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Breaking the Silence Around Sexual Harassment

Amanda Reusch

Professor Heather May

THTR 290 Theatre for Social Change Final Project
12 May 2014

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As I reflect on my process through the Theatre for Social Change final product, I have
needed to think about and consider why I took this class and what point of view I had coming in.
The ending product was something completely different from what I had imagined coming in. Thus,
it was important to see what perspective I had and how these perspectives, biases, and
understandings affected the way we developed our piece. As feminist standpoint theory suggests, if
I can address where my point of view comes from, I can more completely look at how and why I
came to the conclusions I have made.
As a womens studies major, I am inundated with readings about power dynamics and how
they affect the people in our society based on race, gender, class, and other identifiers. However,
one thing I am often frustrated with is the lack of solutions or plans going forward in breaking down
power structures that limit access of minorities and create unearned privilege. I was hoping that
Theatre for Social Change would provide me with the tools to use theatre to propose questions to
communities about power dynamics within the soicety. I came in expecting the class to be a lot
about techniques to use. However, I never realized that there were so many ethical issues around
using theatre as a method and I never thought that it wouldnt be a successful experience for those
who were involved. Going into developing our project, we had already discussed some difficulties
of different instances of theatre for social change. Still, when developing our piece, it was incredibly
difficult to try to incorporate perspectives that werent our own experiences. Starting from what
topic to choose, all of our discussions could have been never-ending. I think coming into doing this
process I had an incredibly optimistic view that we would be able to portray the complexity, and
create discussion on whatever topic we chose. Going into this project with almost unrealistic
positive expectations made me heavily critique and analyze the different aspects of sexual assault we
ended up portraying.

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We ended up developing a piece that I am exceedingly proud of. We decided to do a piece
on sexual assault because of the relevance it has to the events and culture on campus. Being able to
show our final product in front of the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event was a highlight of my
semester. Through looking at the goals of our project and the techniques we used, I was able to
have a real theatre for social change experience that has formed my opinions about the efficacy of
theatre as a tool for social change. Through the timeline of the project, it was possible to draw
conclusions about the way we made choices and how effective we were in talking about sexual
assault on campus.
Our project began in figuring out the broad issue we wanted to address. We used a rather
democratic method of voting from previously brainstormed topics. However, this method did not
successfully allow everyone to have a voice. There were people who felt that by just voting, they
werent able to explain why they thought other ideas were important to address. In reflecting on this
process, it was clear that different privileges were at work when we chose sexual assault as a topic. It
was clear that women who had stronger personalities took control of the voting situation, while
quieter members felt slightly silenced. As women, most of us were able to connect to sexual assault
as a topic. However, I felt as if most of the white women could not relate to the issue of racism and
therefore we did not want to vote for it. Right from this first step, we had difficulties of seeing how
our own experiences were influencing our decisions. I think that we fell into a trap of only
questioning things that we felt were directly important to us without analyzing the context of the
campus. David Kerr in You Just Made the Blueprint to Suit Yourselves A theatre-based health
research project in Lungwena, Malawi discusses this issue in reference to NGOs trying to use
African theatre to address health issues. He says,
Owing to their strict financial and cultural auditing systems, NGOs rarely have time or
resources to push their research analysis into this more complex, historically contextualized

