Research

Research abstract

Developmental Theatre began in 1971 at the University of Colorado when Richard Knaub, Martin Cobin, Chuck Wilcox, and Lola Wilcox launched the Colorado Caravan under NEA Title III funding. The Caravan’s bare-stage, workshop-forward touring model — five or six actors, one van, gymnasiums and cafetoriums in-the-round, four age levels served, an interactive workshop after every performance — proved replicable. Its first offshoot, the Overland Stage Company, launched in Wyoming in 1978; similar companies followed in Maine, Montana, Hawaii, Denmark, and Australia.

Across more than fifty years, the Caravan and its successor companies have performed for over six million people on three continents. The M.A. programme in Developmental Theatre at CU, led by Dr. Martin Cobin, institutionalised the practice inside a university department for the first time and launched careers that have carried Developmental Theatre’s tools into schools, community theatres, universities, and therapeutic settings around the world. The programme and the Caravan itself ceased when their institutional sponsors moved on. The practice they developed did not: DT:FC is the current continuation.

A definitive history of Developmental Theatre has not yet been written. The materials to write one exist, are accessible, and are catalogued below. We are actively seeking a graduate researcher to take on that project.

Research materials

Materials pertinent to gathering qualitative data sets on Developmental Theatre’s history, methods, and outcomes:

• Participant contacts — contact information for actors, directors, teachers, and audience members across more than ten years of active touring, plus alumni of the CU M.A. programme.
• Physical evidence — scripts, reviews, scholarly papers, programmes, correspondence with local sponsors, and videos and drawings from the touring years.
• Developmental Theatre Facebook Group — an active community where alumni post recollections, share archival photos, and connect across generations of the practice.
• Master Timeline with replication branches — the Grand Timeline traces the Caravan and its successor companies in Wyoming, Maine, Montana, Hawaii, Denmark, and Australia.
• Bios — a growing archive linking Developmental Theatre training with lifelong careers in performance, education, and community practice.
• Script, workshop, and competency synopsis — a working document mapping the plays, workshops, and skills the Caravan developed and taught across its touring life and its M.A. programme.

Foundational reading

The theoretical and practical texts the Caravan’s founders drew on as they built the practice. The list is short by design — these six works anchor most of Developmental Theatre’s vocabulary.

• Durland, Frances Caldwell — Creative Dramatics for Children (1952)

• McCaslin, Nellie — Creative Drama in the Classroom (1968)

• Siks, Geraldine Brain — Creative Dramatics: An Art for Children (1958)

• Spolin, Viola — Improvisation for the Theater (1963)

• Tyas, Billy .

  Title and year pending client confirmation.

• Way, Brian — Development through Drama (1967)

Get in touch

Interested in researching this history? Contact us. We can put you in touch with living participants, share the physical archive, and help you scope a project that fits your programme or your timeline.