Definitioner
Vad är community teater?
Det finns flera olika definitioner. Här ger några personer som har arbetat länge med community teater sina definitioner.
A community-based production is usually a response to a collectively significant issue or circumstance. It is a collaboration between an artist or ensemble and a “community” in that the latter is a primary source of the text, possibly of performers as well, and definitely a good portion of the audience. That is, at the source of community-based performance is not the singular artist but a “community” constituted by virtue of a shared primary identity based in place, ethnicity, class, race, sexual preference, profession, circumstances or political orientation.
(Local Acts: Community-Based Performance in the United States)
Community theatre is a worldwide phenomenon that manifests itself in many different guises, yielding a broad range of performance styles. It is united, I think, by it´s emphasis on local and/or personal stories (rather than pre-written scripts) that are first processed through improvisation and the collectively shaped into theatre under the guidance either of outside professional artists or local amateur artists residing among groups of people that, for lack of a better term, could best be called “peripheral”.
(Community Theatre: Global Perspectives)
Dudley Cocke:
Grassroots theater is given its voice by the community from which it arises. The makers of grassroots theater are part of the culture from which the work is drawn. The people who are the subjects of the work are part of its development from inception through presentation. Their stories and histories inform the work, their feedback during the creation process shapes it. The audience is not consumer of, but participant in the performance.Grassroots theater grows out of a commitment to place. It is grounded in the local and specific, which when rendered faithfully and creatively can affect people anywhere.
(From the Ground Up: Grassroots Theater in Historical and Contemporary Perspective)