Resources:
Rylee Barnsdale's Feature Article: EMU theater students partner with Ann Arbor police to improve crisis intervention trainings
EMU Communication, Media & Theatre Arts
Applied Drama and Theatre for the Young
Transcription:
Rylee Barnsdale: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Rylee Barnsdale, and this is On The Ground Ypsi. A recent and unique collaboration between Eastern Michigan University and the Ann Arbor Police Department is using applied theater to enhance officer training in crisis intervention. This partnership draws on both EMU's School of Social Work and the Applied Drama and Theatre for the Young program to bring realism and empathy into scenario-based instruction and is part of a broader ongoing effort by the School of Social Work to place more social work interns in civic spaces across Washtenaw County. Today, I'm here with EMU Applied Drama and Theater Professor Jessica "Decky" Alexander to talk about how this partnership worked and played out and other possible opportunities for applied drama students to get involved with the surrounding community. Hi, Decky! Thanks so much for being here today!
Decky Alexander: Thanks, Rylee! I love being here! Thank you!
Rylee Barnsdale: So, when you first explained to me this partnership between these theater students and the local police department. I was a little bit surprised, admittedly, mainly because I'd never seen or heard of a similar partnership happening before. Can you walk us through how this relationship between AAPD and the program--and your program--initially came about?
Decky Alexander: Well, certainly! First of all, I want to say that there is a lot of sort of spaces and places where we call "simulated performances" happening where we have theater professionals or graduate students or students sort of acting out a role playing in certain circumstances, whether it's in a hospital setting or other health care or, obviously, in a police department to help facilitate learning of a specific idea. So, when the School of Social Work approached me, they said, "Hey, do you have any theater students that would be willing to maybe do this initiative with the AAPD, who was actually piloting sort of a de-escalation program addressing mental health challenges within the field?" And so, It just coincided with my, I think it'd be biannual every other year, biannual applied theater course where we do exactly this. We reach out to the community at large, and we say, "What is a way in which theater might illuminate, foster change, challenge, reveal something about your entity or organization? Where might theater work?" And theater is about immediacy. It's about tangibility. It's about proximity to something. And so, when I responded, and then we followed up with AAPD, we're like, "Oh my gosh! This is really full of possibility!" Not just for a semester, but for something ongoing. So. It was social work--my colleague, Barb Walters, who facilitated the introduction. And then, we really worked with these amazing graduate students, which is Adam Weisman and Dan Johnson, who also had done simulated performing--actually patient work before. So, they were really familiar with the form. So, that's how it came to be!
Rylee Barnsdale: And you mentioned grad students, Adam Weisman and Dan Johnson. So, this program saw them reworking these pre-existing crisis intervention scenarios to make them more realistic for these officers to rehearse with and to practice with. Talk to me about what that process kind of looked like, from your perspective as the professor and the instructor.
Decky Alexander: So, initially, when we said yes, Rylee, to this, I was thinking we had to develop the scenarios. We didn't even realize that there was like a canon to this, because this was part of like a national kind of like certification that the Ann Arbor Police Department had been part of. So, they had these kind of like scenarios that they kind of inherited. And so, when we looked at them from a theater lens, we were like, "Oh my gosh! We have to rework these!" And not because there was something like technically wrong with them, but they didn't draw upon the depth and complexity of the human experience. And if you really want to foster change in awareness for the Ann Arbor Police Department, which I know that our officer Kasey does, that we really needed to look at those scenes and think about nuance, right? A lot of the scenarios were like one-dimensional, and we know as humans, we are multidimensional. And we don't want to fall into like stereotype when we're performing somebody who might be bipolar or have another mental health episode. So, we really needed to look at them. And one of the things that Adam and Dan did first is they named people. In the initial sort of scenarios, it was like "person." So, they were like, "Who's the age here? Where are they from?" And not that we needed to do all this backstory work, but if you don't understand context, it's very hard to perform. And the goal is to present something that could happen in our county and community for our police departments that's real. And so, we needed to best understand our community in order to present who could be here and how theater could work for and with them.
Rylee Barnsdale: I'm sure presenting that much more realistic and personalized kind of scenario as the training was going on, I mean, that ultimately makes for more effective training, right, when you are practicing with things that could genuinely happen and feel more realistic. Was that something that you saw happening?
