In Search of a New Theatre for Children

Abstract

Theatre for young people should help children in their individual development and also prepare new intelligent and open theatrical audiences for the future. This is very important in our world endangered by unification and cybernation of human beings. These goals demand a new form of theatre for children – modern, creative and fun. The text presents one conception based on interactive theatre performances and illustrated by 3 different examples. This form of theatre is based on children’s counting games and other forms of play, on metaphor and symbol, on traditional and ritual theatre. The action may be created, not by logical situations, but by associations with a free structure. Creative participation depends on drawing the audience into cocreating the action by engaging their intellectual faculties and sensitivity on activating children’s imagination and on the interactive nature of this process. However, this theatre must be variable, because children change quickly, develop and their requirements change too.