Second, let’s talk about this Research Dearth.

One of the challenging parts of consulting about theatre with young children is not the consulting itself, but the dearth of substantial research about the topic.  We are expected, after all, to support our assumptions not just with our practices and working knowledge, but with the theory and statistics.  Expect, of course, they don’t really exist in this field.

Sure, there’s research about the use of theatre with adults, teens, and youths.  There’s even research about whether being involved in theatre (or any art, for that matter) makes them smarter or better people.  There’s research about young children and their developmental process and the joy they receive from the arts, the increased math potential from listening to music (thank you Little Einstein for taking that concept overboard and poisoning us with poor imitations of the real thing).  What doesn’t exist is research specifically correlating the developmental process of young children and their participation in process-oriented theatre arts.  Okay, that’s a little white lie, there’s some out there, but it’s really really hard to find and exists as one-liners in dense multi-chapter studies.

I’ve got this dearth particularly in mind today as I work my way through Theatre, Education, and the Making of Meanings by Anthony Jackson.  This text is not about young children, nor is it even about process-oriented theatre.  But it does offer some truly interesting perspective about the development of educational theatre over history, the progress of its theories, and the ongoing dichotomy between the “art” of educational theatre arts and the “education” of educational theatre arts.

I’ll keep you posted as I keep on (it’s rather dry so who knows how long it’ll take me!) but here’s my favorite quote so far.  It happens to be from Brecht, not the author of this text:

the contrast between learning and amusing oneself is not laid down by divine rule;…theatre remains theatre, even when it is instructive theatre, and in so far as it is good theatre it will amuse.

I think we educators of young children can concur…the best learning does indeed take place when learning is a joy.

I love the feeling of enclosure when I’m feeling comforted.

This would be why sad children seek hugs, crawl under tables, and sleep well in small spaces.  This would also explain why gyms, fields, and hallways are so conducive to running.

I was reminded of this yesterday at Boston Children’s Museum.  It’s huge and very runnable.

I used to work there full-time and returned as a consultant last year to work with an arts educator and several of her floor staff on techniques for guiding dramatic play in their children’s theater.  They have a wonderful children’s theater program as part of the museum.  15-20 minutes interactive children’s plays are performed multiple times a day.  They are written for young audiences but have a great sense of style and possess all the goodies of good live children’s theater: lights, sound, solid scripts and characters, a safe space, and enthusiastic acting.

When I was an employee, the theater was left open to the public in between shows.  Children could come into the space, play at theater using set pieces, costumes, and lights.  Several times a week, I also  ran guided drop-in programming for children and families.  The new stage, just designed and installed a few years ago, also includes a pretend box office.  I was excited to share all this with my daughter who having just performed in her first dance recital and visited me at the theater for pre-show of my latest production is very interested in the performing arts.

We arrived after lunch only to discover we had missed the shows for the day and the space was not open for free play.  Not open at all.  And the counter workers’ answer implied that my question about it being open for free play was absurd because it was never open for free play.

Who knows why this is so, but it is certainly a loss to the children of Boston.

However, as I followed Do-Bug through the other very expansive exhibits, watched her engrossed for an hour in Peep’s World and watched her run fast down the wide inviting halls, I thought back to my experiences teaching on KidStage and how challenging it might feel as a member of their Education Team to guide a group of unknown children through an activity in a space that invites expanding.  Because that really is a challenge: to retain the focus of children in a space that simply begs for them to run, skip, and jump.  I know it can be done; I’ve done it.  That’s not to say it’s easy.

And what about all the teachers who want to introduce theatre to their preschoolers?

If large spaces invite the running of feet and the tossing of objects, then smaller spaces invite precision.  Precision of movement, voice, and choices.

So, forgo the idea of bringing your children to the gym or on to the elementary school stage for their first time doing a theatre activity.  Stay in the confines of your classroom, a safe space where they are comforted.  Invite them to be precise in their choices.

And when you decide to create your own stage inside your classroom, make it small.  3 feet by 3 feet is ample room for two children to put on a play.  If you have children with mobility differences, make it just big enough for them to turn around, move a foot or two, and then move back.

Because although it feels good and can be easier to take up space in a large space, it is  safer, more productive, and set your children up for success to learn to take up space well in a small space.

Wait until summer!  Which just happens to be right about now.

Summer: when every other park in the country has free Shakespeare and puppet shows.  Children love watching Shakespeare outside.  Of course a lot of it swims right over their heads, but it’s a fantastic introduction to actors performing on stage in front of an audience.  And they will enjoy themselves even if they (and you) don’t follow the whole story.  Plus, the lights won’t go out which cuts down on the fear factor and if you get hungry for ice cream or too tired to finish the show, you can get up and leave and no one will blink twice.  It’s a win-win situation.

So if the cost of theatre tickets would normally send you to the library, now’s the time to scour the local newspaper for free outdoor performances.

Let me back track for a moment:

Do-Bug loves to dance.  So, just after she started school in the fall, I signed her up for tap dance. I purposefully chose both a school and a dance-style that is not considered pre-professional.  Sure, their classes are structured, they have good teachers, and no doubt many of their students go on to continue dance in their adult lives. But they’re not a training ground for the next prima-ballerina.  I wanted Do-Bug to have the chance to just have fun.  She is only three, after all.