Decky Alexander: Seeing them, yes. And it was a whole day training where we had been prepping the scenarios. And then, it was one-day training with, I think, eight additional officers. And usually, I think, in their scenario and role play at work, other officers are the ones that are performing the actual people who they might be servicing.
Rylee Barnsdale: Sure.
Decky Alexander: And so, for them, they were odd. There's one particular officer who I know was best friends with like my stepson actually, so I know him particularly well. And he texted me later, and he was like,"Your boy is killing it, okay?" And he was, like, one of my graduate students was killing. Because it was so believable to them, it actually allowed them to use their tools as officers to figure out how to navigate these situations in the fly. Our responsibility in theater is to present moments of believability and possibility, and that was really our task there. Could we get them to a place where they could actually use and harness their skills in moments? Because our goal is to make change, right, is to better the world. So, yeah, I think it definitely worked because we had some really skilled performers. And I mean this in all sincerity. One of them is an equity actor. I mean, these were great, great performers, so that also lended itself to the effectiveness of this initiative.
Rylee Barnsdale: And I'm curious, too. So, it's my understanding with the applied drama and theater program that students who participate are, as you mentioned as well, going out into the community in some capacity and bringing these theatrical concepts to these unique situations. Was a partnership with a police department or doing this particular kind of scenario training in this format, was that something that you had ever considered as a possibility, or is it something that maybe a student brought up, but ended up doing a different kind of project? How does that kind of look?
Decky Alexander: Yeah, we had not done any simulated work with them. We had worked in psychology and psychiatry. So, I live in this community, so I'm really cognizant of how something like this could really impact the community. We don't have, I don't believe, like a community policing. So, in some ways, training our officers to be more community-centered felt...when I meet community centers, I am a partner with you versus against you, right?
Rylee Barnsdale: Right.
Decky Alexander: And so, I think this is where I felt like theater could really find a place and be transformational. I don't think we've thought about it. So, when I do this, I'll seek out the partners that I have. We do a lot of re-entry work. We have a College in Prison program. So, we actually reached out to entities that are doing re-entry work and doing things. And so, one of our other pieces was on family visitation for those whose family members are incarcerated. So, we had reached out to different entities, but no, I would not have thought to reach out to law enforcement here as a as a possible theatrical possibility, but I will go in for it. Yes, for sure!
Rylee Barnsdale: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm talking with EMU applied drama and theater professor Decky Alexander. Decky, you mentioned some of the other opportunities and things that students in your program have explored, other opportunities to bring theater and these theatrical ideas to the community. Looking ahead and looking forward, are there any maybe particular partnerships that you would like to explore or maybe encourage students to explore themselves?
Decky Alexander: Rylee, that's a really great question! Somebody said to me, "You could create and do theater any place." And I totally soulfully believe that.
Rylee Barnsdale: Yeah.
Decky Alexander: It could fit into any fissure in any place. But I think, for our students, I think it's really where they lie. What we focus on in applied theater is where do you situate yourself? Are you wanting to change policy? Are you wanting to foster more sort of global change? And I think that's kind of where it is. So, to me, this is always an opportunity to figure out where theater can live and breathe in our own community.
Rylee Barnsdale: And then as far as, these new partnerships, or these stronger partnerships, I guess I should say, with the School of Social Work and with the Ann Arbor Police Department specifically, do you see potentially sending students back to the police department to do similar work?
Decky Alexander: I think we're hoping to build out a program, actually. I think this was the test. It was so much more successful than I had anticipated. And we're hoping to build something, whether it's seeking some grant funding to solidify and make it part of our graduate student kind of like applied practicum work. But this is an opportunity. You know, these are MFA students and MA students, and they begin with practice. And then, they inform by theory. And so, for them, if we can continue to do this work and find this partnership. I think we're hoping to build this out. This was our test. It was so much more successful than...not more successful, but it was really inspired and moving. There were moments I was like, "I was so moved by moments." And the way in which an officer might reflect and change and add into behavior as well as the students performing. So, it's quite beautiful!
Rylee Barnsdale: Well, Decky, I want to thank you so much for being here today! We are so excited to see what comes next from your program and from your students. I mean, it sounds like they're really getting what they need from this program and giving back to the community all at the same time!
Decky Alexander: Rylee, thank you so much for finding value in this story and for storytelling it! We're so grateful for you!
Rylee Barnsdale: For more information on today's topic and links to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Rylee Barnsdale, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating 60 years of broadcasting at Eastern Michigan University!
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on X (Twitter)
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
