Children's Theatre Research Articles

Participatory Children's Theatre and the Art of Research: The Theatre of Research/Das Forschungstheater 2003–2013

The topic I was asked to speak about today is the most important topic of my work during the last ten years. How to speak about something so big? This is a keynote address that was presented at the...

Radio Adaptations of Robin Hood's Legend During the Golden Age of Radio

During radio's reign on the airwaves, classics and legends were sources for radio plays written for a wide audience. Scriptwriters realized radio's cultural importance and culled classics for material that pushed their conception of “high” culture but still satisfied a wide audience. Radio plays were adapted from William Shakespeare's plays, Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and Robin Hood's legend. This study covers radio adaptations of Robin Hood broadcast between the 1930s and 1970s: Popeye (1939); Buster Brown (1948); Family Theater (1949); the children's theater program Let's Pretend (1954), Escape (1952), Gunsmoke (1955); and Crisis (1975).

One-Way Street: Childhood and Improvisation at the Close of the Book

Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street emerges from a profoundly subversive orientation in his thought. It is the application in the present of a skeptical posture toward the European cultural legacy, a skeptical posture typical of Benjamin in his relation to the university institution. The proximity of One-Way Street to disruptions in the processes securing cultural transmission appears in the transformation of the book's relation to Gershom Scholem and Asja Lacis, the antithetical colleagues closest to Benjamin at the time he wrote it. The satirical force originally associated with his student friend Scholem and their shared parody the “University of Muri” gives way to an ever greater sensitivity to childhood per se as a principle of counter-experience, a sensitivity Benjamin found embodied in Asja Lacis's proletarian children's theater. At the intersection of the satiric university that debunks all prior authority and the proletarian children's theater that vests an unexpected pedagogic potency in the future generation, One-Way Street gestures toward everything adult authority necessarily obliterates and by which it must eventually be obliterated in turn.

I want to be the Palestinian Romeo!Arna's Childrenand the Romance with Theatre

This article focuses onArna's Children, a 2004 documentary about the children's activities and theatre group founded in 1989 by Israeli activist Arna Mer Khamis in the Jenin Refugee Camp of the occupied West Bank. While the documentary provides an in-depth look at how theatrical practices can prove restorative in the face of destruction, my discussion suggests that its portrayal of the aesthetic medium also interrogates the limits of the relationship between theatrical practice and emancipatory ideals.

El teatro en la escuela: un proyecto municipal de incentivación del teatro como actividad formativa, cultural y artística

En este artículo se expone un proyecto municipal de teatro que se realiza en las escuelas públicas de la ciudad de Tarragona. Se trata de un proyecto de incentivación del teatro como actividad formativa, cultural y artística que ha ido evolucionando desde los años 80 hasta la actualidad. Exponemos el devenir de esta evolución, analizando el contexto dentro del panorama teatral infantil, hasta la configuración del servició en la actualidad y el proyecto educativo que lo configura.

Teatro infantil, gênero e direitos humanos: um olhar crítico sobre as peças Felizardo e O menino Teresa

A cultura infantil está cada vez mais permeada por um cotidiano generificado, isto é, a maior parte dos processos e produtos culturais possui conteúdos nos quais a questão de gênero é tratada, insistentemente, de forma binária e, consequentemente, excludente. O objetivo deste trabalho, assim, foi estudar o teatro infantil de Marcelo Romagnoli e da Banda Mirim, cujas peças possuem uma proposta de desmontar e questionar os estereótipos que dicotomizam a vida de meninos e meninas. Assistindo às encenações de Felizardo e de O menino Teresa, e analisando o conteúdo dos textos das peças, concluiu-se que as personagens propõem um modelo para meninas e meninos que está na contramão da cultura padronizada e oficial, estimulando novas relações sociais de gênero entre as crianças, contribuindo desse modo para a consecução dos "objetivos do milênio" propostos pela ONU e encampados pelo Brasil, sobretudo no que tange à igualdade entre os sexos.

