Professor Peter O’Connor

When asking for comments for the recipient of our President’s Award for 2020, there was one that summed up why this person has become one of our most precious kaumatua. He says of our recipient that alongside his unwavering and impassioned belief in the possibilities for the arts and social justice has been the firm conviction that we must stand up and be counted; that as artists and educators, it’s not enough to believe in the power of our work to do good, we have to enact our duty to be a force for good. He has married this passion with a commitment to rigorous and critical enquiry throughout his career, in his practice, research and his leadership in the field. His commitment to drama in the world is matched only by commitment to people, especially newcomers to the field.

His genial Irish warmth, his firm Kiwi sensibilities and his commitment to his Maori heritage give him a unique blend of charm and firmness, qualities essential in a leader. He wears his identity lightly and represents all aspects of it with ambassadorial distinction around the globe. He is a leader, an elder, a respected scholar and a gentleman in our field. He is a worthy recipient of the Drama NZ President’s Award. /br Those words come from Michael Finneran and the person he is describing, is of course, Peter O’Connor.

I’d like to acknowledge Briar for the comprehensive account she has written for us, that records Peter’s journey in Drama Education.

On finishing his undergraduate degree in English and Politics in 1979, Peter’s friend suggested they attend an information evening about entering teaching at the Auckland College of Education. Peter was unwilling until his friend pointed out there would be food and possibly drinks included. The evening included partial screening of Three Looms Waiting. Peter was mesmerized and undertook his teaching diploma the following year. Much to his disappointment neither drama as pedagogy nor Dorothy Heathcote’s work made an appearance during that year.

His first teaching job was at Mt Albert Grammar School, 1981-2. He tried out some of Dorothy’s methods, self-taught, and realised how much difference they made for both teaching and learning. Each of those two years he took major roles in staging the school’s annual productions. After marrying in 1982, he & Briar travelled to London.

He began teaching at an inner London remand unit, where the 32 students were full time residents. Had they been adults, they would each have been sentenced to a minimum of 14 years imprisonment. Work included curriculum teaching with a maximum of 5 students at a time from 9-3 Monday to Friday, and then four 12-hour-total shifts per fortnight where teaching staff also provided supervision that might be loosely called pastoral care, along with extra curricular activities. It was here that Peter began his journey in working with marginalised groups.

Concurrently, he found the Inner London Education Authority offered a course in drama pedagogy, through the Royal Society of Arts. This was led by Cecily O’Neill and then David Shepherd. Every Monday evening for two years he attended a three-hour class, often with guest lecturers, including Jonothan Neelands and to his joy, Dorothy Heathcote. The rest of each week was spent putting into practice what had been learnt in the Monday class.

He instigated a partnership between the remand unit and Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, which enabled touring theatre groups to visit the unit for the first time, as well as some high profile actors becoming involved with students, such as Glenda Jackson before she went into politics, and Martin Shaw of The Professionals fame.

After two years at the unit, and only once having had his nose broken, Peter decided he should find a less demanding teaching role. He moved to a Comprehensive in East London, situated on what was then the largest council estate in Europe. He spent two years here working mainly with low-achieving youth.

Returning to NZ saw him start teaching at Marist Sisters’ College in 1987. He often says this is where he truly learnt to teach – classroom management was no longer the most important skill for his survival as a teacher. He began his association with the then-called NZADIE at this time.

After two years at Marist a more local job became available, at Pakuranga College. This included English & Drama teaching across the school, guidance counselling (these were the days before a qualification specifically in this was required), and he spent a lot of his time working with the special needs group known as the Pegasus Unit. He worked with the Pegasus Unit through drama, creating rolling roles that lead the students through many areas of school and social life. They created a restaurant – which included going to a local restaurant to investigate the roles of the staff and etiquette of eating out – some had never been to a sit-down restaurant. They then sold raffle tickets to staff and the two lucky winners were served a three-course lunch at the Pegasus restaurant. The most poignant rolling role was one Peter wrote about in ‘Down the Yellow Brick Road’, which appeared in the first edition of Applied Theatre Researcher in 2000 – of which he is now the lead editor. For a good read and weep, Briar highly recommends seeking out this article which details how he started with using drama to investigate social roles and how to be a good friend, which ended up with the class being able to say goodbye to a terminally ill classmate.

For me, personally, the first interaction I had with Peter was at a workshop that he ran at Massey University. It was my first introduction to Process Drama as well. I remember him describing, on that day, how the students from the Pegasus Unit bought food to his classroom during the holidays to feed the homeless man, who was central to the Process Drama. Peter empowered those students, recognising that the thing they knew was being looked after, and that there was true potential in the reversal of status and having THEM teach this homeless person, the skills to survive. To me what Peter delivered that day was a true example of what it really meant to be culturally responsive and how to put the students at the centre of the learning. Along with the pedagogy that he was carefully reconstructing for us, Peter’s manner had true mana. He was gentle. He never rushed anyone. Peter showed every teacher in that room that what you do and how you do that with your students is far more important than how much you get done. Lessons that are resonating with me now as I see everyone scramble to try to reimagine how education will work during the pandemic.

