Children and Drama: Report on 2 articles.
Children and Drama compiled by Nellie McCaslin is a book, which encompasses works by many different authors. All of these articles seem to have a common theme, children in theater. By reviewing four articles we are able to come up with common methods amongst the authors. The four articles I chose to review were "Thoughts on Creative Process" by Virginia Tanner, "The Theater: A Side View" by Moses Goldberg, "From Literature to Drama to Life" by Nancy King, and "Drama-At the Core of the Curriculum" by John Hodgson. This essay will look at each piece individually and then bring them all together and see the similarities and differences throughout.
"The Theater: A Side View" by Moses Goldberg.
Creative drama is defined in this article by the "process of guiding the child to create"(128). Moses defines this because theater is the product of creation therefore creative drama is subsequently considered theater on some level. .
Moses uses the approach of laboratory research to further develop the ideas of creative drama. This approach would allow the researchers to contain the variables and manipulate them (129). That would then allow researchers to see how theater is formed and how creative drama plays a role in that formation. One of the large points made in this approach is how the audience changes in relation to the changes in the protagonists of a play. If the protagonist goes from sweet and innocent to loud mouthed and vulgar the audience will then react differently. They will probably not believe the protagonist therefore lose interest in them. Moses also uses the approach of developmental theater to find connections to creative drama. He believes that developmental theater includes both children's theater and creative drama. The difference between the two comes in the execution of each piece. Children's theater centers itself around the audience where as traditional creative drama centers on the participants.