My original plan to keep her out of the recital was foiled by the size of the class: there are only five of them. So I caved to my own private dreams of stardom before I even tried to put my foot down.

Now we own a $75 sequined blue tutu which she will wear only once on stage and I waited in line for 2 hours to buy tickets for the family ($20 a pop!).

As it turns out, even those of us who think we know better cave to the delights of creating super-stars. We want our kids to shine, to dazzle. But at what cost?

Two weeks ago, I dressed her up in her costume and hustled her off to the studio for photo-call.   I was ill-prepared to wait so after an hour of it, we’d both had it.  We were hot, tired, thirsty and hungry.  As her classmates were finally ushered into the studio for their photos, our relief became a meltdown.  The tears started and never stopped.  We took off the costume and left in a hurry without having her picture taken.  We wanted out.  We were not having fun.  We were both embarrassed and hungry and miserable.   We were there for fun and didn’t have any.

We won’t make that mistake again.

At three, it’s not about dazzling.  At three, you dazzle no matter what.  Because that’s what three year-olds do.  At three, it’s about fun and being in control of your own destiny.

So, it was with great relief that after her class this week–A tricky class being done in a larger room (closer in size to the actual stage) with more children (the bigger ballerinas who share their dance number)–that her teacher took the time to say “The most important thing is what? Having fun.”

So, in two weeks time, when I am faced with a long week of late-night rehearsals for a very small child, I will pull out the goldfish, the playdough, and the ponies, and we will sit and have fun while we wait for her turn to tap her way through the limelight.

And if she chooses to stand in the wings out of fear, I will still be proud and tell her I love her.  If she chooses to get on stage and forgets all her steps, I will still be proud and tell her I love her.  If she walks into the spotlight and starts tapping her tiny feet to her own singular rhythm, I will still be proud and tell her I love her.  It’s her time to choose, and I will support that with the best of my stage mothering ability.

When her teacher announces they will perform Peter Pan, Grace wants to play Peter.  Her classmates tell her she can’t.  First of all, she’s not a boy, and second, she’s black and Peter isn’t.  Her Ma and Nana are supportive, though, and tell her she can be anything she wants.  The story includes a trip to see a black ballerina playing Juliet on stage.  In the end, Grace does play Peter, and not just because her teacher casts her, but because her classmates vote for her to play the role.  She’s proven she can play Peter regardless of her skin color and gender.

This is an extremely important concept in PictureBook Plays: children can make their own choices about their own characters.  It is okay

• For girls to be pirates with scratchy beards
• For boys to wear tutus and tiaras
• For girls to be grandpas
• For boys to be mamas.
• For dark-skinned children to be white historical figures.
• For light-skinned children to be dark-skinned historical figures.

Educational Theatre, and especially PictureBook Plays, is about using your imagination to explore what you are not, even something simple, like my three year old daughter telling me the other day that she was pretending to be a Big Girl, and therefore started calling me “Mother” rather than Mama.  In her world, Big Girls say “Mother.”  It was not my place to “correct,” it was my place to respond as Mother and allow her to explore this new world as she saw fit.

Grace has a big imagination, a supportive family, and bravery.  This is a terrific book to have in the classroom not just on Drama days.

Since she’s so active and both sides of her family are naturally slender I’ve never worried about the obesity epidemic as is pertains to my own child.  I know she needs to play sports, hike, and dance so she’ll grow into a women with a strong body image.  We are a family that eats very healthy so I also don’t worry about that.  But when I look in my rear view mirror as I drive her to school and instead of happily chatting to herself, kicking the chair seat or day dreaming, she is sitting like a listless pile of goo, then I worry.

We all need time to sit and day dream.  We all need to spend some time sitting in cozy corners reading books and coloring.  But to sit listlessly seems, well, boring and counterproductive to a happy life.

She only sits like this in the car.  When she’s been in the car far too much over too many days.  I shouldn’t feel guilty because it can’t be helped: I have to work, she has to go to school, we like to visit relatives and museums.  All this takes time in the car.  But is it too much time in the car?

According to various websites (both reliable and not) it appears that the typical American spend about 30 minutes commuting each way to work.  It’s safe to assume our children spend about the same amount of time.  That’s an hour every day sitting immobilized in the back seat of a car.

When I notice my daughter turn listless, instead of focusing on my guilt, I talk to her.  We talk about life, sing, tell jokes, make up stories.  Ah ha, and here we are at the point I’m trying to make:  We can’t avoid our commutes altogether but we can use them well.  Tell stories together.  Or, if you’re uncomfortable digging up the remnants of Jack and the Bean Stalk out of your childhood memories, find a CD of stories from your local bookstore.  Children love to listen to stories as much as watch them.  My daughter loves to have me tell her a story while she’s lying in bed; her imagination comes to life. And so does mine.

