CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the background to the study, the statement of the problem, the objectives of

the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, and the significance of the study.

1.2 Background of the Study

1.2.1 Definition and Nature of Drama

The word drama comes from the Greek term dran, meaning “to do” or “to act.” In one of the

earliest and most influential accounts of the art form, Aristotle described drama as the imitation

of an action, carried out by people who act rather than merely narrate what has happened

(Aristotle, trans. Bywater, 1909, Poetics, 1450a16–1451a15). This definition places action, rather

than description, at the centre of drama: a story is shown through the speech, movement, and

behaviour of characters on a stage, rather than told to an audience by a narrator. Drama is

therefore distinct from other literary forms such as the novel or the poem because it is written to

be embodied and performed by actors in front of an audience, and it depends on collaboration

among a group of people — actors, directors, and production staff — to move from a written

script to a live performance. It is this collaborative process of moving a text from the page to the

stage that gives rise to rehearsal, the central concern of this study.

1.2.2 Historical Development of Drama Rehearsal Practice

Rehearsal, understood as the structured, repeated practice through which a written or planned

performance is prepared before it is shown to an audience, has been part of theatre-making for as

long as organised drama has existed, but it has only recently become an object of sustained
scholarly study in its own right. Early studies of theatre tended to focus on finished performances

and published scripts, while the process that produced them was treated as private, informal, and

largely undocumented (McAuley, 2012). From the late twentieth century, scholars increasingly

began to study rehearsal as a process worth understanding on its own terms. McAuley (2012)

produced one of the first detailed ethnographic accounts of a professional rehearsal process,

showing how a performance is built gradually through discussion, trial, repetition, and revision

rather than emerging fully formed from a script. Around the same period, Cole (1992)

documented how professional directors work with actors during rehearsal, describing the

rehearsal room as a largely hidden space in which the real work of shaping a production takes

place.

More recent research has examined rehearsal as a site of moment-by-moment collaboration

between directors and actors. Norrthon (2019) traced how a single short passage of dialogue was

rehearsed and gradually refined over a period of weeks, showing how actors and directors build

shared understanding of a scene through repeated attempts rather than through instruction alone.

Lefebvre (2018) similarly showed that reading a script during rehearsal is not a passive activity

but an embodied one, in which actors interpret a text through voice, gesture, and movement from

the earliest stages of the process. Building on this line of work, Norrthon and Schmidt (2023)

demonstrated how a single gesture used by a director gradually became shared knowledge within

a rehearsing company over time, while Lefebvre and Mondada (2023) examined how the

physical arrangement of actors' bodies in space shapes and is shaped by the unfolding rehearsal

process. Innes and Shevtsova (2013) further trace how influential twentieth-century directors,

including Constantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold, and Bertolt Brecht, each developed

distinct rehearsal methods that shaped how actors prepared characters and scenes, methods
whose influence is still visible in contemporary rehearsal practice. Taken together, this body of

work shows that rehearsal has moved from being seen as an invisible or purely preparatory

activity to being understood as a collaborative, developmental process in which the eventual

performance is progressively constructed.

1.2.3 Drama and Theatre in the African Context

In Africa, theatre and performance have long been embedded in community life rather than

treated as a separate, specialised activity. Traditional African performance typically combined

storytelling, music, dance, and ritual to communicate moral lessons, historical narrative, and

social commentary, with audiences often participating directly rather than watching passively

(Mlama, 1991). Mlama (1991) observed that this participatory, community-based character of

traditional African performance continued to influence the popular theatre and theatre-for-

development movements that spread across the continent from the 1970s onward, in which

rehearsal was frequently a collective, improvisational process rather than a fixed reproduction of

a written text. In East and Southern Africa specifically, twentieth-century theatre also developed

a strong tradition of collaborative, workshop-based creation, in which a company would devise

material together during rehearsal rather than beginning from a completed script written by a

single author.

