Explore, play, reflect and learn how to bring Boal’s methods into your own facilitation practice
This experiential Learning Day invites facilitators to dive into Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques and discover how they can help us respond to today’s complex challenges. Together, we’ll explore Boal’s games and tools to address the pressures facing facilitators in 2025 – from corporate dominance to political polarisation and the climate crisis.
We’ll experiment with how these participatory theatre approaches can support clients, create space for new perspectives, and unlock meaningful change. Expect a day that is serious and fun, participative and reflective, self-focused and outward looking.
About this session
We’re delighted to welcome facilitator Nick Mabey who brings twenty years of practice weaving drama and theatre methods into organisational and community contexts.
Nick explains the context of this session and his journey:
“I’m certain that when Augusto Boal wrote Theatre of the Oppressed in 1973 while in exile in Argentina he did not have UK corporate employees in mind. Nevertheless, this was how I found my route into practising his philosophies and techniques. I had taken on a pretty radical BA in Drama, Community Theatre and Media at the age of 40 (it was called a mid-life crisis by my family) and had my eyes opened to the power of drama to facilitate change. My professional world was corporate so why not there?
My facilitation practice was still in its formative years when I graduated, and I found it fairly straightforward to weave drama and theatre methods into my approach. What was less easy was persuading my clients of the efficacy of play and creativity as a response to the challenges they were facing.
Twenty years on Boal’s ideas, and how they might relate to modern Western societies, seem to me even more resonant now than they did then. The ever-increasing dominance of corporate power along with the global resurgence of authoritarian political leadership and an already-impacting climate crisis have given new meaning and energy to the concept of oppression. It was in this context that I was delighted to be invited to facilitate a Learning Day for the Association of Facilitators.”