The early 20th century revolutionized the way we looked at theatre performance – from Brecht’s “alienation” effect to Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, performance came to be seen as a way to move the audience to social action. Is performance a kind of manipulation of emotion to cause action, and is that what we’re doing when we focus our fundraising on storytelling and the identifiable victim effect? In this session, we’ll look at the difference between manipulation and empathetic understanding and what is our role – and responsibility – in creating social change with our audiences.