Theatre Arts as Imperative Education

Life has been a little busy since I started and then promptly forgot about this blog for Creative Dramatics. Sounds like an excuse and it is, but between teaching classes, working full time, directing some plays, writing some plays, and having a family...I just never made it back here to create the space I had in mind for here.

But life has also altered a little in the past few months and I find myself with a few more hours a week to devote to writing and promoting what I almost consider a "divine" mission. As I have worked in the past 2 years sharing my love of theatre and theatre arts with lots and lots of young students, I have come more and more to believe in the educational benefits to children. And so I have returned to this "space" to create a place where other theatre professionals and amateur enthusiasts can come to when looking for ideas for their student, for their productions, for their classes.

I have slowly developed a good balance of lesson plans that attempt to help students learn some really good basic skills, have some fun adventures without too much pressure, and to enable both the student and the teacher to have a joint fun creative process that enriches both of them. I know it does for me. I can be rather tired and feeling less than energetic and spend an hour or two sharing with my classes and we all come away with a real sense of team work and synergy that we have created together in class. It's all rather amazing and fun.

So my goal for this new blog is to try and communicate that and to reach out to those who are interested in several areas working with young people and theatre. First, to encourage ordinary parents, teachers and amateurs in theatre that their first goal with theatre education is to make it a joyful process, not one aimed at performance, but one aimed at mutual sharing. There are ways to do that without coercing a child to become a trained seal, which is sadly what many performance theatre programs do.

All children are naturally creative performers. They want to tell us their story, involve us in their story and work and play with peers to tell stories. Just listen to them.."You be the mommy this time, and then I come home and we have dinner and ....and....etc. etc. " They tell stories constantly, naturally.
In our Creative Dramatic classes, I try to help them understand several key processes that will allow them to come together to tell new stories, to create their own group stories and to communicate some new stories that they learn in our classes. I've been able to identify some favorite stories that just seem to resonate with children and capture their interest.

I hope that readers of this site, will share their comments, their input, their own stories of working with students in this area of story sharing. Because at it's very base, that is all that theatre is- the telling and sharing of meaningful touching story that impacts the teller and the audience. So feel free to share your own experiences, perhaps your own stories. I will occasionally invite guest bloggers to post a story or two of their own. :) And if you are interested in being a guest blogger, let me know at writestuff444@yahoo.com.

Let's share.