Abstract: "Throughout the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022, the people of Oberammergau, Germany will reemerge from the Covid-19 pandemic amid preparations for the massive community theatre project they mount every ten years: The Oberammergau Passion Play. Throughout the late 20th century, this town’s tradition of performing Jesus’s crucifixion was frequently critiqued, both for promoting antisemitic stereotypes and for its unwavering fealty to an archaic Catholic doctrine that the Vatican had moved beyond. But since 1990, the director of this Passion Play has been pushing for radical change. This presentation, based on recent interviews with citizens of Oberammergau, will illuminate how the current rehearsal process knits together their increasingly heterogeneous community, facilitating unlikely relationships and an enhanced sense of belonging. It will also examine how the process of revising and rehearsing this narrative has come to facilitate dialogue within the community, making space for disparate ideas about politics, theology, identity, continuity, and change. Attendees of this presentation will come away with an enhanced understanding of how community theatre can foster a high-stakes dialogue across a community’s generational, ideological, cultural, and religious divisions.
The research is based on semi-structured interviews with approximately 20 community members, all of whom were engaged in preparations for the 2020 Oberammergau Passion Play when Covid19 caused the town to suspend rehearsals and reschedule the event for 2022. Interviews enabled the Oberammergauers to reflect on the current iteration of the play and their experiences in past iterations, explaining what makes the process meaningful for them and what kinds of interactions it facilitates. This study will continue over the forthcoming year, enabling the research team to conduct more interviews as rehearsals resume, and ultimately, to conduct an ethnographic investigation of rehearsals and performances. This presentation, situated in the middle of our data collection period, will enable the primary investigator and one research assistant to share preliminary insights based on the interviews we have conducted thus far.
Eliot Leffler: "Elliot Leffler is a scholar, director, performer, and facilitator of applied theatre projects. In his research and in the creative projects he leads, Elliot primarily explores how theatre can be used as a catalyst for intercultural and interfaith dialogue. He has led theatre projects with white, black, and coloured South Africans, with Jews and Palestinians in Israel, with Kurdish and Arab Iraqis, with urban US high school students, and with racially diverse houses of worship. These creative and scholarly projects frequently take Elliot away from traditional theatre spaces: he has worked in summer camps, prisons, rural villages, and urban high schools. However, he has also worked closely with many prominent theatre companies, including Sojourn Theatre and Portland Playhouse (Portland), Theatre J (Washington, DC), Magnet Theatre (Cape Town, South Africa), and Lifeline Theatre (Chicago).
Elliot joined the faculty of the University of Toronto in 2018, after teaching at Reed College in Portland, Oregon for four years. He holds a PhD in Theatre from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Cape Town, and a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University. He frequently presents at national and international conferences, and has published in The Drama Review, Research in Drama Education, and Theatre Topics. His chapter, ""Bursting the Bubble of Play: Making Space for Intercultural Dialogue,"" recently appeared in Megan Lewis’s and Anton Krueger’s book, Magnet Theatre: Three Decades of Making Space. He has won several awards, including a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship and a Dorot Fellowship. His teaching interests include acting, directing, devising, improvisation, theatre history (with an emphasis on 20th century South African theatre), performance of religion, and Theatre of the Oppressed"
Professor Leffler will be joined by guest panelist, Zelia Fang (current U of T student), Research Assistant
Great Explorations, is a series of academic discussions we hope will inspire our communities. Our special thanks to our engaged, critical thinkers who attend our speaker series. The dialogues that came out of these talks, both in-person and online via Zoom, are integral to our campus community and Scarborough communities at large. We welcome your input for future topics, as well as a review of previous recorded sessions available on YouTube.