ABSTRACT
All over the world, scholars, politicians, policy-makers and even the very practitioners themselves find it difficult to pigeon-hole community theatre, because, as we have seen, its creative methods are so diverse and the plays, which represent many styles, are usually performed beyond the reach of metropolitan limelights. The composition of the community groups is equally varied, as are the theatre vocabularies and techniques
of the artists who work with them. Still, the above case studies show that on all six continents, the artists who practise community theatre also share significant methodological elements, organizational strategies, and complex concerns, such as the effectiveness of their work, the ethics of middle-class artists working with peripheral groups, and the aesthetics and status of community theatre as a distinct art form.
