The Living Newspaper

RPG system: LARP

By

Andrea Castellani

Description

"The living newspaper" is based on the theatre of spontaneity by Jacob Levy Moreno. In the early 20s' Vienna, Jacob Levy Moreno founded a theatre group creating plays together with the audience, using no scripts at all, just developing the drama on the spot and elaborating social themes suggested by the audience. It was the beginning of the theatre of spontaneity, the laboratory where Moreno experimented with his ideas that later gave rise to his most famous creation: psychodrama.

The Living Newspaper is the prototype of the theatre of spontaneity. The actors, with the help of the audience, gave reality to news and social themes the audience was interested in discussing and debating. The news of the day will be played in a series of scenes by volunteers from the "audience".

Moreno's theatre of spontaneity is at the root of all the present forms of role-playing: even the term "role-playing" was forged by Moreno to give a shared name to the new media forms he created, among which the theatre of spontaneity and psychodrama. But the theatre ofspontaneity is especially similar to present-day "theatre-style role-playing": and taking part to this event you'll be able to verify the many similarities between the very first format elaborated by Moreno in 1921 and some contemporary forms of role-playing, such as "jeepform" and the Italian "scene-based larp".

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