Igniting Wonder: Plays for Preschoolers

INTRODUCTION

xi any years ago at an international festival of theatre for young people in Vancouver, Canada, I happened to cajole my way into a sold-out performance of a preschool production by Sweden’s Dockteatern Tittut. The performance was beautifully done, funny, touching, surprising, and thoroughly delightful. What truly struck me, however, was the incredible focus of the audience. These preschoolers were rapt, completely captivated by the story and the wonderfully inventive puppeteering. There was a palpable energy in the room. I saw that this kind of work needed to happen in the United States. This young audience, this critical audience was not being served. My colleagues and I resolved to produce and create work that would engage, challenge, and inspire a preschool audience. We began our work for preschoolers at Children’s Theatre Company by bringing in Dockteatern Tittut to present its shadow puppet piece The Cat’s Journey. We worked hard to make the translation vital and alive, and our audiences were dazzled by the piece. We then brought in leading companies from across the world to share their work and also began the process of creating our own original work for this audience. INTRODUCTION Peter Brosius M xii Introduction Early in our work we knew that there was more for us to learn about the developmental process and the mind of preschoolers . With critical funding from the Bush Foundation we convened a group of artists from around the country and abroad—directors, hip-hop artists, playwrights, dancers—and invited them to go on a journey with us. We brought in scholars in early childhood development, and leading practitioners in theatre for early learners from Europe and created pilot projects in area preschools. We worked together for three years deepening our knowledge and testing our ideas. Out of this work have come new educational programs , commissions for new theatre pieces for preschoolers, and an increased passion for connecting with this vital group. We learned a great deal about the crucial brain development that occurs during the ages from two to five years, and how urgent it is to engage and create the neural pathways that determine so much of our lives. We have begun the development of a canon of plays informed by both the aesthetics of particular artists and by what we now know about the brain and development growth stages of preschool children, and we are thrilled to share four of these plays with you. I cannot think of any more important work than creating theatre for these young minds and souls. We know that by intervening at this young age with arts involvement we can help fill the opportunity gap and provide significant experiences that impact young people profoundly, helping them develop their moral compass, their critical thinking, and their aesthetic vocabularies. I thank all of the artists who have shared their work and their passions with us: Fabrizio Montecchi, Rosanna Staffa, Barry Kornhauser, and Victoria Stewart. Their respect and generosity not only change the lives of our young audience but enrich all of us. These plays are as different as they could be—shadow plays, toy theatre, musicals, and mad farces—all speak in their unique theatrical vocabulary. We want all young learners to know that theatre speaks in many ways, in many aesthetic languages, and can tell stories that surprise and delight us as well as touch our hearts and ask us to be our best and most generous selves. ...