The Suitability of Material for Performance - The Big Bad Who?

In Theatre for Children is it critical that the piece that you devise uses suitable material that can be shown to your intended audience. In Theatre for Children this would include the lack of strong language and more sensitive subjects.

I felt that our piece explored many aspects that were suitable for a piece of Children’s Theatre. By using fairytale stories as our stimulus we had already selected an idea that we know would be well received by the children and it has been found that children thoroughly enjoy when a story is twisted in a way that changes the story completely.

We know that children react well to slapstick comedy and our performances showed that some of the children’s favourite moments were the movement parts, (Goldy’s stealth, slow motion chase and the Wolf and Pig’s fight). Another effective element in our piece was the bear hand puppets. They initially were put into the piece as a bit of fun in rehearsals but as we got further into the development process they became an integral part of the story and by the time we went on tour they became an instant favourite with the children. 

 

There were moments however when we had to be careful that we weren’t moving into unsafe waters with some moments. Both Mr Pig and the Wolf had slightly “scary” moments and we had to ensure that they didn’t go too far and so we made sure that the characters remained “reeled in” at moments so that our piece didn’t become something other than Children’s Theatre.

Overall I felt our piece was very well suited to our intended audience as it was enjoyable for all ages and we didn’t go about over-complicating the story or characters. Both children and teachers alike told us how much they enjoyed it and we were lucky in the fact we devised a piece that had something for everyone to enjoy.