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NATIONAL DRAMA

The UK’s leading professional subject association for all teachers, educators and theatre practitioners in drama and theatre educational contexts and community settings

National Drama is dedicated to ensuring that all  young people have the opportunity to learn about and through drama. Our mission is the development, promotion and support of Drama and Theatre both in the UK and Internationally. We are an open and inclusive organisation – One Forum: Many Voices – and we positively welcome as members all those who are interested in drama and theatre in educational contexts and community settings, whether in the UK or beyond.

The Drama and Theatre Education Curriculum: relevant; representative; inclusive.

The nature of the current educational context, in which we all find ourselves, is not simply the consequence of the Pandemic. It is also the result of a long legacy of reductionist policies that have seen our practice, theory and art marginalised.

ND intends to provide the membership with clear guidance concerning the learning potential of drama and theatre experiences for all children and young people.

There have been few supportive documents in recent years that have enabled teachers, in those schools where the subject is ‘under threat’, to make their case for the subject’s sustainable identity. ND will address this ‘gap’ and provide members with supportive position papers that articulate a coherent rationale for drama as a core subject.

The Executive intend to create a series of draft papers that are relevant to primary, secondary, teacher education, special educational needs and age-appropriate professional theatre experiences. These papers can be used as aids in professional conversations between teachers and curriculum policy-makers.

We celebrate the fact that we have many members who have the insight, experience, expertise and enthusiasm to contribute to our collective vision.

If you would like to be involved in this work, please send expressions of interest to:

chair@nationaldrama.org.uk or executive@nationaldrama.org.uk

This will be an exciting journey that could result in support for everyone who works in drama and theatre education.

Geoff Readman

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Drama Magazine

ISSN 0967-4454

Drama is National Drama’s magazine of professional practice, ISSN 0967-4454. Published twice a year, this hard copy, print publication contains a wealth of features and articles for and by drama teachers and theatre educators in many contexts within the UK and overseas. Content focuses on practical teaching experiences and projects drawn from across educational contexts and includes classroom materials, schemes of work, interviews and reviews of books and other resources.

You can subscribe to Drama magazine and receive hard copies twice yearly, but if you become a full member you can also access Drama Research, our International Journal of Drama in Education, and  receive discounts on our CPD events.

Summer 2024 issue

Supporting teachers with live theatre

  • In Memoriam: Dr Brian Heap; Edward Bond; Dr John Somers
  • Seize the Day! Carpe Diem! • Áine Lark Research Inspires Bursary
  • Why Does Oracy Matter and How Can We Root It in the Drama Curriculum
  • Why Mask? Masks as a resource and a tool
  • Dorothy Heathcote Now International Drama Conference 2023
  • Drama Conventions: Dorothy Heathcote Now 2023
  • London Tide at the National Theatre
  • Centre Pull Out Resource: The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever

Drama Research

International Journal of Drama in Education

ISSN 2040-2228

An innovative international refereed  e journal that provides a forum for practitioners and researchers across the spectrum of drama in educational settings. We encourage, gather and publish research-based articles from established and new writers to promote knowledge, understanding and dialogue about drama in learning contexts.

By subscribing to Drama Research you will have immediate access to the current issue, and after the first year you will be able to access the entire archive. However if you join National Drama as a full member you will have immediate access to the latest issue and the entire archive, as well as free copies of Drama Magazine  and discounts on CPD events.

Vol 15. No.1: April 2024

Welcome to the fifteenth issue of Drama Research!

The articles in this issue describe three research projects, each located in a different genre of theatre: youth theatre, professional theatre, and site-specific community drama. Interestingly, the work in each different genre is centrally informed by the use of Process Drama, especially the use of drama conventions. The volume is a fascinating study in the varied use of a form of Drama which is usually associated with work in school classrooms and is a rare, detailed, recorded testament to how flexible and effective this form of working can be.

Articles:

  • Bennachie and me: a site-specific, promenade, interactive community drama project, devised and performed in the North-East of Scotland
  • Għanqbut f’Moħħha: a practice-as-research project on the theme of fear
  • Steampunk Sparks: Antigone’s Rebel Heartbeat Revived by 11-year-olds
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