What is Applied Theatre Good For? Exploring the Notions of Success, Intent and Impact; Kelly Freebody, Michael Finneran, Michael Balfour and Michael Anderson -- Theories of Change: Cultural Value and Applied Theatre; Michael Balfour and Kelly Freebody -- Language and the Concept of Change: Overview of Leximancer Analysis; Michael Finneran -- Values, Intentions, Success and Impact in Applied Theatre Documents; Kelly Freebody -- Critical Perspectives on Applied Theatre for Social Change: Defamilarising Key Words in the Field; Kelly Freebody and Susan Goodwin -- Introduction to the Edited Chapters -- No “Bullshit”: Rigor and Evaluation of Applied Theatre Projects; Dani Snyder-Young -- Change and Continuity in Applied Theatre: Lessons Learnt from ‘The Longest Night’; Celina McEwen -- In the Interstice of Intension and Intention of Transformation: Where Applied Theatre Fosters Neoliberal Entrepreneurship; Syed Jamil Ahmed -- Hearing Children’s Voices: Is anyone listening? Peter O’Connor -- Bottom’s Dream Applied Theatre: Anything Goes but what Stays? Tim Prentki -- Evaluation and the Theory of Change; Helen Cahill.

This volume offers researchers and practitioners new perspectives on applied theatre work, exploring the relationship between applied theatre and its intent, success and value. Applied theatre is a well-established field focused on the social application of the arts in a range of contexts including schools, prisons, residential aged care and community settings. The increased uptake of applied theatre in these contexts requires increased analysis and understanding of indications of success and value. This volume provides critical commentary and questions regarding issues associated with developing, delivering and evaluating applied theatre programs. Part 1 of the volume presents a discussion of the ways the concept of change is presented to and by funding bodies, practitioners, participants, researchers and policy makers to discover and analyse the relationships between applied theatre practice, transformative intent, and evaluation. Part 2 of the volume offers perspectives from key authors in the field which extend and contextualize the discussion by examining key themes and practice-based examples. .