ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to briefly recount the background, context, and emergence of the technique, historically seen as the first branch of Theatre of the Oppressed, and focuses on how Newspaper Theatre is used. Of all the Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, Newspaper Theatre is the most clearly rooted in the actuality of the present moment because a single group can change its piece as a result of changing news stories. In Augusto Boal’s first experiences using the technique Concretion of Abstraction, which attempted to set aside the purely artistic to manifest a news story in “reality,” a dove was killed and was later substituted with burning worms. By intervening in public or private spaces, pieces of Newspaper Theatre are basically itinerant productions, easily mounted and taken down. They are localist, meaning that they present news stories that are important in the place and context in which they are shown.