1.2.4 Drama and Theatre in Uganda

Uganda has an active and long-established theatre culture. Prior to colonial rule, theatrical

activity in Uganda existed as an integrated part of community life, combining music, dance,

drama, games, and storytelling within occasions such as marriage ceremonies and initiation rites,

rather than existing as a distinct art form performed on a dedicated stage. From the mid-twentieth
century, Ugandan theatre began to combine these older performance traditions with the

conventions of scripted, staged drama, and Uganda has since developed particular strength in the

use of theatre for educational and developmental purposes, alongside literary, script-based drama

performed in fixed venues (Britannica, n.d.). Playwrights and companies based at Makerere

University played an important role in this development through the mid-twentieth century

(EBSCO Research Starters, n.d.), while later Ugandan theatre-makers such as Rose Mbowa,

whose play Mother Uganda and Her Children was first performed in 1987 and later toured

internationally, continued to draw on the performance resources of Uganda's different ethnic

communities within scripted, rehearsed productions (Britannica, n.d.).

1.2.5 The Uganda National Cultural Centre (National Theatre) and Early Rehearsals
The Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC), popularly known as the National Theatre, is the

principal home of scripted, rehearsed theatre in Uganda. It was established as a statutory body by

the Uganda National Cultural Centre Act, an Act of the Ugandan Parliament passed on 8 October

1959 and later amended in 1965, and it was officially inaugurated on 2 December 1959 (Uganda

National Cultural Centre, n.d.-a; Uganda National Cultural Centre, n.d.-b). The building itself,

designed by the firm Peatfield and Bodgener in the style known as tropical modernism, was

Uganda's first purpose-built modern theatre, with a naturally ventilated auditorium seating 377

people; it was originally designed to serve Kampala's small resident expatriate community before

it was progressively opened to the wider Ugandan public (Responsible Tourism Company, n.d.).

Rehearsal and performance by Ugandan playwrights at the National Theatre in fact predate the

1959 Act. Wycliff Kiyingi is recorded as the first African playwright whose work was produced

at the Uganda National Theatre, in 1953, six years before the UNCC was formally established by

statute (Sundance Institute East Africa, cited in ResearchGate documentation of the Kampala
International Theatre Festival). This means that the earliest rehearsals of Ugandan-authored

drama at the venue took place under colonial administration, before the theatre became a fully

public, statutory national institution. Following formal inauguration in 1959 and Uganda's

independence in 1962, the National Theatre progressively became the central venue for Ugandan

script development, rehearsal, and performance, hosting successive generations of playwrights,

directors, and companies, and later becoming host to regional initiatives such as the Kampala

International Theatre Festival, which brought theatre-makers from across East Africa to rehearse

and present new work at the venue (ResearchGate, Kampala International Theatre Festival).

1.2.6 Summary of the Background and Timeline of Development

Drawn together, the sources reviewed above indicate a broad timeline in which drama moved

from being an integrated, communal, largely unrehearsed part of everyday life in pre-colonial

Uganda, to a scripted and formally rehearsed art form associated with a dedicated venue from the

1950s onward, to an increasingly professionalised and internationally connected practice in the

present day. Key points in this timeline include the first production of African-authored,

rehearsed drama at the National Theatre site in 1953; the passing of the Uganda National

Cultural Centre Act and the formal inauguration of the National Theatre in 1959; the growth of

Ugandan literary and educational theatre through the second half of the twentieth century,

exemplified by productions such as Mother Uganda and Her Children in 1987; and the more

recent emergence of regional festivals and exchange programmes hosted at the venue. Globally,

over the same broad period, scholarly understanding of rehearsal itself shifted from viewing it as

an unstudied, private preparatory stage to treating it as a collaborative process worthy of detailed

study in its own right (McAuley, 2012; Cole, 1992; Norrthon, 2019; Norrthon & Schmidt, 2023).
It is against this historical and scholarly background that the present study examines how drama

rehearsals are currently conducted at the National Theatre in Kampala.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

Drama rehearsal is the stage of theatrical production in which actors, directors, and production

teams interpret scripts, develop characters, and coordinate performance before work is shown to

an audience. This study took the Uganda National Cultural Centre, the National Theatre in

Kampala, as its specific case study, since it is Uganda's flagship national venue and hosts

rehearsals by resident and visiting theatre groups throughout the year. Despite the level of

rehearsal activity that takes place at the National Theatre, rehearsal processes there are

understood anecdotally to be shaped by factors such as limited rehearsal time, constraints on

facilities and resources, differing levels of experience among performers, the leadership

approach of individual directors, and the working relationships among cast and crew, yet these

factors have not been systematically documented for this specific venue. Existing academic

attention to Ugandan theatre has concentrated mainly on finished performances, published

playtexts, and the socio-political themes of individual plays, while the rehearsal process itself —

how it is organised, how participants interact, and what shapes its effectiveness — remains

comparatively underexplored at the National Theatre in particular. This study therefore set out to

examine the dynamics of drama rehearsals strictly at the National Theatre in Kampala, with a

view to understanding rehearsal practices, the interactions among theatre practitioners, and the

factors that influence rehearsal effectiveness at that venue.

