Table Of ContentGirls, Performance, and Activism
Girls, Performance, and Activism offers artists, activists, educators, and scholars a
comprehensive analysis, celebration, and critique of the ways in which teenage
girls create and perform activist theater.
Girls, particularly Black and Latinx teenagers, are using the tools of per-
formance to share their stories, devise new ones, and use the stage to advocate
for social change. Interweaving interviews, poetic text, drama, and theory, this
book provides readers with a comprehensive understanding of how and why
this field erupted and the ways in which girls are using performance to trans-
form themselves and enact change in their communities. As a white woman
who has collaboratively created theater with hundreds of girls of color over
the past 20 years, Dana Edell offers strategies for engaging with girls across
difference through an intersectional lens in order to acknowledge the ways in
which race, gender, age, class, ability, and sexuality influence girls’ experiences
and relationships with adult collaborators as they work to create meaningful,
impactful, and often personal activist performances.
This is the go-t o handbook for teachers, theater directors, and performance
makers who want to create politically engaged work with teenage girls.
Dana Edell is an assistant professor of Applied Theatre at Emerson College in
Boston, Massachusetts.
“The book is a pleasure to read, exuding the energy and panache of teenage
girls. It does not skimp on theory but is clear in its exposition. Writing at the
intersection of performance, activism, and girls’ studies, Edell balances an over-
view with firsthand experience. She expresses a love for the subject while being
critical. She lets the reader in on her own questions and struggles, and the girls’
successes and challenges. Assessing the work’s impact on the girls themselves,
their friends and family, and the ‘world’ beyond gets the reader thinking about
what performance can and cannot do.”
— Jan Cohen- Cruz, writer and teacher, socially engaged performance
“In Girls, Performance, and Activism, girls are a force to be reckoned with. All
the world’s a stage for their urgent messages, whether they’re performing at
a United Nations meeting, in a neighborhood park, at a protest rally, a school
cafeteria, or in a TikTok video. Freely voiced and fully embodied, activism is
their first language. Dana Edell offers us all a masterclass in girl-d riven the-
ater as a praxis of liberation and a vehicle for social change. She confronts the
complexities of partnering with girls across difference and incites us all to bear
critical witness to girls’ imagination, rage, creativity, and joy.”
— Lyn Mikel Brown, Professor of Education, Colby College; author of
Powered by Girl: A Field Guide for Supporting Youth Activists
Girls, Performance,
and Activism
Demanding to be Heard
Dana Edell
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Dana Edell
The right of Dana Edell to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021939421
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 42709- 2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 42711- 5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 85456- 0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
For Mom, Dad, Wilder, and Forrest:
my past, present, and future
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 “Under construction”: girls, performance, and activism 16
2 “This is not a safe space”: principles of theatermaking
with girls 42
3 “Real im(PERFECT)ions”: performing confidence,
expressing agency 76
4 “Held momentarily”: for an audience of one … plus 111
5 “Shut up and listen!”: performance in public spaces 128
6 “Finally someone hears us”: considering our audiences 145
Conclusion: ripples of change 169
Works cited 183
Organizations, projects, and resources 194
Index 204
Acknowledgments
I have been dreaming of writing this book for nearly 20 years, and there are sig-
nificant, wondrous people who have helped shape my understanding of theater,
activism, and girl- driven work. My first theater teacher was Trina Tjersland: you
set the bar high for showing me how an adult can collaborate with teenagers
with respect and love. Ev Corum, David Montee, Robin Ellis, and Reed Zitting
at Interlochen treated us crazy, theater-o bsessed kids with care and taught me
professional standards and an indefatigable work ethic. I am so grateful that I got
through high school without cellphones or internet and that left quite literally
to our own devices, we just kept devising and making art in the woods. Other
theater scholars, directors, and professors that ignited my love for this blazing
art form were, at Brown, Tori Haring- Smith: you helped me understand fem-
inist performance and Oskar Eustis: you shared your insights and experiences of
activist theater. I had the life- changing privilege to study directing with Anne
Bogart and Robert Woodruff at Columbia: your complimentary styles and deep
passion for theatrical innovation pushed me to listen to and cultivate my own
creative voice. I am ever grateful that I was able to study with Augusto Boal and
other founding jokers at the Center for Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio and
will never forget the exquisite joy he brought to the work. At NYU, I learned
about feminist ethnography with Deborah Kapchan and applied theatre with
Phillip Taylor and Nan Smithner.
As soon as I got to NYU’s campus, I showed up at the door of one of my
academic heroes, Carol Gilligan and you not only let me in, but invited me
to study with you and guided my understandings of patriarchy, relationships,
and girls’ voices. Niobe Way, studying with you, teaching with you, writing
with you, and being part of your research team changed the way I understand
research. You showed me how listening is an act of resistance, an act of love,
and can change the world. Lyn Mikel Brown is another hero who never let me
down. Your brilliance, generosity, and friendship have been transformative. You
have been a stalwart voice for demanding we listen to girls and partnering with
you was literally a dream come true. My co- conspirators in SPARK who taught
me what antiracist, feminist activism really looks like in practice. Deb Tolman,
thank you for co-f ounding this movement with Lyn and inviting me to join
you. Shelby Knox and Jamia Wilson: you taught me what feminist activism