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and ideologically sensitive field. As a result, the action plans that emerge from typical Theatre
for Development evaluation sessions are doomed to tinker with solutions that only
superficially address problems identified during the research process (101).
Like the NGOs, we did not use our resources to analyze the historically contextualized culture of the
brainstormed topics we developed. Due to this, I think that the development of our piece
potentially lacked a sustainability aspect. It was not rooted in the culture of HWS, merely rooted in
the few experiences we had combined. By only going from our experiences, we potentially missed a
larger issue at hand. NGOs and development groups are often criticized for focusing on their own
preconceived notions about what the area needs, rather than evaluating the needs based on the
developed by the community itself. Therefore, I think if I were to do this again, I would need to
take a lot of reflection on my personal beliefs about the area Im working with before continuing.
Once we developed the topic of breaking the silence around sexual harassment, we were able
to develop the goals of the project. Our first question we wanted to address was how to define
sexual harassment. With this goal, we wanted to show people that sexual harassment is more than
just leering and cat calling, but an attack on a persons gender or sexuality that has negative effects
on the individual. We wanted this piece to be a starting point for changing the discourse around
sexual harassment. By defining sexual harassment, we hoped that people could then discuss the
complexities surrounding what is considered sexual harassment, how it affects our campus, and what
we can begin to do to change the culture around its acceptability. Finally, we wanted to share the
stories of students on campus and have them be involved in the production. We did not want to be
limited to the experiences we had because we all had similar perspectives and experiences. We
wanted to use stories of HWS students to increase the power in the story and make it relatable to the
students.

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As a result, we chose our target audience as the entire HWS community. Initially, I was
worried about how broad our goals and our target audience were. In such a short time, it seemed
difficult to create the deep conversation we wanted on sexual harassment. However, these broad
goals gave us the ability to be flexible with changing circumstances. As we continued in the project,
our focus shifted to more than just sexual harassment and more to sexual assault as well. This shift
came from the monologues we had written, where most of them had been focused on assaults,
rather than just sexual harassment. Subtly, we began to show how sexual harassment can be a
precursor to sexual assault. I think in our performance, we highlighted this (without even knowing)
by having the cat call scene go first and lead into the Price is Too High.
Shifting our focus to sexual assault more broadly turned out to be a positive change when we
ended up performing in the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event. By performing in this event, we were
able to meet our goal by having a wide range of audience from students, male and female, to
professors, and administrators. Further, the audience was active in the areas that we had wanted
them to be. However, also due to joining the event, we ended up not being able to have the talkback after the show to stir up discussion. Thus, it was incredibly difficult to evaluate the success of
the ability of the piece to create conversation about sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus.
Additionally, our piece and social change plans were not sustainable because of how short the class
was. As a result, we are unable to follow up with our performance and understand how it affected
people. Overall, our wide goals gave us the ability to be adaptable when our situation changed.
Looking back, it would have been helpful to reevaluate the goals when learning about our
performance as part of an event because we could have tailored the goals to the event at hand.
As we were working on developing the piece, it was interesting how our group dynamics
played out. After the difficulty we had choosing the topic, I was nervous that we were going to have
similar difficulties where particular vocal members would end up silencing other soft-spoken

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members of the group. However, I think our group was able to overcome that. While
brainstorming the scripts, we were all able to shout out ideas and talk about why we did or did not
like them. It did seem that the louder people in the group were able to make decisions about small
changes and aesthetics without the entire group. In that way, some members had more say in the
look of the production. Still, I think that when it came to larger decisions, the whole group was able
to use a more democratic method.
I was one of the quieter students because I wanted to think a lot of things through before
making a decision. I did feel a lot more comfortable speaking my mind when we were in small
groups. Thus, I feel like my role in the group was to provide a well-thought out opinion and be able
to take our decisions seriously. Coming closer to the final performance, I was able to speak my
mind more openly. I think the major problem for me was the shortness of the project. I need a
particular amount of time in order to feel comfortable and I was beginning to be able to do that at
the end of the semester. I think that I definitely could have tried to be more out-spoken in order to
form a better bond. Despite these issues, the group was able to have some productive conversations
about sexual assault. I think part of the value of being a theatre for social change practitioner is that
you get to discuss the issue as well as be a guide. You get a new sense of opposing perspectives and
how to bridge them. This process made me reflect on what it would be like to come from a
different perspective, such as a male perspective. We had to deal with the ethics of speaking for
others (Wilkinson and Kitzinger 86). I was able to experience feminist-like research as described by
Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger. In regards to representing the other, they say, We research
ourselves. The contemporary feminist researcher is likely to construct herself as sharing personal
experience and/or identity with the people she is researching and to use this as warrant for her
findings (87). By having to consider other peoples perspectives, I was able to rethink my own

