Creatively Connecting Civil Rights: co-creation, theatre and collaboration for social transformation in Belfast

his chapter assesses, from a range of angles, the successes and challenges faced by practitioners, academics, community workers, activists and participants in co-creating a theatre project focusing on civil rights issues in Belfast. The chapter’s three authors, one a playwright and theatre director, another a community worker and the third an academic – all of whom worked together on the project – each provide perspectives on the project. In the third section, we look at data from the project, including audience surveys and participant interviews, in order to better understand the ways in which co-creativity happened and where it was limited or failed. The ‘Creatively Connecting Civil Rights’ strand of the wider Creative Interruptions initiative on which this chapter is based produced a commercial play, but also a range of smaller outputs, including a radio play, short film and monologue. The chapter therefore also facilitates some consideration of different creative contexts and related approaches.