So it comes down to this: if you’re not in a position to get up and act out stories together, it can be just as fun and beneficial to tell them together.  Stories don’t have to be real; they can be very silly.  And you can revisit them the next day and revise them as you go. Besides, talking about a flying polka-dotted baby monster who eats bats is far more fun than fuming about the traffic you’re stuck in.

My colleague and I take this learning process for you, the teacher, very seriously.  PictureBook Plays isn’t just about creating an important opportunity for a child, it’s about helping you gain the confidence and the skills to bring about the opportunity.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I just finished reading The Girl with the Brown Crayon by Vivian Gussin Paley.  Paley is a talented writer and quite clearly a talented teacher (although it looks like she has retired as an in-classroom teacher).  Her talent stems not just from her ability to put into eloquent phrases her detailed observations of the children in her classes, but to look back into herself and actively learn as she teaches.  Her students seem to teach her just as much as she teaches them.

This particular book is about the interpretation of stories and their characters and how children (and ultimately herself) learn to develop an aptitude for using these same stories and characters as metaphors for their own lives.  These metaphors are a way of shaping understanding, of–to put it in art education speak–making meaning.

She focuses on Reeny, a brown girl (I write “brown” because she spends part of her days finding the perfect color brown crayon with which to draw her skin) with a quick mind and an aptitude for making insightful, unexpected, and honest observations.  As a class, they wrote to Leo Lionni, the author around whom their curriculum focuses but he is too ill to reply and the child is heart-broken.

Reeny has engaged in a major struggle with Leo Lionni.  First, she believes that he has reneged on the promise of her dream; she in turn denies the premise of his first book.  Magically, the air is cleared and Reeny resumes the task at hand in a more balanced position.  Ultimately, uh-huh uh-huh, it is the reader who interprets the writer.

Did you notice the “uh-huh uh-huh” part?  That’s a singsong phrase from Reeny that the classroom slowly adopts as their own, as does Paley.  It is a verbal heartbeat that thumps along with their friendships and learning processes.  The bolding is mine, because this insight is so important to PictureBook Plays.  Each play contains the potential for hundreds of interpretations because every child will see it from a new perspective.  It’s up to you to allow these interpretations.

Later in the book she writes,

I too require passion in the classroom.  I need the intense preoccupation of a group of children and teachers inventing new worlds as they learn to know each other’s dreams. To invent is to come alive. Even more than the unexamined classroom, I resist the uninvented classroom.

Paley has identified one of the keys to PictureBook Plays: giving space for invention and learning to “know each other’s dreams.”  It is only by takig the risk, placing yourself before your students and honestly guiding them through a self-discovery process that they beging to reveal their dreams to you.  And once you know their dreams, you can help them explore these dreams as they discover themselves in the world.

So, this brings me back to you.  Paley manages to regularly delve inwards, exploring her own struggles and successes as a teacher, and rejoices when her students teach her something new.

Rejoice in your own learning process; give your students permission to teach you.  And read The Girl with the Brown Crayon.  It will only take a couple of evenings for a worthwhile perspective.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

Albert Einstein

One of my favorite parts is towards the end.  Amandina does everything she is supposed to do to put on a good show, but no one arrives.

Sometimes these things happen and nobody knows why.

is the apt and simple explanation.  So what does the little dog do? She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t give up, she doesn’t re-plan, she performs anyways.  And when she performs, the audience arrives on their own.  The very act of telling her story is what made her audience appear in wonder.

This is a really great book for introducing theatre concepts to your preschoolers.

Not surprisingly, more and more professional companies are creating interesting, beautiful, and challenging works for children to see.  Just today, the UK Guardian (a country with a genetically inherited love of theatre!) put out a blog post about this very topic.

Performance is a way of ritualizing how we see the world, and it’s a way of playing. Children recognise and understand ritual and play on a very deep level, and that understanding can lead to an extraordinary synergy between the audience and the work.

And, although the author doesn’t really go into it, this statement really gets to the heart of theatre for children: synergy.  Children don’t just “see” a play, they participate in it.  They absorb the story in new and unexpected ways reacting both immediately and over time as they continue to process ideas.  The actors receive this feedback as the story unfolds; there are no secrets.

When I work with actors who perform for young audiences, one of my very favorite tasks is asking new actors about their experience because without fail he or she says something along the lines of, “I love that I know what they’re thinking right away.  I know if they like or hate what I do because they tell me.  I hear it.”  This give and take of story-teller and meaning-maker is what makes live theatre so exciting.  And it’s why theatre works so well within a classroom.

Children as performers experience this same synergy with their classmates, the audience members, and their teachers.  Their stories take on, shall we say, a life of their own.

But, we’ve forgotten: how do you find it?

You look.

Very hard.

The first step is to get on the mailing list of all the professional theatres in your region.  They often produce or host children’s theatres for limited engagements.  They don’t play for long, though, so you will need to be on top of things to know about them.  Some high schools and colleges also create children’s theatre.

This is a list of all the theatres that belong to TYAUSA, (Theatre for Young Audiences/USA) that may be useful.

Some national touring companies exist that will come into your school to perform.  If you decide to go this route, plan on visiting another school that is hosting the show before you commit.  Not all theatre is created equal and it is important to expose your students to the good stuff first.

Have fun!