Children’s Theatre
(Steve Hickey)
Stories come alive for us in many ways and children’s theatre is one of them. When I was a child, there was very little in the way of theatre for kids. That has changed; today there are a number of theatres that cater exclusively to children. To its credit, even my small city of Winnipeg has its own theatre for children — Manitoba Theatre for Young People – that has put on outstanding productions for children of various ages.
When I went to London this spring, I was intent on giving my children theatre experiences to remember. Of course, there is no city like London to see live theatre, and the children’s theatre there did not disappoint. In particular, my husband and I wanted our children to see work by Shakespeare and luckily for us, the Unicorn Theatre was staging Twelfth Night at the time of our visit. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s more accessible plays for children. I read a child-friendly version of the play to my daughter the night before our departure, and it was surprising what she remembered when she saw the production. When the black-clad Olivia first appears onstage, strewing petals into the water, my daughter immediately piped up “She’s sad because her brother died.”
The Puppet Barge is a theatre on a canal boat moored in northwest London. The theatre uses marionettes. They had a production based on poems from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic — A Child’s Garden of Verse. Using a delightful combination of marionettes, shadow puppets, and even a puppet show-within-a-show of Punch and Judy, the poems came alive through the performance.
What struck me about theatre in London was its multicultural hue. Shakespeare is acted by players of every race and color, and the marionettes displayed on the Puppet Barge came from all over the world. After all, to quote from Hamlet, the play’s the thing! And ‘play’ is certainly something children know all about! Is there some place in your city where your children can see live theatre? Do tell!
May 28th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Sally -
Your lucky children! I’m sure they have some great stories to share with their classmates about their holiday. Live children’s theatre in London – what a wonderful experience!
May 30th, 2009 at 3:18 am
We all love the theatre – and there is something particularly magical about puppets! We’ve been to the Upthank Gallery’s puppet theatre a couple of times – to see The Snow Queen and The Emperor and the Nightingale. Both absolutely beautiful and if you go to the last performance of the day, the puppeteers come out from behind the scenes and talk about the puppets and let the children have a go. http://www.up-front.com/puppet_theatre.html
Last year, as I mentioned in a couple of posts here on PaperTigers, some of our bedtime reading was determined by wanting to have read the books before going to see their theatre adaptations – Treasure Island, The Prisoner of Zenda and A Christmas Carol. All fantastic!
A friend of mine recently told me she’d taken my mantra to heart – “Start them early! Get them to the theatre!” – and she’d taken her tiny daughters to see The Tiger who Came to Tea, which had gone down well! http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/21730/the-tiger-who-came-to-tea