Why is Children's Theater Important?

As it is known, the art of theater is a branch of art that directly affects the individual. Researches made; He revealed that the level of emotion and consciousness that the art of theater reveals in people is much more intense than other branches of art. For this reason, the art of theater has become one of the indispensable elements of education.

Most of the time, the question of why art actually exists has puzzled the minds. Art has never existed solely as a means of entertainment. Art is a must. On the day it was born, art emerges as a product of necessity today. The art of theater emerged from the actions of primitive people who could not yet speak, to tell each other something. Dance is a product of the first man's effort to use his body effectively to express his feelings. Painting is a product of a person trying to express himself. Art is also a document. Most of the time, we learn about the struggles people make, the culture they create, from the works of art they make.

In addition, art also serves as a social reconciliation, awareness and rehabilitation. The famous thinker Plato is often known for his harsh attitude towards art. However, he gives the duty of educating the youth and children of the ideal state he established to the art of theatre. Aristotle sees the theater as the rehabilitation center of social life. According to him, art creates emotional purification by keeping people away from bad feelings. The famous theater man Brecht considers art as the most important tool for raising awareness of the society.

In the light of all this information, let's take a look at what the child who watches the theater will gain, regardless of the content of the play:

1. The child who enters the theater with the ticket he has paid for feels himself a member of the social structure.
2. The seat he sits in is a special place he has acquired in society.
3. He is together with people like him sitting in front of him, behind him, to his right, to his left. Watching the game is responsible to them.
4. If he does not stand up, he learns that he is hindering someone's right and realizes that he should be treated with respect.
5. He either applauds or sits silently. He makes his own decisions. Because he is now a free individual.
6. In short, theater is a tiny slice of the world. The child creates himself in that world with his own decisions. Now he is a self-confident, conscious individual who knows that he has responsibilities towards society.

Children's theaters have always remained sluggish in our theater that started to develop with the Republic. Although the State Theaters tried to create a new formation under the name of children's theater several times, they could not make any concrete progress. Although the world's children's theaters develop within their own unique structure, unfortunately, this business continues to be considered as a commercial sector in Turkey.

Unconscious and unlicensed children's theaters, which are quite common in our country, show pedagogically extremely negative plays that sometimes get the right reactions of our educators. Unfortunately, National Education uses extremely inadequate methods to combat such negativities. It should be an important task for both us artists and educators not to allow such groups to pass. It should definitely be grasped; Children's theater is a production that requires extremely meticulous and completely scientific work.