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Just the Facts
Tuesday, March 20 2012 - 01:09 PM
How Theater For Young People Could Save the World
Lauren Gunderson
Dramatist and theater essayist
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-gunderson/world-theater-for-children-and-young-people-day_b_1343408.html
March 20th is World Theater for Children and Young People Day. Some of you might be thinking, “Oh lord, why do we need a day to celebrate actors being silly, wearing bright colors and singing obnoxiously at squirming kiddos and bored parents?”
But if you think that’s what Theatre for Young People is, you’re missing out on truly powerful, hilarious, bold, engaging, surprising theater that might just save the world.
Around the world artists are creating a new stripe of Theatre for Young People that combines the elegance of dance, the innovation of devised theater, the freshness of new plays, the magnetism of puppetry and the inciting energy of new musicals. Kids have access to more and more mature theatrical visions premiering from Washington, D.C.‘s Kennedy Center to Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre to San Francisco’s Handful Players to Ireland to Adelaide to Kosovo to Cape Town.
These plays range from re-imagined fairy tales and adaptations of favorite books to brand-new plays and electric new musicals about everything from physics to bullying to The American Civil War.
But how could theater, especially theater for young people, really matter in a world as fraught and disparity-scattered as ours?
Not to sound overly grand (too late), but so much of the toxicity in this world comes from a collective draining of empathy. We don’t understand each other, and we don’t want to. But theater invites us — no, forces us — to empathize.
As my friend Bill English of San Francisco’s SF Playhouse says, theater is like a gym for empathy. It’s where we can go to build up the muscles of compassion, to practice listening and understanding and engaging with people that are not just like ourselves. We practice sitting down, paying attention and learning from other people’s actions. We practice caring.
Kids need this kind of practice even more than adults do. This is going to be their planet and they’ve got more time to apply that empathy and make a difference. Buddhist roshi Joan Halifax challenges us to actively and specifically teach children (and vote for presidents with) empathy. Why not take your child to the theater to do just that.
In fact “Take A Child to the Theatre Today” is the campaign theme of The International Association of Theaters for Young Audiences for the next three years.
If you take a child to the theater, not only will they practice empathy, they might also laugh uproariously, or come home singing about science, or want to know more about history, or tell you what happened at school today, or spend all dinner discussing music, or learn how to handle conflict, or start becoming future patrons of the arts.
On March 20th, take a child to the theater. Take them all the time. And don’t “sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.” Lean forward, engage and start changing the world for the better.
Cagy Wolf says...
Speak for yourself white man. I took the time to not only understand hispanics I speak the language and understand the history and culture behind it.
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Cagy Wolf says...
But yes, we do need entertaining in this increasingly dangerous and more depressing world we live in.
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Cagy Wolf says...
In fact today’s kids are lazy and too spoiled by teachnological toys like the kindle and Ipod to care about the theater.
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Martel says...
Art in all its form does wonders for the soul.
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Ray Cunneff says...
Theater saves, theater heals. Theater illuminates our society and makes us consider the negatives when we don’t want to look at them.
Theater is necessary, vital, important.
At its best, theater is dangerous. And that’s what makes it worthwhile.
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avbornbred says...
Any kid who is active in sports, theatre, or scouting, is great. Kids who sit around and play XBOX for 5 hours a day, are going to be the problem children.
Other activities like gang shit, burglary, robbery, and drugs, are also bad for our children.
If a kids mind is actually occupied with activities, they will grow up far ahead of their peers. Anything that stimulates the mind and body like religion and liberalism, will shape a childs mind into a thinking mind.
There is a book called “The Dumbest Generation” by Mark Bauerlein. It is about how all of todays technology has dumbed our kids down. Our kids today are exposed to so much techonolgy, they do not have to think much. A great read.
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avbornbred says...
I will follow up on the XBOX comment. I, as an adult, play IBOX. I do so for relaxation and to wind down. A couple hours a day is all I can take. I find it more mentally stimulating to play XBOX than to sit and watch TV. Kids who watch TV are much worse off than kids who play XBOX. Anything in moderation is good. Excessive anything is bad for the mind, body, and spirit.
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AV Town Crier says...
AVB
I play computer games as well. My rig is geared for gaming with a souped up graphics card. I love the shooters.
perhaps I’m not the poster boy for non-violent video games.
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avbornbred says...
I play a lot of sports games, but I also am a big fan of CALL OF DUTY. I like some PC games, the Empire Total War series is fun. But on line XBOX with smack talking kids from England saying bad things about my mom is fun. The technology is great for us old farts who understand and appreciate it. With a lot of kids today, a day without their XBOX is a day of doom. Nothing to do, “what, go outside and play?”
I can see how some of todays games can desensitiz our kids. Being able to kill 1000’s of opponents in one afternoon becomes the norm.
The computer gaming techonology had also been a way to train a lot of our advanced aircraft pilots with the hand eye brain coordination. Something many former pilots did not get until they actually started flight schools.
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AV Town Crier says...
AVB
I agree. But I think parents have to balance how much game playing is appropriate and what games they feel their kids are capable of playing and understanding.
But one thing is for sure (unlike the days of old) kids today do not like to go out and play, hence why we have a lot of fat kids.
Thank God I grew up in an era that parents didn’t have to encourage us to play outside, in fact it was the opposite, they had to come find us to get us to come home.
On the same token, the world was a safer place. Kids could go out and play and not fear getting shot.
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avbornbred says...
When I was a kid, I lived in Washington State for 4 years. I played outside in the rain, we had woods to play in, and we were always finding some dead animal to poke with a stick. Playing in the wet woods of Washington State was different than playing in the desert of the Antelope Valley. The desert was a fun place to ride, shoot rabbits with BB guns, and take shots at coyotes. Riding motorcycles was also a great fun thing to do in our desert until to many city folk moved up here and started calling the deputies on us. There are kids that are not even allowed to go into the deserts because their over protective mothers fear rattle snakes. Kids are almost encouraged to stay inside.
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Martel says...
Avbornbred,Avtown, my first years as a youngster were in springfield Mass,Our back yard was also the woods as we used to call it. We had all the beautiful wild nature at our fingertips to wander and explore and play.It did not matter what time of the year it was, rain, snow we went out and played all day.There were times I would hop the train and go either to Hartford or New York no one cared just be home for dinner.When we moved to Calif same freedom a beautiful time for kids to grow and be independent.
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avbornbred says...
Oh yea, the fun times of growing up. I was fortunate to live in the desert, Los Angeles, and Washington State. Living in LA was interesting because I was exposed to a lot of things like gangs, the different minority groups, and a lot of multi-culturism. Seeing the real world living close to Hollywood was also very interesting. In the 1970’s, Hollywood was a run down place. Adult movie theatres were everywhere, adult book stores, and the visible presence of hookers on every corner. Being a teenager, it was fun to see the hookers and the street life in Hollywood. The AV was just a quiet bedroom community back then with three high schools. Today, Hollywood has cleaned up, and the AV has gotten worse.
I would still raise my kids in the AV before I would in LA. If I had to go to LA and raise kids, I would go to the San Fernando Valley, which has not yet been completely overrun by the illegals and the freaking ever expanding ghetto.
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No Spin says...
This is as clear a picture of why I am in theater than anything I have ever seen..
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