Teaching children theatre arts and skills is just about the most fun thing I do! It’s a joyful, energetic process in which child as student or learner and teacher as active participant meet in a group to work together to tell a story. I have tutored children in theatre who could barely look me in the eye when they came into class and emerged as comfortable even zanily creative participants in the theatre process.
I tell my students and their parents often that theatre has something for everyone and the life skills that each teaches and empowers students with are wide and diverse enough to fit every learner. In theater we learn the importance of one small voice and how many voices working in team and unison can be a powerful force that can turn an audience into mush in front of them! We watch students learn to listen, to share, to open up, to reach out, to encourage each other and in doing so they become the very change they need. It’s an amazing gift to give a child- the love of theatre and active participation in theatre.
I came to theatre education late in life. As a young child, I was a shy young girl. In an 7th grade literature class, a young teacher cast me in the lead in a small class play. Surprisingly, to everyone in the class, I took to performance theatre like the proverbial duck in water! I loved it. It was a freeing amazing thing to be so frightened and then to rise above that fright to be part of a group intent on telling a story together. My love affair with theatre was mainly limited to audience, as their was little opportunity in my small farm town for theatre.
I did not return to active work in the theatre until my oldest son displayed a similar interest as I had and we began doing some local civic theatre activities. I did the usual helping route, costumes, sets, and gradually began to see that I could probably use some of my skills in children’s theatre volunteerism. As a homeschool mother, I eventually created our own theatre group-The Life Learning Center Thespians and off we went. To do huge big productions on the stage of our amazing Paramount Theatre and everywhere else that we could find to act in. 
I began to see the need and the possibility of using theatre as a real learning opportunity for children and so Creative Dramatics was born out of that desire to share with other students the lessons we had learned and created with theatre. I have taught classes and workshops at libraries, at YMCA locations, at Girl Scout workshops, at Boys Club after school activities, at public school after school programs and at preschools.
The result is always the same. Lots of fun, laughing children trying new things, learning new stories and coming together to work in team work and connivial learning.
In July 2007, I launched a e blogger blog to explore some of my storytelling and theatre arts ideas, but was so busy teaching and living at the time, that I never updated the blog. After working here at WordPress and attempting to learn some blogging skills, I’ve revisited the blog and have decided to resurrect it as a functional outlet, but loving WordPress as I do, I’ve decided to just link the two together, instead of moving Creative Dramatics here. So I hope you’ll visit in the next few weeks, as I begin to put the site to work.
On ther site, I plan to place some of my most fun Creative Dramatics lesson plans and ideas for other theatre students and teachers to use to explore theatre concepts. I also plan to outline my basic approach to teaching theatre which I have adapted from several great teachers in books and in classes I’ve taken. I’ve tried to distill those accepted practices and methods into the ones that have worked the best for children ages 5-18. The method is the same, just the approach and difficulty increases with age.
I look now at some of the students I’ve had since they were 7 and up and each one of them has progressed at different levels and obviously had varying amounts of talent to begin with. But I believe firmly that theatre education can improve a child’s learning abilities in so many areas and is a wonderful family activity to do together.
You can visit Creative Dramatics here. Come visit, but give me a few days to get some good stuff posted there!
And if you are interested in future productions or classes with Creative Dramatics, you can email me at writestuff444@yahoo.com.
Everyone should be so lucky as to find that one thing in life that makes their hearts sing with joy. For me, mentoring and sharing theatre with children and young people is such a thing.
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