About

This research project will investigate how theatricality is played out across the frames of performance, policy, and practice. The process of theatricalization can be seen as ‘the process of turning people and actions into figures within a scene, whether or not they regard themselves as on display, performing or otherwise being there to be seen.’ (Kear, 2019, 3). My project examines how class, constructed through this process, is continuously reproduced through discourses of working-class access, inclusion and participation. Throughout this, class is approached as a complex, intersectional and culturally constructed concept produced through processes of theatricalization. 

The research involves a mixed mode methodology of practice-based investigation, action research and contextual critical study. This includes a critical case study analysis of the theatricalization of class, as seen in ‘events’ such as the London Riots (2011), The Grenfell Tower Fire (2017) and The Mediterranean Migration Crisis (2015—). Here, representations of working-classness will be analysed. 

Following this, the research will develop a policy evaluation framework, investigating policies that aim for accessibility (e.g. funding, equal opportunities programming). It examines how policy is constructed through the representation and re-theatricalization of working-classness.

The research project proceeds through action research workshop-based investigations. Workshops will be conducted four times, each in a different city, with different participants. Invited participants specialise in class inclusion: People Dem, Working Class Creatives Database, PAN Multicultural Arts and Odd Arts. The workshops will discuss class representations, construction of policy, and the staging of class. It will feature a ‘Mantle of the Expert’ structure, adapted to adult participants.