Within the DAAD-funded project “Service Learning – Curtain Up! A Theatre Project to Foster Reading Literacy and Social Cohesion in Inclusive Learning Settings” (University of Potsdam, 2025), pre-service teachers from the University of Potsdam and the University of Education in Winneba (Ghana) are trained in reading research, theatre pedagogy, and scenic performance.We focused the research question: How can a transcontinental theatre project grounded in reconstructive case analysis be designed and implemented in higher education to foster inclusive teaching competencies among pre-service teachers?

The participants receive online lectures as well as individual mentoring to support the development of their own dramatic texts.The Potsdam Inclusive Didactic Teaching Model (Giera et al., 2025) provides the conceptual framework for planning and implementing the theatre project, which has been carried out in two cycles with German and Ghanaian pre-service teachers (2025–2026). The resulting collage of dramatic texts addresses experiences of exclusion and discrimination in schools and promotes communicative exchange as well as collaborative approaches to inclusive school development (Prengel, 2022).

Drawing on principles of scenic interpretation (Scheller, 2023) and reconstructive case analysis (Schmidt & Wittek, 2020), the students adopt the perspectives of actors involved in discrimination experiences they have personally encountered or observed. This biographical approach (Plath, 2009) offers significant potential for in-depth engagement with individual experiences, for recognising broader structural connections, for reflective distancing, and for creative self-reflection (Platz, 2009, p. 115). Self-reflexivity, as a core objective of reconstructive case analysis (Schmidt & Wittek, 2020, pp. 35–36), enables students to reflect on their own biographical imprints while temporarily adopting alternative perspectives and questioning habitual interpretive routines. This stance proves particularly suitable for addressing bullying and discrimination in educational contexts.

The strategic dramatization of the texts (Hippe, 2011, p. 185) renders them accessible for further reconstructive analysis. The resulting scenes form the basis for a comprehensive competence development among pre-service teachers of German at lower and upper secondary levels. Within this teaching–learning arrangement, students assume multiple professional roles as authors, actors, directors, and dramaturgs. They further develop the scenes collaboratively through creative writing processes and take responsibility for recording, editing, and sound design. In this way, they experience a transmedial expansion of and enhanced design competence in relation to their own written texts (Anders et al., 2019).

All produced materials are made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) on the digital learning platform OpenUP. Further project outcomes have been published in a bilingual German–English edited volume (Giera et al., 2026). This contribution demonstrates how the transcontinental theatre project was planned, implemented, reflected upon, and sustainably embedded in higher education. It also presents the dramatic scenes created through collective authorship (Giera et al., 2026), the themes negotiated on stage across national contexts, and the methods and media used by instructors to support the processes of writing, performance, and staging.

In addition, the paper provides insights into the competence areas fostered for use in school contexts, including literary, language, and media didactics in German language education (Anders et al., 2019), as well as interdisciplinary applications in English and civic education (Kahlert, 2022). Overall, the theatre project aims to develop a postdramatic performance, a video collage, and a multilingual theatre script in order to inspire pre-service teachers worldwide to engage with contemporary theatre through biographical and performative approaches.

The study follows a qualitative, practice-based research design situated within higher education teacher education. Methodologically, it draws on reconstructive case analysis (Schmidt & Wittek, 2020) and arts-based research approaches, particularly theatre-based and biographical learning formats (Boal, 2019). The theatre project functions both as a teaching–learning intervention and as a research setting in which learning processes and products are systematically examined. Data were generated through multiple sources: biographically grounded dramatic texts written by pre-service teachers, video recordings of performances, and teaching observation notes. The dramatic texts and performances were analysed using principles of reconstructive case analysis. In addition, transmedial production processes—from written text to performance and video—were examined to explore the development of performative, reflective, and didactic competencies. The triangulation of textual, performative, and reflective data allows for an in-depth understanding of how pre-service teachers engage with issues of discrimination and inclusion through theatre-based learning.

The findings indicate that dramatic writing and scenic interpretation can serve as effective mediating practices for reconstructive case analysis, enabling participants to critically reflect on their own biographical imprints while exploring alternative perspectives in a protected, creative learning environment. The transcontinental collaboration between German and Ghanaian pre-service teachers further amplifies these processes by challenging culturally embedded assumptions and encouraging dialogue across national and educational contexts.

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