Jillian Campana: ‘I Look at Theater as a Social Science’
By: Zena Ali
@zenaali77438355
The works of William Shakespeare have enchanted audiences for centuries, but places like The Tempest, King Lear, Twelfth Night, or Macbeth also made profound commentary about the human condition – more specifically, the economic, social, and political dynamos that are at the foundation of our history.
Theater, then, is really a reflection of society – whatever it happens to be going through at a certain point of history.
Theater professor and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences Jillian Campana has made that mantra her life’s mission, utilizing drama and theater to build equality, community, and identity.
“I look at theater as a social science. I’m not interested in theater, film, or television, for entertainment’s sake. For me, it’s a way to understand people by embodying them,” said Campana.
She has developed several theater projects around the world including programs for persons living with brain injuries at the Swedish institute Framnäs Folkhögskola.
During her four-year stint as a visiting professor at the University of Mumbai, she developed drama therapy programs at two shelters which provided support for victims of sex trafficking.
Before leaving India in 2011, Campana had established and managed a theater company that focused on social, political, and cross-cultural work as a way to contribute to the International Justice Project.
Campana has also written numerous plays and published articles and book chapters in Arab Stages, Scene and Triquarterly, and The Handbook for Social Work with Groups.
In 2005, she produced the acclaimed film The Puzzle Club which highlighted the story of a group of brain injury survivors who use drama to share their experiences. The film was adapted from Campana’s original play of the same name which ahe directed at the University of Montana in 2004.
Shortly after its initial run, the film received funding from PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) television, to produce a 30-minute documentary about the making of the play, and the making of the film.
“I learned that when you’re working with a group of people, you need to listen to their needs, and not mandate your ideas and your opinions about their experience onto them,” said Campana about what she learned from her experience with working on The Puzzle Club.
In 2015, Campana published Acting Successful: Using Performance Skills in Everyday Life which is used today as a textbook at several universities and schools. The book discusses how teachers and students can take a class in performance and utilize the skills they learn in every other area of their lives from job interviews, to the workplace, to personal relationships.
Campana explained that when someone takes an acting class, they learn so much about their self, and how to present their self themselves to the world in a way that is authentic as well as in the way that they want to be seen.
Her newest book Western Theater in Global Contexts: Directing and Teaching Culturally Inclusive Drama Around the World was released in August 2020. The book discusses teaching Western theater in non-Western countries.
Campana has also been writing a book with a colleague, Professor Dina Amin, based on the Mish Zanbek (Not Your Fault) play which was performed on campus last year. The book is expected to be published in the summer of 2022, and it focuses on five original plays written by students about sexual harassment and assault.
All of the plays came out in Arabic and in English, alongside a section that breaks down the recent history of sexual harassment in Egypt, and some of the laws and ways that this particular issue is perceived differently here than it is in other places in the world.
Campana explained that there isn’t a recently written book or a play that speaks to this issue in Egypt. She added that she believes that even before we address the issues related to sexual harassment, we need to educate people about what sexual harassment is and what zero tolerance means.
“I was really frustrated that there wasn’t a way for people who are experiencing this type of harassment to share their stories, or for the general public to be educated about it,” Campana told The Caravan.
Campana has had a long history living in Egypt. She first arrived in the country in 1992 to work as a drama teacher at CAC (Cairo American College), then decided to take classes as a graduate student at AUC between 1993 and 1994. Campana left Egypt and returned 25 years later to take a position at AUC.
“I’m so thrilled by the curiosity and the intellect of the AUC community and the students. That’s why I stayed,” she said.
Campana studied acting at the California Institute of the Arts, as well as performance studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Adding to this, she earned an interdisciplinary PhD in Theater and Social Science.
