‘She might find out the truth'

Action researching with young theatre audiences

Abstract

Action Research (AR) is often used in theatre and performance to engage communities in acts of social change. Framed as theatre action research in applied theatre, practice as research or participatory enquiry, theatre becomes the central tool in generating knowledge. However, engaging with audiences experiences of theatre as an act of performance throughout my PhD means I was interested in how AR’s paradigmatic qualities apply to young people’s experience of theatre. Thickly detailing my methodological approach, in this paper I examine how AR applied across my research and has subsequently become embedded in my methodological approach to analysing theatre and performance.