ABOUT US

PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation

PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation is a research project based at Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada. The two principal researchers are Dr. Jenn Stephenson and Mariah (Mo) Horner.

PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation is a book published by Playwrights Canada Press in May 2024. Written in a series of alphabetical, standalone mini essays that activate the reader as a participant who chooses their own path, PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation collects, describes, and analyzes live performances in which the audience become participants in the piece itself. This website is a companion to the book, featuring a multimedia gallery of the 80+ performances we have collected to date. Play: Dramaturgies of Participation is illustrated by Jeff McGilton.

Before it was a book, PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation was a blog where we shared our early writing. In the blog archive, you'll find responses to our reading and to the performances we were seeing. We are also profiling the artists and creators of these participatory play-games.

Dr. Jenn Stephenson is Professor in the Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University, teaching dramatic literature, history and theory, as well as production design. Her 2003 PhD thesis on metatheatre in Shakespeare received the Clifford Leech Dissertation Prize from the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the author of two books. Performing Autobiography: Contemporary Canadian Drama received the Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s Ann Saddlemyer Award in 2013. Her recent book is Insecurity: Perils and Products of Theatres of the Real (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Examining the proliferation of reality-based performance genres like documentary, verbatim, and site-specific theatre in the first decades of the 21st century, the book argues that although the inclusion of real objects and real words on the stage would seem to increase the epistemological security and truth-value of the presentation, under the social context of post-reality in fact the opposite is the case. Elsewhere, articles have appeared in Theatre Journal, Contemporary Theatre Review, Theatre Research in Canada, New Theatre Quarterly, L’annuaire théâtrale and Theater. From 2016 to 2022, Jenn served as Editor-in-Chief of Canadian Theatre Review.

Mariah (Mo) Horner is a theatre creator and PhD Candidate based in Kingston. Mo has been published by Theatre Research in Canada, Canadian Theatre Review, SpiderWebShow, Visit Kingston and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario. She graduated from uOttawa with an MA in Theatre Theory and Dramaturgy with a research creation thesis in the Diefenbunker and her PhD thesis grapples with abolitionist dramaturgies. In 2022, she won the Creator's Mayors Arts Award from the City of Kingston. Selected theatre credits include: directing Hana Hashimoto: Sixth Violin (Thousand Islands Playhouse 2019), and assistant directing Behaviour (GCTC 2018), Butcher (Theatre Kingston 2018), and The Revolutions (SpiderWebShow 2017). She was the director of Kingston’s Storefront Fringe Festival from 2016-18, CFRC's Shortwave Radio Theatre Festival from 2020-2022, the inaugural winner of the Patrick Conner Theatre Ticket Award. She worked as an associate producer with SpiderWebShow, producing digital content for the inaugural FOLDA (festival of live digital Art). Co-founding site-specific theatre company Cellar Door Project in 2013, Mariah has since produced fifteen new works in Ottawa and Kingston in cemeteries, record stores, bars, parks and the Diefenbunker.

Illustrations

Jeff McGilton | Illustrator for PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation

Jeff McGilton is a queer creator, collaborator, and facilitator with a passion for community-based arts. Trained in applied theatre, Jeff acknowledges the power that art can have in the conveying of meaning, bridging of gaps, and shifting of perspectives. He is a firm believer in the importance of access to art for all and has worked in multiple settings that facilitate that process. You can find more of his work on Instagram at @jmcgilton.

Our Student Team

Dylan Chenier | Research Assistant (2020-2022)

Dylan is a Master’s student in the Cultural Studies program at Queen’s University. Dylan’s research focuses on the relationship between politics and theatre, and how the theatre can be used to facilitate meaningful political discourse. Dylan’s work as a theatre artist often reflects these research interests. Dylan’s first full-length play, Iowa, an exploration into the complex US Presidential primary system, received its first-ever staged reading in January of 2020 and is currently being developed.

Charlotte Dorey | Research Assistant (2022-2023)

Charlotte is a student of Drama and English Literature at Queen’s University. She has experience in writing, directing, and designing for the stage, and is eager to dive into the world of theatre academia as a research assistant for the team of PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation. In particular, Charlotte is interested in exploring how acts of ritual and ceremony can be integrated into participatory theatre, and how that informs our relationship with each other and the land. Charlotte is entering her final year of undergraduate studies in the fall of 2022 working as the Production Manager for the DAN School of Drama and Music Winter Major Production, and plans to pursue graduate studies in the future.

