The theatre kids: Heteronormativity and high school theatre.

摘要

This dissertation provides an ideological analysis of heteronormative practice in high school theatre and documents creative solutions teachers find for subverting heteronormative expectations they confront in students, parents, administrators, and community members. This study explores the following questions: (1) what ideological boundaries contain high school theatre historically and in contemporary practice; (2) how (does) the "best practice" of the field respond to these boundaries; and (3) (how) is the normalization of heterosexuality---a significant ideological boundary---challenged or reified by high school theatre pedagogy and play production. Identify the following assumptions as ideological containments of high school theatre pedagogy and play production: (1) theatre has the potential to teach "life skills" and is thus important beyond its ability to teach within its discipline; (2) play productions will be something that students, parents, and younger siblings can attend; (3) student actors should not engage in on-stage behavior that is not allowed in the school at large (such as smoking, drinking, drugs, vulgar language, etc.); (4) plays should not be overtly sexual or have non-heterosexual characters (unless as a joke); and (5) theatre is an alternative to playing sports and thus occupies an "unmasculine" space in high school society.; I investigate this study's research questions through a qualitative methodology. I define the term "heteronormativity" and examine its relationship to high school theatre pedagogy and play production; look at the historical moment in which theatre was included in the U.S. high school experience; trace an emancipatory language of the field to its inception within the Progressive Education movement; investigate the construction of teenage identity as a twentieth-century phenomenon; survey documented high school play productions and analyze their content within the circumstances of the social and political boundaries of high school theatre; and conduct and analyze interviews with high school theatre teachers about pedagogy, directing experiences, and social activism within their teaching context. This study shows that high school theatre teachers face major obstacles in challenging heterosexuality as a "norm," that even the "best practice" experiences resistance, and that responses must be carefully thought out in order to create effective learning experiences for students.