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opinions about sexual assault and create a new experience based on my interactions with different
perspectives.
While writing the pieces, we were able to use some important theatre for social change
techniques. Our initial thought was to use a form of forum theatre, described by Augusto Boal as
Spect-actors are invited to come on state and reveal by means of theatre the thoughts, desires, and
strategies that can suggest a palette of possible alternatives of their own invention (6). We had
wanted to include the audience in this way in order to help develop and action plan. However, we
were unable to use this method because of the difficulty for the performers. As a result, we
switched our methods into including the audience is a more formal way. We gave the audience
some agency in choosing Kates date, but we kept them as spectators, rather than fully engaging in
developing the piece. As a result, we tried to use humor and overly theatrical fantasy to connect
with the audience.
We had discussed the use of humor in theatre for social change several times throughout the
semester. I was often troubled with the question of whether or not using humor to discuss an issue
caused people to not take the issue seriously. The way our piece was set up, I was able to find
similarities between our use of humor and what Julie Salverson talks about in Clown, Opera, the
Atomic Bomb and the Classroom. In this piece, she describes the experience of Eliza, a student
using clown to help discuss issues with the atomic bomb. Salverson says, Eliza, in this unexpected
role as wise woman comic one moment and deadly serious the next found a solid place where
she could honestly tell us what was most urgent to her (37). Going from the humor of the Price is
Too High to the seriousness of the monologue allowed the audience to connect to the piece and
understand the urgent message we wanted to send with the monologue. The inspiration to use an
overly theatrical fantasy for the Price is Too High came from Jenny Hughes and Simon Rudings
Made to Measure? A Critical Interrogation of Applied Theatre as Intervention with Young

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Offenders in the UK, in which they describe a young womans ability to develop a positive sense
of self (220) by engaging in a piece of fantasy where she was a star being interviewed. The fantasy
of the game show allowed the woman to build her ideal future and identify things to work toward.
They say, fantasy can be a place where negative and destructive desires are played out and made
real fantasy can be useful in creating moments when something in the world might be revealed in
new and surprising guises and apparent certainties disrupted and transformed (220). Through our
fantasy scene, we tried to challenge what is thought of as sexual assault by theatrically enhancing the
characters. Through this method, we were able to have the audience begin to question what sexual
assault really looks like and how it happens.
After having this experience, I have been able to fully understand how effective theatre for
social change really is. I think that theatre for social change is powerful only if it is used the correct
circumstances. Theatre for social change can be used on a wide range of topics as shown by the
multitude of different areas that we have addressed in this class from prison theatre to health care
to community history and more. In order for it to be effective and successful it needs three specific
points: it must engage the entire community its working in and must be relatable to this community;
it must have practitioners willing to put their viewpoints aside and engage in the material; it must be
sustainable. Without these three points, the effectiveness of the piece will be significantly decreased
in producing and maintaining social change.
The first point is incredibly important because practitioners should avoid looking like they
are coming into the community to make changes that they think is necessary. As with the NGOs,
theatre for social change practitioners need to listen to the communitys concerns, otherwise the
community will be unwilling to accept the project. For instance, James Thompson in The Ends of
Applied Theatre: Incidents of Cutting and Chopping, describes an event where a community
attacked and killed child soldiers who were in a rehabilitation center in Bindunuwewa, Sri Lanka. As