Being and Becoming: Children as Audiences

In this article, Katya Johanson and Hilary Glow examine the ways in which performing arts companies and arts policy institutions perceive the needs of children as audiences. Historically, children have been promoted as arts audiences. Some of these represent an attempt to fashion the adults of the future – as audiences, citizens of a nation, or members of a specific community. Other rationales focus on the needs or rights of the child, such as educational goals or the provision of an antidote to the perceived corrupting effect of electronic entertainment. Drawing on interviews with performing arts practitioners, the authors explore some of these themes through case studies of three children's theatre companies, identifying the development of policy rationales for the support of practices directed at children which are primarily based on pedagogical principles. The case studies reveal a shift away from educational goals for children's theatre, and identify a new emphasis on the importance of valuing children's aesthetic choices, examining how these trends are enacted within the case-study organizations, and the implications of these trends for company programming. Hilary Glow is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Arts Management Program at Deakin University, Victoria. She has published articles on cultural policy and the audience experience in various journals, and in a monograph on Australian political theatre (2007). Katya Johanson lectures and researches in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. She has published on Australian cultural policy and on the relationship between art, politics and national identity. With Glow she is the author of a monograph on Australian indigenous performing arts (2009).

Can a place be allocated to Anti-Heroes in Children's Theater?

Heroes started to leave their position to anti-heroes in the post-modern era of our time, in which the trust in holistic and consistent mind and the values and norms created through that mind have eroded the belief in the conscious subject who constructs history has weakened and all the relationships established with figures of authority have been questioned. There is no doubt that the figure of hero has not completely disappeared in the scene of literature, art and history. Especially in non-Western societies like ours, stuck between modern and post-modern eras and being modernized belatedly, the reading of the relationship established with “hero and anti-hero” over a single definition would be misleading. In this paper, firstly, the subject regarding which actions and tendencies that the anti-heroes are considered as out of norm in the society and in the period of time that we live in will be discussed and the relationship that the educators, children and their parents establish with anti-heroes will be problematized. Then, the characteristics of the relationship between idealized heroes in most of the children's theatre texts which are used as educational purposes in Turkey and the children's world will be analyzed. Lastly, the question of what would change if anti-heroes were involved in this relationship will be argued.

Drama, conflict resolution and the birth of a Kosovan National Theatre

This article examines the important part played by Applied Theatre in addressing and resolving the aftermath of the Balkans conflict in what is now an independent Kosovo and the ways in which this Applied Theatre has influenced the foundation of the National Theatre of Kosovo (NTK). I explain the growth of the Centre for Children's Theatre Development in Pristina and its role in the growing relationship between drama and conflict resolution in the country. I give examples of the use of both Applied Theatre and Forum Theatre techniques (including reference to my own experiences). I also show the importance of international theatrical collaborations in the nascent country with examples from Albania, Canada and the United Kingdom. The article concludes with looking at the way in which all of this work has influenced the role of the NTK, the National Theatre of the youngest country in the world, and how the relationship between theatre and conflict is shaping debate about the nature and function of a national theatre in a post-conflict situation.

The Journey Within: Connie Regan-Blake's "Hope Is Back on Me"

