Reminiscence Theatre - Making Theatre from Memories (Paperback, Illustrated Ed)

?Sheds new light on complex human issues and the message is loud and clear: reminiscence and reminiscence theatre can make a profound improvement in real people's real lives.? ? from the Foreword by Glenda Jackson MP ?The vast scope of the work recounted in this book as well as the detailed guidance it provides will become an invaluable resource for anyone who wishes to mine the riches of reminiscence work and to transform the spoken word into tangible artistic forms.? ? Faith Gibson, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of Ulster Reminiscence Theatre is about seeing dramatic potential in real life stories. It takes verbatim memories as the basis for theatre scripts, using the experiences of older people as a source of therapeutic creativity. This book is a comprehensive guide to the nature, practice and therapeutic effects of reminiscence theatre. Drawing on examples from a range of real-life case studies, Pam Schweitzer provides practical advice on the process of taking an oral history, creating from it a written script and developing that into a dramatic production, on whatever scale. The book outlines five components of key significance that the form affords: artistic development through creativity; cultural development, by creating reminiscence theatre in multi-cultural contexts such as dual-language productions; educational development through the intergenerational sharing of memories; psycho-social development for older people by reliving and reshaping past experiences; and health care, by using reminiscence theatre as therapy for older people with dementia, for instance. This will be of great interest to social work professionals and carers of older people, arts therapypractitioners and students in these fields