Introduction 1 Framing Children's Theatre

Notes I NTRODUCTION 1 . In 2011, Assitej International changed its name to Assitej, since the “international” is already embedded in the acronym. For consistency, I refer to “Assitej International” before May 2011, and “Assitej” after. 2 . Since the writing of this introduction, the TIN is in jeopardy. Meanwhile a new Assitej Netherlands center has been accepted by Assitej International. 3 . The IDEA website states: “IDEA lobbies regionally and internationally to raise the awareness of governments, key agencies and organisations, as to the importance of drama and theater in the development and lives of children and young people (both in and out of school hours). It also supports members to research in this field.” http://www.idea-org.net/en/ 02–4–11. 4 . See, for example, Philip Taylor, Applied Theatre: Creating Transformative Encounters (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003); Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: Theatre and Performance Practices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Monica Prendergast and Juliana Saxton, Applied Theatre: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice (Chicago: Intellect, 2009); James Thompson, Digging Up Stories: Applied Theatre, Performance and War Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2005); and Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston, The Applied Theatre Reader (New York: Routledge, 2009). 1 FRAMING CHILDREN’S THEATRE: HISTORIOGRAPHY, MATERIAL CONTEXT, AND CULTURAL PERCEPTION This chapter draws on three previously published sources by the author: “Constructed Narratives: Situating Theatre for Young Audiences in the United States,” Youth Theatre Journal 14 (2000); Moscow Theatres for Young People: A Cultural History of Ideological Coercion and Artistic Innovation, 1917–2000 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); and Dutch Theatre for Children: Three Contemporary Plays (Charlottesville: New Plays Inc., 2008; Woodstock: Dramatic Publishing, 2009). 150 Notes 1 . While the understanding of what constitutes “children’s theatre” varies— in part framed by cultures and material contexts, in part reframed through time—the notion of children’s theatre as professional, by adults who earn their living by doing it, for a young audience of children and/or youth has become the most pervasive. This understanding of children’s theatre/TYA as professional theatre by adults for young people is used throughout this book unless otherwise noted. 2 . While it falls outside of the scope of this chapter to go in great detail, it needs to be noted that a number of scholars have contested this periodization, pointing out theatre activities for and with children and youth from the ancient Greeks (hence Plato’s warning against the potential corrupting influence of tales for children, The Republic II [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976: 377]), to medieval times, religious school theatre, court theatre, wandering theatricals, et cetera. See, for example, the work of Jonathan Levy, especially Gymnasium of the Imagination (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), which also contains extensive notes and bibliographies and the introduction to Roger Bedard’s Dramatic Literature for Children: A Century in Review, 2nd edition. Clearly, children were exposed to theatre, whether through domestic performances, school rhetoric classes, fes- tivals and parades, street performances, professional pantomimes, or other the- atrical events to which children were taken. This chapter, however, relies on the assumption that the recognition of children as a special audience separate from adult audiences was not fully materialized until the twentieth century. 3 . I focus on these three countries because they are the primary countries I lived, researched, and worked in. As such, they function as examples of how historical narratives are constructed, and contested, in different nations under different material circumstances. 4. In 1965 Assitej/USA was founded, the US chapter of Assitej International, the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (L’Association Internationale du Théâtre pour l’Enfance et de la Jeunesse). In 2007, the US chapter was renamed TYA/USA for easier recognition and accessibility, and, albeit unstated, pronunciation for anglophones. According to the website, TYA/USA is “the only theater organization in the U.S. which has the development of professional theater for young audiences and international exchange as its primary mandates” (http://www.assitej-usa.org/about. html, accessed Jan. 7, 2010) 5 . See Laura Gardner Salazar, “Theatre for Young Audiences in New York City, 1900–1910: Heritage of Jolly Productions,” In Spotlight on the Child , Roger L. Bedard and C. John Tolch, eds. (New York: Greenwood, 1989). 