Storytelling, Self, Society, 7:72-76, 2011 Copyright©Taylor &Francis Group, LLC ISSN1550-5340 print /1932-0280 online DOI:10.1080/15505340.201 1.533980 Routledge Taylor &Francis Croup PERFORMANCE REVIEW The Journey Within: Connie Regan-Blake's "Hope Is Back on Me" JillJohnson "All journeys have secret destinations ofwhich the traveler isunaware." - Martin Buber "Africa. . . So beginsa performance of"HopeIs BackonMe,"ConnieReganBlake 'sstorytelling showofher2007journey toUganda, performed atWhidbey Children's Theater onWhidbey Island, Washington StateinOctober 2009.ReganBlakeexplored 17daysoftransformative experience ina piecethat waspart travel essay,partpersonal experience story, partfolktale, andpartethnography. This essaywilldiscusstheperformance from twoperspectives: as a combination of visualimages, soundrecordings andtraditional storytelling; andas anoraltravel narrative with components ofanexternal andinternal journey. Formorethan30 years,Regan-Blake has beenat theforefront ofthecontemporary storytelling movement. She was a founding member oftheNational Storytelling Network (NSN, formerly NAPPS/NSA)andtheartistic director of theNationalStorytelling FestivalandtheTell It in theMountains Storytelling Festival.She has receivedthe NSN Circle of Excellenceand theLifetime Achievement Award andhassevenawardwinning recordings tohercredit. Primarily knownforhermastery of thefolktale, Regan-Blake takesa new direction withthispiece.Rather thansolelyinviting herlisteners on a journey oftheimagination, shealso provides a riveting taleofan actual,physical journeyto an unfamiliar place anddescribes thepeopleshemeetsalongtheway. Regan-Blake traveled toUgandaattheinvitation oftwodearfriends: Dr.Charles Address correspondence toJill Johnson, 725Suzanne Court, Langley, WA98260. E-mail: story @whidbey.com PERFORMANCE REVIEW 73 Steinburg, who has treated AIDS patients in Ugandasince2003, and Torkin Wakefield, whofounded BeadforLife,a development program inwhich impoverished womenmakehandcrafted jewelryfrom recycled paper.In addition to training, savings accounts, andbusiness funding for thewomen, Beadfor Lifealso hasprojects inhealth, affordable housing, andbusiness development. Theoriginalidea was forRegan-Blake toperform andrecord thestories oftheheaders. Although theplanwent through several revisions, bothelements ofthisoriginal ideawerepresent inthis performance. We followtheteller from first impressions - thelushtropical beautyat the airport - tothesensory shocksofan African slumanda growing realization of theeffects ofterrorism, poverty, anddeprivation on Uganda'spoor - especially thewomen.Atthispoint, we meetthefirst ofthesewomen, NamakasaRose. AnHIV-positive mother offour smallchildren, shewandered thenarrow, debrisstrewn paths ofhercommunity searching forsmallcoinswith which topurchase food.She was afraid totellherchildren ofherHIV status becauseinfection in Ugandacanstill beconsidered shameful. Butwhenshewasbrought intoBeadfor Lifeandsoonbegantoearna steady wage,shetoldthem. Hersonshouted, "This isa gooddisease!" Thenthere is AkotLillian,a survivor of themassacres perpetuated by the Lord'sResistance Army (LRA),a vicious, cult-like rebelorganization. Asa child, shelistened as hermother andfather weremurdered inthefront yardandclung toher"Ja-Ja," hergrandmother, whofledwith thechildren intothebush.ReganBlakeinterviewed Lillianinherhome- a 6 x 8-foot hut - insuffocating heat, and,atonepoint, herownemotions spilledout.In ourinterview, Regan-Blake spokeofthefour orfivepeoplewithwhomshefelt"a deepheart connection." RoseandLillianwereclearly twoofthem. Thefinal beaderwe meetis AduniAlice,another survivor. Sheandherchild were forced towatch her husband hacked todeath with a machete bytheir brotherin -law. After discovering that sheandhersecondchildhadAIDS, shetoofound Bead forLife,which gavehera newstart. She toldRegan-Blake thatsinceher experience with theorganization, "Hopeisbackonme." As thewomen'sstories unfold, we see their faceson screen, thenheartheir voices.The choiceto use technology in a performance can be a good one,as longas thestory is able to standon itsownas well. Regan-Blake madethe choicetoemploy computer-generated voicesandslidesas farbackas herfirst presentation of thismaterial yearsearlier. In an interview following thisperformance , shedescribed howtheshowevolvedfrom a lecture/slide showwith story totheperformance I witnessed, inwhichstory was prominent, supported byimagesofthewomen andtheir environment, andrecorded musicandvoices. Sheexplained that thistransition camewiththehelpoffeedback from listeners andother tellers, working withthetechnology, andsharply focused preparation andrehearsal. Although thedecisionwas a goodone,itis understandable why 74 JOHNSON ittooksometimeto reach.Even seasonedtellers likeRegan-Blake can forget that themostpowerful waytotransmit a messageorexperience is through syntagmatic , ornarrative discourse, andthatittouches thelistener on a levelthat paradigmatic discourse, andevenvisualimages, cannot. WhenRegan-Blake the artist is subsumed bytheconcerns ofRegan-Blake thesocialcommentator, the resultis compromised bothas a workof artand,interestingly, as a workof commentary. Theperformance demonstrated someofthepossible challenges ofa technologicallyenhanced performance, suchas a faulty remote control andcompatibility problems withthecomputer. ButRegan-Blake, a veteran performer, minimized thedisruption. Desiring tighter artistic control, shehadchosen tomanage someof thetechnical elements herself. Assigning that control toothers instead canfix the roleofstoryteller morefirmly intheminds oftheaudience members. The timeRegan-Blake spentin Ugandawas intense; theexperiences sometimeswrenching . Another African newcomer, publicist SusanSkog,becamea vitalpartner andsource ofsupport. Theydebriefed every day:swimming, talking, walking, weeping. Yet"right besidethe[African women's]pain,"Regan-Blake said,"right besidethelistening andfeeling that brutality andsadness, wastheir amazing resilience." Therecorded voicesofthesewomen, skillfully wovenintotheperformance, wereamongthemostmoving partsofthepiece.By definition, thesuccessor failure ofa storytelling performance is basednotonlyonitscontent butalsoon paralinguistics , that is,thewayinwhich thecontent is delivered orally. TheliltingsoundoftheUgandanwomen 'svoicesbrought backvividimagesformeof thewomenI worked withas a Peace Corpstrainer inother countries inAfrica. I wasalsoreminded ofa deeplymoving experience attheHolocaust Museumin...

