Eugene Erven

Eugene van Erven has been researching theatre and social change since 1980. He is a senior lecturer in theatre studies at Utrecht University and author of Radical People's Theatre, The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia; ad Community Theatre: Global Perspectives, which illustrates both the difficulties and the rewards involved in creating community theater. He is currently the research coordinator and website editor of the Utrecht Community Art Lab (CAL), a facility that aims to develop and investigate the rapidly growing community art practice in Utrecht and beyond. In 2008 van Erven programmed the Rotterdam International Community Arts Festival (ICAF), and he is now the artistic director of the event. He also serves on the editorial board of Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance and of a new British journal, Performing Ethos. For Performance and Peacebuilding in Global Perspective, van Erven is conducting original research into community theatre productions designed to address relations between the Muslim immigrant communities and their non-Muslim neighbors in cities in the Netherlands.