Improv-ing Your Life Invites Audience Members on Stage

Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC) is inviting you to “join in” on the next Theater Arts Program production, Improv-ing Your Life, Nov. 29 through Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the OCCC Theater Lab (room 1C5) on the college campus. 

“Improv-ing Your Life is a different-type of theatrical experience that combines audience interaction, group problem solving and social awareness,” said Brent Noel, OCCC Theater Arts Program director. “We think this type of theatre goes beyond simple entertainment and works as a model for valuing diversity, examining possibilities and critical thinking, all under the cloak of having fun.” 

Improv-ing Your Life will use theater and theatrical imagery to examine power structures and identify how seemingly powerless people can regain control of their lives by engaging in dialogue. 

The techniques of this production are based on those developed by Brazilian director and theorist Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, which involves using theatre to give voice to those who do not normally have access to the public discourse. Boal's techniques also use theater as means of promoting social and political change, and the audience becomes active such as "spect-actors." They explore, show, analyze and transform the reality in which they are living.

Improv-ing Your Life will encourage OCCC spect-actors from the audience on stage to “rehearse” their attempt to overcome the obstacle presented. Personal and social conflicts the theater program students have been exploring include parental pressure, sexual harassment, subtle (and not so subtle) forms of racism, bullying, and the stress of everyday life. 

Admission to Improv-ing Your Life is free to the public. For more information, please contact Brent Noel, OCCC Theatre Arts Program director at (405) 682-7246.