Understanding Einverständnis: Ideology in Brecht's Der Jasager and Der Neinsager

This essay examines Bertolt Brecht's Der Jasager (He Who Says Yes) and Der Neinsager (He Who Says No), a trio of Lehrstücke (teaching pieces) based on the fifteenth-century Japanese Nō play Taniko, which were written and performed between 1930 and 1931. Despite the fact that these plays were written for and influenced by children, it is clear that the lens through which scholars view these plays is not one specific to children's theatre. I offer here a process-oriented reading and view these plays as an example of children's theatre that served to empower students.

Pedagogy, practice and research in Indian theatre

Modern academic training for theatre in India has a history of just over fifty years (since independence). The National School of Drama (NSD) was set up in 1957, but the prime objective of the institution at that time was to generate professionals to develop children's theatre and rural theatre. Although India possessed a wide range of traditional performance cultures throughout the country, from rituals to folk performances and classical performances, the NSD was modelled on the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) since the new institution was led by a graduate of RADA, Professor Ebrahim Alkazi, who put the institution on a functional track. Thus the toolkit used during the initial days was primarily based on Western models conducive to realism rather than growing organically out of the actual practices of the different forms of Indian performance. This early orientation remains today, emphasizing the creation of referential meanings on the stage through conventional methods and devices, taken as the unshakable organizing principle of theatre practice.

The Thtre du Flamboyant from Aim Csaire to Carole Frchette: Constructing a professional theatre in Martinique

The trajectory of the Thtre du Flamboyant founded in 1997 by Lucette Salibur, who still continues as its artistic director, emblematizes the evolution of professional theatre in Martinique. Salibur is a member of that first generation of Martinican theatre practitioners who followed a professional training, set in place by Aim Csaire, and who subsequently became members of the first professional theatre company in Martinique, the Thtre de la Soif nouvelle, created by Csaire himself in 1982. In keeping with the broad cultural vision of Aim Csaire, the Thtre du Flamboyant embraces new Martinican texts, Creole adaptations of the classics of French theatre, as well as children's theatre, born of Salibur's training with puppets. More recently, Salibur has entered the world of Qubcois theatre, staging Le collier d'Hlne (2007), a play by the Qubcoise Carole Frchette, that was first performed in France by the Compagnie La Barraca in a bilingual version in French and Arabic, staged by Nabil El Azan. A detailed analysis of Salibur's Martinican production shows how a Caribbean reading transforms the play, originally set far from Quebec and the Antilles, in a place ravaged by war. This analysis gives rise to reflection on the intercultural operation of theatre practice.

Performing Childhood in the Early Modern Theatre: The Children's Playing Companies (1599-1613) (review)

