Ragudos,JC.2023

This thesis examines and assesses the work found in university student extracurricular theatre management through John Paul II’s philosophy of work extracted from his encyclical Laborem Exercens. The study, drawing on Karol Wojtyla/JP II's acknowledgment of the act's personally fulfilling potential and the obligation to uphold this goodness by giving priority to the subject of work, i.e., the person, initially investigates the work of theatre management and the ways to make its conditions more humanizing for its managers, especially in the context of theatre voluntarily run by young adult university students. What was established here is a set of criteria for humanizing working conditions for university extracurricular theatre management. Alongside, Peter Brook’s concept of “Deadly Theatre” brings awareness to the work can be shaped to be potentially detrimental for the student managers and helps construct a direction for the management that makes it highly considerate of the group’s circumstances when applying these standards to the work.

By establishing these parameters for analysis, the study proceeds to make a case out of the post-pandemic management of one of the theatre student interest groups at the University of Asia and the Pacific: ViARE. To get insight into the practices, standards, and environment that make up the work culture of ViARE’s management, relevant documents (e.g., Student Handbook and ViARE Constitution) were collected and transcribed interviews with 14 members of ViARE’s executive board committee for their 29th and 30th seasons were put through thematic analysis. After assessing the findings through the Wojtylan-based framework, the research concludes that ViARE further proves that theatre management is humanizing work for its students. However, the group has much to reflect on in order to sustain the work’s humanizing quality as it moves forward.