Final Thesis and Research at Boston University

Development and Implementation Assessment of Theatre Health and Safety

“I am actually pleasantly surprised at how interesting a lot of this is. A lot of information that I had never really thought about.”

- A Student Course Survey Comment

“Health and safety is an increasingly relevant topic within theatre and entertainment, especially as many productions begin to advance and push the limits from anything that we have seen to date. Developing and implementing a theatre health and safety course over the past few years has been an educational journey that helped the students and myself discover many additional facets of safety within standards set forth by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Fire Protection Association, and other industry practices and recommendations from multiple texts by William J. Reynolds, Monona Rossol, and Peter Wynn- Moylan. This course explored the use of different learning techniques, such as Case-Based, Discussion-Based, Interactive, and Project-Based Learning. These techniques helped interpret the extensive and arid amount of material presented to the students. Each lecture given during the course highlighted the need for possible adjustments, considerable edits, and the need for additional material to help better support future classes. The feedback received by the students via course surveys expressed that the course itself had a valuable and significant role in the students’ academic curriculum at Boston University. The result from the students and my personal recommendation would be that this course stands as a regular and individualized course taught yearly, which would widely benefit students within the technical production, production management, and stage management pathways, especially those individuals who are unfamiliar or new to theatre.” - Ricky A. Moats, Written Thesis and Course Assessment