Reviewed by: Performing Childhood in the Early Modern Theatre: The Children's Playing Companies (1599-1613) Matt Omasta Performing Childhood in the Early Modern Theatre: The Children's Playing Companies (1599-1613). By Edel Lamb. Early Modern Literature in History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; pp. xii + 189. $80.00 cloth. In Performing Childhood in the Early Modern Theatre, Edel Lamb sets out to explore how children's theatre companies of early modern England constructed popular notions of childhood. Lamb invokes the discourse of performativity—specifically Judith Butler—by questioning whether childhood and gender are performed similarly. Because she understands childhood as a socially constructed class, and argues that members of a dominant class (adults) construct and deploy conceptions of young performers, her book aligns with recent scholarship in childhood studies. Rather than investigating the performance of childhood broadly, however, Lamb analyzes the construction of the child player—that is, the children's playing company performer. Importantly, she notes that although many boys continued to perform with the companies well into their (biological) adulthoods, the companies insisted upon presenting them as "children." As such, the book's most significant contribution to the field is a [End Page 495] more nuanced understanding of the ways in which companies' managers carefully constructed and maintained a particular notion of the "essence" of the early modern child player. The author proposes that the stage companies successfully posited a fixed notion of the child player as an infantile, eroticized, and malleable being, one in a state of perpetual "becoming" who is both less than and subservient to adults. Lamb derives her evidence principally from an analysis of playscripts, especially those with "induction" scenes in which child players performed "themselves" preparing for a show. Since these scenes present the players not as characters but as "actors," Lamb believes they reveal how playwrights presented particular notions of players' supposedly "natural" behaviors "out of role." At times, Lamb seems to assume verisimilitude in the scripts, which may detract from the credibility of her analysis. For example, in discussing Ben Jonson's Epicoene, Lamb notes that one actor (in the role of a female "spectator") looks upon another one of the actors and asks: "Did you ever see a prettier child?" Lamb extrapolates that such references "explicitly represent desire for the eroticized child player" (52). In another instance, two characters onstage may kiss (although it is unclear if the boys did in fact kiss in any given production); Lamb claims that this locates the child "explicitly within a homoerotic discourse," and that "the body of the [player] is thus put on display to the spectators and the kiss between the two boy players may act as an eroticized and teasing display of the boys' potential sexual identities" (53). Although some adult spectators may have viewed the players erotically, and although other scholars have opined similarly, the claim that these examples "explicitly" signify broad homoerotic interest in young performers seems untenable. More persuasive are her analyses of how playing companies' material circumstances influenced perceptions of child players. Lamb notes that while boys who performed with adult companies (e.g., The King's Men) eventually became sharers in their companies, the young people impressed or apprenticed to children's companies never attained this status. Even once a player transcended biological childhood, companies still presented him as a child and apprentice—a child learning how to become an adult. Building on this idea, Lamb's second chapter argues that company managers reduced child players to "material objects" functioning "only as a signifier of the identity, gain, and rights of his owner" (46). Citing legal documents listing the boy players as property akin to scripts or costumes, Lamb argues that children were simply elements of commercial trade between companies and paying spectators. Further, players themselves were replaceable, as "the material body of the boy actor is . . . not valuable in itself," but rather it is the deliberately constructed perception of boy players that makes them valuable to spectators. Although the legal relationship between the players and their companies evolved from one of impressed service to apprenticeship, Lamb contends that children always served as commodities exchanged between other parties: parents traded their children with companies...

Children's theater: a paradigm, primer, and resource

Children's theater: a paradigm, primer, and resource

Spring 2010 Theatre Season in Mexico City

Spring 2010 Theatre Season in Mexico City Timothy G. Compton Mexico has been abuzz with history in 2010, celebrating the 200th anniversary of its movement for Independence and the 100th anniversary of the start of the Revolution. Not surprisingly, Mexico City's theatre this year features more plays than usual with topics from national history, and some of these plays were among the finest of the season. But Mexico City's theatre scene produced much more than historical theatre. UNAM's theaters housed several of the plays that made the season's biggest theatrical splashes, but other traditional theater spaces as well as smaller venues also produced fine theatre. Total production approximated that of seasons from prior years, and with a similar mix of adult and children's theatre, as well as plays written by Mexicans and those written elsewhere. In short, Mexico City's theatre scene continues to thrive in number, variety, and quality. Two of the season's most outstanding plays were conceived for younger audiences. Inmolación, written by Enrique Olmos and directed by Alberto Lomnitz, had the greatest pure impact on me as a spectator. It had a run in the Julio Jiménez Rueda theater from November 2009 to April 2010 for public school students as part of Mexico's "Teatro Escolar" program, and then in May started a commercial run in the Galeón theater. It tackled an exceptionally sensitive subject, adolescent suicide. One of its finest elements was that it immersed the audience into the conflicted, overloaded world of adolescents. Spectators on stools in the middle of a 6-sided set had to swivel from side to side to try to take in the worlds of the play's two young characters. Most of the "action" occurred on opposite sides of the set, which I will call sides one and four. Side one represented the personal living space of Jorge Luis, brilliantly played by Fernando Bonilla, a 14-year old growing up in Spain after his family immigrated there from South America. It included his computer desk, bed, and shelves containing some of his personal items. Side [End Page 133] Click for larger view View full resolution Inmolación. Photo: Zachary Bartel four contained a similar space for Nora, a 13-year old from Puebla played very well by Paulina Treviño. Side two had a bathtub, side three represented a medical facility, with a stand for intravenous treatment, side five had a park bench, and side six a large screen. That screen was just one of 42 that I counted, with the other 41 disbursed among the other five sides of the set, which was designed by Elizabeth Álvarez. The screens projected myriad images which no audience member could entirely process, a reflection of the bewildering world adolescents face, especially given the cyber world which this play expertly included. Screens behind the characters' computers primarily reflected what the characters themselves were seeing and creating on their computer screens, while the others had images from their lives. Jorge Luis took refuge in a blog he had created about dinosaurs, since as an overweight, nerdy immigrant from a broken home, and a victim of bullying at school, his real life was far from satisfying to him. Eventually the satisfaction of his cyber world wore off, and after a wrenching, devastating monologue in which he spewed how much he hated every aspect of his existence, he decided to take his life. Nora sought attention through live online broadcasts of her attempts at suicide to try to reach her single mother and self-centered "friends." Bizarre conversations between the two characters happened in an online chat format as they sat at their computers, but on their screens they were represented by freakish avatars. Clearly, they found little comfort or meaning in "real" life, but their "cyber" existences further muddied the waters, and the play ended [End Page 134] with the pair making preparations to commit suicide. Lomnitz reported that he consulted with several psychologists before staging Inmolación because he did not want it to seem like an invitation to suicide. As a result he added the myriad screens with mostly positive images of...

