Danielle Peterson and Dr. Megan Sanborn Jones, Dept. of Theatre and Media Arts
The Project
Most children’s theatre involves adults putting on plays for kids. Rarely are the children given the opportunity to sit in the creative seat. With this particular project, I attempted to shift the paradigm of “children’s theatre.” Working with the local Boys and Girls Club, I had the opportunity to allow children to design, plan and produce a brand new play. Children have vivid imaginations and are a vibrant sources of creativity. It is rare that they get this kind of opportunity but it is experiences like these that will always be cherished.
The Method
This particular project had three phases: the writing phase, the design phase and the production phase. During the writing phase, I conducted several writing workshops where the children were taught about narratives and how they shape our existence. The children learned the Six Elements of Theatre from Aristotle’s “Poetics” and how they played into theatre. They also explored genre, theme, word choice, setting, character and plot. Through the use of paper suggestions and majority vote, it was settled on that the play would be a mystery that took place in a haunted castle with a baby vampire. Each child selected their character’s name and personality. The final character list included baseball players, a graffiti artist, Aang (the air bender from Avatar), Saske, Death and Princesses, to name a few.
From that stage we moved on to the design phase. The children participated in workshops, learning about Costume Design, Set Design and Makeup Design. Along with instruction, they were given the opportunity to design their own costumes for this show.
The final step was the Production Phase. During this phase, the children had various acting workshops and rehearsals. They learned how to interact with one another and try to indicate with movement what was going on inside of the character. For example, one specific workshop involved the different way that people walk. I would suggest a character or animal, like a dinosaur or old man, and then each child would get the opportunity to walk across the room like that creature. This was repeated but instead of characters, they used their physical movement to indicate emotion. I would call out “angry” and a dozen or so angry children would stomp across the room. With these experiences, they learned to use their movements as tools to paint psychological pictures of human existence. Alongside these workshops, this phase was used for rehearsal, which culminated in a grand performance for parents and siblings at the end of July.
The Play
The play begins with Emma, a young girl who is getting ready for bed. Her mother discovers Emma ate all the ice cream before bed and warns that she will have nightmares. Emma falls asleep and promptly meets her “dream keeper” in the dream world. Due to her ice cream snack, the dream keeper insists she must have nightmares and attempts to scare Emma with various creatures. Realizing she is more powerful than she thinks, Emma overthrows the dream keeper and begins to shape her dream as it goes. Her dream involves a mystery in a haunted castle where Death and his crew start attacking Princesses to obtain their power crystals. With a simple touch, Death has the power to put the Princesses to sleep one by one and take their crystals. All hope seems lost for the kingdom, until one clever Princess discovers the secret behind Death’s objectives and the cure for the sleeping curse.
The Result
The single greatest observation that can be made from this project is that children are much more capable than we give them credit for. Oftentimes they adapt to our expectations for them, but it is my belief that those expectations are too restrictive. Just like Emma in the play, they often interact with social “dream keepers” that structure every part of their existence. Society is very adequate providing children with opportunity to memorize facts, obey rules and answer questions, but rarely does it give them the chance to create. It is amazing the kind of beauty that arises when they are given the framework to do so. Emma was just as capable of creating the story in her own dream as these children were at creating this play. Sometimes they just need the opportunity.