Anni's Blog

Anybody who has sat in a child audience will know what I mean when I say the ‘energy’ is totally different. They have no inhibitions, no agreed habitus of the theatre, and a complete ability to lose themselves in the story.

This week one small boy just couldn’t help himself, shouting at the puppet (who plays the main character, Tom) “are you real?”

This was great to see, and definitely makes me consider how I would want to blur the line of audience and performer within my own work. It is necessary to gain some kind of balance, especially with children’s theatre because it’s easy for them to get carried away and lose attention, however, if you can attain that medium then you could work upon impulses to shout out such as the aforementioned “are you real?” and allow the audience to start moulding the work with you. Theatre for children, with children.

‘The Night Pirates’ engages each individual with a lot of looks outward to the audience and facial recognition of them, so much so that many children wave whenever a puppet or performer looks towards the fourth wall.

One of the most rewarding feelings for me as an adult audience member surrounded by people at least fifteen years younger than me was the collective tiny gasp when the illusion of theatre becomes a reality. Stephen, who plays the Moon in ‘The Night Pirates’ quite often cues the lights on or off with a click of his fingers. “How did you do the lights?” was a common question asked after the performance. I was told that during one feedback session a child was asked what the difference was between a play and television, he replied, “a play is real”. Although, at one point at the end of a creative play session one girl wanted to tell me what her “favourite part of the DVD” was.  I think this may be a strong indication of the number of children not seeing enough theatre and too much television at home.

Of course shouting out is not the only kind of reaction you get from your audience.  Some children wriggled and giggled in their seats, others sat right on the edge of their seat until an exciting moment when they would jump to their feet clapping tiny hands leaving the chair to clang back into place.  But amongst all this several individuals sat calmly; quietly taking everything in until the end.

Just like within a group of adults, when you have a class of schoolchildren you can see the variety of personalities and responses to creativity. They notice different things about the characters and the story, “I liked it when the Moon spoke and his eyebrows moved”.

These characters became more apparent to me once we met with them for the creative play sessions after each performance. We divided the audience into four groups of roughly 24 children each and played for 35 minutes with sand, shells, feathers and a large blue ‘sea’ parachute material at the end. A lot of children delighted in blowing a feather up into the air then running  to catch it, but at one point I found two kids sat on the floor carefully placing small shells on the floor in a pattern or showing each other how if you put your ear to the big conch you can hear the sea.

Use of materials that relate to themes of the show also reinforced their memories of the piece, for example for many young ones the feathers became swords and the creative play session became a swashbuckling adventure in the gallery.

This then made me see that through the freedom of creative play sessions we were able to facilitate an enjoyable playtime for a variety of personalities. By making the sessions child led they were being given the option of different materials, being active or stationary, it was possible to take the themes of the show and translate them into a session that each child could get pleasure from in their own way.

Small people; large personalities.

1^st October

I find myself well into the second week of my Contextual Enquiry Project and still learning something new every day. Rehearsals for ‘The Night Pirates’ are going well; the characters are looking more and more alive every day. I have been spending some time in the office looking at the exciting and diverse applications for the Departure Lounge at Take Off Festival…

http://www.theatrehullabaloo.org.uk/takeoff-festival-opportunities.asp

And ordering copious numbers of books to strengthen my knowledge on children’s theatre and it’s links to development in the early years. Titles are shown below and any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Today I received some positive feedback from my project supervisor Adele on the direction that my CEP is taking i.e. an exploration of the importance of theatre work for/with young audiences to aid development.

I have arranged an interview which I will document on this blog with Paul Harman (former Director of Hullabaloo when it was known as CTC) who will be able to give me a great understanding of what it has been like to produce children’s theatre since 1993 and how it has evolved over the years.

Alison McGowan has also agreed to spend some time with me discussing her residency which will give me a great insight into how I can bring this back to Alphabet Nursery in Bournemouth.

I am also interested to speak to the NAYT and the amazing work they are doing in Darlington trying to promote the arts with young people.

Books I am using for my research include:

Theatre for Children by David Wood

Arts in Their View: Study of Youth Participation in the Arts by John Harland

Children’s Theatre: A Philosophy and a Method (Theatre & Drama) by Moses Goldberg

The Young Audience: Exploring and Enhancing Children’s Experiences of Theatre by Matthew Reason

Acting with Intent: Theatre Companies and Their Education Programmes by Dick Downing