Beyond Mimesis to an Assemblage of Reals in the Drama Classroom: Which Reals? Which Representational Aesthetics? What Theatre-Building Practices? Whose Truths?

In this paper, the authors argue for novel, less mimetic, ways to harness "the real" in drama practices. They study particular youth theatre-making practices in a Toronto secondary classroom, both successes and failures, to make the case for an untethering of "the real" from realism's representational aesthetics. They further track the more relational aesthetics at play for a group of young theatre-makers in their context of a multi-sited, global ethnography of youth civic engagement and theatre-making practices. Instead of mirroring reality, some of the devising work of the young people refracts, fragments, and multiplies it, making a strong case for the artistic, political, and educational value of an assemblage of reals in the drama classroom, in so-called post-truth times.