Putting on a Show: Theater for Young People
by Kathleen McDonnell
For kids, there's nothing more exciting than putting on a show.
I remember the great flurry of activity when my kids and their
friends would announce, "We're putting on a show. You have to come
see it!" A
show time would be announced. The fold-up puppet theater would
be trundled out of the closet. Small slips of paper would be cut up into "tickets".
The show would begin as the kids crouched down inside the puppet
theater to provide the characters' voices, which were often drowned out
by
their uncontrollable giggles.
As they grew older, the kids dispensed
with the puppet theater and raided the dress-up box for costumes
so they could act out the parts
themselves. Sometimes they wrote original songs for their shows,
sometimes whole scripts. And sometimes the build-up to the big
show was so intense,
they didn't have much energy left for the show itself.
These shows were a lot like their usual pretend-play, but with
an important difference: The kids weren't just playing for their
own enjoyment. They were performing for us, their audience. From
a very young age they'd figured out that these three ingredients
are all you really need to put on a show: A story, performers, and
an audience.
Real
life, real time, real space
The essence of theater is make-believe.
From a high-tech Disney extravaganza to a local theater production
to a puppet show in
someone's living room - all theater is simply a version
of "let's pretend". But in theater it's
not only the performers who pretend; the audience has to pretend
too. The name for this phenomenon among theater people is the "willing
suspension of disbelief". The phrase is a bit of a mouthful,
but what it means is that although the members of the audience
know perfectly well that the events unfolding on stage aren't "real",
they willingly put this rational knowledge aside and enter into
the make-believe world of the play. As an audience, when we take
our seats in the theater we make a collective decision to go along
for the ride. By "suspending disbelief", we allow ourselves
to experience the same emotions and sensations we'd feel
if the events in the play were real. Because that's what
theater is for: To expand our horizons, to take us places we can't
- or don't want to - go in real life.
Movies and TV shows are also
forms of make-believe. But watching a play is a very different
kind of experience from watching movies
and television. The term "theater" encompasses many different
forms, from scripted plays to mime to opera. But the one thing
that that all forms of theater share, and that distinguishes them
from film and other forms of entertainment is that they are performed
live. A play is not a filmed or videotaped record of what a group
of actors did weeks or month ago. It's happening right now,
in real time and space. This creates an air of unpredictability
and even danger that doesn't exist in film and television.
In theater, things can and do go wrong: Actors forget their lines
or miss a cue; a prop breaks or a costume rips. When these things
happen, the actors and stage crew simply improvise a solution to
the problem right there on the spot, and go on with the show. More
often than not, the audience isn't even aware that something
went wrong. This quality of immediacy, of "aliveness",
is one of the things that makes the experience of watching theater
so special.
There's another important difference between film and
theater: Though we also suspend our disbelief when we watch stories
on film,
the illusion looks much more "real" to us. This is especially
true nowadays, with the hyper-realism of special effects and CGI
(computer- generated imagery) in blockbuster fantasies like Lord
of the Rings and disaster movies like The Day after Tomorrow. Some
people worry that these ever-more-lifelike special effects in movies
may be spoiling the experience of live theater for audiences. But
in my view, the low-tech "artificial" quality of live
theater is precisely what makes it unique and exciting. Theater
draws upon an audience's imagination in a whole different
way from film and television. The illusion is right there for us
to see through, yet we accept it. We embrace the world as the play
presents it to us. In theater, we have to use our imagination to
fill in the blanks. We, the audience, actually participate in creating
the illusion. It's a special kind of magic that only live
theater can provide.
What reviewers are saying about Putting on a Show:
"Hard-hitting plays for older children that tackle subjects like self-esteem
and being an unwanted foster child. Her stories are compelling and are,
of course meant to be performed, but would also be suitable for reading
aloud with students in a classroom setting." - Canadian Children's
Book Centre
"Expertly written by award-winning children's playwright Kathleen
McDonnell, Putting On A Show is a simple but effective guide to introducing
young people to the joy of performing. A superb tool for teachers as well
as aspiring actors, directors, and playwrights." - Midwest
Book Review
"Putting on a Show will be very useful in a drama
class. The plays will educate students and give them an opportunity to develop
their dramatic talents through interesting, challenging plays. Highly recommended." - CM
magazine, Manitoba Library Association
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