Criteria 1 Task

I believe that The Sheep that Saved Christmas has the potential to be a viable source of material to use as a stimulus for our Children's theatre show. The narrative is setup as a quest to follow a relatable but vulnerable protagonist overcoming difficult circumstances, and in the end, saving everyone.

Initially I wasn’t entirely sure of the fundamental message of the story and what the children would get if they watched it. However, after discussing the potential of the piece as a performance, we saw that Cynthia’s character is constantly surrounded by antagonists preventing her from achieving her dream.

The story portrays positive values through the main character of Cynthia the Sheep. Examples of the morals taught to readers include friendship, diligence, integrity, innovation and altruism. Cynthia endures all sorts of situations, mainly surrounding the idea of being out-casted, that affect her emotions. The language is clear enough for the children to understand why, and I believe that the idea of possibly feeling out of place can be somewhat relatable to the children.

The Sheep that Saved Christmas contains political undertones shown through the social hierarchy within the animals – similar to that of Animal Farm. Subtly portraying a societal system will subconsciously enable children to have an understanding of the world in a realistic way.

As our audience will be school children between the ages of four and eight, I have found that learning more about these crucial development years will give a better insight on the type of piece we should be devising.

Reading an extract from an online source [1] of Ages and Stages of Development: Care About Quality (published by the California Department of Education in 2000), has allowed me to infer that children love to question the world around them and be creative when they’re four years old. Consequently, at the age of five/six, children are much more able to explore their imaginations and, until they’re about nine, they are beginning to understand the concepts of independence and individuality. Interestingly in the book, all the characters appear to have clear purposes and jobs to do, whilst Cynthia is still trying to find her place. Whilst her age is not necessarily mentioned, this leads me to believe that the protagonist is probably the youngest of all the characters and going through the same stages of development as the children that will be watching the show.

From browsing KS1 BBC Bitesize, I have found that resources for drama are quite limited for students aged five to seven, however the idea behind using drama as a method of teaching other academic subjects is because “…drama provides carefully structured language and activities that encourage imaginative, co-operative work.” also states that KS1 students are learning about rhyming in literacy. Despite the fact that there weren’t any rhymes in the actual book, when transferring it to the stage, we could employ rhymes in some lines or through song. I believe doing this will show children how language works rhythmically.

The material we develop must be appropriate for our target audience. To ensure that we maintain the suitability, we should keep in mind that the children are sponges and will pick up on a lot more than we may even consider.

Visual aid: Using bright colours and bigger objects will easily engage the children more. Research has shown that different colours can impact how children memorise and learn. [3]

As our show is Christmas-themed, main colours will likely be red and green, however we should take into consideration using a larger variety of colours as it is clear that there are different benefits within them all.

To conclude, making effective children’s theatre is an essential process to understand as it allows us as actors to learn the fundamentals of devised work. When creating theatre, a lot of research and thought must go into the piece, especially when it is going to be performed a specific group of people. Performing to children who are in their prime development years, means we have a massive responsibility in ensuring that the show we deliver to them is appropriate and educational in some way. The state of funding towards the arts is also another reason for why we should make sure they have a memorable experience and enjoy our show as it may be the first they would have seen or the last for a long time.

Sources:
https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/caqdevelopment.asp
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g64rh
https://www.color-meanings.com/color-psychology-child-behavior-and-learning-through-colors/