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the author describes, the community members were outraged that these criminals had access to
things, like theatre, that they did not. In this case, the theatre group should have been focused on
incorporate the larger community in order to rehabilitate and gain wide range of support. By not
keeping the community in the dark, the people outside of the center may have felt that they could
relate to the situation at hand. Secondly, theatre for social change needs practitioners willing to
recognize their biases and challenge their own viewpoints. In my own experience, our final
production would be seriously limited if I only focused on what I knew about sexual assault. Rather,
I opened my perspective to learning about a male perspective and I was able to develop and
incorporate these perspectives in the piece. By doing this, it is possible to help the community
challenge its own perspectives and offer suggestions. Finally, theatre for social change needs to be
sustainable in the community. Jonathan Fox, in Playback Theatre in Burundi, describes how
sustainability is often an issue with theatre for social change and NGOs. Practitioners need to
provide the community with the knowledge and skills to keep the theatre program going. Otherwise,
the social change is short-lived and the community could potentially revert back to the initial state.
Through these three points, theatre for social change has the ability to make an impact and
create discussions throughout different communities. My personal experience with theatre for social
change has taught me about the importance of developing goals, staying positive and researching
techniques that are relatable to the community at hand. Throughout the process, my perspectives
on sexual assault were questioned and rethought based on the discussions we had engaged in.
Overall, theatre for social change has allowed me to develop an understanding of ethics, aesthetics,
participation and identity.

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Works Cited
Alexandra. Study Suggests Police Systematically Undercount Rape Reports. Feministing. 4 April
2014. Web. < http://feministing.com/2014/04/04/police-systematically-undercount-rapereports/>.
Boal, Augusto. The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. Trans. Adrian Jackson. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Print.
Fox, Jonathan. Playback Theatre in Burundi: Can theatre transcend the gap? The Applied Theatre
Reader. Ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston. New York: Routledge, 2009. 241-247. Print.
Kerr, David. You Just Made the Blueprint to Suit Yourselves A theatre-based health research
project in Lungwena, Malawi. The Applied Theatre Reader. Ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston.
New York: Routledge, 2009. 100-107. Print.
Mustaine, Elizabeth Ehrhardt, and Richard Tewksbury. "Sexual assault of college women: A feminist
interpretation of a routine activities analysis."Criminal Justice Review 27.1 (2002): 89-123. Web.
4 April 2014. < http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/27/1/89.short>.
Ryan, Erin Gloria. Infamous Rapebait Frat Disbanded for Being Entirely Too Rapey. Jezebel. 4
April 2014. Web. < http://jezebel.com/infamous-rapebait-frat-disbanded-for-being-entirelyt-1558252895>.
Salverson, Julie. Clown, Opera, the Atomic Bomb and the Classroom. The Applied Theatre Reader.
Ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston. New York: Routledge, 2009. 33-40. Print.
Sexual Assault. Office on Violence Against Women. The United States Department of Justice, 2014.
Web. 4 April 2014. < http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/sexassault.htm>.
Sexual Assault/Rape. Learn about Abuse. WomensLaw.org, June 2012. Web. 4 April 2014.
<http://www.womenslaw.org/laws_state_type.php?id=13048&state_code=PG>.

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Suddath, Claire. Changing How Colleges Deal With Rape. Bloomberg Businessweek. 3 April 2014.
Web. < http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-03/end-rape-on-campus-helpschange-how-colleges-handle-sexual-assault#p1>.
Thompson, James. The Ends of Applied Theatre: Incidents of cutting and chopping. The Applied
Theatre Reader. Ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston. New York: Routledge, 2009. 116-124.
Print.
Wilkinson, Sue and Celia Kitzinger. Representing the Other. The Applied Theatre Reader. Ed. Tim
Prentki and Sheila Preston. New York: Routledge, 2009. 86-93. Print.
Winerip, Michael. Stepping Up to Stop Sexual Assault. The New York Times. 7 Feb. 2014. Web.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/education/edlife/stepping-up-to-stop-sexualassault.html>.
Winter, Michael. 3 Marquette Frats Warned Over Alleged Sexual Misconduct. USA Today. 16
April 2014. Web. <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/15/marquetteuniversity-fraternities-sexual-misconduct/7749989/>.