Ally Organization

Headlines is a professional theatre company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1981 by a group of politically active artists: (Beth Kaplan, Anne Hungerford, Suzie Payne, Jay Samwald, Nettie Wild, David Diamond, Heidi Archibald, Colin Thomas, Barbara Clayden and Phillip Tidd). David Diamond became Artistic Director in 1984.
Since its founding, Headlines has been working in the area of community-based, issue-oriented theatre: Theatre for Living has evolved from Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed” and David Diamond’s interest in and commitment to a ’systems view’ of the world. If we embrace the idea that a community is a large, living organism, how do we consciously work with that larger consciousness, using a primal language (the theatre) to help it tell its stories? Once the story is acted on the stage, the living community engages in interactive, Forum Theatre, creating a true community-based dialogue. Theatre for Living is about empowerment – about people being the experts in their own lives and being able to use theatre as a means of creating change. The process gives a community the opportunity to develop “emotional intelligence” – using a symbolic language to investigate alternative approaches to hard-to-talk-about issues. This is a first step towards dealing with difficult topics – moving towards open communication and realities that living communities want in an active and entertaining way.