience
The first job of the street artist is to find an audience. For this reason, marketplaces, places where people have to queue and social events are most likely choices. Commuter bus and taxi ranks, rural clinics, hospitals, train stations are all places where people are waiting and have time on their hands.
In order to manage a street troupe, it may be necessary to provide them with transport to move around. There are troupes that have developed fixed itineraries. Shopping malls in modern towns and trading stores in villages may even encourage such troupes of players because they hold a crowd if the play is good, which is always good for business, and the people break up satisfied and thirsty or hungry. In some countries and towns, buskers' associations and local bylaws regulate what is allowed: when performances can happen, where, and for how long. In other places, there may be local norms and standards, and even important people and organizations who need to be contacted before a performance.
There may also be performance places available at public parks, town squares and so on. These are not always as well frequented as the more commercial areas. Street theatre is designed to meet people where they are, not to have to attract people to a distant venue.
Get Their Attention
Because people are preoccupied, their attention has to be drawn to the performance. This requires theatre singers and dancers, mime artists, small simulations of everyday activity played at a frenetic pace, players dressed in colourful clothes or masks, or wearing stilts. All these are signs that something unusual is about to happen.
It may be possible to set up small stages and carry theatrical properties onto the site of the performance. The troupe of players will have to ensure that this material is portable and robust.
In many places, sound amplification is not possible or may be illegal. In other places, entertainers may have developed their own system for becoming wired for sound, either through the good offices of a local business, or by using a car battery, or even a small petrol generator. Local conditions require local arrangements.
Getting people's attention and keeping it has something to do with what people expect and with what is unexpected. Skilled entertainers who have some experience of street theatre should be drawn into the project rather than sending an inexperienced group of people out onto the streets.
Convey the Message
Street theatre can be used to convey simple messages. It also can be used to demonstrate and practice skills; and at its most skilful can also provoke debate and dialogue between the players and the audience. Scripts can be useful and many voter education packages include short sketches.
The most successful events include humour, some satire, imaginative use of props, and interaction with the audience. Voter education theatre will focus on voting procedures, perhaps with a few people taking part in a mock election. There will be messages about the campaign and the role of political parties and representatives, how to make judgments and select between the offers being made by the contestants, and information on when and where to vote.
Generally, street theatre cannot guarantee that there will be a repeat audience, but it is possible, especially in rural or small town settings. For this reason, performers have to develop a repertoire that enables them to change their piece if they discover that people already have particular sets of information.
Leave Something with Them
Theatre comes and goes, so people need to take away something with them. Small pamphlets and fliers, little souvenirs promoting the election such as stickers are all useful. They have the advantage of being easy to carry and quick to distribute to a dissolving crowd.
It is also possible to leave more permanent reminders that the players have been through the town or the market. Posters advertizing the show, or pasted up as backdrops to the performance can be left if this is not going to offend the owners of the walls or lampposts. Local merchants may be persuaded to take posters into their shops.
Complementary Activities
Street theatre is live. It is also photogenic. Where crowds gather, news is created. So, apart from the usefulness of handouts in the language of the audience, there is also the possibility that the performance can be used to obtain free coverage on television news programmes, or that performers can be interviewed by local radio stations. Photographs taken by the troupe or local photographers may appear in local newspapers with stories about the event.
In these ways, exposure of the message is multiplied beyond the audience available at a particular time, at a particular place.
Good performances also can be captured on videotape for more general distribution, but this requires a production skill and preparation that should not be taken for granted. The change from street theatre to video production cannot always be made successfully.
Gathering the Performers
If a street troupe is created and travels around, there are educational resources available to local communities whenever the troupe is finished performing. It is possible to include with the group someone who can handle training of voter educator programmes and use the performance to recruit people for more in-depth training in a later event. Thus, the team leaves behind a small cadre of educators able to talk with their own organizations and individual contacts after the players have moved on.
However, keeping a troupe on the move is not easy. It requires substantial logistical support. Transport, accommodation, staff management and public relations can be costly, not to mention the salaries of performers.
But using such a troupe can still be a worthwhile activity because of the high visibility it gets and the opportunity to associate other activities and promotional opportunities with such a team.
An alternative approach is to develop a programme that mobilizes existing street performers, perhaps giving them training and resources, and then encourages them to weave election information into their own shows. Small subsidies for community groups, perhaps routed not from the electoral authorities but rather from performing arts programmes, can have substantial spin-offs not only in educational terms but also in adding colour and confidence to the elections.
