Brighton Dome’s Miss Represented performing Can You See Me Now? A group of young female performers sit on chairs on stage looking out away from the projection behind them which is of a woman covered in bubble wrap and police tape walking down a street.
National Theatre Wales, The Point Workshop. A large group stand on the roadside holding giant cardboard 2-dimensional fish in front of their faces.

While mainstream theatres led the way with Theatre in Education and Youth Theatre in the 1970s funding cuts through the 80s and 90s, together with shifting artistic policies led to a significant reduction in community engagement.  The increased importance placed by funders on community engagement in the early 21st century though has seen a resurgence in outreach work from the mainstream theatres.  Sometimes it’s a tool for audience development (with post-show discussions or pre and post show workshops), sometimes as part of a schools education programme (exploring texts in the curriculum) and in some instances, such as Brighton Dome or National Theatre Wales, as a way of ensuring that the theatre represents the voices and interests of all the communities they serve, through participatory and engagement programmes with creative and social agendas.