Week 3 Individual Blog Task

What is theatre? How do you think theatre, as a media form, communicates messages to its audience?

What is theatre? Theatre is a building, a room, or outdoor structure for the presentation of live plays, films, or other dramatic performances. Theatre could also mean a room with tiers of seats used for lectures or demonstrations. There are as many types of theaters as there are types of performance. Theaters may be built specifically for a certain types of productions, they may serve for more general performance needs or they may be adapted or converted for use as a theater. However it is interpreted, theatre was originally used mainly as a media to provide entertainment to its viewers. But nowadays, people are using theatre as a media form to hopefully bring awareness on serious issues that the society faced and can therefore play a key role in community education and development.

Most people refer to performers in the theatre as people who just make your miserable day a bit lighter through a good laugh. But what most people miss out in the middle of the jokes is the kind of message these artists will be trying to put across. Most of the plays performed by these artists are mainly influenced by the social-economic and political events being experienced by people at the current time. Social change builds community based responses that address underlying social problems be at community, national or global level and theatre has become an effective tool for social change. 

Theatre is a non confrontational way of addressing problems. It makes talking about sensitive and even normally taboo subjects. After a performance, people can discuss the actions of the people in the play instead of criticizing individual members in the society. They can test potential ways of problem solving on stage in front of an audience and then discuss them. Furthermore, it helps shape public opinion about certain topics and molds the public opinion in the desired direction. Theatre provides the space for us to question assumptions and create new ideas.

In conclusion, theatre is more than a tool for entertainment but also a tool for social change. Theatre for social change has transformed theatre from being entertainment to edutainment. Theatre is one way of making people think globally and act locally.