C&T’s Networked Theatre: A Case Study in Applied Digital Drama

C&T’s Networked Theatre is a UK applied-theatre practice that brings drama, learning and digital media together so that students, teachers and partner practitioners can collaborate on shared creative projects online. The term is specific: the 2009 Open Source Schools summary describes Networked Theatre as “a medium for applied learning in any subject or context” and says it is “not about ‘putting on plays’” but about using “participation, media and online technology” for purposeful learning (Lines, 2009). The 2012 journal article Shaping Networked Theatre describes C&T’s development since 2006 of an online utility for “shaping collaborative educational drama experiences” (Research in Drama Education, 2012). This case study therefore belongs to digital and networked performance, but it is better understood as applied theatre with a networked infrastructure than as a genre of streamed theatre.

What the term covers

In C&T’s usage, “networked” refers to internet-supported collaboration around educational drama and applied learning. The 2012 article says the online utility was made for students, schools and those working in more informal settings, and that its pedagogic and creative motivations shaped partnerships involving schools, theatre practitioners, disabled people and communities in the developing world (Research in Drama Education, 2012). The practice is not defined by a single performance format such as live streaming, recorded video or telepresence. It is defined by a blend: drama participation, media making and online exchange. That distinction matters for readers coming to the term from contemporary debates about hybrid or remote performance, because C&T’s Networked Theatre uses “network” to mean a supported learning ecology, not simply a broadcast channel.

From classroom props to a digital utility

The origin story is best documented in two complementary sources. In an Arts Council England case-study transcript, Paul Sutton, C&T’s artistic director, contrasts the traditional classroom “box of props” — a cape, a walking stick, a telephone — with the playthings children actually use: computers, iPhones and games consoles. He describes C&T’s interest in “the potential between drama and theatre and participation” and the technologies in young people’s daily lives (Arts Council England case study). This is a company account, not an independent evaluation, but it explains the pedagogic impulse: digital media are treated as contemporary theatrical material rather than as add-ons.

The Open Source Schools post by Rob Lines, dated 10/06/2009, supplies the organisational description. It presents C&T as “an eclectic company of drama professionals, technologists, teachers, web designers, animators and writers” working with partner schools across England. It says the company identified parallels between young people’s behaviour as “digital natives” — a term associated with Marc Prensky — and the hallmarks of applied theatre, and that this led to Networked Theatre. The same post records that C&T had built a “sophisticated Drupal-based site”, candtnetwork.org, enabling teachers and students to collaborate on shared creative projects in the classroom, the community and the extended day (Lines, 2009). Drupal is an open-source content-management system; in this context it provided the modular web platform for the network rather than the drama itself.

How the model is organised

The published descriptions suggest a blended production and learning model rather than a fixed repertoire of plays. C&T’s team combines drama professionals, technologists, teachers, web designers, animators and writers (Lines, 2009). The C&T Network is described as a website for shared creative projects, used by teachers and students in classroom, community and extended-day settings (Lines, 2009). The 2012 article adds that the online utility was intended for schools and informal settings, and that its functionality was shaped by the partnerships it was meant to support (Research in Drama Education, 2012). In practical terms, the model connects three activities: a local drama or applied-learning process; the creation or exchange of media; and online collaboration through the network. The sources do not provide a detailed session plan, credit list or technical specification, so practitioners should not treat the descriptions as a ready-made curriculum.

Roles and collaboration

Roles are described at the level of the company and its partners, not as a formal project handbook. The Open Source Schools summary shows a mixed team of drama and technology specialists working with partner schools (Lines, 2009). The 2012 abstract names schools, theatre practitioners, disabled people and communities in the developing world among the interests shaping the partnerships (Research in Drama Education, 2012). Those are broad categories, not named projects or verified participant lists in the retrieved text. For a producer or dramaturg, the useful point is structural: Networked Theatre required both facilitation and platform support, and it treated teachers and students as collaborators in shared projects rather than as an audience for a finished production.

Glocalisation and the international dimension

The international frame is most explicit in the 2012 article. Its abstract says that “glocalisation” is at the centre of the analysis and asks what the concept means for applied drama in an age of technologically driven globalisation (Research in Drama Education, 2012). In general use, glocalisation describes the interaction of global flows with local contexts; in C&T’s case, the term frames the network’s local partnerships within a globalised technological context. The same abstract refers to partnerships involving disabled people and communities in the developing world, but it does not name countries, projects or participants in the retrieved text. Readers should therefore treat the international dimension as a documented framing and partnership interest, not as a detailed account of a specific intercultural production.

A later conference paper extends the vocabulary. Paul Sutton and Max Allsup’s 2016 EDULEARN paper is titled “Networked Theatre: Using the Internet and Digital Technology to Shape Global Online Collaborative Learning in Educational Drama and Applied Theatre Contexts” (Sutton and Allsup, 2016). The retrieved record supplies the title, authors, publication date and topic classification, but not the paper’s findings or case details. It is evidence that the practice was being discussed in a global online-learning frame in 2016; it is not, in the supplied material, evidence of particular outcomes.

What the evidence does—and does not—show

The available sources are a journal abstract (2012), a conference paper record (2016), an Arts Council England case-study transcript reproduced on StudyLib, and a 2009 Open Source Schools session summary. Together they establish a documented chronology: C&T’s development of the online utility from 2006; the existence of a Drupal-based C&T Network by 2009; a scholarly account in 2012; and a 2016 conference paper on global online collaborative learning. They do not provide independent learning outcomes, audience figures, a full project archive, or a verified current status for candtnetwork.org. The Arts Council transcript is a practitioner’s account, while the Open Source Schools post is a session write-up by Rob Lines. That makes the case valuable for understanding method and vocabulary, but not sufficient for claims about impact.

This limitation is not a reason to dismiss the case. It is a reason to separate recorded facts from interpretation. Recorded facts include the stated development date of 2006, the named platform, the described audiences and the published titles. Interpretive claims—such as whether the model improved engagement or learning—require fuller project documentation than the retrieved sources supply. Anyone planning to cite C&T’s work in a funding application or syllabus should consult the full 2012 article and the 2016 paper, and should verify the organisation’s current activity through official channels rather than relying on an old domain name.

Lessons for practitioners

For theatre-makers, educators and producers, Networked Theatre offers several transferable questions rather than a template to copy. First, define the learning or participatory purpose before choosing a platform. The Open Source Schools description explicitly separates the practice from “putting on plays” and places participation, media and online technology in service of applied learning (Lines, 2009). Second, treat students’ existing media culture as dramatic material. The Arts Council transcript’s contrast between the prop box and the games console is a way of asking what counts as a contemporary theatrical object (Arts Council England case study). Third, build a mixed team: drama facilitation, technical support, design and teaching all appear in the 2009 description (Lines, 2009). Fourth, design for local partnership and access, especially where disabled participants or international communities are involved; the 2012 abstract names these interests but does not supply a consent or access protocol. Fifth, document roles, permissions and technical dependencies from the start. The sources show that the platform was part of the practice, so archiving only a script or final video would miss the networked work.

Networked Theatre is thus a historically specific case with wider relevance: it shows how applied theatre can use a networked platform to connect classrooms, communities and international partners without reducing drama to content delivery. Its strongest lesson is methodological. The network is not a substitute for the drama workshop; it is an extension of the workshop’s collaborative and pedagogical architecture. The weakest point in the retrieved record is evidence of outcomes, which remains to be tested against the full articles and project archives.