Una mirada a la dramaturgia infantil colombiana

Resumen Este artículo es una síntesis de los resultados de la investigación Aproximación a un diagnóstico sintáctico del texto teatral dirigido al público infantil en Colombia en el periodo 1995-2005, desarrollada por Carolina Avendaño y Andrés Angulo, Licenciados en Artes Escénicas. El propósito es realizar un estudio de la dramaturgia infantil colombiana, mediante del análisis de algunas características estructurales de la composición dramática de este tipo de teatro. Esta investigación cualitativa de nivel exploratorio-descriptivo, ubicó e identificó, en primer lugar, las obras dramáticas infantiles del periodo estudiado. Luego de reconocer algunas de sus características, identificó si los juicios y conceptos que se emplean generalmente en el sector teatral en torno al teatro infantil, son adecuados o no, con el fin de generar una apreciación acerca del estado del texto teatral, ya no desde un simple juicio sin fundamento, sino en comparación con estudios y reflexiones teóricas acerca de la dramaturgia y la semiología teatral.

Theatre as Interplay: Processes of Collective Creativity in Theatre for Young Audiences

This article focuses on the interplay between actors and audience members, an important aspect in the current discourse of advanced theatre practitioners and scholars that is part and parcel of children's theatre's genuine understanding of itself. It also discusses the simultaneous asymmetry of interaction between actors and audience in theatre. Is the collective creativity between artists and children only a theoretical construct or a requirement? What participatory opportunities does theatre actually offer its audience members? The article addresses a fundamental difficulty in the participatory idea: Does lack of focus on the part of audience members constitute expression; is it part of collective creativity because in such cases the asymmetry of interaction in the theatre is breaking down? Or is it an indication of a failure of collective creativity because those present do not relate to one another sufficiently?

TV-theatre: TV Presence in Contemporary Theatre for Children and Young Audiences in Buenos Aires

In Argentina, television shows have created their own theatrical shows, which run for the winter holidays, using the same stories, same characters, and same actors but onstage. Many artists who devote themselves all year long to theatre for children see those “TV-theatre” shows as unfair competition, arguing that such huge productions lack actual artistry and cultural value. This paper aims to examine the characteristics of the TV-theatre, including how much theatre and how much TV languages, codes, and messages it contains, using Pavis´s concept of “intermediality.” If one of theatre for children's greatest goals or outcomes is to create future audiences/theatregoers, and to impart in them the love for art and theatre, is TV-theatre able to do so? And if it is, what kind of theatre do these shows intend for children to love?

The Cultural Construction of Theatre for Children and Young Audiences: A Captive Eddy of Recursive Harmonies

This essay explores the cultural construction of theatre for young audiences (TYA) as manifested in a “performative” which, through identity formation, both accommodates and restricts the TYA field.