Turning up the Volume at the Oasis: Invisible Theatre exposed!

Abstract

Abstract The article reports on a so‐called Invisible Theatre project undertaken by one of Britain's leading young people's theatre companies, Blah Blah Blah (Leeds). Entitled ‘Turning Up the Volume’, it took place at the Oasis Youth Centre, Salford, early in 1995. In effect, the article is in two parts. The first is comprised of an account of the circumstances surrounding the project, including the precise context of the work and the attempt to fuse the techniques of a performance artist with those of an educational theatre company. The second part represents an attempt to evaluate the significance of the work, taking the form of a dialogue between the artistic director of the theatre company and the youth leader at the Oasis Centre, and facilitated by the writer of the article. Overall, the article's intention is to expose immanent aspects of Invisible Theatre by a simple method of recounting how the project unfolded and by permitting the voices of key players themselves to be heard.