childrens theatre research

Childrens Theatre

Polka Theatre is one of the few venues in the UK which is dedicated to producing and presenting work for young audiences. Since the doors opened in 1979, this unique venue has been entertaining children with resonant, engaging and exciting theatre. Over 90000 children visit Polka Theatre a year and are inspired by theatre.

At Polka children aged 0 to 14 enjoy a wide-range of experiences designed to make theatre a natural part of their lives, the company put on well-known children plays and stories such as; were going on a bear hunt. The company also put on newer stories like, ‘cloud pictures’. Stories are told in a very visual way, and even 9 month old babies can come and be in awe at the colourful theatre. Audiences can expect imaginative new writers, dynamic performers, inventive adaptations of popular stories and resonant subjects.

Polka is actually a registered charity! Up to 800 children visit Polka every day and Polka introduces thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds to theatre for the first time each year. Creative programming keeps Polka’s work fresh and relevant. Audiences can expect imaginative new writers, dynamic performers, inventive adaptations of popular stories and resonant subjects. Everything they do is focused on providing children with thrilling world-class theatre.

So basically the theatre is actually funded well by donations from the general public, meaning the prices of the tickets don’t need to be so high, so are therefore dropped to a lower price, this means that children from a not so good background or parents who didn’t have enough money can now give their children the theatres experience and everything it has to offer.

Playtime Theatre Company

Playtime Theatre Company was established in 1983 with the aim of bringing innovative and entertaining drama to young people in the South of England. Since that time we have established ourselves as one of the leading children's theatre companies, taking our productions to schools and theatres throughout the UK.

Our Maxim Think of drama as a tool, a multi- faceted tool that can sharpen interest, hammer home a point, take the edge off a difficult subject and smooth it’s transition, bridge the gap between the written word and reality, expand a person’s horizons and lift their confidence - and, lest we forgot, it should entertain .

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It’s a tool that you can use to make your work easier and feel confident in the knowledge that it will benefit your students too, not only during their days at school, or college but also in their future lives. Drama is a tool, a tool that you can use and we can help you to do so. Playtime Theatre has been providing drama for educational establishments since 1983 and in that time, we have performed to countless numbers of young people, in many parts of the world, so we know our business and we know drama works.

 

Another way to teach children lessons is through story telling, the stories are usually engaging and contain a moral, the story books also usually have colourful pictures in them, a prime example being, ‘The Hare And The Tortoise’. The moral of this story is more haste less speed.

The Hare And The Tortoise

“The Hare And The Tortoise”, this is possibly the most popular children's story that I’m sure everyone has heard, it is based around the saying “More haste less speed”, the story is again two animals, which is good for engaging children, although it has a moral to the story, there are also a lot of other lessons.

In the story we can see that the Hare braggs a lot about how fast he is, and how the tortoise got fed up with him. This happens in day to day life, for example some people can be very loud about how good they are at something, and it can be an annoying thing to listen to, after this the tortoise, (Being the slowest creature), stood up to the hare and asked for a race, this shows courage and bravery, that such a small slow creature, is standing up to a fast hare, it shows the audience that being smart and witty is much more effective than just being the fastest at doing things in this case, the race , this is something we could powerfully show through movement. It also teaches kids that rushing things may ruin the end product, taking things slowly and steadily may be a slower process, but you gain a lot more knowledge.

Another story is called ‘The lion And The Mouse’, which also involves animals, which are a good way of portraying an interesting story.

An example telling childrens stories can also be on television, for example there is a show run by Cbeebies which is called ‘bedtime stories’. You can also watch the stories on the website, there are a lot of other brilliant sections on the website. For example games which is a good way to keep children entertained and learning all the time, there are also shows and you can become a member on the website. Its good to have interactive websites for children on the internet because it means that you can watch something where ever. The bedtime stories show is designed specifically to calm down the young audience by using professional story tellers, who usually have extremely soft voices, and the stories are usually calm.