Reflections from Mindset Revolution's Legislative Theatre co-facilitators

by Katy Rubin, Charlie, Juliet, Lee and Ummay, with Niamh Carroll (42nd Street) and Ryan Gilmartin (Youth Focus North West)

A film by Joanne Parker on the Legislative Process from our last project, Optimistic Minds

Young people are not just sitting around waiting to be able to vote; they can have a direct impact on politics and policymaking, through participatory democracy. What’s more, young people are not just participants in these processes; they can and should also take the lead. What does it feel like to transition from being a participant to being a facilitator of participatory democracy?

During the Optimistic Minds project in summer / autumn 2022, seven young people from across Greater Manchester (GM) came together, via a participatory policymaking process called Legislative Theatre, to co-design and advocate equitable and effective youth-focused mental health services in GM. 

In Legislative Theatre, audiences and policymakers watch a play based on the community actors' experiences with oppressive policies and practices. Then, audiences act onstage to rehearse ways to confront the problems presented and test new policies in real time. Actors and audiences propose ideas for new laws, rules, and policies to address the problems, working together with advocates, organizers, and government representatives. Finally, we vote on new rules, and policymakers commit to immediate actions.

Multiple concrete and actionable proposals came out of the Optimistic Minds process, and many of those are moving forward currently. At the same time, four of the young leaders who created and performed the play at both Manchester Metropolitan and Oxford universities, engaging scores of stakeholders in a policy development process, have now completed training to be Legislative Theatre facilitators, as part of the Mindset Revolution project. They are preparing to work together to lead another group of young people in a new play-creation process that will continue to investigate challenges and opportunities to improve mental health services for youth in Greater Manchester. 

Since launching the Mindset Revolution project in December 2022 with a party at Reform Radio, they have been coming together every week to discuss pedagogical theory and history, from Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) and Augusto Boal (Theatre of the Oppressed) to the teaching styles in our own schools, and practice facilitating theatre games, scene-building and audience dialogues. The group is using Theatre of the Oppressed NYC’s new Wildcard Workbook: A Practical Guide for Jokering Forum Theatre as a jumping-off point, as well as the experience they’ve just had in the Optimistic Minds project. Rehearsals with the new group of young people have just started, leading to a brand-new Legislative Theatre event series in May / June 2023. 

The following blog was co-written by facilitators-in-training Charlie, Ummay, Lee and Juliet, along with lead facilitator Katy Rubin and support staff / co-facilitators Niamh from 42nd Street and Ryan from Youth Focus North West. 

Picture by Ingrid Turner, September 2022, We are the Ones We've been Waiting For, Legislative Theatre Play, where Charlie, Juliet, Lee and Ummay were involved from the start.

Juliet:

We have been meeting up with the end goal of having a non-scripted play, that highlights recurring problems that people know and have been knowing, but aren’t able to voice them across to the current mental health systems we have. The aim of this play is to encourage those people to speak up, and find different solutions. We also uncover this through rehearsals, games, and asking open-ended questions to each other. 

Charles: 

Yes! This is interactive, we are learning how to facilitate audience interaction to get to solutions. 

Ummay: 

To make the play, we start with games and discussions. We’re learning how to teach the rules of the games, but another thing we’re learning is how to discuss the games, and think about what they’re leading a group to understand. Like, this game is about destabilizing people so that they can imagine things differently, while this game is about revealing ingrained rules in our world. It's interesting how something that seems like a simple game – if you really think about it and engage with it, the game can yield interesting results. I’ve been realising how conscious you have to be about what you’re saying: so that you’re including everyone, going through the process with them rather than doing it to them. 

Charlie:

It feels like we’re getting to see behind the scenes, where you usually don’t get to see in a community project. A lot of work goes into facilitation! When we were participants making and performing our play, watching Katy lead, I didn't quite realise the work it takes; it’s because she’s been doing it for so long. Now we can see the little swan legs going under the water: Katy the duck! Like any creative process, you see someone who’s been doing it for ages and you think they’re really talented, but actually they’ve been working really hard and practicing for a long time. Which makes facilitation feel daunting but also more possible: this is something we can also learn to be good at! 

Lee:

It is definitely a very tricky thing to get your head around at first, as it's such a different and exciting creative process to follow. Facilitation is very different from most other styles of creating - you aren't a director but more of a helpful guide, with a well of knowledge about the inner workings of legislative theatre. 

Niamh:

Yeah, it’s been so interesting to see the mechanics of legislative theatre. When we were participating, it felt easy to transition from playing games to suddenly, surprisingly, having made a play. I didn’t know how we got there! But the facilitator has to constantly think about what’s coming next and guide the process so that the participants feel that it’s smooth, and fun. 

Charlie:

When we’re debriefing and giving feedback as we practice facilitation, we’ve been discussing our facilitation “styles.” We all have different styles and that’s great; it’s about learning our strengths and weaknesses, and where we’ll need support from our co-facilitators, you know. Style is really interesting: two people doing the same activity can have a very different effect on the people in the group. It’s nice that people can lead things in their own style; you don’t have to all be doing the same thing. Facilitation is about what’s natural to people; it’s about connecting person to person. And the responses that groups give to discussions and games aren’t predetermined. You can learn from the people you’re facilitating; if they say something completely unexpected, that’s a good thing! I think what I’m saying is, it’s good to have different styles because it gets different responses. That’s why it’s also great that we’ll be facilitating in teams, never alone. 

Niamh:

Something that’s challenging for me in facilitation of a process like this, is when people have different opinions or bring up difficult topics: how to navigate that when you really don’t agree with what people are saying, without shutting people down? We’re learning how to have one long conversation – not to tear people down but to open up information about how they live and why they do or believe the things they do; and if you don’t like what they say, you still have to be able to navigate the conversation in such a way that you don’t feel like you’re drowning! A phone call, for example, you could script, but in facilitation you have to be open to the unscripted things that can happen. Here a person can say something completely different than what you’ve scripted in your head; you’re not going to be able to respond without thinking on your feet. But that’s also the fun of it. 

Charlie:

Now we’re almost ready for the next step. The people - the new actors - are going to be coming, and we’re going to do the play for real. The youth are coming! 

Juliet:

When I think about doing this Legislative Theatre facilitation thing in public I feel worried, because sometimes I don’t always want to talk - to be public. Sometimes I feel like a tree…. That just exists, listening, silently. So I’ve been wondering, can I be a tree, or do I need to talk as the facilitator? But then I remember, I’m not here to deliver knowledge. Actually I can listen, I can facilitate and still be a tree. It would be different if you were standing up at the front and saying, “This is how the play will go.” But that’s not what we’re doing. The people in the group have a lot of freedom to create whatever they want, without the facilitator leading it. So I can speak, but I don’t have to give the answers. 

Lee:

And ultimately we as facilitators don't have all the answers to the questions and issues that we are facing, at least not concrete ones. But that is totally okay! What this style of theatre is about is coming together as an ensemble and figuring out together: What solutions can be viable, what needs to be changed within society? How do we go about making those changes?