1.4 Objectives of the Study

1.4.1 General Objective

The general objective of the study was to explore the dynamics of drama rehearsals at the

Uganda National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda.

1.4.2 Specific Objectives

The study was guided by the following specific objectives:

i. To examine the rehearsal practices employed by actors and directors in drama

productions at the National Theatre in Kampala.

ii. To investigate the influence of rehearsal dynamics on the quality and delivery of

theatrical performances.

iii. To find out the strategies and approaches used by theatre practitioners to address

rehearsal challenges and enhance the effectiveness of drama rehearsals.

1.5 Research Questions

This study was guided by the following research questions:

i. What rehearsal practices are employed by actors and directors in drama productions at

the National Theatre in Kampala?

ii. How do rehearsal dynamics influence the quality and delivery of theatrical

performances?

iii. What strategies and approaches do theatre practitioners use to address rehearsal

challenges and enhance the effectiveness of drama rehearsals?

1.6 Scope of the Study

1.6.1 Geographical Scope
The geographical scope of this study was confined strictly to the Uganda National Cultural

Centre, popularly known as the National Theatre, located on Plot 2, 4 and 6 De Winton Road, at

its corner with Said Barre Avenue, in the Central Division of Kampala District, Uganda (Uganda

National Cultural Centre, n.d.-a; Uganda National Cultural Centre, n.d.-b). The study did not

extend to other theatre venues, community halls, or drama groups operating elsewhere in

Kampala or in the country; the National Theatre was treated as a single, bounded case study

because it is Uganda's principal national venue and provides an appropriate setting in which to

find out how drama rehearsals are actually conducted, including the practices, interactions, and

challenges that shape the preparation of theatrical performances at that specific site.

1.6.2 Content Scope

The study focused on the rehearsal practices employed by actors and directors in drama

productions at the National Theatre; the influence of rehearsal dynamics on the quality and

delivery of theatrical performances; and the challenges encountered during rehearsals — such as

limited time, resource and facility constraints, and differing levels of experience among

performers — together with the strategies and approaches theatre practitioners use to address

these challenges and improve rehearsal effectiveness.

1.6.3 Time Scope

The study covered a period of five years, from 2021 to 2026. This period was considered

appropriate because it captures recent and current rehearsal practices at the National Theatre,

including how these practices were affected and later restored following disruptions such as the

COVID-19 pandemic, and allowed the researcher sufficient time to gather adequate information

and carry out a thorough analysis of the study.

1.7 Significance of the Study
As a case study confined to the Uganda National Cultural Centre (National Theatre), the findings

of this study are expected to benefit theatre practitioners — actors, directors, and production

teams — who rehearse at that venue, by offering insight into how rehearsals are currently

conducted there, which can help them adopt more effective techniques, organise rehearsal time

efficiently, and strengthen teamwork.

The findings are also expected to support drama educators and trainers in designing teaching

methods and rehearsal exercises that build learners' creativity, stage presence, and improvisation

skills, informing the integration of practical rehearsal techniques into performing arts curricula

and workshops.

In addition, the findings are expected to assist cultural institutions such as the Uganda National

Cultural Centre in improving the management of rehearsal spaces, informing policies that

support resident and visiting theatre groups and optimise the scheduling of rehearsal time.

The study is further expected to contribute empirical evidence to the academic literature on

rehearsal dynamics in Uganda, providing a reference point for future research and comparative

studies in theatre and performance studies in the East African region.

Finally, the findings are expected to be of use to policymakers and cultural authorities in

developing strategies that support the performing arts sector in Uganda, by highlighting factors

that affect rehearsal quality and by pointing to opportunities for strengthening the country's

theatre industry.
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