Cornucopia Entertainment

     I am so happy to have been given a chance to go back to theatre. Not onstage again yet, but, I think this is so much better.

     Angioletto Preschool will be offering a four-week children's theatre workshop this summer from April 8th to May 1st. This would be a great opportunity to channel your children's high energy into creative expression through fun musical, movement and improvisational games.

     This course is open to all boys and girls aged 4-6 years old who love to sing, dance, act and make friends. Classes are held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 a.m. to 12 noon. The course will culminate with a simple recital and a small graduation where certificates of completion are to be awarded to the participants.

     For inquiries and enrollment, you may contact Angioletto Preschool at 671-8693 or 0922-816-4426. We promise a fun-filled educational experience for your children this summer!

     If you would like to do something like this in your school or your area, you may write me at [email protected] or use the contact page in this website. I'd be happy to discuss this with you. 

Related Post: Why Teach Drama?

WHY TEACH DRAMA?

"The future of our nation depends on our ability to create-and to be creative. During the coming decades our most important national resources will be human resources. If our nation is to continue to meet the challenges of the future, today's schools need to develop creative leaders."

From Performing together: The Arts and Education, jointly published by The American Association of School Administrators, The Alliance for Education and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1985.

"Tell me and I will forget.

Show me and I will remember.

Involve me and I will understand."

Chinese Proverb

     Dramatic Arts education is an important means of stimulating CREATIVITY IN PROBLEM SOLVING. It can CHALLENGE STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS about their world and about themselves. Dramatic exploration can provide students with an outlet for emotions, thoughts, and dreams that they might not otherwise have means to express. 

     A student can, if only for a few moments, BECOME ANOTHER, explore a new role, try out and experiment with various personal choices and solutions to very real problems-problems from their own life, or problems faced by characters in literature or historical figures. This can happen in a SAFE ATMOSPHERE, where actions and consequences can be examined, discussed, and in a very real sense EXPERIENCED without the dangers and pitfalls that such experimentation would obviously lead to in the "real" world. This is perhaps the most important reason for Dramatic Arts in schools.

     Still, there is far more that Drama can do. At the center of all Drama is COMMUNICATION. Like all the arts, Drama allows students to communicate with and understand others in new ways. Perhaps more than any other art form, Drama also provides training in the very PRACTICAL aspects of communication so necessary in today's increasingly information-centered world.

     Students who have participated in Dramatic activities are less likely to have difficulty SPEAKING IN PUBLIC, will be more PERSUASIVE in their communications, both written and oral, will be better able to put themselves into others' shoes and relate to them, and will have a more POSITIVE, CONFIDENT SELF IMAGE. Participation in Dramatic activity requires SELF CONTROL and DISCIPLINE that will serve the student well in all aspects of life. Students in Drama will learn to WORK TOGETHER, to cooperate, to find the best way for each member of a group to contribute, and to listen to and accept the viewpoints and contributions of others. NO ART FORM IS MORE TRULY COLLABORATIVE. Drama is an important tool for preparing students to live and work in a world that is increasingly TEAM-ORIENTED rather than hierarchical.

     Drama also helps students develop TOLERANCE and EMPATHY. In order to play a role competently, an actor must be able to fully inhabit another's soul. An actor must be able to really understand how the world looks through another person's eyes. This does not mean he must agree with every character. An actor can play Hitler without becoming a Nazi. But he cannot play Hitler without understanding his point of view, without empathy. In today's increasingly polarized and intolerant culture, the ability to understand others' motives and choices is critical. Drama can help build responsible global citizens.

     In addition to its intrinsic educational value, Drama can REINFORCE the rest of the school curriculum. Since communication and empathy are central to Drama, a student who has explored like in the Drama classroom will be better able to UNDERSTAND IDEAS in History and Current Events. He will be able to put himself into the shoes of figures in history and literature, to UNDERSTAND THE WAY HUMAN BEINGS INTERACT. The link between Dramatic Arts and subjects such as English, History, Social Studies, and related areas is obvious. The study of literature would be impossible without Drama. There are important periods of our collective literary history in which virtually all of the surviving literature is dramatic.

     More importantly, Drama can be used to promote ACTIVE LEARNING in any subject-to give students a KINESTHETIC and EMPATHETIC understanding as well as an intellectual understanding of a topic. Studies have shown again and again that this approach yields greater DEPTH OF UNDERSTANDING and a marked improvement in retention. I always strive to link my Drama lessons to topics and themes my students are studying in other subjects, or to important social questions. In this way Drama accomplishes several goals at once-ENRICHING students' school experience through Art as well as REINFORCING traditional academics.

by Matt Buchanan

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Matt Buchanan is a New England-based professional playwright and composer specializing in theatre with and for young people. His plays and musicals have been performed across the United States and in several foreign countries. He is also an accomplished stage and music director, a skilled scenic artist, and a performing musician. He was a founding member of the Boston rock band System Underload. Mr. Buchanan has a BA in Music from Harvard College and an MFA in Child Drama from the University of Texas at Austin.

For many years, Mr. Buchanan has concentrated his energy on creating quality plays that are truly suitable for performance by student actors--plays that challenge the performers and the audience, that explore issues important to young people, and that provide age-appropriate roles for budding actors and actresses. His work is neither the "traditional" rehashed fairy tales so common in children's theatre nor the ubiquitous "issue plays" one often sees in work intended for teenage performers. His characters are real, even in fantastical settings, and they approach the universal rather than the particular--but the universal experience of young people, not of miniature adults. Audiences and casts alike have been enthusiastic in their love of and enjoyment in his work.