6 . While at the time of Mackay’s first writings, professional theatre for children was still produced on Broadway, records show that by the 1920s such activities had virtually ceased and “the only professional productions of children’s plays presented in New York consisted of limited revivals of the few plays available, such as Peter Pan and The Little Princess” (Roger Bedard, Dramatic Literature for Children: A Century in Review [New Orleans: Anchorage, 2005: Notes 151 10]). Theatre for Children had been taken over by the Junior League and the Educational Theatre Movement. 7 . The 1987 edition has a different title, Historical Guide to Children’s Theatre in America , and a more encyclopedic organization, which gives it a more “objec- tive” veneer. Comparing the three editions, however, it is quite obvious that the material is selected and discussed with the same ideological objectives— paradoxically emphasizing the positivist discourse of the 1987 edition. 8 . Tellingly, she was commissioned to write the US entry to Lowell Swortzell’s International Guide to Children’s Theatre and Educational Theatre as well as the “children’s theatre” entry in the first edition of the Cambridge Guide to American Theatre . 9 . In 1990, for example, a consortium of TYA practitioners gathered in Tennessee to discuss the status of TYA. Seemingly avoiding didacticism and ideological agendas, and accepting the prevailing practice in professional TYA of adults performing children , the field was defined as an aesthetic-driven, live performance which includes elements relevant to the child. Although Th eatre for Young Audiences can amaze, challenge, inform, and empower young people by providing access to the humanizing eff ect of theatre, the priority is on the creation of a work of art. (AATE 1990) 10 . This also explains the predominance (and popularity) of fairy tales, which in Jack Zipes’s analysis are models of civilized and appropriate behavior (Jack Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization [New York: Wildman Press, 1983]). 11 . The criteria as stated in the document are: (1) Is the story suitable for children of the age level for which you are writing? (2) Is the story worth telling? Does it have content and meaning? (3) Does your play develop along clear, dramatic lines; that is, does it have a beginning, a properly built climax, and conclusion? “Is the end contained in the beginning?” (4) Is the story told without interruption, or without the introduction of extraneous action or characters? (5) Does your story move? Does the audience see rather than hear the action? “Show it, don’t tell it.” (6) Is it clearly established to which character your story belongs? (7) Is there an opportunity for identification? Usually a play is stronger if the child can identify with the character to whom the story belongs. (8) Do your characters react to each other naturally? (9) Have you developed character and story through interaction? (10) Is your dialogue natural to the characters? (11) Have you presented technical difficulties that would be a deterrent to production under ordinary circumstances? (12) In writing an adaptation, have you retained the essential elements of the origi- nal, so that the children will not be offended by the change? (13) Are you satisfied that your completed play fulfills its purpose and that you have given it “your best” in preparation, construction, and writing? (“Children’s Theatre Committee,” Historical Papers and Files, Child Drama Archives, Arizona State University: Hayden Library Special Collections, Box PRW/Bus 1 and Box PRW/Bus 2). 152 Notes 12 . Cr i t i c a l e s s a y s o n c h i l d r e n ’ s t h e a t r e a p p e a r p r i m a r i l y i n Youth Theatre Journal , the most important US scholarly journal in the field, published by American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE). Significantly, the 1996 ATHE Directory of Theatre Periodicals , published by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education still did not include Youth Theatre Journal , despite the joint conferences of AATE and ATHE every four years, although that has since been corrected. Colleagues confirm that the majority of theory and criticism professors and doctoral advisers have not included Youth Theatre Journal on their lists of recommended journals, neither for publishing nor for class-review purposes. If essays concerning children’s theatre are published in “adult” journals, children’s theatre per se is often appropri- ated to support the main thesis, such as the semiotic interdependence of meaning and material conditions (Manon van de Water, “Mister Twister or Goodbye America!: The Interdependence of Meaning and Material Conditions,” in Essays in Theatre/ Etudes Théâtrales 16 [1997]), or cultural studies and the politics of identity (Sonja Kuftinec, “[Walking Through a] Ghost Town: Cultural Hauntologie in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Mostar: A Performance Review,” in Text and Performance Quarterly 18 [1998]). An extended discussion, such as Klein, Austin, and Zeder’s feminist reading of Mother Hicks in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , seems an aberration. 13 . The Mother Goose Marx controversy refers to the FTP children’s theatre unit’s production Revolt of the Beavers , which was accused of promoting Marxism and in effect caused the demise of the FTP.

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