ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the readers are invited into the university’s theatre space, where insights are gained into how a theatre course grounded in Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and the pedagogy of discomfort can create an environment for growth. The primary aim of this chapter is to argue that the use of the theatre in the education of social workers can promote creative wellbeing. Following a vignette, the pedagogical foundations of the course are described and discussed, explicating how the philosophical and theoretical frameworks are crucial to the processes of individual and social growth experienced by the students. The carefully planned dramaturgy of the course is then described and illustrated through narratives aiming to demonstrate practical achievements of creative wellbeing. The narratives and explanations are derived from memory, field notes, discussions, student responses, and anonymous course evaluations spanning over 15 years of teaching theatre skills to social work students. Based on this material, it is argued that most discover or claim their own creativity and experience a sense of creative wellbeing in the process of theatre-making.
