A one million dollar gift to MU’s College of Arts and Science will provide opportunities of expansion across campus.
The Department of Theatre’s Teaching Professor Suzanne Burgoyne donated the money for the opening of the Center for Applied Theatre and Drama Research.
Although the center will be housed in the MU Theatre Department, the research and expansion of applied theatre will have educational impacts within other disciplines.
“At its nature, applied theatre is interdisciplinary and so the research that will be conducted and the students branch across different departments,” said Heather Carver, chair of the MU Department of Theatre.
Burgoyne believes theatre is a powerful tool that can be used to explore what it means to be human. Applied theater explores this power by using elements of theatre for educational purposes. She explores theatre techniques and their use as a teaching strategy. Burgoyne looks forward to future cross-department collaboration that will expand research on theatre techniques.
“I really do believe that theatre is an important and powerful tool that can be used especially in educational purposes,” Burgoyne said.
In 2003 she co-founded the Mizzou Interactive Theatre Troupe. Interactive theatre breaks the fourth wall with the audience and uses theatre as a way to challenge the audiences’ views. Through transforming audience members into performers, the technique allows the viewer to examine current issues.
“It’s an impactful thing on a college campus to help people understand how to get past their own backgrounds and their own limiting vision of what they see around them by engaging in what we call difficult dialogues,” Chancellor Loftin said during the announcement.
Burgoyne is a co-investigator on two MU grants that use interactive theater, one being the Difficult Dialogue Initiative. Through the initiative Burgoyne assists in the performance of diversity series that address various topics through theatre methods.
“I think theatre ought to be just as political and just as spiritual and just as important and significant in terms of making a difference in the world as anything else,” Burgoyne said. “And I am going to make it my life long goal to prove it.”
Burgoyne will continue to research the lasting impact theatre has in interdisciplinary fields with the opening of the center.
The monetary gift will aid in the creation of more scripts to add to the series of programs the department already as in place.
While Burgoyne’s donation was the largest from a faculty member to the College of Arts and Science, she hopes for additional funds and contributions for further expansion of the research.
“There are just so many things you can do with applied theatre, one person can only do so much,” Burgoyne said.
There is no timeline in place for the full development of the program but both the college and the university are excited to see the issues that the center’s future collaboration will address.
