Moving Toward an Awareness of Plays for Children

When I was a student of adult literature it would have been inconceivable for me to leave academe without studying a variety of plays and seeing at least some of them come alive on stage. My instructors considered plays to be such an integral part of the world of literature that they would have thought my education incomplete unless I could prove that I had some understanding of the content and structure of even a small sampling of plays from a variety of cultures.

When I found my way into the world of children's literature the attitude toward plays was altogether a different matter. Although by this time I had experienced a number of memorable children's plays in the theatre, both as an audience member and an actor, it seemed as though plays didn't exist for any of the specialists who now were guiding me through the domain of children's literature. None of my instructors ever included plays among their otherwise comprehensive surveys of the field, nor did the authors of any of the textbooks or works of criticism which I was reading even mention plays except to explain their reasons for not discussing them. I assumed, therefore, that plays for children simply weren't worthy of anyone's attention.

Then, as a reader, I happened upon the works of some of the first children's playwrights in this country—Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charlotte Chorpenning, Sara Spencer, and Stuart Walker among them—as well as the works of playwrights who are shaping the character of contemporary children's theatre—Moses Goldberg, Aurand Harris, Virginia Koste, Joanna Kraus, Brian Way, Suzan Zeder, and many others. I soon began to see how incomplete my knowledge of children's literature would remain until I further examined a variety of children's plays both as literature and as imagined or actual theatrical events.

Now there are two new books to help pave the way to a better understanding of this rich and varied genre. Whereas McCaslin's is a long overdue retrospective of the major playwrights, theatre companies, and professional organizations which have sustained the children's theatre movement in this country, Swortzell's focuses on a brief but prolific period in the history of children's theatre which expanded the repertoire of dramatic literature and imbued it with new energy and new potential.

Part One of McCaslin's book is a historical overview of the significant trends and changes which have characterized children's theatre and influenced the art and craft of playwriting. Beginning with the early years of the twentieth century when theatre for and by children first came into its own in urban settlement houses and community centers, McCaslin describes the political, social, economic, and artistic forces which have contributed to the development of a maturing art form on both the page and stage. Along the way, she highlights the major achievements and the amateur and professional endeavors which have led the way to the professionalism and experimentation with textual and theatrical content, form, and structure that now characterize children's plays and the productions the plays inspire.

Throughout this relatively brief history both the plays and the productions have served four basic functions, the emphasis on one or the other dependent, as McCaslin points out, on the temper of the time: to entertain; to provide a medium for learning; to help children develop social awareness; and to increase children's appreciation of the performing arts. In terms of the content of the plays and production styles, children's theatre remained a conspicuously conservative medium until about 1960 when playwrights began to break free from traditions which for over fifty years had established the boundaries within which they could work. Except for a few rare cases, material for the early plays was drawn from well known classics, particularly folk and fairy tales and myths and legends, and occasionally from the works of...