The Writers of Wales Database

WOOSTER, ROGER

33 Somerton Road, Newport, NP19 0JD
roger.wooster@newport.ac.uk

Born in Buckinghamshire and came to Wales as an undergraduate at Swansea University. Since then Wales has been his home apart from a two years as a VSO in Sudan. He is now resident in Newport but has lived in various towns and villages in mid Wales through the eighties and nineties. After university he was one of four like-minded graduates who set up Open Cast Theatre in Swansea which developed schools and community theatre touring until it was superseded by Theatre West Glamorgan. He then worked for many years with Theatr Powys as an actor/teacher and director. In 1983 he started learning Welsh and came third in the Ddysgwr Y Blwydden competition in 1985! In 1990 he moved into education and started the Performing Arts course at Coleg Powys. Whilst at Coleg Powys he undertook a Masters degree in Educational drama at Trinity College, Carmarthen where his dissertation was a study of Theatre in Education praxis. In 2005 he moved to  University of Wales, Newport as Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts. In recent years he has also carried out a number of guest lectures and workshops for the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. 

Alongside the academic career has been a freelance contribution to radio as an actor and storyteller, and to television drama as an actor. Academic interests centre on Theatre in Education but also include the semiotics of performance and training for screen performance. Whilst at Theatr Powys, a strong interest in the methodologies of participatory TIE was engendered and this continues to this day. This interest continued to be developed at Coleg Powys where students undertaking the TIE module achieved a high reputation for their peer-led education work, attracting both funding and awards (including the RosCow award for their stage/video production of a drug/driving education project, “Smashed”). Other videos produced with students for training and PHSE purposes include material on child abuse (“Daring to Speak”), young carers (“All I’m Here For”), domestic abuse (“Breaking the Silence, Breaking the Chain”).

Roger is a member of Equity and also Roger National Drama and the National Association for the Teaching of Drama. In the past he has been a member of the journal committee. He has contributed to the National Drama Journal, the National Association for Teaching of Drama Journal, Education International and in 2007 had a book on Contemporary Theatre in Education published by Intellect. In 2007 he contributed a paper (“Shooting Actors”) to the Central School of Speech and Drama international conference on “How to Act”. Screen acting remains a key area of research and study and further contributions to symposia and conferences are planned. Also in 2007 he contributed a critique of the controversial Playback Theatre to their international conference in Windsor, Ontario. A condensed version of this paper is published in “Interplay”.

Current research includes a new version of “The Man of Mode” which will undertake a comparative deconstruction of the semiotics of Restoration Theatre and modern celebrity culture. This will be given public performances at the Riverfront Theatre, Newport in November 2008.

Reviews:
With respect to Contemporary Theatre in Education (Intellect, 2007):

"…A most useful, provocative and well-researched theoretical document which I will most certainly have on my essential reading list for students studying theatre in education..."
Charmian Savill, University of Aberystwyth

"...This book is an excellent and surprisingly stimulating read..."
Matthew Trustman, Dramatherapy Vol 29, No 3.

Selected Publications:
Contemporary Theatre in Education (Intellect, 2007)

Contemporary Theatre in Education (Intellect, 2007)

Theatre in Education emerged in the mid sixties as a unique hybrid of performance and child-centred learning. Contemporary Theatre in Education charts the creation and adaptation of this ‘hybrid’ through the changing political, economic and educational environment of the second half of the twentieth century. Having borrowed ideas from drama and theatre, from Brecht, Heathcote and Boal, it created forms of participatory drama that were a cornerstone to the progressive learning so much in vogue in the sixties and seventies. In 1976 the “Great Debate’ inaugurated by Labour’s Jim Callaghan and carried through by Margaret Thatcher, introduced a sharply defined National Curriculum at the end of the eighties. Also part of this Educational reform Act was the delegation of school budgets and the removal of much Local Authority influence in education. This dealt a severe blow to the working methodology and viability of many theatre in education companies.

The book seeks to chart the ways in which TIE has had to adapt to survive. It also presents a ‘snapshot’ of the types of TIE being produced today through the description and analysis of eight projects from Wales’ eight TIE companies on tour in the same month. Each director is interviewed about their artistic and educational philosophy and the policies of their companies. Wales currently benefits from a devolved government which appears to be nurturing and supporting Theatre in Education. Nowhere else in Britain has the same level of support for TIE. However, the question is raised whether the original participatory precepts of TIE are still to be found in current praxis, or whether TIE has now mutated into a form of educational theatre.

To purchase this title from Intellect please click on the front cover