Focussing on drama with the Pegasus Unit led to the students asking to perform. He created several intergenerational projects with the nearby retirement village: the older people worked alongside the younger in rehearsing and then performing to the school. Devising stories loosely based on fairy tales, Shakespeare or the Wizard of Oz, the students certainly developed a taste for performing, and the Pegasus Players toured one show around the central North Island.

This culminated in the Pegasus Players raising funds for and then travelling to the IDEA congress in Brisbane, in 1995. Preparation for this trip included negotiating that Air New Zealand allow the students to visit a plane on the tarmac well in advance, as most if not all had never previously been on a plane. Briar thinks that this exemplifies the planning that Peter puts into his teaching: he is a problem solver, always looking to smooth the ways into potentially difficult tasks. The Players performed their version of Snow White to a plenary audience at the 2nd IDEA congress in Brisbane.

Through the early 1990s Peter constructed and taught a drama course out of the University of Waikato. This involved driving to Hamilton most Saturdays and working with a group of teachers from around the North Island. Over five years the teachers worked towards an ASTU certification in drama education.

Peter left school teaching around this time and became National Education Manager at Auckland’s Office of the Race Relations Conciliator. Here he wrote resources, most, of course, drama-based, to assist teachers and other educators deal with difficult topics. For example, he worked with the Auckland Museum when they opened their holocaust memorial and devised an interactive education resource around the “Precious Legacy” tour. He also worked with the Older Women’s Theatre Group to devise a performance examining pre-1950 pakeha attitudes and responses to racism.

After four years here, he moved to the Mental Health Foundation of NZ where he wrote and facilitated educational resources and workshops around mental health, including managing the Like Minds Like Mine project. While here, he conducted the research for his PhD, which was on using drama to counter stigma associated with mental illness. He won the American Alliance for Theatre in Education award for best PhD thesis in 2006.

In 1999 he formalised his ad-hoc consultancy work by creating the company Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd. Through this he offered bi-cultural workshops around the country, in partnership with his dear friend, the late Amster Reedy, amongst other things. He wrote resources for the NZ Police education officers, and began in 2001 he took on the role of National Facilitator for Drama with the Ministry of Education, implementing and supporting the roll out of the new compulsory Arts curriculum. Briar imagines this is where many of you know him from, either working with him in person or being familiar with the resources he developed.

And that is true. Many of the people who wanted to contribute to this citation worked with Peter at this time. Verity Davidson remembers that Peter led a small and committed team writing the requirements for each curriculum level for drama. We had many in-depth and hilarious discussions on what we could expect at each level. Peter’s leadership was generous and rigorous- we all felt that our opinions and ideas were valued. It was a proud day when the Arts Curriculum was published and we knew that we had done it!

Evelyn Mann (with input from Chris Walsh) recalls that Peter visited Otago and all other regions often as he worked alongside us as regional Drama Advisors . This ensured that sound knowledge of the Arts and drama curriculum was established and this process of learning successfully practised and enjoyed in many schools across the regions. We loved his visits - they ignited us with passion, ideas, professional development and most of all they were joyful and fun. For many of us Peter moved our practice rapidly and markedly.

In 2004, after many months of negotiation, he landed a contract with CYF. This was for a primary prevention programme around family violence, abuse and neglect. What became known as Everyday Theatre has continued and after 16 years he believes it is the longest running applied theatre programme in the world, with the same funder and the same basic format. He gave up the National Facilitator role in 2005 to be able to deliver the programme alongside the very talented team that had done this in the first year.

Evelyn remembers that Peter bravely launched into this exciting, ground breaking work with a small team around him. He lived ate and breathed what became Everyday Theatre. It was a proud and exciting moment when I was asked to be part of the team in the early phases of preparing the work to go on the road. I then toured as part of the team for some years.

What is outstanding about Everyday Theatre are the memories we all carry of moments in classrooms all over Aotearoa/NZ where we laughed, cried and pondered as we discussed issues the drama work brought to the fore. We were constantly amazed at the emotional wisdom our young people brought to the mahi. Peter's participation in this mahi, his guidance through teaching practice and constant encouragement to critically reflect on the work meant my knowledge, understanding, skill and expertise as a facilitator in drama grew quickly. I am sure this was the same for all those who did then, and do today work in Everyday Theatre.

Throughout the 2000s Peter worked as a consultant educator to universities around the world, including, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vancouver. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses, advised on the setting up of drama courses, and was a highly sought-after keynote speaker in drama education, including at IDEA 2004 and IDIERI 2006.