Benjamin Ma | CTR197 Editorial Assistant, Web Assistant (2023-2024)

Benjamin Ma is a drama student at Queen’s University, where he will enter his fourth year in the fall of 2023. Over the years he has gained experience in co-producing, writing, directing, and acting, accumulating interest in interrogating Chinese representations throughout theatre’s histories to influence the future. Benjamin is also a summer research fellow investigating access to music theatre for older adults through the virtual stage. He is drawn to productions that push the boundaries between the performer and the audience, so he is super excited to work with Dr. Jenn Stephenson and Mariah Horner on their PLAY: dramaturgies of participation project. You can find him interrogating theory, playing guitar, or working at the hospital in any free time.

Hamish Hutchison-Poyntz | Research Assistant from May-August 2021

Hamish is a student of Drama and Political Studies at Queen’s University. Interested in storytelling of all kinds, Hamish is particularly fascinated by the social implications of theatre, both as a reflection of culture and society and a tool to shape it with. Having worked as a research assistant for Dr. Kelsey Jacobson in the summer of 2020 studying audience responses to theatre, Hamish is excited to dive back into the world of theatre academia and research in 2021. He plans to study the concept of emergence as it applies to theatre, and the possibilities iterative theatre models might open. Hamish is currently completing his third year of his undergraduate degree, and acting, podcasting and directing whatever bits of weird theatre he can.

Derek Manderson | Research Assistant (2019)

Derek is a PhD student in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. As an undergrad at Queen’s, he completed a research fellowship with Dr. Jenn Stephenson and Mariah Horner, igniting his passion for theatre academia. Since then, Derek has continued thinking about participatory theatre using a game-design framework to analyze the rules governing collaborative play. He is particularly interested in the ways that games can be mobilized to forge connections and support storytelling.

Derek’s recent theatrical explorations include developing a role-playing game (Learn/Roll/Play) and working with Toasterlab to facilitate youth-devised performances in virtual reality (Virtual Parkway Forest Park). He also holds a teaching assistant position in York’s AMPD faculty.

Jacob Pittini | Research Assistant (2020)

Jacob is a student of Drama and English literature at Queen’s University. As a Concurrent Education student he is interested specifically in contemplating the diverse ways theatre connects to teaching and learning. In the summer of 2020, he began a research fellowship with Dr. Stephenson and Mariah Horner, bringing him into the exciting realm of the play/PLAY: dramaturgies of participation team. As part of the project, Jacob is focusing on the bodily experience of audience-participants and how these embodied experiences inform our understanding of artworks. Jacob is headed towards the final year of his undergraduate degree and also working as a teaching assistant within the Dan School of Drama and Music.

Hailey Scott | Research Assistant (2020)

Hailey is a student of Drama and English literature at Queen’s University. During the summer of 2020, Hailey was honoured to have had the opportunity to peek behind the curtain into the exciting world of theatre academia. As a concurrent education student, Hailey loves to look at the relationship between theatre and teaching and how audiences and learners are emotionally stimulated by the artistic and academic world around them. To culminate her collaboration with play/PLAY: dramaturgies of participation, Hailey’s research concentrated on how emotions are fostered by participatory theatre. Currently, Hailey is completing the final year of her undergraduate degree and is working on producing her first site-specific piece of theatre.

Mary Tooley | Research Assistant (2021)

Mary is a student of Drama and Music at Queen’s University. She is thrilled to begin her research fellowship in the summer of 2021 and to collaborate with the team of play/PLAY: dramaturgies of participation. With a background in and passion for performance, Mary is particularly intrigued by the precious and ever-changing dynamics of interaction between actor and audience in immersive and participatory theatre. Social media culture reveals a desire to perform, and she is fascinated by the elements of danger, decision, and opportunity that arise when spectators are invited to co-create the world of the piece alongside its performers. Mary is currently completing her final semester as a co-producer for the DAN Studio Series, and she will be heading into her final year of her undergraduate degree in the Fall of 2021.