through sponsorship of an annual national meeting, and of regional meetings and conference committees throughout the year.14 The Annual Meeting, in late August, is a time when the members gather to exchange ideas, to hear distinguished speakers, to attend children's theater productions, and to see demonstrations of creative drama techniques and technical skills. The Children's Theatre Conference (known as CTC) has a strong regional organization, the country being divided into 16 regions, each of which holds an annual conference in addition to the national meeting. Interest in children's theater is by this means carried far and wide, along with a greater understanding of what both formal and informal drama can mean to a community. In the years since it was organized, the CTC has carried on many needed projects, such as formulating standards for evaluating plays. compiling children's theater directories, interpreting the terms used in drama with and for children; making a survey of colleges and universities offering courses in children's theater and creative dramatics: writing a monograph on Basic Principles and Practices in Children's Theatre and Creative Dramatics in the United States. Something Wonderful Could Happen if people in every community would come to realize that children have a hunger for things of the spirit as well as of the body and mind; if they realized that present entertainment leaves much to be desired; that even if the mass media were all that the most discriminating parent could hope, pictures can never be more than shadows on a screen. If parents care enough to take the responsibility for a children's theater, yet fear so big an undertaking as an organized theater with several productions each season, one step may be taken by providing a single play each year. This is not difficult for any community that has one good trained director. The high school drama teacher might be this individual. A person who has had good training in drama but is doing something quite different for a living might also qualify. This might be an avocation, as it is with many people in community theaters-a "live option," as it were. If no such person is available, it is often possible to secure a production from a nearby college which makes a practice of touring one children's play annually. Good professional companies make tours throughout many parts of the country; and one of them may be engaged for several performances of the same play. The principal consideration in securing a professional group is the quality of their performance. It must be superior. 1 From the Operating Code of CTC, Educational Theatre Journal, December 1958. In planning ahead for such a production, secure a good play, the finest director available, and as many capable actors as possible. Do not give a children's play to make money. Do not use it as an opportunity for people to act. Children recognize genuine acting even though they cannot tell how they know. In a performance of The Prince and the Pauper, played by college and junior high school young people of little experience, a substitution had to be made at almost the last moment for the part of Mrs. Canty, mother of the pauper. A skilled actress was called in; and from the moment of her first entrance a dramatic hush fell over the audience and lasted as long as she was on the stage. The children had sensed instantly the difference in the quality of her acting. Even if they had not known, the theater's responsibility for setting high standards would have been just as great. Many players who are not skilled are convincing to child audiences because they themselves believe—believe in their character, believe in the reality of the story they are living. Relation of Children's Theater to Creative Drama Children's theater and creative dramatics are two different aspects of child drama; the first, formal; the second, informal. There is no conflict in ideology between them; rather, they complement each other. Children's theater is primarily for child audiences; creative dramatics is primarily for the children who participate. Plays written by playwrights serve as material for children's theater, lines being learned by the players, action planned by the director. In creative drama, ideas, experiences, and stories from literature and history are the material out of which children create plays. There are no set lines to learn, and the teacher acts as a guide, not director. The children's theater aspires to perfection in order to create the illusion of reality for the audience. Perfection is not the object in creative drama, though children are encouraged to do the best work of which they are capable. In their effect on child players, formal plays are conducive to poise and confidence. If well directed, they may contribute to a child's skill, to his understanding of character, and to his appreciation of theater. Informal drama gives a child a sense of responsibility and much exercise in independent thinking. His creative ability grows from helping in the development of the play and improvising his speeches. His vicarious life-experience is much broader because of the chance to interpret many roles. Creative dramatics is a much more natural form of expression for young children than is formal drama.15 Since it is