Temporary Stages III: How High School Theatre Fosters Spiritual Strength and Critical Consciousness

Theatre activities ask adolescents to empathize with those who are different from themselves. Recognizing divergence invites self-reflection and kindles compassion. These actions tap students’ inner cores while at the same time deepening their understanding of privilege, a key component of critical consciousness.

Through the lens of critical pedagogy and feminist theory, this book explores the mutually reinforcing development of spirituality and emerging critical consciousness fostered by high school theatre experience. By examining her own public high school theatre program through description, analysis and interpretation, Gonzalez explores why and how theatre work can simultaneously fortify teens’ spiritual growth while activating dawning awareness of the socio-political dynamics in their own lives and the world around them. The book includes the original one-act play Free to Fly, which introduces young people to the dangers of sex trafficking of minors.

Temporary Stages III will appeal especially to secondary theatre teachers, theatre education pre-service teachers, and graduate students studying theatre pedagogy and critical cultural theory.

Jo Beth Gonzalez, MFA, Ph.D. teaches theatre and public speaking and directs the drama program at Bowling Green High School in Bowling Green, Ohio, USA. Gonzalez is the recipient of the Bowling Green State University 2015-2016 Educator of the Year Award, Educational Theatre Association’s 2015 Ohio Theatre Educator of the Year, and the 2002 Wilson National Mentor’s Award to a High School Drama Teacher from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America. In 2018, she participated in the U.S. State Department’s ＂Teachers for Global Classrooms＂ program. A Thespian Troupe Director, her students are actively involved in regional, state, and international Thespian events.