The game veteran theatre teachers are playing: anatomy of musings

Abstract

This paper is the result of an explorative study, based on the in‐depth meta‐analysis of a corpus of contemporary pieces of research in which there was found clear references to veteran theatre teachers talking about their work. Following that, extracts from interviews of experienced theatre teachers were analyzed. The major aim of this study is to expose attitudes, ideas, beliefs, feelings, and insights that veteran theatre teachers may have experienced in referring to their work, to their life career, and to their own selves. Analyzing their musings is a way to discover that there are identifiable parameters involved in the formulation of an experienced teacher's identity. The quest for self‐professional identity is an ongoing search that may fuel teaching and enhance understanding about the level of commitments to one's work. Studying the identity of veteran theatre teachers is assigned, in this respect, to the role they play in the ‘game’ of teaching. It may enable induction about identity construction processes in general.

Keywords:

• theatre teachers
• identity
• veteran
• an experience
• aesthetic inquiry
• chaos and order