Conversation with Cecily O'Neill - a video interview

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2_EITN_2024_02_INTERVIEW_Lyngstad.pdf

Abstract

In a 30 minute video exchange with drama education pioneer Cecily O’Neill, Mette Bøe Lyngstad and Stig A. Eriksson - professors in drama and applied theatre at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) in Bergen, Norway - speak with O’Neill about her field background, some characteristics of the process drama field, important challenges of the field for the future, and views on uses of dramatic conventions.

The interview came about as a result of our attendance at the Dorothy Heathcote Now Conference in Aberdeen, October 2023. Having long experience of working in a process drama tradition, and wanting to renew our former connections with O’Neill, we invited her back to the drama department, to work with our bachelor and master students in drama and applied theatre. Then we also used the opportunity to ask O’Neill to share professional views on drama education and dramatic conventions with us in HVL’s media studio.

We decided that the session should have the form of conversation rather than a tightly structured interview – but among the topics we discuss in this interview is O’Neill’s statement about conventions in her workshop in Aberdeen that: “tableau is overused and underestimated”…

The interview is led by Lyngstad and produced by the Media Centre at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway for the readers of this Special Issue of Education in the North.

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Keywords

O Neill, Heathcote, tableau, dramatic conventions, applied drama, theatre

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