Games for Actors and Non-Actors (Augusto Boal)

Games for Actors and Non-Actors is the classic and bestselling book by the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal.

It sets out the principles and practice of Boal’s revolutionary method, showing how theatre can be used to transform and liberate everyone – actors and non-actors alike! This new third English edition includes recently uncovered interviews and essays from the 1970s, some of which featured in the earliest Portuguese edition of this book, and a new essay by the theatre director Sergio de Carvalho, which looks at Boal’s work in the context of Brazilian theatre and politics over the past fifty years.

This is a vital handbook for theatre makers and activists of all kinds who want to deepen their understanding of the theory and practice of Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. It is also an excellent introduction for those new to the system.

Augusto Boal was a theatre director, dramatist, theorist, writer and teacher. He was a Vereador (Legislator) for the Camara dos Vereadores (Legislative Chamber) of Rio de Janeiro from 1993 to 1996. He was the author of The Theatre of the Oppressed, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, The Rainbow of Desire, Legislative Theatre, Hamlet and the Baker’s Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics, and The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. He died in Rio de Janeiro in May 2009.

Adrian Jackson is a theatre director, playwright, activist and teacher. He was the Founder and Artistic Director of Cardboard Citizens, a theatre company working with homeless people, from 1991 to 2021. He has translated five books by Augusto Boal with whom he collaborated on a number of occasions and has taught Theatre of the Oppressed in over twenty-five countries across Europe, Asia and Latin America.