The Intergenerational Theatre of the Oppressed Project (ITOP), piloted in February 2016, seeks to offer a safe, welcoming and creative environment for participants across the spectrum of age to engage in a community discovery process through the medium of theater. Specifically, this program utilizes exercises and techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed canon to allow participants to examine and analyze real-life issues and situations through theater, image-making, and play.

Pilot Season/Session Theme
We began our first session of ITOP with two thematic questions: “How are we not being seen?” and “How are we not seeing?”

These questions served as an entry for the diverse groups to begin understanding how individually and collectively we all play into a role of categorizing, stereotyping, and misunderstanding others because of difference to the point where we devalue—unintentionally and sometimes intentionally—another’s experience. This session culminated in a final event that included scenes based off real life miscommunication issues and involved the audience in actively helping by becoming players, or “actors,” that replaced our protagonists to find solutions to those issues. 

LEARN MORE
Questions? Please contact Gabriel Moreno at gmoreno@uchicago.edu.