In 2009 he was asked to assist with graduate students at the University of Melbourne while Kate Donelan was very ill. He commuted between Auckland and Melbourne for nearly a year while Kate convalesced, which ensured the students maintained consistent supervision.

In April 2010 Peter began in a part-time role at the University of Auckland in the School of Critical Studies in Education. He pulled back from delivering Everyday Theatre and his academic career grew. He did comment to Briar that the joy of this job was now he was getting paid a regular salary for doing what he loved and usually did as a hobby: researching and writing and teaching in and through Drama education. He opened CRUAT, the critical research unit in applied theatre, which has seen several PhD students through to completion, many using creative processes, another first for the University.

In 2015 he was promoted to full professor. His role at the University has grown and morphed in many directions, but always with drama at its heart. He has for the last four years led the Creative Thinking Project, which has only been possible through generous philanthropic donations. One example of work done through the Project was his week-long residency last October in Skid Row in Los Angeles, in association with the Museum of Modern Art there, where he worked with 25 people with experience of homelessness to publicly perform a devised piece. This came after earlier in the year directing a devised piece with some of Auckland’s homeless community who belong to the Hobson Street Theatre Company. This piece won the ‘Spirit of the Auckland fringe festival’ award, was one of five nominated for best in the Wellington fringe festival, and went on to win the Aotearoa Arts Access inaugural award for Community Arts.

Briar’s summation of all of this is to describe Peter’s teaching as extensive and varied. And throughout, he has never swerved from his dedication to educating through drama.

I had a number of people wanting to contribute to Peter’s citation.

Emma Bishop recalls:

I first met Peter whilst in teacher training when he had bought Jonathan Neelands to NZ for teacher workshop. For myself like many Peter was the practitioner that encouraged us to realise that the everyday things we did were important and that our successes should be shared. Without his encouragement I would never have started presenting at conferences. I ha e seen Peters work inspire many both here in NZ in Australia and in the UK People’s ability to bring educators together and to use drama as a pedagogy to create change is breathe taking - his work has bought NZ to the forefront of drama in education and change people’s lives internationally Thank you Peter for what you’ve done and what you continue to do!

In terms of his international influence, John O’toole notes that throughout the twenty-five years that I’ve had the privilege of closely teaching, thinking, arguing and writing with Peter, I’ve continued to marvel at his unique combination of generosity, tough-mindedness, perspicacity, ironic humour, wit and above all humility. He put it best himself at the IDEA’95 Congress, speaking about his Pegasus Players production: “I’ve learned a great deal about drama, and about the kinds of things you can learn from groups of people who society says ‘you help them, you don’t learn from them’”. There’s a mantra to live and teach by! So thank you Peter, my mentor in reverse – I’ve learned so much from you.

Patrice Baldwin says that Peter is well known and highly respected across the world, for his sustained work over many years, in theatre, drama and education. His deep intelligence, unwavering social conscience and considerable skills as a teacher of drama, have inspired and improved the teaching of many others in this field. He has put his significant skills to good, ethical use, around the world and is a welcoming and generous host to other drama specialists, visiting New Zealand. He certainly deserves the Drama NZ President’s Award, in recognition of his considerable and ongoing contributions to theatre, drama and education.

Craig Christie comments that 30 years ago when I met Peter at a drama in education conference in Canberra I was immediately drawn to his passion and integrity. The friendship that sprung almost fully formed from that first meeting has seen us work together in so many and varied situations – from the classroom in Auckland to collaborating on workshops in Papua New Guinea through to most recently delivering a project with the homeless in Los Angeles. In any and every situation I have witnessed Peter being both generous and fearless, pushing boundaries and in some instances just jumping over them as if they didn’t exist to create work that had integrity and practical outcomes that was always about the participants rather than the theorists. He is a genius practitioner but even more importantly he is a good man. His passion and commitment to implementing his skills as a dramatist, a director, a theorist and a teacher has enriched the world – not only the world of drama in education but in the promotion of humanity and the desire to make the world a better place. And I think we can all safely say the world IS a better place thanks to him.

Craig also cheekily adds that:

I’m glad I won’t be there if this is read out as I’d then have to spend the rest of the evening insulting him and he does deserve a night off from me doing that.

I’m going to conclude with a summation from Evelyn and Chris.

Over the time I have worked with and known Peter he has given many many people amazing opportunities within the applied theatre realm and I am just one who has been fortunate enough to have experienced this. Thank you Peter, for your leadership in drama, not only for me but for all of us. Thank you for your sense of fun and adventure which you constantly brought into the mahi. And thank you for the lifelong friendship that grew from working with you in drama.

Dear Drama NZ whānau, I present to you, our President’s award recipient for 2020, Professor Peter O’connor.

You are supposed to have a whisky decanter but the current situation has made that a little tricky to deliver so instead, Briar is going to hand your something to fill your glass with.