Islington People's Theatre CIC

Islington People’s Theatre is an Applied Theatre for Social Change Community Interest Company (CIC), based in Islington, North London. We work with community and marginalised groups using applied theatre and drama processes, such as improvisation and devising, to co-create socially engaged work for personal, social and political change. We believe these processes can offer a platform for those voices and communities who are not being heard, a way to re-connect with the self and others, reduce isolation, develop creativity and provide a space to explore and create alternatives.

Applied Theatre is ‘an applied theatre because the art form becomes a transformative agent that places the audience or participants in direct and immediate situations where they can witness, confront and deconstruct aspects of their own and others’ actions‘. (Taylor, 2003: xx).

Theatre for Social Change is ‘an activist form of dramaturgy which aims to influence and alter the actual world, not just reflect it’ (Kuppers 2007: 8). It mainly takes place in non-conventional theatre spaces such as community centres, site-specific venues, treatment centres, prisons and care homes, with participants who have previously no experience of drama or theatre work.