How Should Children's Theater Be Made?

Artistic activities for children are important and unchangeable parts of education. The most important indicator of the level of development of a society is the sensitivity and participation of that society towards art. In the beautiful analogy of the poet Sunay Akın, “If we describe a society as a bird, one of the two wings that will make that bird fly is science and the other is art.” If one of these two wings is broken, it would be a dream to fly. When this is the case, how accurate is it to separate the training of these two wings as much as possible, instead of blending them? Literature, music and painting lessons given in schools do not introduce the child to art, they only inform them and make them aware with the anxiety of grade. However, it is cinema and theater that shows the situation we are in, our lack of love, our lack of sharing, our selfishness, our belligerence, that enables the child to see the individual mistakes he has made, by identifying with the heroes, gives him the ability to think, not ready-made knowledge, and enables him to compare, criticize and self-criticize.

Children's cinema is now a worldwide industry, and although there are sometimes very bad products that want to take advantage of this industry, it is usually made by teams that work professionally, receive support from pedagogues and develop their expertise in this direction. However, children's theater is local due to the nature of the theater, and unfortunately in our country, it is dying in the hands of enthusiasts who have been infected with the theater and brokers who want to make easy money thanks to the organized audience provided by the schools. Of course, I am saying this by distinguishing the real children's theater workers who work in this field. But without any fiction, with groups that think they are making theater by squeezing a few commonplace advices between lines, pacing 3-5 pop music songs to children, they are selling tickets to schools and families at gigantic prices and selling tickets to schools and families by putting the giant-headed costumes of cartoon heroes to young people and giving the voices of cartoons on tape. Children's theater is now in the hands of those who deceive children's icons as theater.

Children often do not have any savings because I am going to the theater. Either their teachers or their parents decide which theater they will watch. Therefore, the biggest task to sort them out falls on parents, educators and us theatricals. From here, I would like to give the heads of the young theater actors, educators and parents who tend to children's theatre, how children's theater should be. So that we can make our evaluations more accurate and cut the way for the groups I have mentioned above.

Text:

The language of the text should be simple and in a way that the child of the age group it is addressing can understand. Aesop's fables Slang, profanity, religious and political orientations should not be included in the text.

There should be a hero in the text that the child will identify with. The game must have a premise. However, there should not be any misdirections that will affect the psychological life of the child in this proposition. The text must have an introduction, development and conclusion. The game must be original in terms of text and interpretation. The child's artistic values should be elevated and qualified.

Staging:

A) The staging should have an aesthetic value and should develop the artistic perspective of the child.

B) The child should be seen as an individual and should not be treated as if he does not exist.

C) The game should be able to appeal to the dream world of the child and bring him richness.

D) It should be staged in such a way that the child suitable for the age group can watch it without getting bored.

E) It should ensure that the child does not break away from art in his future life, and even make him love it.

F) It should be interpreted with a unique understanding of the direction.

G) The director should be consistent both with the text and within himself, and should pay attention to detail.

H) The use of music is the director's choice, but if it is used, the right music must be chosen.

I) The choice of decor and costumes must be very consistent in the direction, serve the child's imagination and must be creative.

Acting:

A) A children's theater actor should know the child very well and be able to sense the child's reactions according to the age group.

B) He should be able to feel the moment when the child is disconnected from the game and be able to produce an instant solution.

C) He should be able to control his own role and interpret his role correctly.

D) Children's theater actor must be a complex actor. At the same time, he should be able to be an acrobat, Jonglar and musician, and be able to sing.

E) His diction should be correct and children should be able to understand everything the actor says.