spontaneous, creative drama comes from their own thoughts and imaginations so that they form the habit of thinking what they say rather than reciting from memory. Older children, with a background of creative dramatics, are capable of playing naturally in either formal or informal drama. In planning for a children's theater, it must be remembered that an experience in the theater can be a significant one. "Each child is a record of all his yesterdays", wrote Charlotte Chorpenning. Every experience counts in making him what he is, for better or worse. Because of Mrs. Chorpenning's feeling of responsibility as a playwright for what "buried memories" may mean to children, she wrote these lines: May we who write for children, not forget To times and scenes we dream not of as yet, 15 Children's Theatre Conference, "Interpretation of Terms," Educational Theatre Journal, May, 1956. 16 Chorpenning, Charlotte. Children's Theatre Press, 1954. 21 Years With Children's Theatre. Anchorage, Ky., The p. 112. PART II A Creative Drama SHOWER OF IRIDESCENT BUBBLES floated out over the circle of alert kindergaten children, sitting on the big rug with hands hopefully outstretched. "Whoever is touched by a bubble is magic!" Mrs. Bellmar had said, and who wouldn't sit quietly and wait for a soap-bubble to light on his hand or his head for the fun of being made magic? Particularly, as Mrs. Bellmar had told them that as soon as they felt the magic touch on head or hands, they would be able to float without a sound like the lovely, silent bubbles. Experience had taught them that if they snatched at a bubble it would burst. So they waited, still as anything, until, one after another, they were touched by the glowing bubbles and given the magic power to float soundlessly (well, almost soundlessly) over the floor to the sound of delicate music. Perhaps, it was because this had been an unusually noisy group, with a tendency to push and slap, that the teacher had planned this as an experience with touch rather than sight. The children did exclaim over the exquisite rainbow colors of the bubbles in the sunlight; but mostly it was the lightness and gentleness that were stressed. One little girl who had tried rather roughly to pat the teacher's face with the hand of a large doll, said after the bubble experience, "May Hildegarde pat your cheek the way the bubble touched you?" And, as the group started off that day, they "floated" downstairs like bubbles! 1 That sensitive awareness to environment is the beginning of aesthetic appreciation was the belief of John Dewey. Parents cannot begin too early to cultivate in their children appreciation of sights and sounds, tastes, smells, and things touched. There are plenty of As told by Marcella Bellmar, Barbereux School, Evanston, Ill. * Dewey, John, Art As Experience. New York, Minton Balch & Co., 1934. 551934 0 −60———-4 17 opportunities at home, riding in the country, walking in the woods. or on the beach. It is surprising how much one will grow in awareness of beauty in colors and color combinations, in discrimination in tastes and smells and sounds if one searches with children for stones and shells that are interesting in shape and color, imagines pictures in clouds, sees unusual tree shapes, or colors in the sky. All of these experiences develop an awareness that furthers the child's appreciation of every art in the years ahead. The game of seeing and imagining is important to children, and will link the entire family or classroom in the enjoyment of living and playing together. Most people remember with warmth and affection those times when their parents wove into the pattern of practical realities of life the bright threads of fantasy and fun. Developing Sense Awareness in A director of a nursery school went about developing a sense of awareness in the little children she taught by using contrasts. She thought with them about things that are "loud" and things that are "quiet"; then, after a few weeks, things that are "smooth" and things that are "wrinkled." She did not use more than a dozen contrasts during the year, but they included all the senses. The children thought about many things: "Quiet as a spider makes his web," "loud as a horse galloping over a wooden bridge," "wrinkled as a prune," "flat as a word on a piece of paper," "slow as seeds come up, pushing the earth." Sometime during the first year or two of school, most children are taken to a farm, a fire department, or a post office. When children relive the next day such an experience as visiting a farm, holding the baby turkeys, feeding the chickens and the pigs, sliding down the hay, they prolong their enjoyment of the visit, and begin to form the habit of recalling sense impressions. After the visit to the fire department, they like to play going to a fire with fire-truck and hook and ladder. They drive the truck to the scene of the fire, shout orders, play the hose on the building, rescue the survivors. Awareness and the Seasons.-"What signs of fall have you seen?" asked of a group of kindergarten or primary children, calls forth a lively description of autumn leaves, nuts, squirrels, bonfires. The children rake imaginary leaves into a pile or a wire basket (depending Dixon, Madeleine, The Power of Dance. New York, John Day & Co. 1939. P. 25. |